Page 44 of Worst in Show

We drive the rest of the way in silence. Maybe change can be positive. Maybe all I have to do is give our customers reasons to stay loyal. It’s like a lid has been lifted off my bucket of possibilities.

“We’re here.” Leo points out the side window toward a beautiful farmhouse at the end of a dirt road. There’s a large barn behind the main house and a smaller outbuilding to the left. The property is lined by huge oak trees and surrounded by endless cornfields.

Three Australian shepherds come running to the edge of the fenced-in backyard when we park. Tilly starts whining the moment she sees them.

“Are you excited to see your siblings?” Leo asks.

“They’re all beautiful,” I say.

“You should tell Diane that. She’ll love you forever.”

I leash up my three mutts and follow Leo to the house. “Should I leave them outside?”

“It’s up to you. It’s a dog-friendly house, and Tilly is coming with me.”

Inside it is. Cholula wouldn’t stand for being separated from her new best friend.

“Hello, hello, I’m Dawn.” The aunt I wasn’t introduced to at the launch comes down the hallway, arms outstretched.

I try to remain in the background while Leo greets her, but he ushers me forward. “Cora Lewis from across the street.”

“Of course. Oh, that’s some gorgeous hair you have there. Like a forest nymph.”

Never heard that one before.

“And who are these three charmers?” She stoops down to the dogs’ level.

Cholula immediately starts licking her hand, Cap sits and lifts his front paw, and Boris lays down with his head on his front feet. I introduce them, and Dawn offers plenty of head scratches.

Diane comes out from what I assume is the kitchen. “Sorry, I had to check on the chicken. Hi!” She hugs Leo and then goes straight for me. “Welcome, welcome. I’m so glad this worked out.”

I’m starting to feel like a celebrity.

“Wow, you guys have gone all out,” Leo says when we enter the kitchen. “Are you expecting more people?”

In front of us on a large granite island is a spread of roast chicken, gravy, two veggie sides, bread rolls, a salad, and a pitcher of lemonade. The room itself is moderate in size but made bigger by a bay-windowed nook with a round table and four chairs. A tall plant sits in a woven pot in one corner, and on the walls hang framed art of varying sizes. Some are clearly made by children while others show defter skills.

“No, just us.” Diane places a cork coaster on the counter for the homemade steak fries. “We just added a couple of sides after you texted earlier. No biggie.”

“It’s not always like this,” Leo says to me. “I should bring you along more frequently.”

“I think we’d all enjoy that,” Dawn says with a wink.

Okay…

Leo glances my way. “Let’s just eat, so we can get outside.”

“Now, Cora,” Diane says when we’re all seated in front of loaded plates, “will this be your first time competing in a dog show?”

I finish chewing a mouthful of garlicky chicken and nod. “Yeah, I doubt our dogs would be allowed within fifty feet of a regular show.” I look over my shoulder at Boris, Cho, and Cap. Cholula looks up, her tongue flopping sideways out her mouth like a tie set askew. “They’re not exactly purebreds.”

Diane keeps asking questions about how the dogs came to be in our care. I tell her the story of my grandma’s shelter and how Pop had to downsize when she died.

“I always liked Martha,” Diane says of my grandmother. “She and my mom were friends. You look a lot like her.”

“I do?”

“She wore her hair in a braid like that, too. She could almost sit on it. I remember admiring it when I was little.”

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