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.He smiled and reached up his arms.He wanted to be picked up, but she couldn’t lift him from his car seat while they were speeding south on the Taconic.And so she took the tiny fingers on both his hands in hers and kissed them one by one.Then, still smiling down at him, she inserted the bottle of milk into his mouth.SPENCER GUESSED that the Setons would all want to meet Tanya, especially Willow, but he had to believe that John would have the good sense to steer clear of his family’s apartment.The depth of his anger at his brother-in-law continued to mesmerize him.So much else that used to annoy him no longer did, and he actually thought he was handling his disability with something that resembled grace.He hadn’t even lashed out at his physical therapist today while doing his reps with the man during lunch.He presumed that his refusal to speak with John was causing the man serious pain.It wasn’t that he believed John put an exceptionally high value on their friendship or missed talking to him in a meaningful way.Even if his brother-in-law hadn’t left a loaded gun in the trunk of his car, they probably wouldn’t have spoken more than once or twice in the last two months.But Spencer understood that by refusing to talk to John he was placing a magnifying glass on the guilt that his brother-in-law was enduring, and—as if that guilt were a dry leaf—igniting it.John would never understand the pain he had lived with through August and the better part of September (and would live with forever to some degree) or the disability he would carry with him to the grave, but he would know what it was like to be shunned.Just thinking about his brother-in-law got him worked up, and so he sat back in his chair in his office and gazed out the window at the gold deco letters that spelled Empire State on the building across the street.His shoulder was still aching from his therapy, but he knew from experience that it would only get worse if he brought his left hand anywhere near it to massage it.It was best just to leave it alone.“Spencer?”He turned, and there was Dominique.“Yes?”“I ran into your mother-in-law last night in Central Park.”He tried to read from her expression what Nan had said to his boss.He vaguely remembered introducing the two of them at one gathering or another, and he presumed that Nan must have taken the initiative to speak to Dominique: Heaven knew Dominique certainly wouldn’t have been the one to strike up a conversation with some senior citizen of whom she had at best the haziest of recollections.“Really?”“Yes.I was jogging and she was taking a walk with a very lovely golden.”“Her dog.”“So I surmised.”“She just returned to the city from New Hampshire.She couldn’t have been back more than a few hours when you saw her.What did you two talk about?” This was, of course, not merely his mother-in-law they were discussing: It was also Safari Master John Seton’s mom, and so he was deeply interested in whether she had broached her son’s monumental idiocy.Dominique shrugged.“Oh, we didn’t talk about much.She’s a charming woman—as you know.I believe she wanted to tell me she was a member of FERAL.”“Well, she writes us a check once a year.But she also has a mink that she loves to trot out around Christmas, and she still doesn’t believe the human species can survive without meat.”“I understand.”“That’s all you talked about?”She rested her index finger, its nail this morning a vibrant shade of plum, against the slightly bronzed hollow at the very top of her sternum, and seemed lost in thought.Then: “That’s all I can remember.Oh, wait: She asked me to say hello to you.”“Very nice.”“What are you working on?”“A bit of everything.Thanksgiving.Our holiday fund-raising pitch.”“Well, if there is anything I can do to help, you’ll let me know?”“I always do.”She smiled and continued down the hall.He had the sense that there was something more to Dominique’s conversation with Nan Seton, and either the woman honestly couldn’t remember or didn’t want to burden him with the specifics.Or, maybe, she just didn’t want to tell him.He guessed if it was important he’d find out eventually, and so he returned to the pages with the recipe ideas for vegetarian Thanksgiving celebrations that Joan Robbins wanted to pitch to a variety of daily newspapers.Most of them focused way too much on tofu and squash for the mainstream media.But there were a few ideas with potential, especially her lists of halftime snacks for the football-watching crowd that were free of animals and animal-sourced products—and could be found in any local supermarket.It was the second element that made it so clever in Spencer’s opinion.If you had any hope at all of keeping the average American away from the sour cream dips and Buffalo chicken wings, you had to make sure your alternatives were no more than an aisle or two away from the Budweiser and didn’t demand a special trip to the natural foods grocery store.He had just verbalized a few suggestions for Joan into his brand-new digital recorder, when he saw that Randy was waiting for him in his doorway.The young woman was wearing a white linen broomstick skirt that fell to her ankles and a red drawstring blouse with the ties so loose he could see the front clasp of her lilac bra.Reflexively, he averted his eyes.Sometimes the part of the woman that had aspired to be a fashion model—that exuberant exhibitionist who had been so comfortable as a nearly naked FERAL Granola Girl—still dressed like a catalog tart.It was a tendency, Spencer knew, that served her well when she was working the male contingent of the press face to face.“Ready to become a doggie daddy?” she asked.“Yes, indeed,” he said.He rose, surprised by the sharp ache he felt in his left wrist, and he wondered if he had overworked his left hand and arm today with his physical therapist.Fortunately, it only seemed to hurt when he bent it, and so he didn’t anticipate any problems bringing their new dog across town.He glanced at his watch.It was barely twenty past three.Catherine and Charlotte were still at school, and would be for another two hours because rehearsals this week were lasting till almost five thirty.Assuming there were no last-minute hitches at the shelter, he and Tanya would be waiting to surprise them in the living room when they walked in the front door.THE PLAN WAS SIMPLE, especially since they would be taking a taxi from the humane society to the apartment.Spencer would walk the dog to and from the cab, and Randy would carry the paperwork, the ratty pillow Tanya loved, and the goody bag with plastic dog toys the shelter was giving them.Unfortunately, Tanya wasn’t real happy about the serpentine cab ride through Central Park.Twice she fell against Spencer in such a fashion that the first time he fell forward and cut the palm of his left hand against a jagged edge of the half-open ashtray that was built into the back of the front passenger seat, and the second time he bounced against his right shoulder and cried out in agony—which, in turn, caused the poor dog to dive onto the floor of the cab where she cowered for the remainder of the ride.By the time they arrived at West Eighty-fifth Street, his pants were speckled with drops of his blood, he was on the verge of vomiting in the back of a New York City cab for the second time in the month, and the dog was whimpering at his feet.Then when Spencer pushed open the door with his left hand, the leash wrapped carefully around his wrist, Tanya made a sudden leap for daylight.Spencer had no right arm to brace his fall, and so he was pulled down onto his knees on the sidewalk, his shins cracking so hard into the curb by the cab that he feared for an instant he’d broken both his legs
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