Excerpt of A Perfect Stranger by Roxana Robinson
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Grandmère appeared behind him. Grandmère was narrow and elegant. She
wore a long dark dress, and her white hair was parted on the side. It
was straight at first, then turned to dense mannerly curls, pressed flat
against her head. Her mouth was eternally pursed in a gentle smile.
Grandmère was from Charleston, South Carolina, but her mother's family
had been from Baton Rouge, where they spoke French. She had been brought
up to think English was common, which was why we called our grandparents
"Grandpère" and "Grandmère."
"Here you all are," Grandmère said faintly. She sounded pleased but
exhausted, as though we were already too much for her. She stood
gracefully in the corner of the arched doorway, leaning her hand against
it and smiling at us. We milled around, taking off our coats and being
kissed.
Huge had come inside, and now held his plumy tail tensely up in the air,
his head high and wary. Tweenie, Grandmère's horrible black-and-white
mongrel, snake-snouted, sleek-sided, plump and disagreeable, appeared in
the doorway behind her. The two dogs approached each other,
stiff-legged, slit-eyed, flat-eared. They began to rumble, deep in their
throats.
"Now, Tweenie," Grandmère said, not moving.
"Oh, gosh," said my father from the other side of the room. "Get Huge,
will you, Sam?"
Sam was the closest, but we all took responsibility for our beloved
Huge. We all began shouting, and pummeling his solid lovely back,
sliding our hands proprietarily into his deep feathery coat. "Huge!" we
cried, sternly reminding him of the rules, and demonstrating to the
grown-ups our own commitment to them. Of course this was hypocritical.
We believed that Huge could do no wrong and was above all rules, and
that Tweenie was to blame for any animosity, in fact for anything at
all. We thought that Huge was entirely justified in entering her house
and attacking her, if he chose to do so, in her own front hall, like
some pre-Christian raider. Huge ignored our calls to order, shaking his
broad brown head, his eyes never leaving Tweenie's cold stare. I laid my
head against Huge's velvet ear.
"Huge," I said, holding him tightly around the neck, "no growling."
We did not touch Tweenie: she bit us without hesitation.
"Now," Grandpère said firmly, "Tweenie, come here."
The authority in his voice quieted us all. Tweenie paid no attention,
but Grandpère strode across the rug and took her powerfully by her wide
leather collar. Tweenie's growls rose suddenly in her constricted
throat, and she twisted her head to keep Huge in sight as she was
dragged away.
"Oh, dear," said Grandmère gently. "Tweenie gets so upset by other
dogs."
Huge, unfettered and unrepentant, trotted triumphantly in small swift
circles on the rug, his thick plumy tail high.
"Huge," I said sternly and banged on his back. I looked at my father for
praise, but he was making his way toward us through the luggage. When he
reached us, he grabbed Huge's collar.
"Now, hush," my father said sharply to Huge. Huge, who had never been
trained in any way, ignored my father completely. My father pulled him
in the other direction from Tweenie, and Huge whined, twisting his great
shaggy body to get a last view of Tweenie's smooth repellent rump.
Tweenie was being slid unwillingly, her feet braced, past the front
stairs and past the little closet where the telephone was, through the
small door behind the staircase that led into the kitchen quarters.
Excerpted from A Perfect Stranger by Roxana Robinson Copyright © 2005 by
Roxana Robinson. Excerpted by permission of Random House, a division
of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may
be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the
publisher.
