"K. D. Wentworth - Kaleidoscope" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wentworth K D)

Kaleidoscope
by K. D. Wentworth
K. D. Wentworth says her current projects include a western fantasy for
young readers and a pair of books sheтАЩs co-writing with Eric Flint. Her charming
new story owes its origin to a neighborтАЩs escaped German Shorthaired Pointer,
but weтАЩre hopeful that the rest of the story is more fancy than fact.
****
After she took early retirement at fifty-two from her job at the university
library, Ally CoelhoтАЩs life ran along like an old car, occasionally missing on one
cylinder or the other, but in the end, usually getting her at least close to where she
wanted to go. Of course there were disappointments, especially in the relationship
department, but she made do with whatever came along until the universe started
amusing itself by playing dice with her life.
It had begun with a stray dog that bounded past the front yard when Ally was
on her knees, weeding geraniums. The day was golden June, the temperature already
climbing toward the nineties. Her auburn hair clung to her perspiring face like the
calyx of one of her flowers.
The dog was a sleek German Shorthaired Pointer, lean as a racing hound and
panting from the dayтАЩs heat. Ally lured it with a bowl of water and then examined its
tag, which revealed its name was тАЬSadee.тАЭ She phoned the owner, who drove over
in a silver van and collected it with many expressions of gratitude.
That was how it had happened. But she also knew that the dog had merely
glanced at her with freedom-crazed eyes, then careened off into the street where a
Ford Tempo had knocked it into the gutter. That time sheтАЩd checked for a tag and
called the owner, too, who had arrived with two weeping boys, eleven and nine, to
collect SadeeтАЩs broken body in an old blanket for burial.
Both scenes played in her mind like dueling movie trailers. She remembered
the boysтАЩ beaming faces when they hugged their retrieved companion and their tears
as their mother picked up the pointerтАЩs carcass.
It wasnтАЩt one or the other. Somehow, it was both.
She knew she could resolve the question of which memory was real by calling
the family, who lived less than a mile away, and asking after the dog, but she feared
the answer. As long as she didnтАЩt inquire, the pointer might very well be frisking in
its backyard, digging holes and playing ball. If it was buried under a tree somewhere,
she did not want to know. So she didnтАЩt even drive past the dogтАЩs house, hoping to
catch a glimpse. She just tried to put the whole matter out of her mind and worked
on dividing her hostas for replanting.
But then her young friend Melinda, a former coworker from the library, called
to say she and Carl, her longtime beau, were finally getting married. They would have
a huge ceremony at the Methodist church and then leave on a wedding trip to
Scotland. There were rings to buy, invitations and music to be selected, the perfect
dress to be found. It was all joyous and anticipatory, as though Christmas and
Thanksgiving both had arrived in June.
When Ally got up the next morning, though, she also knew that Carl had been
transferred to Rio and not asked Melinda to go with him. Instead, he had said it was
too far to carry on a long-distance relationship. They had best agree just to be
friends. Melinda was inconsolable and no longer answered the phone.
Ally felt she must be going crazy. Both time lines ran in her mind, equally
valid. Surely one of them had happened first, but when she tried to remember which,
they danced through her memory, woven together and inseparable.