LITMIR.BIZ

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talking like that, buttercup, and I might just lose my grip on their collars.” Dixie relaxed her grip on Chyna, and she lunged to within inches of Albert, who tried to climb the wall.

      I bent down and picked up Aggie. “Actually, you have no right to just waltz in here unannounced. You lost that right when you decided to move out.”

      Albert looked as though he wanted to argue, but with three dogs and two angry women glaring at him, he smartly kept his mouth shut.

      “You want me to call the police or just let the poodles finish him off?” Dixie asked.

      I thought about it for a moment and then decided he wasn’t worth it. “We’d better not. I like these dogs too much and wouldn’t want them to get sick eating rancid human flesh.”

      Albert scowled at me, and I held out Aggie, who barked and would have leapt out of my arms to attack him if I hadn’t tightened my grip.

      Albert held up his hands in surrender and whined, “Okay. Call off the attack.”

      Dixie looked at me for confirmation. Then she said. “Platz.”

      Both big dogs immediately stopped growling and lunging and lay down quietly. Despite their nonthreatening postures, they continued to stare at Albert.

      Dixie connected the dogs’ leashes and stood with her arms folded across her chest.

      “Well?” I stroked my scrappy little ankle-biter and joined the staring contingency.

      Albert looked wary. His gaze darted back and forth from Chyna to Leia and then to Dixie and me.

      “What do you want, Albert?”

      “I came by to remind you about the party?”

      I frowned. “What party?”

      “I knew you’d forget.” He took a step forward.

      Chyna and Leia remained in their sphinx-like positions, but their lips curled and both began a low, rumbling growl, which caused Albert to freeze, foot in midair. He looked at me helplessly.

      I turned to Dixie. “Maybe you should take the dogs outside.”

      Dixie never turned her head or broke her stare. “You sure?”

      “I’m sure.”

      She picked up the leashes. “Fuss.” Which sounded like Foos.

      The dogs stood up by her side.

      Albert stepped aside and she opened the front door and they headed outside.

      Before she left, she turned, walked over to Albert. and said in a low, steady voice, “I have a gun and I can shoot the hind legs off a possum in the dark at six hundred feet. So, you better watch yourself.” She turned to me. “Holler if you need me.”

      I bit my lip to keep from laughing and nodded.

      When she and the large poodles were gone, Albert breathed a sigh of relief. “That woman is crazy. She should be locked up, along with those vicious beasts she calls dogs.”

      “What do you want? Why are you here?”

      “I told you. I came to remind you about the party. Clearly, you’ve forgotten.” He rolled his eyes and gave a snide smile as if to say, You poor little fool.

      In the past, I would have felt guilty for forgetting whatever it was I was being accused of forgetting and apologized. However, today I felt empowered. I held out Aggie, like Captain Kirk used the Tribbles to uncover the Klingon on Star Trek, and she didn’t disappoint. She barked and snapped, and Albert backed up and removed the smug, self-satisfied look from his face.

      I pulled her back to my chest. “What party?”

      “Tonight’s my grandmother’s ninety-fifth birthday. We’re hosting the party, remember?” He looked around the room. “Clearly, you forgot. There’s not even one decoration up. No balloons. Did you even cook?”

      “You have got to be kidding me. Did you forget? You walked out. That’s not my grandmother. Why would you even think I’d host a birthday party for someone”—I held up a finger—“someone who isn’t related to me, someone I don’t like, and someone who can’t stand me?” I stared into his blank eyes.

      He stared and then blinked. “So, you’re not planning to cook?”

      “Ugh!” I marched into the kitchen. If I didn’t get away from him, I might be tempted to take Dixie’s gun and shoot him myself.

      After a few moments, he followed me into the kitchen.

      “If you have any sense of self-preservation, you’ll go away and not talk to me until I’ve had some coffee.” I filled the water basin on the fancy individual-cup coffeemaker Albert had given me for our last anniversary. At the time, I was so angry that he felt a coffeemaker was the perfect gift to give to a woman who rarely drank coffee, for a twenty-fifth wedding anniversary present. However, after he walked out, I found myself drinking more coffee and wine than I had in the past twenty-five years. So, I got it out of the box. Now, every time I made coffee, it reminded me what an insensitive louse I married.

      Albert watched me make coffee. When it was done, I sat down and drank the entire cup, got up, and made another. At one point, he looked as though he was going to speak, but one look into my eyes and he quickly closed his mouth and remained silent.

      By the time I’d downed my second cup of coffee, my nerves were less frazzled and I was able to formulate sentences that didn’t question his parents’ marital status when he was born.

      “I can only assume, by your presence here, you haven’t told your family we’re getting divorced, nor have you bothered to cancel the birthday party for tonight.”

      He looked as though he was going to smirk, and I picked Aggie up and held her where he could see her. He promptly readjusted his countenance to a neutral state. He sighed. “No, I haven’t told my family about the divorce. I thought we could tell them later.”

      I looked at my soon-to-be ex-husband, seeing him, perhaps for the first time, as the cowardly weasel that he was.

      “We could tell them later? Why should we tell them anything? They aren’t my family. They’re your family. You should tell them yourself.”

      He looked startled. “But everyone is expecting us to have the party here, like always.”

      “Maybe you should let Bimbo host the party for you.”

      He sighed. “It’s Bambi, and she’s never hosted a party before. Plus, my family doesn’t know about her.”

      “Oh, really?”

      “Pleeease. I need your help. This will be the last time.”

      “What’s in it for me?”

      He tilted his head to the side. “What do you mean?”

      “What’s-in-it-for-me?” I moved my hands as if I were using sign language.

      Albert merely stared.

      I sighed. “Look, I’ll host your party tonight, but it’s going to cost you.”

      “How much?”

      “First, you return your key. You do not enter this house without permission until the day when it is transferred over to you and I move out.” I waited.

      He nodded.

      I held out my hand.

      He looked for two seconds as though he wasn’t going to give me the key.

      “I can always have the locks changed.”

      He reached in his pocket and handed me his key.

      “Second, you will return my access to our joint bank account.” I squinted. “And don’t even think about withdrawing the money from that account, because I was a CPA

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