The Art of Wag (19 page)

“I’m not!” Tracy frowned and snatched her bag of food. She bounced off the bed and walked over to the computer. “See—this is me going and sitting down. Fine. Don’t be such a taskmaster. I’m getting there. Can’t a woman relax a little after a long day?”

Rob sat down at the desk, grabbed his sandwich, took a bite, and stared at the laptop screen. He gathered some printouts and got up to hand them to her. “Here are the pages you need to do designs for, with the dimensions. You remember how to set up the file in Photoshop, right?”

“Yes.”
Not really
. Tracy snatched the papers from his hand. “No problem.” She turned to the screen and clicked the software icon. A blank white screen appeared in front of her. “Okay, then. Look, it’s Alpine Grove in a blizzard!”

Rob turned in his chair. “What?”

“I’m done. We’re doing the winter white-out edition!”

“That’s not funny.” Rob turned back to his screen.

“You really have no sense of humor at all, do you?”

He scowled at the laptop. “My sense of humor will return after I get some work done. I have to figure out how I’m going to do this quote. Let me know if you need help with anything.”

“Fine.” Tracy clicked and clicked, looking for the elusive screen that would let her change the size of the page. It had to be here somewhere. She took another bite of sandwich and glared at the monitor. Stupid computer. It was hiding it. She hunched over the desk. This was like a scavenger hunt, except programmers were doing the hiding and it wasn’t fun.

At last she found the right place and typed in the correct page dimensions. After clicking the
OK
button, she threw up her arms and leaped up out of her chair. “Yay me!”

Rob turned and looked at her. “Everything okay?”

“My snowstorm is the right size now!” At his dour expression, she sat down again. “Never mind. Working.”

“Maybe you should save the file.” He pointed at the computer. “By the way, I scanned a bunch of your photographs for you to start with. They’re in the folder named
photos
.”

“How creative.” She smirked. “You could have called it Fabulous Bygone Days in Small-Town America.”

“Folder names aren’t supposed to be creative. You name them something obvious so you can find them again.”

“Gee, you’re just a thrill a minute. Wanna go out and get some dessert? We could stop by the Italian place and grab something decadent. The chef, Lou, makes a tiramisu to die for.”

“Maybe after you get something on that screen beyond a snowstorm.” He turned in the chair and leaned his arms on the chair back. “I know you can do it.”

Tracy sighed. She wasn’t so sure. “Okay. But only because I want tiramisu.”

Rob ignored her, turned back to the computer, and began pounding the keys on his little laptop keyboard with what some might have regarded as excessive force.

An hour later, Tracy had created the beginnings of a page. She saved the file and leaned back in the chair. It was horrible. She hated it. Why was she even trying? She didn’t know what she was doing with this stuff. Looking at this page, people would certainly not be rushing to their phone to book a vacation in lovely Alpine Grove. They’d be running fast in the other direction. And she’d be leading the way. Yuck. She shut the program, stood up, and stretched her arms toward the ceiling. “I need to go tend to my dog before she stages another revolt in my kitchen.”

Rob reluctantly turned his focus away from the screen and hurriedly pressed some keys. “Already? We just got started.”

“I’ve had enough for one night. And I have to get up early.”

He wagged his index finger at her. “You just want dessert again, don’t you?”

“No. I’m going home.”

“Do you want me to walk you down to your place?”

“This is Alpine Grove. I think I can make my way through the vast crowds of late-night revelers all by myself.”

He shrugged. “Okay. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“Fine.” Tracy gathered up her things and left the room. This was going to be a very long week.

The next day, after an exhausting amount of work at the clinic and an afternoon that included many complicated and heart-rending pet-related issues, Tracy knocked on the door of Rob’s room at the H12. She was dreading opening the file she had worked on the day before. How to make a bad day worse: look at your crummy design and visualize yet another professional failure. Her father was right. Nobody ever made any money as an artist. The words
starving
and
artist
went together for a reason.

Rob opened the door and smiled in welcome. “Hi there! Ready to make more art?”

Tracy wandered into the room and sat on the bed. “I guess. I’m tired.” She flopped backward and splayed her arms out onto the bed. “Sometimes people are horrible. And I hate that animals get sick.”

Rob leaned over the bed and peered down at her. “Bad day?”

“Yeah. I don’t know how Dr. C can make these life-or-death decisions every day. Today there was a tiny kitten that this guy was threatening to drown in a river if we didn’t take it in.” She propped herself up on her elbows and looked at him. “I don’t suppose you’d like to adopt a tiny cat, would you?” She flopped back on the bed. “I mean, jeez, we’re a vet clinic, not an animal shelter. What is wrong with people? Then later we had to tell this guy his dog was sick. Really sick. I hate that. I mean the dog is old, and the owner knows his dog is sick...the owners—they always know when something’s really wrong. But it’s just...so...hard.” She covered her eyes with her arm. Why was she telling Rob all of this? What was wrong with her? Couldn’t she ever just shut up?

A tear slipped down her cheek and fell onto the mattress. She wiped it away hurriedly and looked over at him. He had a distressed look on his face, as if he wanted to run away. “I’m sorry,” she said. “This isn’t your problem. I love animals, but sometimes I hate having a job that can make me cry. Usually I go home and hug Roxy, eat a lot of ice cream, and zone out on TV reruns. I did hug Roxy before I came here, anyway. I also told her she needs to never get sick and live to be the oldest doxie in recorded history.”

Rob took a deep breath, removed his glasses, and put them on the nightstand. He rubbed his eyes and sat down on the edge of the bed. Taking one of her hands in his, he said, “I’m so sorry. That does sound like a really bad day. I wish we had more time to work on this, so you could go veg out.”

Tracy rolled over on her side. She considered the concerned look on his face. He was being so nice, even though he probably thought she was a flaky basket case. “Have I mentioned that I hate deadlines?”

He squeezed her hand. “I figured that out all by myself.”

She pulled her hand out of his, pushed herself back up to a sitting position, and glanced over at the computer. “Oh yippee, you turned it on for me.”

“I wanted to take a look at what you were working on yesterday.”

Tracy scowled at the evil machine and put her face in her palms. “Ugh. I hate what I did. It’s awful.” She lifted her head and her expression brightened. “I know the ice cream place is closed for the season, but maybe we can get some of that tiramisu.”

“I was hoping we could talk about the page. I have a couple of ideas.”

“Do we have to? She hugged her knees and put her forehead down on them. “It’s terrible. I knew you’d hate it.”

Rob reached over and took her hand again. “I don’t hate it. But nothing is perfect on the first try. That’s what the Delete key is for. Can’t we talk about it?”

She lifted her head and turned to look at him. “What’s the point? I should just go home.” She moved to get up off the bed.

He gripped her hand more tightly so she wouldn’t get up. When she turned, he looked into her eyes. “Yesterday, I asked you why you’re avoiding this, and you said you’re not. But you are. What’s wrong?”

Tracy’s shoulders slumped. “What if it really stinks and everybody hates it? I’m not really a web designer. I mean, who are we kidding here?”

Rob let go of her hand and moved toward the top of the bed so he could lean on the headboard. “What you’re saying is that if you don’t ever design something, then no one will hate it. Nothing bad will happen, right?

She shrugged noncommittally. “I guess.”

“I agree that doing something creative is a risk. But you must have taken risks before. Done something you’ve never done before?”

“Yes. Usually I screw it up. Like when I left college. Twice.” Tracy slumped down and rolled over on her stomach. “I wanted to be a vet, but I couldn’t handle the math requirements. I dropped out. But then I went back and took some other classes, including some art classes. But I washed out again.” She traced the ugly pattern on the well-worn bedspread with her index finger. “My father said he wasn’t paying for me to be a screw-up, as he called it, and I came back here.”

Rob looked down and picked at a loose thread on the bedspread. “So you view that as a failure?”

“Yes.” Tracy crossed her feet at the ankles and swung them back and forth over her back. “My father reminds me periodically about how much he spent on my lack of education, just in case I might forget.”

“But now you work at a vet clinic. You must have learned something.”

Tracy sat up and crossed her legs. She leaned forward and smiled. “Actually, that’s why I got hired. Dr. C loved that I knew so much about anatomy already.”

“Sometimes good things come about in ways you don’t expect. But you don’t know unless you go out and do something. Every choice you make has pros and cons.”

She wrapped her arms around her knees again. “Give me a break. What’s the pro of me flaking out on you?”

Rob looked up. “Well, it’s great for you. You can continue with what’s familiar, doing what you’ve always done.” He waved toward the door. “You can go home, eat ice cream, and hang out with your dog.”

Tracy grinned. “That sounds good to me.”

“But you’ll never know if you could do something else. Maybe you wouldn’t have to work at a job that makes your feet hurt and sometimes makes you cry. Maybe you could be a web designer. Do something that lets you use the incredible artistic gifts you have.”

She said in a quiet voice, “You think I have gifts?”

He nodded. “Yes. You do. Our teacher thought so too. Weren’t you listening?”

“She probably had to say that.”

Rob made a wry face as he continued to pick at the thread. “Um, you may have noticed she didn’t say it to
me
.”

“Oh yeah.”

Rob tugged and finally ripped the errant thread off the bedspread. “Like I said, this whole project is risky for me too. But I don’t want to install networks forever.”

Tracy poked at his leg playfully with her index finger. “Yeah, but you’re not like me. You’re a diligent buckle-down kind of guy. Dudley Do Right has nothing on you.”

He looked up and his eyes met hers. “It’s not often I’m compared to a Canadian Mountie who rides horses backwards. I’m not sure if I should be flattered or insulted.”

“It was a compliment.” Tracy poked at his leg again. “You’d totally rescue a damsel in distress.”

“I appreciate your confidence in my ability to uphold justice, if not my equestrian skills.”

Tracy giggled and flopped back on the bed next to him, putting her hand on his thigh and patting it amiably. “If I were tied to railroad tracks, you’d totally be there.”

Rob removed her hand from his leg and slumped down on the bed, so he was almost nose to nose with her. “Maybe we should get to work now.”

At the intense look in his hazel eyes, she started and moved away quickly. Up close, Rob’s eyes were extraordinary —a deep amber color with gold flecks throughout the iris. “I think you’re right. I’ll shut up now.” She scuttled off the bed and sat down in front of the computer. “If you need me, I’ll be over here. Working.”

Chapter 9

T
racy worked late with Rob at the H12. They didn’t say much, but she made some progress on her designs. By the time she went home, she was worn out from the long, draining day. She pressed the button on her answering machine and was surprised to discover that Todd had left a message. A little glimmer of excitement fluttered through her exhaustion at the thought of seeing him again. After giving Roxy a brief outing, Tracy was asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. Her alarm went off at what seemed like an obscenely early hour and she dragged herself off to the clinic.