Pia Again
The thing about playing around with your story in the sticky stages is that sometimes the wrong things stick. We already have nine dogs in this story, we definitely do not need a tenth. Especially a tenth with an addiction problem because addiction is not funny. So we absolutely do not need this scene that I had to write. It won’t be in the book. Really. It doesn’t fit anywhere. Although when I think of Pia and Beastie together, the model and the bodyguard who finally understands her . . .
“You’re not going to believe this,” Wolfie said as Shar came in the door.
“What?” Shar said, dumping her bag on the desk. “Listen, given the kind of day I just had, whatever it is–”
“What a dump,” a whiny little voice said from the kitchen. “And dry dog food? Call my agent and get me out of here.”
“Bikki?” Shar said, and Wolfie said, “Close. Pia.”
“Pia?”
An elegant little long-haired dachshund draped in a red fuzzy scarf came out of the kitchen as if she were on a runway.
“Pia!” Shar said, trying to fake enthusiasm.
“I don’t know how you stand this,” Pia said to Wolfie, looking down her long nose at his long nose. “No, wait, of course. After the puppy mill, this was probably heaven.” She rolled her eyes.
“Pia, don’t be a snot,” Shar said sharply, and Pia looked up at her, surprised.
“This is new,: she said to Wolfie. “Can she really hear me?”
“Yes,” Shar said. “Call this place a dump again, you’ll be sleeping in the backyard. What are you doing here?”
“Visiting,” Pia said and walked back into the kitchen, every movement elegant and graceful.
“Send her back,” Wolfie said, twitching with anxiety, and Shar picked up the phone and dialed her cousin Sharon in New York.
“Leave a message, darling,” Sharon’s voice mail said, and Shar said, “Sharon, why the hell is your dog here?”
Sharon picked up. “She arrived? Oh, I’m so glad. I was just so worried about the poor sweetie.”
“Then why did you send the poor sweetie here?”
“Well, she has the teensiest little problem.”
Shar looked down at Wolfie. “She has the teensiest little problem.”
“Her brain?” Wolfie said.
“Who are you talking to?” Sharon asked.
“Wolfie. What’s the teensy little problem?”
“Well, you know, she’s huge in the industry right now, bookings all over the place. More than I have, actually.” Sharon laughed but didn’t sound amused.
“I know,” Shar said. “You sent us the pictures. We loved the one for Tiffany’s. She looks great in pearls.”
“Is that the one I peed on?” Wolfie said.
Shar covered the phone. “Yes.”
“Not sorry, either,” Wolfie said.
“Well, she’s been going to all the industry parties with me,” Sharon went on, “and people just adore her.”
“Uh huh,” Shar said, starting to think that Pia’s little problem was being more popular than Sharon.
“And you know how people are.”
“No,” Shar said. “I live in Ohio. We have different people here. How are they?”
“They kept giving her champagne,” Sharon said. “She looked so cute in her pearls, lapping out of champagne glasses. And after awhile . . .”
Shar closed her eyes.
” . . . well, she didn’t wait and started lunging at people, and you know, not everybody is a dog lover.”
Especially when the dog’s going after your Kristal.
“So I though some time in a nice quiet place would be good for her. And I thought of you. And Wolfram.”
“Wolfgang.”
“So I just flew her out there. I know how you love her.”
“I must sleep on the bed,” Pia said from the kitchen and before Shar could answer, she heard Sam say, “She’s pretty particular about who gets into that bed.”
“Oh for the love of God,” Shar said, thinking, I got a diva dog and dying god in my kitchen.
“We could move,” Wolfie said. “They’ll probably get along really well. Pia thinks she’s god’s gift to the world, and Sam’s a god.”
“We’re staying,” Shar said to him, and then to Sharon she said, “Okay, when do you want her back?”
“When she’s sober,”Sharon said. “Ninety days should do it.”
“Fabulous,” Shar said and hung up. “She’s here to dry out,” she told Wolfie. “Addicted to champagne.”
“Great,” Wolfie said, gloom in his growl, and waddled out to the kitchen.
“Hey!”she heard him say when he got there. “That’s my chew bone.”
“I have a condition,” Pia whined. “I need oral distraction.”
“Chew on your scarf,” Wolfie snarled.
“It’s a Missoni!” Pia yipped.
“Wolfie!” Shar called. “I’ll get you a new chew bone.”
Wolfie came trotting back out, teeth bared. “I had that one broken in!”
“Anything we can do to keep Pia out of withdrawal,” Shar said. “Sharon says she becomes difficult.”
Priestess and dog stared at each other for one long understanding moment, united in the horror of what that might mean. Then Wolfie said, “I’ll be under the dining room table. But she’s not sleeping with us.”
“Of course not, baby,” Shar said. “She can sleep with Sam. Everybody else does.”
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I understand why you had to write that scene. I laughed out loud in several places. Great Goddess I love this project!
Omibob! I actually KNOW this dog and this silly woman. No kidding. Well, in my life the dog was Cuddles and the woman was Viola, but sheesh!
She can sleep with Sam. Everybody else does.
Badumpbump, or however you spell that.
You know, lots of books are full of scenes not nearly as good as the ones you discard. Is this fair?
EEK!
I was deleting the whole first paragraph, and it disappeared and there it is, POSTED. Sheesh.
Going to cut my nails.
Again.
Okay, I should know now not to drink and blog.
“she’s pretty particular who gets in that bed”
and then
“I got a diva dog and dying god in my kitchen.”
ROFLMAO. The keyboard wore the diet Coke.
Cracker last line too.
Go on, add another dog, you know you want to! Does she have to be an addict? Couldn’t Sharon just get rid of her because she’s jealous and then have a change of heart?
Actually I like the idea of Pia drama queening it round the flat - I was the real star, I took all the risks - while stealing Wulfie’s stuff because she has been abandoned and is having a breakdown. Keep Pia. I like Pia. Off one of the other dogs. Preferably one of the large and smelly ones.
or Sam could get to keep the dog…
I’ll stop now
It’s great to get to read these, even knowing they’ll never make the final cut. I particularly liked “looking down her long nose at his long nose” and of course the last line. Great entertainment.
I really loved Sam’s “she’s really particular who gets in that bed”. Good stuff. Pia would probably create more plot problems than anything, but it’s great to at least hear part of her story.
Dogs with an alcohol addiction… What will you think of next?
Hilarious! Except, of course, the people who abuse dogs by getting them drunk. But many excellent lines and a great concept.
I LOVE THIS! Maybe the “book-to-be-published-someday” could have an outtakes chapter in the back.
Oh that was hilarious - more please! Yeah, I know, if you spend all your time writing scenes for our amusement (called feeding the beast, isn’t it?) you won’t have any time/juice left over for writing the stuff that actually goes into the book.
Couldn’t Pia do a rule-of-three thing? Giving her an arc might ruin her as a foil, but it would be hella fun to watch. Something with foxtails in her withers… do dogs have withers?
There can never be too many dachshund scenes and this one is priceless.
I forgot to add: Pia doesn’t have an addiction problem, Sharon made the champagne thing up for an excuse to ship Pia off because Pia was getting too much attention. (So the addiction and cruelty to animals issues-gone.)
Will you also have the dog equivalent of a humanities department head?
She’d wear pearls, too.
and pee on the Weekly Standard.
We couldn’t have an alcohol addiction. Bikki gets hooked on Cheetos. Unless Shar turns her top of the temple into a Betty Ford for dogs, that would be overkill.
Cheetos are, like fire, a good servant but a poor master.
Look at Pia in the header-she obviously belongs!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing this with us. I laughed so hard here at work, folks thought I had lost it. This little story is soooo fabulous, and yet it isn’t going in the book. WTH???? What a shame you can’t somehow work it in. Thanks for brightening up my Friday morning.
ROFL! This is so funny! I wish I could live in your brain a couple of hours a day, if this is the kind of stuff floating around in it.
Have you considered making it a stand-alone short story? James Thurber (my hero, and also from Ohio, IIRC) published lots of short stories with dogs. Atlantic Monthly? Jim Baen’s Universe? You wouldn’t necessarily have to make it in the same universe as Dogs and Goddesses — it’d be like an alternative universe that’s extremely similar, but has just gone down the short pantleg of time (-:.
Thank you for sharing this. Your girls in the basement seem to be having a great time. What a wonderful, funny burst of creativity. I like the idea someone had about having outtakes if this doesn’t make the final cut.