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there.”

    “So, what do you think?” Her tail jerked into a speedy wag. “I have to go out tonight, so you need to head outside and take care of business.” I moved to the kitchen door of my cottage, which leads to a back deck. Stairs descend to the backyard and a body of water known as West Bay. At the eastern end of the bay is a bridge, and once beneath the bridge you enter Lake Chinook itself.

    Binks’s toenails clicked against my hardwood floor. I opened the back door, then followed her down the steps, waiting patiently while she nosed around the yard. She can let herself out through her doggy-door cut into the wall, but I wanted to get the job done and lock her inside for the rest of the night. She looked up at me once, her wrinkly black face comically quizzical. I motioned for her to get at it and she got right down to business. I cleaned up after her as I can’t stand dog doo-doo littering my yard and flushed the remains down the toilet.

    Binkster looked at me expectantly. She seems to think everything she does requires a reward. Have I created this expectation? Undoubtedly. Do I regret it? Well, yeah, some. Did anyone tell me how to train a dog that was dumped on me unceremoniously? Hell no. I figure Binks is lucky to be alive, at this point.

    I reached over and grabbed her face and leaned down and let her half jump up to lick my lips. These kisses used to gross me out. The idea of dog germs is a very real thing. But now I don’t know…I just sort of go with it, which is surprising because I have real Seinfeld-ish problems with that kind of thing.

    My cell phone started singing. I dug in my purse for it. Why are those things so damn hard to find? When I finally corralled it and looked down at its brightly lit LCD and recognized the name and number, my brows lifted in surprise. It was my landlord, Mr. Ogilvy. This is not a man who calls me up. Our communication is by mail. I write him a rent check and send it to him. He responds by cashing the check.

    “Hi,” I answered.

    “Jane?”

    “Yes.”

    He didn’t waste time. “I’ve decided to sell the place. I’m putting a sign up tomorrow.”

    My legs sagged beneath me and I had to sit down. Selling? My cottage? I’d been renting from Ogilvy for over four years. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. I can afford the rent. The house is on the water. There’s nothing like it anywhere in my price range. I don’t want to leave. Ever. “Selling?” I repeated faintly.

    “You don’t have to move till it’s in escrow,” he said magnanimously.

    Well, la-di-da. My mind immediately searched for a way to buy the property myself, but it wasn’t possible. It was too much money. The property’s value had to be in the stratosphere by virtue of the lakefront land beneath the cottage. The one-bedroom building itself wasn’t much, but it was my home. I was horrified.

    “You’re going to have to take your stuff out of the garage,” I said in a voice I barely recognized as my own. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I’d never been able to use the garage because of all of Ogilvy’s junk that was padlocked inside. I guess I hoped this might deter him, but apart from an unhappy grunt of acknowledgment, he didn’t react.

    I left the cottage with that bad feeling that comes from unresolved issues, the kind that stays in your head, never quite put aside, remembered with a jarring lurch and a pit in your gut. I couldn’t think about moving. I couldn’t. I was pissed off at Ogilvy for even suggesting I should.

    In a funk, I drove to my friend Cynthia’s art gallery, the Black Swan, located in Portland’s chichi Pearl District, and hung around until she closed at nine, and then even later, sharing a glass of red wine with her in her office. She looked sharp in a short forest-green skirt, a matching double-breasted jacket and a pair of silver heels. I asked her to go with me to the Crock.

    “Can’t,” she declined. “Got to get to bed