Chapter 3: Jewels of Denial

After a blissfully uneventful walk, I laid an old quilt out on the side porch for the Basenjis to lie on. While they were busy snoozing in the sun, I went into the living room, sat at my office desk and began working on the graphic layout of a flyer for a brand new unicycle club forming in the Indiana County area.

The purpose of Unicyclers of Northern Indiana County’s (or UNIC’s, as they abbreviated it) flyer was to increase membership. UNICs and increasing numbers didn’t really seem to go together though. Once I pointed this out to the club president, he had to go back to the Board for an emergency vote to change the club’s name. Thankfully, it ended up being Unicycle Riders of Northern Indiana County as I’d suggested. “URNICs” was something I could work with. I designed the theme of the flyer around the motto, “We aRe NICs! R U?” The logo became a man wearing old-fashioned knickers riding an antique, large-wheeled unicycle with the stylized letters of “NICs” forming a road underneath.

The ringing of the phone interrupted me just as I was finishing. My best friend Belinda cheerfully greeted me, "Bree, I'm going to be back from New York tomorrow. I want to try out that new barbecue place in town. Want to meet me there for lunch? I can tell you all about my trip. I had such a great time! The hotel had a wonderful fitness room, and I was able to work out every day so I kept to our fitness plan. Aren't you proud of me? I'm sure you did great, too!"

"Yes," I mumbled. She took that as an answer to her question about meeting up for lunch. To be fair she had only drawn one breath in the entire conversation, so even I wasn't sure which question I was answering. "See you at 12:30 then at Pork and Boings! Gotta go!" "'Beans,' Pork and Beans" I said to the dial tone. Then I spent rest of the day and most of the night working on the flyer.

After a night of designing, I was ready to enjoy lunch with my friend Belinda. She was a vivacious five foot, six inch redhead who I'd known since 5th grade. She owned her own specialty jewelry boutique and often went to NYC to search out the perfect stones for her creations. She was ruthless when it came to bargaining for the lowest possible price for her purchases, and her stories about haggling in Midtown always made me laugh. Maybe I could get her talking about her latest triumph, and she'd forget to ask me about our fitness plan.

The dogs hadn't had much of a walk this morning. Since it was a lovely day and Pork and Beans has a sidewalk dining area, I decided to get downtown early, wear the dogs out with a long walk and then let them sleep under the table as Belinda and I ate. I convinced myself the walk could count as my work-out for the day.

At 12:30 my oldest friend and I were seated at one of the last sidewalk tables available during the lunch hour. In spite of coffee so bad antacids were an actual item on the menu, Pork and Beans had already built up a fairly long list of regulars. "It must be the barbecue," I thought. The ribs on the plates of the couple next to us looked delicious. No, I wouldn't think about ribs. I was going to lose that last 20 pounds. A nice salad it would be for me.

"Mixed salad with dressing on the side, and non-sweetened tea with a slice of lemon,” I determinedly told the perky waitress. "You can put the lemon on the side, too," I joked. The waitress who looked like a borzoi (only existing in two dimensions) did not get my feeble attempt at humor and just shook her head. Belinda, who never seemed to weigh over 135 pounds, blithely ordered the "Pork-Out Ribs," half a rack of North Carolina low country BBQ ribs with coleslaw and a diet cola.

Harper and Poppi were stretched out under the table. Poppi's donut-shaped tail happily wagging as Belinda reached down and stroked his head. Poppi had loved Belinda from the moment he'd met her. Harper was a little more reserved, but got up and walked over to Belinda's side of the table for a quick ear scratch, too, before plopping back down under my feet.

"How was your trip? Did you find any bargains?" I asked Belinda. "Oh yes! Just look at these beauties," she exclaimed as she pulled a small green velvet bag out of her pocket and emptied its dazzling blue contents on the table. "Oh my," I burst out. "They're gorgeous! Are they sapphires?"

"They sure are and they'll be even more gorgeous once they're mounted on the brooch I'm designing for them." She joyfully explained, "I want it in the store for Mother's Day. Did you know sapphires are supposed to be either male or female? The dark blue ones are the female ones while the light blue ones are believed to be the males. I'm going to mount these dark ones in a silver heart design. Don't you think that would make a lovely gift for some lucky woman on Mother's Day?" When she stopped to draw a breath, I agreed that it would. I hoped I'd get to see the finished design before she sold it.

"Should you really be carrying them around though?" I whispered. "Oh, I'm going to put them in the vault back at the store as soon as we're finished with lunch. I couldn't resist showing them to you first though. You'll never believe how much I was able to knock off the selling price!" Belinda answered.

Our food arrived as Belinda animatedly launched into her story of searching all through the Gem District looking for the perfect stones. The couple in front of us paid their bill, pushed back their chairs, knocking into our table, and left the restaurant as Belinda was describing the short, bearded Jewish man who had started off asking 1/3 more than she'd eventually paid for the sapphires.

A bus boy came by to refill our glasses. Harper grabbed a napkin out of his pocket and I squeaked, "No. Drop it!"in embarrassment The embarrassment didn't get any better when a good-looking middle-aged man, who the waitress was escorting past our table, laughed and reached over to pet Harper on the head. "Poor little thing! Did you get in trouble? My Chow likes to lie under my feet with her pink tongue hanging out when I eat, too," he chuckled in a faintly British accent.

I should have been paying more attention to Poppi because the more unobtrusive basenjis become, the more they are plotting some future mischief. However, I was too busy watching the man through the bottom of my water glass. The convex bottom made a perfect telescope until I poured the ice down my blouse.

As soon as he was seated at the table recently vacated by the couple, he put his napkin in his lap and ordered a small specialty coffee. What gracious manners I thought picking ice out of my bra. That’s when Poppi struck.  His paw appeared from below our table and swiped across Belinda's plate, snagging a rib, before disappearing under the table again. Frightened Poppi would choke, I jumped up and rushed toward him screaming, "NO! NO! Drop it!" The other diners all turned to see what the commotion was. I dived under the table on my hands and knees trying to get Poppi to drop the sauce-covered rib. Harper, who never missed an opportunity to aid and abet Poppi, got in my way as she reached for the rib herself. Poppi clenched his teeth tighter and growled at Harper.

A small group leaving the restaurant, not wishing to become part of the fray, backed cautiously away from our table as they passed in the narrow aisle. "Hand me something tasty!" I begged Belinda. She passed me one of her rolls dipped in BBQ sauce, and I waved it under the dogs' noses. "Sit!" I said. They both miraculously sat. I gave Harper a piece of the roll. "Trade!" I said firmly to Poppi. He eyed me warily as I gave Harper another piece of roll and said, "Good sit, Harper!" Jealousy finally won out, and he dropped the rib. I scooped it up and rewarded him with two big bites of the roll and a "Good Trade, Poppi!"

I was covered in sidewalk dirt and my shirt was smeared with BBQ sauce when I crept out from under the table. Several dinners, including the deliciously accented British Guy were chuckling, but my friend Belinda knew my temper well enough to be calling the waitress over for the bill. When she set down the tab, I heard Belinda gasp in horror, "My jewels! They're gone! Someone must have grabbed them during the commotion."

The waitress called the police on her cell. The manager came out and politely asked no one to leave, but Belinda was convinced the culprit had already fled. "It was probably that couple who knocked into our table or the group that passed by as you were wrestling with the dogs! Why did I take my eyes off of them?" she wailed as I put my arms around her and tried to comfort her. I caught the blue of a police uniform out of the corner of my eye and looked up to see Jason Krepsky! He had the nerve to be smiling.

"What are you doing here?" I sputtered. "Someone reported a theft and from the look on Belinda's face, I'd say it was her. She had that same look when I "borrowed" her markers in 7th grade," he calmly replied. "Jason!" she exclaimed. "Someone stole my sapphires." In minute detail she described everything that had happened since we’d arrived at the restaurant. It was then that it hit me. I knew exactly who had the gems. "Jason, I know who has them!" I whispered. "It's the guy in the dark suit! I know it!"

"How do you know it?" he whispered back. "I can't just arrest someone without proof." "Just ask him to stand up," I said. "It's too hard to explain right now.”

As Jason started toward his table, the man in the suit jumped up and tried to run away. As he did the sapphires fell from under the napkin in his lap. Jason grabbed him and asked Belinda to identify the gems. "How did you know?" the man asked me in English no longer British-accented. "Chow's don't have pink tongues! They have black tongues! You made up that story about a Chow sitting under your feet as an excuse to get near our table and to pet Harper. As you leaned over, you must have grabbed the sapphires.” I turned to Belinda, “Anyway, everyone was looking over here while I was under the table so no one would have risked stealing them then."

"You were under the table? That explains a lot," said Jason still smiling as he looked at my BBQ smeared shirt and dirty pants. I made a noise in my throat that sounded a lot like the one Poppi had made when Harper had tried to grab the rib out of his mouth.

"We were lucky that your Basenjis' curly tails reminded him of a Chow! Imagine if you owned a Pekinese!" Belinda jumped in. "At least the walks would be shorter!" I grumbled irritated that Jason hadn't left yet. "Walks! Oh, that reminds me. I worked out every day while I was gone. How is your half of the exercise pact coming along?"

"Ohhh, great!" I replied. She looked at me funny. "I'm not sure I believe you." Like I would lie to a friend. Please. Jason turning to leave with his prisoner, said, "Oh, she's been working out! I can vouch for that. Just yesterday I was helping her do push-ups."

"You were doing push-ups with Bree? Hey, why didn’t you tell me?” she turned to me with a wink. I glared back. “Well, that's great! I'm so glad you have a partner to exercise with when I'm not available, Bree," Belinda refused to acknowledge my glower. "I'll be busy working on the brooch tomorrow and it makes me feel better to know you have someone to work out with. Exercising alone is so boring, isn't it?"

"It sure is!" Jason snickered. "I'll see you tomorrow then, Bree!" he shouted as he loaded his prisoner into the cruiser parked at the curb.