Goodbye Dolly - By Deb Baker Page 0,6

was living in her mother's cabana. How pathetic is that?

"Now that he knows you're serious, he won't give up,"

Nina said. "I bet he thought if he waited long enough, you'd come crawling back on your knees. How did he manage to pry himself away from his law firm? No one getting a divorce this week?"

"I don't know, and I don't care." But she did. Very much. She had moved past the angry stage, past the first jolts of anguish. The man she had once loved was long gone, replaced by an ambitious, singularly focused attorney with a roving eye and snappy excuses. "I won't see him."

Nina chuckled. "I bet he's here for the doll show, pretending he likes dolls. You should have taken his phone calls. Now you have to deal with him in person."

"Maybe you can run interference," Gretchen said and instantly regretted the comment. Nina had a tendency to run amok, and planting her in the middle of this dispute wasn't a smart move. In fact, it was a recipe for disaster.

"This isn't a football game." Nina tapped a jeweled hand on Gretchen's knee. "Where's he staying?"

"The Phoenician." No turning back now. Nina was involved. Her aunt raised a penciled eyebrow. "That's where our other visitors from Massachusetts are staying. Those Boston bluebloods have upscale taste. I hear the Phoenician has grass tennis courts. How they maintain grass in the desert is beyond me. Not to mention using precious water for such extravagance."

"If it wasn't for the doll show, I'd take an unplanned vacation and stay away until Steve left," Gretchen said. Before she could slip into self-pity mode, she was distracted by Tutu, Nina's schnoodle--half schnauzer, half poodle--who chose that moment to prance toward the doorway, stopping abruptly when she discovered Wobbles blocking the way. The cat's ears slicked back against his head, and his tail swished warningly.

"Those two are never going to get along," Gretchen said, rising to referee the combatants and hopefully save Tutu from another clawed nose.

Wobbles's eyes narrowed to slits, and he hissed. Tutu boldly shot past him and ran down the hall, Wobbles in hot pursuit. Nimrod gleefully joined the race, taking up the rear. His black puppy paws slid on the Mexican tile as he rounded the corner.

Gretchen heard Tutu yelp, then a loud bang, and the sound of something breaking.

"Uh-oh," Nina said, hurrying after them.

Gretchen followed slowly, hoping Nina would handle whatever mess the troublemakers had made. Wobbles, the most sensible of the three, had disappeared from sight. Tutu looked sufficiently contrite, tail between her legs, head hanging. Nimrod thought it was playtime, rollicking in circles around Tutu. Nina stood over a broken doll lying on the tile floor where it had fallen from the bookcase. Gretchen scowled at her forgetfulness. She had taken this one out of the box to study it and left it on the bookcase. Foolish of her.

She bent and picked up the pieces, doll body in one hand, head in the other.

One of Duanne Wilson's Kewpie dolls, a Blunderboo, had broken in two.

* 5 *

One night at the turn of the twentieth century, Rosie O'Neill dreamed about tiny imps and began to sketch them from her imagination. Plump, mischievous babies with laughing eyes and wisps of hair standing straight up. She called them Kewpies, short for Cupid, because they did good deeds in amusing ways. The series began with magazine drawings accompanied by short stories and poems. Next, she designed Kewpie Kutouts, comic pages, and books. At the request of adoring children, she created a special doll. By 1913 Kewpie dolls could be found all over the world.

--From World of Dolls by Caroline Birch The Kewpie's grinning baby face seemed to be showing appreciation for Gretchen's efforts to repair it. She had to look carefully to detect the thin, glued line reconnecting the doll's head with its body. An expert fix, she thought with satisfaction. Her mother couldn't have done much better. But her fingers could feel the telltale ridge. Her repair wouldn't fool a professional, but she'd done the best anybody could. Blunderboo was her favorite of all the Rosie O'Neill designs. He was the clumsy Kewpie, always falling, tumbling, or rolling. Gretchen turned the three-inch doll upside down and examined the fake O'Neill mark on its feet, then studied the red heart label painted on its bare, chubby body.

Why had Chiggy attempted to make her own Kewpies?

Based on the woman's vast collection of dolls at the auction, her tastes ran more toward reproductions