From Pemberley to Manhattan [COMPLETED]

Chapter 12

Nat

Toto couldn't look any less like the dog from the 1939 movie. He actually looked a lot more like another famous dog; the one from Men in Black. And, that morning, I could swear he was singing "Who let the dogs out?", like the alien from the blockbuster when he saw me.

"Poor baby. No one's walked you since before the party?" I carried him out of Grandma's apartment, and met Darcy back in the stairs. Toto began sniffing him immediately; and I must admit I was a little jealous, having wanted to sniff him like that myself...

We went down the stairs and reached the left side of the garden, where a side passage enabled us to reach the street without going all the way through the restaurant and the bookstore. While Darcy fought to put the leash on Toto, I took a few moments to admire the house I'd been raised in. One of the enjoy-the-little-things moments. I was going to try to have many of those today.

We lived on 90th Street, between Madison and Museum Mile, in a three-story brownstone, with three huge, rectangular, white framed windows on each floor of its façade. The front door was red, with a white, small column on each side of it. Had someone described it, I'd imagined it was corny, but in reality it was adorably perfect.

I threw my head back and my chest was tight as I saw Grandma's balcony. I really missed her. She'd be glad I was taking a day off, being a fervor defendant of carpe diem. The woman was a pro at enjoying the small pleasures of life. The big ones as well. Right now, she was probably getting tanned on some beach at Côte D'Azur with her new hubby, Mike, who was, by the way, fifteen years her junior. You go, Grandma!

After securing Toto, Darcy offered me his other arm, in his theatrical nineteenth century manner. But his eyes were so bright, and his smile so full of excitement, I didn't find it in me to scorn him.

I had a gut feeling this would be a perfect day of nothingness.

♥

They weren't even in Central Park yet, but Toto had already elected his toilet. They waited patiently for him to finish his business, and then... Darcy just walked away with the dog.

Oh, no he won't, Nathalie thought, as she took a waste bag and a plastic scoop from her backpack. "You're seriously not helping me?", she demanded, stunned. Maybe it would've been better if he were still playing his part as a gentleman from the nineteenth century.

Darcy looked back at her with a quizzical brow (his trademark), then glanced at the objects in her hands and the dog's droppings and finally understood her meaning.

"A gentleman could never touch dog's excrement", he stated arrogantly.

She took a few steps in his direction, until her body was less than an inch from his. She had to look up to stare in his deep blue eyes, her own green ones serious, her mouth a thin line. She noticed he was holding back his breath. "I thought we'd agreed you wouldn't act today."

He was dead silent, completely unmoving. After a few tense moments between them, a corner of his mouth moved slightly up, so little she wouldn't have seen it hadn't she been that close. "What gave you have the impression I am acting?"

They both burst out laughing, while Toto wagged his tail nervously, anxious for his adventure in Central Park to begin.

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