“Cluck is over there talking to the neighbor dog,’ I told the soldier. I was standing in the backyard talking on the phone watching Lucky commune with the dog next door through the fence.

“Dora ignores that dog.”

“Yeah, she does. She wants nothing to do with it.”

“Yeah, Dora is a snob. A snob! She must have come to Puerto Rico from France,” he said.

I snorted.

“Yeah, she’s a snob and I like the little dog over there.”

“Well he is little,” I said. The dog could pretty much fit in your hand and yips a lot, sticks his nose through the fence. He used to be able to squeeze through a hole in the fence before the neighbor repaired it. “He is one tiny dog.”

‘Yeah, well Dora ignores him completely. He’s over there, yip, yip, yip. He’s always trying to talk to her and all Dora will say is, shut up little dog, I don’t speak English you dumb ass.”