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Petitcru broadcast the general aura of a dog that was habitually carried, which was accurate. She looked a little bereft as she sat on the ground, shivering in her fluffy pink sweater, her little pink leash slack, patiently waiting to once again be picked up.

Elaine, however, had needed two hands to peruse the table of dried flower arrangements in front of her, lifting them to her nose with a hedonistic kind of enjoyment. It wasn't until she felt Petitcru's leash going taut around her wrist that she looked down and saw that the little dog was eagerly standing on her hindlegs, and she followed her beady black gaze over to the source of her excitement.

"Oh, my god," she said, almost more to the other dog than to the dog's owner, with half a squeal of deep appreciation. She clasped her hands together in a movement of adoration that made her handful of dried roses look something like a bridal bouquet, if those were usually carried by women in ugly sweatpants. "So cute! Is he friendly? Can she say hello?"

An exchange of friendly sniffing was initiated. Petitcru, as usual, felt the need to go about the ritual with the maximum amount of cringing and terror, despite her little tail quivering.

"Petitcru," said her owner, adding with an inward begrudging towards That Jhones Girl, "but I've been calling her Pattycakes a lot lately. Lulu is such a good name," she added, gesturing at her and adding: "I like that her sweater is built in. Sometimes I wish I could grow a fur coat when the weather gets like this. At least a beard."

With some juggling of flowers and leash, Elaine managed to put out a hand for a surprisingly firm and professional handshake.

"Elaine Carlisle," she said, with a beaming smile that was also, in contrast to her generally unkempt-in-sweatpants-and-fleece-jacket appearance, very professional, and flashed the kind of white teeth that can only be bought and paid for. "If you're from around here I'm sure you get sick of hearing it, but I only moved here about a year ago, and it's so goddamned cold I'm looking forward to sweltering in June."

Petitcru, not being very good at playing, was at least willing to try, albeit with a great deal of cowardly displays of submission. Very friendly advances of sneezes and bows were being made around the two women's feet.

"Both," said Elaine, wrinkling her nose in a habitual expression of playful disgust. "Not that Kentucky is tropical, exactly, but we definitely don't get snow that hangs out like this where I'm from."

She pointed to Petitcru, who was making ardent but somewhat pathetic efforts at playing. "My neighbor found her under a dumpster here last winter," she said, "and from the way she handles cold you'd think she really was from the Bahamas. Maybe she spent the first few years of her life on a beach somewhere. Lulu looks like she could pull a very tiny sled," she added, apparently so struck by the adorable mental image this conjured that she pressed a hand to her face in delight. "You could get Christmas cards made."

"Oh my god," she said, still pressing her hand to her face as she looked first at Mel with admiration, and then at the dogs. "I could put her in a little Santa hat."

She paused, and then did a bit more shuffling and juggling, although in the end she had to put her flowers gently down on the ground.

"I'm so sorry," she said, pulling out her phone. "Feel free to tell me to ******** off, or to ghost me later," she added cheerfully. "But I'm always looking for play dates for poor Petitcru - it's hard to find dogs that know how to play with her gently and don't make her fly into a panic." This was, possibly, because Petitcru did not seem to understand how to play, exactly. Maybe she needed practice. "Does Lulu need a friend? I'd love for them to hang out sometimes. I am not saying that so that we can do Christmas cards in a year," she added, with an exaggerated shifty look, so that Mel could perceive that it was, maybe, an inducement. "And also not so that I can try to talk you out of visiting Kentucky, although I am tempted."

"Girl," said Elaine in a weary voice, turning her phone toward Mel's to start exchanging information. "We're gonna have to save that conversation for when we're hanging out, or they're gonna kick me out for loitering."

She wrinkled her nose, not quite a smile but something like one. "We can talk about it while we're figuring out where to get a tiny sled," she said. "Because don't think I'm not holding you to that."