Other People's Pets

by R. L. Maizes

  “Do you still help him?”

  “No! I’m going to be a veterinarian.”

  “You never go along as a lookout? Or to drive the getaway car?”

  “This isn’t the movies. He’s not a bank robber. And I don’t do it anymore.” The dogs lay on the carpet, ears raised, as if waiting to hear La La’s fate.

  Clem’s unfocused gaze swept the room. He smoothed his beard. When he looked at La La again, his eyes were the ones she knew, soft and full of compassion. “I guess it doesn’t have anything to do with us, then. Does it?” He took the ring from her and for the second time that night, slipped it on her finger.

  * * *

  “I can’t think about setting a date,” La La says when she stops coughing. She pushes her hands under her thighs. “Too much going on at school.”

  Clem’s shoulders sag. He adjusts his neck, releasing a sharp pop. “I thought you’d be excited. But we can wait, okay?” Glancing toward the front of the house, he says, “Whose Mercedes is parked out front?”

  “I traded in my Honda. Since I’m going to be a veterinarian, I thought I should have a nicer car.”

  “I didn’t think you went in for that kind of thing.”

  “What kind of thing? A car that shows I’m more than a veterinarian’s assistant?” The dogs pace, tails high.

  “Status symbols. But it’s fine if you want one. You deserve it, right?”

  “Nice of you to give me permission,” she mutters, turning away.

  “Jesus, what’s with you tonight?”

  Black climbs between them, panting, his muzzle in La La’s face, his butt in Clem’s. She hates to worry the dogs. Breathless, she says to Black, “We’ll stop.” He licks a wide swath across her nose and collapses across both of their laps.

  4

  After Clem leaves for work the next morning, La La retrieves from her car the loose jeans, the hardware store cap, and the men’s winter coat and boots. She changes into them, taking off her clean scrubs and hanging them in the closet.

  In a neighborhood southwest of Denver, she approaches a large property that borders the foothills. Though hot air blasts from the car’s vents, as La La passes the house she shivers with cold, her fingers turning blue and aching. Towering ornamental grasses in winter gold knife through the snow; a life-size bronze elk rears, the expensive statue boding well for what she’ll find inside. The shades are drawn and snowy footprints tramp from the mailbox to a neighbor’s house and back. La La parks a block away and returns to the house.

  Icicles descend from gutters, slowly dripping. With a soft whump, a tree releases a mound of snow. The street’s only other occupant, a Steller’s jay, chirrups, bemoaning the frosty covering that hides seeds, nuts, and berries. At the house, there’s no sign of a security system. The temperature seems to plummet.

  When she rings the doorbell, no one answers. She knocks for good measure, but still nothing. As she hunts for a spare key, she hears footsteps along the sidewalk, crunching a layer of snow. La La knocks like someone with legitimate business until the pedestrian recedes down the block.

  Around back, La La jiggles a wrench next to a first-floor window and considers how long ago the pedestrian passed. Evergreens block the views of neighbors on either side of the house. You can get away with one noise, Zev taught her. Neighbors, even if they hear it, will just wonder where it’s coming from. Only with the second disturbance will they narrow in on its location. But someone walking by may have an easier time placing the sound.

  Wind brushes the trees. Wrapping her hand in a dish towel, La La hammers the wrench through the glass. Shards rain around her arm. She pokes her hand through the jagged hole and turns the latch. Climbing inside, she lands on a gray wool carpet and the remains of the windowpane. Six leather recliners form a semicircle around a fireplace; the air smells of ash.

  “Daddy’s home! Daddy’s home!” she hears. A parrot flaps and cries again, “Daddy’s home!” The bird is freezing. La La hurries to unlock the front and back doors. She walks from room to room looking for the creature, passing through an immaculate kitchen with appliances as big as cars and a Mexican tile floor, a living room with a giant burl table. In the den, she spots the cage. The bird is an eclectus parrot, her feathers a palette of primary colors, as if painted by a child: red on her face, blue on her chest, and yellow in her tail. She’s fluffed up her feathers to keep warm, and her water bottle is nearly empty. The house is too cold for the bird. La La raises the temperature from fifty-five to seventy-three degrees, refills the water bottle. She strokes the parrot’s head, and the bird burrows into her hand. What kind of people abandon a bird to cold and thirst? The parrot belongs with a mate in a lush tropical forest, not caged in suburbia, alone.

  La La checks the time. Five minutes have passed since she broke the windowpane.

  In a walk-in closet in the master bedroom, she collects Louis Vuitton and Yves Saint Laurent handbags. A black lacquer jewelry box on a shelf plays “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” when she opens it. “Bluebirds fly!” the parrot squawks from the den. La La scoops up a thick gold chain, a diamond solitaire necklace, and diamond cuff earrings. A silver-plated yin-yang pendant lies tarnishing at the bottom of the box, a date engraved on the back. Hardly worth stealing, but La La remembers her mother wearing a similar piece. It swung from Elissa’s neck when she bent to clip a rose, to tie her espadrilles, or to pick up a towel La La dropped on her bedroom floor despite Elissa’s threat—which she made good on—to show La La the “sting of a damp towel against a tender behind.” La La picks up the pendant. She’ll wear it under her clothes, and no one will know.

  When she climbs a stepladder to reach an upper shelf, an unlocked safe greets her, a Glock inside. Leaving the safe open gives the homeowners quick access if they need it, and makes La La’s job easier, too. After unloading the gun, La La drops it into her bag.

  From a fireplace mantel, she seizes a picture of the family in ski suits, goggles pushed on top of their helmets and giant gloves swinging from their wrists. The sun lights up a crowded and colorful slope behind them. In the center of the shot, two boys with windburned cheeks pose with snowboards. On either side, their parents gaze at them, pride lifting their middle-aged chins. Skiing is a rich person’s sport, and La La’s never tried it, her experiences limited by Zev’s meager earnings. She returns the photo to the mantel, feeling that she is owed the stolen items in the duffel.

  Passing the den, La La peeks in on the bird. Her feathers lie flat, and she’s whistling. In the distance, a police siren wails. The time is nine minutes. Did the pedestrian call the police? “When you panic, you get into trouble,” her father used to say, and it proved true for him. As La La races to the back door, the siren draws closer. The parrot sings woooooo, woooooo. La La pictures herself in handcuffs in the back of a squad car, like the time she and Zev were arrested. The tang of her sweat mingles with the floral fragrance emitted by a plug-in air freshener.

  When she opens the door, the siren is almost at the house. She doesn’t know whether to run or to retreat, and lingers in the doorway, letting in the cold she earlier tried to banish. Lacking another champion, she calls on God for help, though she isn’t religious. Clouds hurry by on northerly winds, and she offers God a deal: she’ll tend the animals of the poor if the police car passes her by. Why should the rich be the only ones to benefit from her knowledge? The siren weakens before fading altogether.

  At the dollar store, Raven buys everything except the gun, and the yin-yang pendant, which she doesn’t offer. He gives her the number of a guy named Cecil who might be interested in the Glock and she calls, then camps out at a McDonald’s with a cup of coffee, waiting.

  In the PlayPlace, a young mother in designer jeans catches a toddler at the bottom of a yellow tubular slide. Tenderness flows from the woman’s hands. Two stubby-legged children chase each other over black rubber tiles. Captivated, La La doesn’t notice a man approach.

  “Are you La La?” Short and heavy, he sweats
in a long down coat that hides who knows what. He keeps his eyes down, his aggrieved face studying the floor.

  La La would rather do business out in the open. It’s safer. But she can’t sell a gun in a McDonald’s or anywhere public. “Let’s go to my car.”

  Cecil follows her to the Mercedes at the far end of the parking lot. Sitting behind the wheel, the canvas bag on her lap, La La unlocks the passenger door, and he gets in. When she hands him the Glock, he looks it over. His thumb angles unnaturally as if it’s been broken. “How much?” he says.

  “Like I told you on the phone, two hundred.”

  “I’ve got one twenty.”

  Would he try to take advantage of Zev this way? Pointing to the gold cross dangling in the hollow of his neck, she says, “I’ll take that, too.”

  He fingers the cross, his mouth drawn. “It’s the symbol of Our Lord, for chrissakes.”

  “The chain, then. I don’t suppose that’s a symbol of anything.” She’s pushing it, but she needs the money, and she resents the guy lowballing her.

  He reaches behind his neck. After he gives her the chain, his hand disappears under his jacket.

  La La tenses. Maybe she’s gone too far. She wishes she carried her own gun, but it would increase the severity of the charges if she were caught, and she doesn’t know how to shoot. If he pulls a weapon, she’ll open the door and roll out, the car giving her temporary cover. Where she’ll go from there, she doesn’t know.

  Cecil shoves a thin stack of twenties at her, and she pockets it. It isn’t until he gets into his car and drives away that she counts it. One twenty, like he said.

  She recites veterinary antibiotics—aminoglycosides, beta lactam antibiotics, chloramphenicol, trimethoprim, glycopeptides, fluoroquinolones, polymyxins, lincosamides—cataloguing their uses until her breathing returns to normal.

  * * *

  O’Bannon counts the eleven hundred dollars La La hands him and deposits it in his desk drawer. “I said ten thousand. You’ve given me three. If we go to trial, the fees are going to run into the tens of thousands.” The lawyer squeezes the stress ball in his fist.

  “I have to pay Zev’s mortgage.” La La digs her nails into the leather seat cushion.

  “We all have mortgages. Maybe I should withdraw now and transfer the case to a public defender.”

  “No! I’ll get the money,” she says, though she isn’t sure how.

  * * *

  “What about Mom?” La La says to Zev.

  “What about her?” He yanks a needle through a button he’s resewing on a shirt.

  “Maybe she could help.”

  “After all this time, I’m sure she’s dying to pay my legal fees.” He pushes the needle through again.

  “Maybe she regrets leaving us.”

  “Ow!” He sets the shirt down and sucks on his index finger.

  “Why don’t we look for her?” In the past, La La considered hiring a private detective to find Elissa, but she never had the money. She was afraid, too, of how angry it might make her mother, who clearly didn’t want to be found. When she was in college, La La searched the Internet for Elizabeth Gold and Elissa Gold—her mother had never taken Zev’s last name, Fine—but there were so many results. Dozens of hits were for a city councilwoman on the West Coast; more than fifty were for a real estate agent in Florida. Neither picture resembled her mother. There was someone looking to rehome a dog, and La La got excited, until she saw it was a young person like herself. She discovered many old articles about the accident on the lake, but nothing about her mother after that time. Zev had cut ties with Elissa’s parents, Ruth and Harry, but La La located a phone number for them in an online white pages. She tried calling it, but it was disconnected. Searching further, she found their obituaries.

  “Bleeding over here.” Zev holds up his finger, blood blossoming at the tip.

  “Maybe she’s changed.” Though La La has fantasized a reunion in which her mother apologizes, she knows that’s unlikely. Yet her mother might be the only one who can help her save Zev.

  “Still bleeding,” Zev says, sucking again. “Forget about her. I’d rather go to jail than accept her help.”

  La La doesn’t believe him. Besides, if she finds Elissa on her own, Zev won’t have to know.

  After Elissa disappeared, Zev rarely mentioned her. Once, the week before Mother’s Day, having seen a display for the holiday in a mall, nine-year-old La La made her mother a card. She folded a sheet of white paper into quarters and drew flowers in purple and black, Elissa’s favorite colors, on the cover. Inside she wrote, Happy Mother’s Day. Proud of her efforts, she rushed to show Zev, ignoring the small voice in her head that said it wasn’t a good idea.

  Zev was putting away laundry. “For her?” he yelled, gesturing with a fistful of white briefs when he saw the card. “I’m the one who stuck around!”

  La La was embarrassed to see Zev’s underwear, even if he wasn’t wearing them. Her eyes filled. “Sorry,” she said, backing out of the room. Later, while Zev read Parenting, La La stuffed the card into an envelope only to realize she didn’t have Elissa’s address.

  “In all this time you never looked for her?” La La says.

  “Why the hell are we still talking about her?” Though the needle still hangs from the shirt, Zev slams the sewing box shut.

  * * *

  Sitting alone in his living room later that day, Zev slips a photo from his wallet. It’s the only picture of Elissa he kept, the image captured in the hospital after La La was born. When Elissa handed him the red-faced baby, he was terrified his grip would be too loose and he’d drop her, or too tight and he’d squeeze out the air that sustained her. But La La settled into his embrace with a sigh. He’d never felt as content, as sure of his purpose, as he did in that moment. He swayed and hummed “Jolene.” La La’s eyes closed. Elissa lay back in her cotton gown, her hair soaked. To Zev it seemed her anxieties about the unplanned child were forgotten. (He’d convinced her to keep it.) He crouched next to Elissa, and a nurse snapped their picture.

  What happened on the lake was his fault. He all but insisted Elissa take La La skating. “Do something fun with her for a change,” he said. “Give her a happy memory. It won’t kill you.” Zev had planned to take La La himself but then someone called for a locksmith.

  “Okay,” Elissa said.

  Zev’s memory of that time is a jumble of what he saw, what Elissa told him, and what he read. Where there are holes, his imagination fills them in.

  Before he had left for the locksmith job, he dressed La La in a yellow snowsuit, a woolen hat, two pair of socks, and boots. Elissa wore a pair of Zev’s snow pants over her jeans. Tossing their skates into the trunk of her car, she drove to the lake.

  When they got there, Elissa pulled on La La’s skates, the girl complaining they were too small. She always found something to whine about. Elissa considered taking her home right then. Later she would tell Zev she wished she had. Before she let La La skate, Elissa walked a ways out. The ice was thick and blue, safe. They’d had a warm spell earlier in the month, but the past week, temperatures had dropped again. She put her own skates on.

  At first they stayed together, flying over the ice. La La’s cheeks turned pink. The cold air sharpened Elissa’s senses. Zev was right. She ought to spend more time with La La. She could take her on other outings, to the zoo or a farm. While Elissa imagined feeding straw to a baby goat, the animal’s lips tickling her palm, La La skated away. By the time Elissa petted the pigs and cows, La La was at the far end of the lake. Elissa saw her briefly and then not at all. Fear threatened to immobilize her, but she forced herself to skate as fast as she could. La La had dropped into a hole in the ice, its edges jagged and thin, translucent. Ten feet away, Elissa stopped. If she went any closer, the water would swallow them both. Elissa didn’t want to die on the lake. She’d barely lived, her life consumed by a family she didn’t want. She turned and skated toward the car. She didn’t carry a cell phone; they were less
common then. She would find a nearby home. Call emergency services from there.

  After Elissa left, a couple arrived at the lake to skate. They discovered a dog guarding an unconscious child half-submerged in the water. They called 911. While they waited for an emergency crew, a newspaper reporter who’d been listening to the police scanner appeared. He asked the couple what they knew.

  Moments later, a fire rescue crew arrived, and an officer in a cold-water suit pulled La La out. It wasn’t until they were loading her into a heated ambulance that Elissa returned.

  “Didn’t you see the sign?” the reporter asked her. He pointed to a small placard, that read DANGER—THIN ICE, half hidden behind bushes at the opposite end of the parking lot. Elissa hadn’t seen it. The reporter tried to interview her, but she ignored him, climbing into the back of the ambulance where La La was naked and wrapped in blankets.

  Though La La’s vitals were normal, she was taken to the hospital for observation. Hours later, when they returned home, Zev put La La to bed. She seemed to have come through the ordeal unscathed.

  The next day, the headline on the local paper shouted: MOTHER ABANDONS DROWNING CHILD. Featuring, as it did, a dog watching over an abandoned child, the story was picked up by newspapers across the country.

  Zev was interviewed on a local TV news station, though Elissa refused to appear. He agreed only because the producer promised to get the word out about the dangers of skating on frozen lakes.

  “Why did your wife take her skating on thin ice?” the anchor asked once the show began. The man’s hair was slicked back. Hot lights blinded Zev. Before Zev could answer, the anchor asked another question: “Didn’t she know the girl could die from hypothermia?” And then: “People are saying she should be charged with child endangerment,” which wasn’t a question at all.

  “She thought the ice was thick,” Zev said, doing his best to defend Elissa. “She didn’t see the sign. It was hidden in a corner of the parking lot.”