by Tracy Weber
“Miss Katie, I do believe you’ve lost weight.”
“Thanks.” I smiled.
He didn’t smile back. “It wasn’t a compliment.”
From anyone else, the words would have stung, but I knew he meant well. Dale was never one to worry about social niceties. He narrowed his eyebrows and examined me again with almost fatherly concern.
“You doing okay?”
I pasted on a fake smile and lied to my friend. “I’m doing great.”
Time to change the subject before he probed any deeper. I turned away and motioned for Judith to join us.
She tossed another peanut to Blackie, grabbed a handful of flyers, and ambled next to me.
“Everybody, I’d like you to meet Judith.”
Dale flashed Judith a hairy-faced grin and tipped his baseball cap. “Good day to ya, ma’am.”
He winked at me, implicitly asking me not to break his cover. Dale loved playing the part of a southern-born goat farmer. His friends all knew that the good-old-boy persona was a pretense, but we went along anyway. Who were we to spoil his fun?
He handed me a crumpled paper bag. “I brought something for Bella.”
I opened it and inhaled the pungent aroma of goat cheese. “These smell amazing!” I pulled out a goat-shaped cracker.
Dale stopped my hand an inch away from of my mouth. “Not so fast, Miss Kate. I baked those for Bella, not you. They’re flavored with chicken broth.”
I reluctantly dropped the delicious-smelling morsel back into the bag. Chicken broth wasn’t part of my vegetarian diet.
Dale grinned and gestured toward Michael. “Seems kind of silly to bring Bella cookies now that you both live with a pet store owner, but I figured these were a special treat.”
“She’ll love them, Dale,” I replied. “Thank you.” I pointed toward the goat area. “Hey, where were you earlier? I looked for you over by the petting farm.”
“A couple of 4-H kids from the island are managing the rescue during their spring break. I conned them into running the petting zoo, too. They get community service credit for school and a few days off from working on their daddy’s farm. I get a week’s vacation to harass my old Seattle friends.” He nudged me with his elbow. “That includes you, Missy Kate. Bandit and I are going to take you up on those yoga classes you promised us.”
“Hey, you two,” Michael interrupted. “Catch up on your own time.” He winked to let us know he was kidding. “Kate, I want you to meet these two ladies.” He started with the woman on his right. “This is Maggie Phillips, the founder of DogMa, the shelter we’re all here to support.”
Maggie was attractive, probably in her mid-thirties, with gorgeous auburn hair and intelligent, dark brown eyes. I instantly liked her, though I questioned her fashion choice, especially for a day devoted to dog walking. Her four-inch heels sank into the grass with every step, and her dark blue jacket and slacks ensemble seemed specifically designed to pick up every stray strand of dog hair. Ten minutes with a German shedder like Bella, and she’d turn into a human lint roller.
She carried a cup of coffee in one hand and a pen, clipboard, and key ring in the other. She set the clipboard and keys on the table to shake my hand, but she held tightly to her mug. We Seattleites take our caffeine pretty seriously.
Michael continued the introductions. “Sally is Maggie’s assistant.”
Sally stiffened.
Maggie quickly corrected him. “‘Assistant’ doesn’t quite cover it. Sally is our bookkeeper, office manager, volunteer coordinator, and adoption counselor. She even fills in as a veterinary technician and dog walker when needed. She does pretty much everything that needs doing at DogMa, and then some. I’m the face of the organization, but Sally’s the true hero.”
Sally looked less like a hero, more like a wounded warrior. She was at least thirty pounds overweight, and her face had the sallow complexion of someone either seriously ill or several years overdue for a long vacation. Sagging skin under her eyes suggested that she was in her late sixties, but I had a feeling she was at least a decade younger. She stood with a slumped, almost defeated posture and wore serviceable clothes—a T-shirt and brown khakis—that were suitable for hiding a variety of animal indiscretions.
Sally remained silent as Maggie continued talking. “I wanted to come by and thank you in person. Everyone’s so excited about your Doga class.”
I cringed before I could stop myself, but nobody seemed to notice.
“We’re hoping that the more you relax people’s bodies, the more they’ll open their pocketbooks. DogMa seems to be bleeding money lately. Most suppliers aren’t nearly as charitable as Michael. He’s a real treasure.”
Michael’s face reddened. He supplied all of the shelter’s pet food at cost, but he preferred to keep his generosity private. It was one of the many things that I loved about him.
“It’s nothing, really,” he said. “Helping abandoned animals find good homes benefits everyone, especially pet food stores like mine.”
“You might be right,” Maggie replied, “but that doesn’t stop our other suppliers from price gouging. Our costs have risen dramatically over the past year, and we’ve been forced to make cuts wherever we can, including laying off employees. Without successful events like today, we’d either be forced to shut down or take in significantly fewer animals.”
“Hopefully that won’t ever happen,” Michael said. “The good news is, unless something goes wrong, we should far exceed our donation goals today. We had over two hundred drop-in registrants this morning. That brings us to almost twenty-three hundred walkers.” He looked out toward the lake. “And the weather turned out great.”
He was right. The day was uncharacteristically warm for April in Seattle. The projected sixty-five degree high would provide plenty of warmth for the walkers without overheating their canine companions. Even better, water-loving dogs could go for a technically illegal but almost always tolerated dip in the lake without being exposed to the toxic algae that polluted it in late summer.
Michael frowned and pointed to the coffee stain between my breasts. “What happened to your shirt?”
“Believe me, you don’t want to—”
A metallic crash stopped me mid-sentence.
“End animal slavery!”
We all gasped in unison and whipped toward the sound. Judith yelled, “Hey, stop! What are you doing?” Even Tiffany ran over to check out the commotion.
Blackie’s cage lay open on the ground. He stood next to it, looking confused. A teenage girl waved her arms and stomped her feet, trying to scare him away. “Go on, fly! Be free! Animals should never be prisoners!”
I’d never met the young woman who was yelling, but I recognized her outfit: black jeans, black boots, long-sleeved black T-shirt decorated with an orange flame emblem. The jagged ends of her purple-black hair brushed against multiple silver ear-piercings. Black lipstick and eyeliner highlighted the matching jewelry in her left eyebrow and lower lip.
The Goth Girl kept yelling, sounding frustrated. “Go on, you stupid bird, fly! You’re free!”
Blackie cocked his head right, then left, then right again, as if paradoxically confused, entranced, and annoyed by the oddly adorned female. He tried to approach her; he tried to make friends; I’m pretty sure he asked for a peanut. Each time he hopped closer, she shooed him away, calling him names and ordering him to take flight.
He finally took her advice. He flapped his wings and soared—away from his supposed freedom and straight to Judith’s shoulder.
The whole episode was laughable, at least at first. Blackie clicked, preened, and nuzzled Judith’s ear, looking happy and completely at home. Goth Girl yelled, waved her arms, and tried to scare him away from afar. “Get out of here before that evil animal terrorist traps you again!”
Judith turned toward Goth Girl and shouted, “Shut you
r trap, you little punk! You’ll scare him.”
Blackie ignored them both. He let out a loud caw and flew from Judith’s shoulder to my table, where he landed next to Maggie’s clipboard. He cocked his head forward and stared, transfixed by her shiny keys.
“Blackie, no!” Judith yelled.
Her words had no effect. Three quick hops later, Blackie leaned down and picked up the key ring.
Judith snatched Bella’s bag of dog cookies, grabbed a large handful, and threw. Miniature goats rained to the ground in a five-foot radius.
“Look, Blackie! Treats!”
It almost worked.
Blackie paused, distracted by the yummy-looking morsels littering the grass. For a split second, he dropped the keys.
Judith lunged, faster than I would have thought possible for a seventy-five-year-old woman with obvious arthritis. But before she could reach him, Blackie picked up the key ring again, looped it securely around the bottom half of his beak, and took flight, carrying his treasure off into the distance.
Crows cawed from every direction, as if celebrating his victory. A half-dozen dropped down to clean up the home-baked plunder. By the time I looked back at Blackie’s cage, Goth Girl had disappeared.
“Well, it was worth a try,” Judith said. She reached up and wiped beneath her eyes. “He’s gone for good now.”
“I’m so sorry,” Dale replied.
“It’s okay. Not how I wanted to release him, but at least he’s finally home with his buddies, where he belongs.”
She pointed a claw-like finger toward Blackie’s empty cage. “As for that little Miss Vampira that scared him off, I’d like to wring her scrawny neck. Someone should teach her—and the rest of her kind—a lesson in manners.”
“She was right,” Tiffany retorted. “Birds shouldn’t live in cages.” She locked eyes with Michael, as if expecting his agreement. “We don’t even carry bird supplies at Pete’s Pets. Michael says keeping pet birds locked up in cages is cruel. And that crow’s cage was tiny.”
Judith’s jaw clenched. Her hands formed swollen-jointed fists. “I wasn’t keeping him as a pet, you little … ”
Dale grabbed Judith’s arm, I assumed to prevent her from coldcocking Tiffany. Michael cringed and gave Tiffany a be-quiet-now look. Sally stood quietly on the sidelines, shaking her head. Maggie, on the other hand, didn’t seem to notice much of anything. She stared off into the distance, eyes wide, mouth open.
“Um, you guys, where did that crow take my keys?”
Judith shrugged. “I’m sorry, hon, but I have no idea. I’m sure he has some hidey-hole nearby where he keeps his treasures, but you’ll never find it. I’ve never found anything he stole from me, anyway. Jewelry and keys are his favorites.”
Maggie closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Great. Just what I needed. One extra hassle.” She looked at her watch and frowned, as if mentally calculating. “My spare keys are at DogMa, and there’s no time to get them before I have to start the closing ceremonies.” She turned to Sally. “Looks like I’ll need you to stick around through cleanup today after all. When we’re done, you can give me a ride back to the shelter.”
Sally’s shoulders tensed. “But you promised that I could leave at noon. I’ve already worked almost sixty hours this week. I haven’t visited Frank at the rehab center since Thursday.”
Maggie’s tone invited no argument. “I’m sorry, but I have to insist. The van and its contents are too valuable to leave parked here overnight. You can see Frank tomorrow.”
Sally’s face turned so red I was afraid her hair might ignite, but she didn’t argue. I hated to interrupt them with more bad news, but I had a feeling that a few misplaced keys wouldn’t be DogMa’s biggest problem today.
“The van might be the least of our worries,” I said.
I filled everyone in on the conversation I’d overheard between Dharma and Raven down by the dock. When I started, Maggie’s eyes flashed with what looked a lot like fear. By the time I finished, her expression had morphed into anger. She grabbed Sally’s arm. Hard.
“Did you know they were planning to protest today?”
Sally jerked away. “Ouch! That hurts! No, of course not. How would I have known?”
Maggie peered at her assistant through narrowed eyes. “We’ll talk about this later. Right now, we need to figure out what they’re up to and stop them before they ruin everything.”
The two women rushed off before I could find out what Maggie meant.
Four
Michael left to find Maggie and see if he could help stop the protest. Forty-five minutes later, the last of the dog walkers finished their loop and started streaming into the main soccer field for the post-walk shenanigans. Like it or not, it was showtime.
I placed a sign on Serenity Yoga’s table saying that I’d be back in an hour and headed off with Dale and Bandit for my likely-to-ruin-my-reputation-forever Doga class.
Dale jolted to a stop at the entrance to my makeshift yoga studio. His lips frowned. His nose wrinkled. Even his whiskers quivered in disgust. “What in tarnation is that smell?”
The question was rhetorical. Anyone who’d ever cleaned up after a dog with a bellyache knew that stench. Believe me, it wasn’t Nag Champa.
I pointed to the three-foot-tall, overflowing garbage can positioned inside the entrance. The sign taped to the front bore Tiffany’s unmistakable handwriting: Dog Waste Only. The smell was so rancid that even Bandit gave it a wide berth.
Dale looked the container up and down, as if mentally measuring it. “It looks pretty heavy. Do you want me to try and move it?”
I waved my hand through the air, resigned. Tiffany had won this round. “Thanks, but don’t worry about it. Go inside and find someplace to sit—preferably upwind.”
If Tiffany had intended to scare people away from my class, her prank was a grave error. That waste receptacle was like a dog-owner magnet. Dozens upon dozens of tired-looking dog walkers made their way to the doggy-doo can, deposited their bio bags, and continued straight into my practice area. Suffice it to say that the crowd gave the phrase “dog pack” a whole new meaning.
Having that many dogs in such a small space couldn’t possibly be a good idea, but I didn’t have another alternative. I eased my way to the front and tried to assess the crowd’s mood. My audience included most of the dogs I’d seen earlier, as well as quite a few new ones.
A growling Doberman gave the stink-eye to a scruffy black terrier. The mastiff I’d seen earlier rolled to its side and groaned, almost crushing his ancient female owner. The piranha-Chihuahua barked at me from the arms of his owner. The Rott-wiener used all of its strength to keep its massive head up.
My only hope was to get this over with as soon as possible.
I cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled over the din. “Okay everyone, find a space to sit and please ask your dogs to lie down beside you. We don’t have any yoga mats today, but the grass will work fine. We’ll get started in a few minutes.”
Dale and Bandit claimed a spot in the middle of the front row. A frighteningly large number of people arranged themselves behind them. I should have been pleased at the turnout. After all, what fun is teaching a class if no one attends? Still, when Michael convinced me to participate in this circus, he’d sworn I’d have at most a handful of students. From what I could tell, all twenty-three hundred walkers—and twice that many dogs—had decided take me up on my offer.
I closed my eyes, took several deep breaths, and gave myself a mental pep talk.
It’s okay, Kate. You can do this. Forty-five minutes tops and it will all be over. After all, how bad can it …
I made the mistake of opening my eyes. My stomach dropped to my toes.
… be.
Pretty darned bad, evidently.
A middle-aged, heavyset woman elbowed her way to the fron
t and squeezed in beside Dale. One look and I knew I was in trouble. I wasn’t worried about her outfit, though her black spandex pants were three sizes too small and she wore a bright pink baseball cap with long, fuzzy rabbit ears. I wasn’t even worried about her attitude, though she’d rudely elbowed and pushed and grabbed her way through the crowd to claim the best spot. I was worried about her bag. Or rather the creature that peeped out over the top of it.
A huge, white, floppy-eared bunny.
Bandit took one look at the twitching-nosed creature and froze. His ears perked up; he leaned forward, every muscle fiber in his fifteen-pound body tensed on high alert. Dale sat beside him, eyes closed, oblivious to the impending disaster.
This would never do.
I approached the obviously insane woman with a cautious smile and pretended to assert some yoga teacher authority.
“Hi, I’m Kate. I’m the yoga teacher today. I’m sorry, but I can’t allow a rabbit in this class. It will be too distracting for the rest of the animals.”
Bunny Lady nestled the rabbit up close to her chest. He wiggled his nose curiously from between her bulbous breasts. “Alfalfa’s not frightened of dogs. He’ll be fine.”
Alfalfa wasn’t the one I was worried about. “That may be true, but I’d be more comfortable if you and the rabbit waited outside. It’s for everyone’s safety.”
Bunny Lady’s lips thinned to a scowl. She squeezed the poor trapped bunny tightly against her chest and drummed her fingers against his side. A huge diamond ring decorated her left ring finger.
“My husband and I are two of DogMa’s biggest contributors. I wrote them a check for ten thousand dollars an hour ago. Do you honestly think that it’s wise to refuse me service?”
The answer was no. As in no-win. If I threw Bunny Lady out of the class, she would inevitably take her frustrations out on DogMa. If I let her stay, the dogs might do worse.
She mistook my silence for assent.
“As I thought.” She lifted her lips in a fake smile and pretended to be benevolent. “Don’t worry, dear, it will be fine.”