Tom grinned. “Already thought of that. I’m staying home from work tomorrow.”
“But didn’t you just say you can’t have dogs at your place?”
Tom’s eyes dulled and his enthusiasm skipped a beat. “I meant here. I’ll stay home with the dog here.”
Tom was on my last nerve. For a cop, he was being annoyingly clueless about my fears and objections. Besides, did I really have no say in this at all? In my own home? I glared at Tom, uncertain what to say to make him understand.
Tom cleared his throat. “Unless...what you’re saying is, this isn’t my home. Is that what you’re saying, Val?”
“I...no...it’s just that...” I flopped on the couch. “I’m not sure I’m ready for all this, Tom.”
Tom sighed and pursed his lips. “You’re not just talking about the dog, are you?”
I smiled sheepishly. “I mean, couldn’t we just start with a houseplant...and you staying over maybe...every other weekend?”
Surprisingly, the crushed look on Tom’s face nearly crushed me as well.
“Okay. I get it,” he said, and took a step toward the front door. My mind raced with conflicting emotions. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to say a word. If I caved now, I’d be doomed forever. Tom reached for the doorknob. I scooted forward on the couch.
“Tom,” I whispered.
He turned around. A storm brewed in his sea-green eyes. “What?”
I looked up at him, then down at the little dog in his arms. Dang it! Why did I always have to be the bad guy? But I’d set my resolve. Nothing could change my mind. Nothing!
Then that blasted little mutt smiled at me – and winked! The dog wasn’t cute. It was heart-meltingly adorable. Dang it! All of a sudden I felt like a heel.
“I...I’m sorry, Tom,” I backtracked. “I was just so...surprised. That’s a big thing to spring on me, you know.” I signed. “I mean, the dog’s not big...it’s the surprise that’s big...I mean...well, you know what I mean.”
Tom let me ramble, but his face shifted from disappointment to the kind of open-faced joy you only see on kids’ faces at Christmas and the last day of school. I’d done it. I’d caved. And now I was a goner. There was no turning back.
“Of course the dog can stay here,” I mumbled, loathing myself for my own betrayal. “Overnight. I mean.... Both of you can stay...I mean....”
Tom smiled, leaned over and kissed me on the lips to stop my babbling. The dog licked my hand and yipped excitedly.
“You taste like donuts and smell like bacon,” Tom said.
“Yeah. I’m a cop and a dog’s dream come true,” I quipped.
But this was no laughing matter. One of us was majorly in the doghouse. And, whoever it was didn’t have four legs.
I ONLY HAD TEN SECONDS to make it. I had to balance on the rubber ball, climb the ladder and jump through the ring of fire into the kiddie pool. Then I’d get a donut. I wagged my rear end and jumped on top of the ball...whoooaa! Made it! I rolled the ball up to the ladder, jumped on it and scaled it to the top.
“Good Val!” the dog with the whip said. “Now jump!”
I sprang off the top of the ladder, through the flaming ring and splatted face-first into the shallow pool.
I shook myself off and looked up at my hairy-faced owner for approval. But his tail wasn’t wagging.
“Sorry, girl,” he said, his muzzle dusted with powdered sugar. “We’re out of donuts. How about a dirty tube sock instead?
I woke up in a cold sweat, plagued by that weird feeling you get after punching the “buy” button on a non-refundable airline ticket. I had a sneaking suspicion I’d just done something I would live to regret.
Actually, I already regretted it. Last night, I’d planned to spend last night in bed with a bag of donuts and Carlton. I’d gotten to the part in Love’s Lusty Love where it was do or die time. I should have gone to sleep last night with a belly full of bacon custard and the satisfaction of knowing whether Carlton had set sail for Spain with Cecilia or planted a bean farm in Bermuda with Barbara. But no. Instead, I’d been forced to spend the evening sitting on the couch watching Tom toss an old sock to the mangy little mutt he’d drug into my house – uninvited, I might add.
I mean, really? What was so riveting about watching a dog fetch a sock? I’d pretended to enjoy their tug-of-war match. But honestly, even if I’d drunk half a bottle of Tanqueray (which I, unfortunately, did not) it wouldn’t have made that insipid game any more entertaining. Maybe dogs were like babies. Unless they were yours, you just didn’t get it.
When Tom had finally called it a night and we’d mercifully headed off to bed, I’d insisted that Tom lay an old blanket out in the garage for the dog’s bed. But as soon as Tom had left him alone in there, the pooch had begun to whine. We’d both figured it would eventually get tired and quiet down, but it never did. In the end, Tom had gotten up to see about it. I didn’t know how Tom managed it, but the whining had stopped. Exhausted, I’d fallen asleep before he’d come back to bed. When I’d woken up this morning, Tom wasn’t under the covers with me.
I rubbed my eyes and stretched. Curious, I climbed out of bed and padded into the living room. Tom and the mutt were sprawled out on my couch like a couple of leftover party guests.
Great. I have no privacy and no cappuccino in bed.
To my mind, this was the worst of all possible worlds. It did not bode well. No indeed. For the first time in years, I didn’t bother to make myself a cappuccino. And I didn’t bother to wake Tom. Instead, I got dressed for work and snuck out the front door, spurred on by a burning desire that had nothing to do with the need for caffeine.
I was gonna find that dog’s owner if it was the last thing I ever did!
Chapter Twelve
When I got to Griffith & Maas, Milly’s red Beemer was already in the lot. I stumbled in the door, cranky from lack of sleep, a shortage of caffeine, and the invasion of my home by two uninvited varmints of the male persuasion. I slammed my purse on my desk and made my way to the break room.
Even thought it was my job to make the coffee every morning, I’d never actually dared to drink any of it. My double-espresso cappuccino at home had always been enough to fuel me until lunch. But today, I was desperate enough for a caffeine fix to give the nasty brew – and even the non-dairy powdered creamer – a try.
I filled the carafe with water, rubbed off a coffee filter from the stack, and heaped in four scoops of Cheery-O coffee, just the way old man Griffith had taught me. The smell of it as it perked was something of a cross between boiled peanuts and burnt rubber. I poured myself a cup, took a sip, and promptly spit it out into the sink.
“Gross!” I wiped my tongue with a napkin. No amount of creamer or sugar was going to make that cup of liquid tar taste anywhere near good. I poured it down the drain, fixed another cupful and headed down the hall to Milly’s office.
“How can you and Mr. Griffith still be alive, drinking this stuff?” I asked. I clunked the cup onto her desk.
“Oh, you know the old saying, ‘What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,’” Milly quipped. She picked up the cup and studied my face. “You’re even crabbier than usual this morning,” she teased. “What’s up with you?”
I was in desperate need of a caffeine injection and a new forwarding address for a four-legged mutt. But it appeared I’d have to make do with neither for the moment. “I didn’t sleep too well last night,” I said.
Milly smirked. “Man problems?”
A scowl stifled my fledgling yawn. “You could say that. Tom brought home a stray dog yesterday.”
Milly’s green eyes sparked to life. “Oh! A puppy! That’s so wonderful, Val! What’s it look like?”
“Why?” I grumbled. “Is Charmine missing?”
“Huh? No. Why would you ask that?”
I shrugged. “I dunno. Because I’m crabby. And because the dog actually looks a lot like Charmine.”
Milly’s eyes lit up. If she’d had a tail, she’d have
been wagging it. “Really? Oh! Oh! We have to arrange a play date!”
“A play date?”
“Yes! Charmine’s new in town. Your dog is, too. We can introduce them. You know, so they can both make new friends!”
My jaw clenched. “But my dog isn’t staying.”
Milly smiled coyly. “Are you sure about that?”
I was as sure about it as I was of anything. In other words, not at all. The thought of keeping the dog made me even crabbier, if that was possible. It also made me even more determined to send it back to where ever it belonged.
“We can’t keep it, Milly. We need to find its rightful owner. Do you mind if I spend some time making up a ‘found dog’ flyer? And calling around to the animal shelters, in case someone reported it missing?”
“What about the tag on its collar?”
“It wasn’t wearing one.”
Milly choked as if she’d swallowed her tongue. “What? Unbelievable! The gall of some people!”
“Hold on, Milly,” I said. “It might have fallen off or something. Tom’s going to check at a vet’s today to see if it’s microchipped.”
Milly climbed off her runaway high horse. “Oh. Okay. Well, in that case, sure. Go ahead and make the flyer. And the calls.”
“Thanks.”
Milly held up her mug. “I hope you find them. And thanks for the coffee.” She took a sip. “Ahh. Perfect as always.”
“Glad you like it.” I turned to leave, but Milly stopped me.
“Val? I think it’s sweet that you care so much about finding the dog’s owner. I bet they miss it terribly.”
“I know I would,” I lied. I walked out of her office and shook my head. Crap! All this doggy business was turning me into a lying dog myself, and I didn’t like it one bit.
WITH MILLY’S BLESSING and Mr. Griffith back at his home lounging around in retirement mothballs, I spent the morning calling local animal shelters and vets’ offices trying to find out if anyone had reported a dog missing. I wasn’t having any luck. But I had to admit, the folks who worked with animals were a friendly bunch. Every single one I spoke to had agreed to take my number and call me if someone asked about a missing Pom-mix. They even let me fax over flyers for them to post on their notice boards.
The genuine concern in their voices made me feel even worse about not loving dogs. Was I mentally disturbed? A psychopath? One step away from a serial killer? I had to know! The problem had plagued me like the heartbreak of psoriasis ever since I was a little girl. When I got a hold of an especially kind and chatty veterinary assistant, I thought I’d take a chance and pose the question, in a round-about kind of way, of course.
“Cindy, I was wondering,” I began, “Could you tell me...I mean...you see...I have this friend who doesn’t like dogs....”
The sharp inhale of breath on the other end of the line didn’t bode well. I backpedaled. “What I meant was, dogs don’t seem to like her.”
“Oh. Well, that’s a different story,” the vet tech said.
“Not all dogs, mind you,” I said. “Can you tell me why a dog would like one person, but not another?”
“Hmmm,” Cindy the vet assistant said as she mulled over the question. “Well, it usually comes down to one of two things. Pack dominance or the smell of your scurf.”
“Excuse me? The smell of my what?”
“Your scurf. The skin cells you slough off.”
“Dogs can smell that?”
“Sure. You lose like, fifty-million cells a minute.”
“You mean a day?”
“No. A minute. To a dog, we’re like that kid in that Peanuts cartoon. You know, the one walking around in a dirt cloud? Only we all walk around in scurf clouds. Fifty-million cells a minute, falling off and swirling around us like our own private snowstorm. We can’t see ‘em, but dogs can detect ‘em with their noses.”
“They smell these dead cells?”
“Yeah. And react to us based on their smell. And how you smell is, you know, based on your various lotions and potions – and your scurf. Plus the bacteria munching away at it. And of course, the bacteria’s excreta.”
Excreta! I looked down at my arms and ticked off a few seconds in my mind. That’s like eight-and-a-half million skin cells a second! And who knows how many bacteria chewing on them and...ack!...pooping away! Yuck!
“Did that answer your question?” the woman asked.
I shut my eyes and tried not to think about it. “Uh...yes. Thanks.”
“Glad I could help.”
Yeah. Help ruin my life! I clicked off the phone and pouted angrily. So that was my problem. My scurf stunk!
“Any luck?” Milly asked from behind me. I whirled around.
“Uh...no. Not yet. But what do you think of this flyer?” I held up a piece of paper for her inspection.
“It’s okay. But wouldn’t it be better with a picture of the dog on it?”
“Sure. But I don’t have one.”
“No problem. I have pictures of Charmine.”
I crinkled my nose at her. “How’s that gonna help?”
“I thought you said the dog looks like Charmine.”
“Oh. Duh! Sure, that could work. Do you have a good one?”
Milly smiled. “I think I can help you out.”
She swiped over to the photo gallery on her cell phone and handed it to me. She looked over my shoulder and “oohed” and “awed” as I flipped through what appeared to be a never-ending collection of pictures of Milly and her pooch.
“Oh! Wait!” Milly said as I flipped to the next picture. “Go back one.”
I did as instructed. Milly leaned over my shoulder. I grimaced and tried not to think about scurf – or how many of Milly’s dead skin cells and pooping bacteria were dive-bombing my back and shoulders. I squirmed in my seat.
“I think she looks cutest from this angle, don’t you?” Milly asked.
I studied the picture. It was a side view of Charmine looking a bit wide-eyed, as if caught off guard. Her sharp, white teeth were bared in such a way that her expression could arguably be interpreted as a friendly grin or as a menacing grimace. In other words, Charmine looked like an adorable – and potentially psycho – Pom-mix mutt.
“It’s perfect,” I said.
“Are you sure?” Milly asked. “I have plenty of others, but I just love that smile.”
“Absolutely. Send me a text with the file and I’ll download it.”
“Okay, will do.”
I WAS PRINTING OUT the flyers of the cute little fanged dog from hell when Tom called my cellphone.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey. How’s it going?”
“Eh. You?”
“I went by the vet’s office on Gulf Boulevard. The dog wasn’t microchipped.”
Crap! “Oh. That’s too bad,” I said, trying to sound sympathetic. “I haven’t had any luck either. But I left word at all the shelters and put together some flyers. I’m planning on passing a few around when I go to lunch.”
“Okay,” Tom said hesitantly. “I’d say that I appreciate your efforts, Val. But I’m not so sure I do.”
“What do you mean?”
“I dunno. I guess the little guy’s growing on me. What do you think of the name Buster?”
Buster? As in sleep-buster? Bliss-buster? Buster of my nice little world without sock wars and poop patrol?
“Actually, Tom, Buster sounds like the perfect name.” I knew it sounded crazy, but I would have sworn I heard Tom smiling through the phone.
“Okay, gotta go,” he said, and clicked off.
Crap on a cracker! Time was running out! I had to find that dog’s owner...and fast. I looked down at Charmine’s maniacal little face on the flyers I’d made. I grabbed a flyer, stuck it in my stapler and pounded a few staples into her cute little mug.
“Take that, you mangy mutt,” I grumbled. “Whose scurf stinks now?”
I BEGGED OFF MILLY’S lunch invitation to go to Ming-Ming’s for sushi.
The thought of a dog bumbling around my house, sniffing my scurf for the next twenty years had spoiled my appetite. Besides, if I heard Milly mention Charmine and that dang Barkmitzva one more time, well, I couldn’t be held responsible for my actions.
On my lunch hour, I hopped in Maggie and cruised down Central Avenue, handing out flyers to anyone who would take one. I pulled into a parking spot at 6th Street and hit the pavement. Within half an hour, I’d gotten a good dozen or so shop owners to post pictures of the pooch in their storefront windows and community bulletin boards. Judging by the dent in my stack of flyers, I figured I’d handed out over a hundred – one for every blister on the back of my heels.
I hobbled back to my car, triumphant despite the pain. If it took blisters to get rid of Buster, I was willing to make the sacrifice. After, all, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.
Chapter Thirteen
On my way home from work, I stopped by my neighborhood grocery story. It was a small-scale Publix that catered to locals and tourists alike. It was more like a convenience store on steroids, with a penchant for beach floats and sunscreen. I told myself my mission for stopping was to pick up some blister pads and post a few more flyers. But as I hobbled my way across the parking lot, I knew deep down that there was more to my visit than just that.
I was stalling. For the first time in like forever, I didn’t want to go home.
The thought of having to waste another stupid evening watching two old dogs fool around with a dirty sock made me want to hit the gas on Maggie and never look back. My lip twitched at the thought. I’d done it before – ditched everything and ran off. Did I have it in me to do it again? Maybe. But there was a big difference this time. It wasn’t a human I was running from. Not entirely, at least. Compared to my past relationships, everything had been relatively good between Tom and me until the dog issue had reared its ugly head. And, of course, Tom deciding he wanted to move in.
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