by Archer, Amy
He was so different from Devin. I tried to imagine Matt going skydiving, but the thought was laughable. He’d love to skydive, I thought—but only if it were in a video game.
He’s kind of boring, I realized. That’s his only hobby. I’d never thought it before, maybe just because we’d been together for so long and so I hadn’t spent much time analyzing our relationship in a while. It always just was what it was—but in comparison with Devin, he seemed flat.
Not that flat was always a bad thing, though. I reminded myself that that’s why I’d liked him—he was stable. He was predictable. I could count on him.
“So why didn’t you end up working at a skydiving facility?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I finished the training, but I was too nervous I’d hurt someone. It’s different when it’s just you, you know? I knew I was being safe, but it’s still a risk, just like anything. The thought of my mistakes hurting someone else…I couldn’t do it. And then I got offered the marketing job, so I let it go. It’s still a hobby,” he added. “I love it. I go every chance I get.”
By the end of the run, Devin certainly wasn’t back to his original, jovial self that he’d been before discovering Taco was my dog now, we’d settled into a comfortable rapport and he seemed invigorated to at least get to spend time with Taco. He was so different from anyone I’d ever known—he took risks, he was unpredictable, he craved adventure—so different from me. Yet, to my surprise, I discovered that I enjoyed spending time with him despite the confrontation we’d had the day before.
Back in the park where we’d started, we stretched and I put Taco back on his leash.
“Bye, Paco,” Devin said wistfully, patting the dog one last time before we parted ways.
“Taco says bye,” I said, playfully emphasizing my name for the dog. And then Devin flashed me that goofy grin, the one I’d been longing to see return, the one I thought was gone forever once we realized Taco had been his dog. It was a grin that made shivers run up and down my body, that made my insides turn to jelly, as much as I told myself to stop, to be reasonable.
And my good mood lasted all the rest of the day.
The next day, my school’s principal called a staff meeting after work.
“I have some bad news,” Ms. Mayfield told the teachers gathered around the room. “Mr. Jones, the art teacher, is quitting at the end of the semester, and we’ve decided not to replace him.”
Not to—what? I thought, alarmed.
“While I appreciate the value of an art education, we just don’t have the funds right now to hire a new teacher. I do understand that you all use that time for planning, and your students will be going to an extra session of alternating music or gym for one of the weekly slots they’d normally be going to art, but they’ll remain in the classroom for the other.”
The teachers around the table groaned thinking of their disappearing planning periods, but my first thought was of my students. I thought of Angelina, my star pupil, and how much she loved going to art class, how proud she was when she got back to my classroom and showed me her work.
“They have to have art,” I protested. “They need it.”
“You’re welcome to incorporate art into your lessons,” Ms. Mayfield said. “I know many of you already do. But there’s nothing else I can do.”
I left the meeting shocked and upset. Angelina would be devastated.
But as I sat on the bus on the way home from work, I became determined. I wanted to give these students the best possible education I could, and that included an art education. If they couldn’t go to art class anymore, I’d bring art to them.
Matt had offered to pay rent on his part of the house for two months after he moved out—until the end of our lease—and the end was coming up. I’d been loving living alone, and had been putting off finding a new place because I didn’t want this period to end. I loved having the freedom to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and I loved this house despite its memories. Moving was a pain, and roommates added a wild card to the mix: maybe they’d be great and we’d enjoy each other’s company, but maybe they’d bring chaos into my life. Maybe they’d come home late and drunk and be loud while I was trying to sleep. Maybe they’d eat the food I’d been planning to bring to work with me for lunch. Maybe they’d even steal from me.
And then there was the other matter, the one that, truth be told, was a bigger issue: having a roommate at my age made me feel like a failure. I knew it was common for almost-twenty-eight-year-olds to have roommates, but I felt like I’d progressed past that point. I’d been living with my serious boyfriend of six years. I should’ve been moving forward with my life, to marriage and maybe a family, not backward, to living with a roommate.
But I couldn’t put it off any longer. With a sigh, I opened up Craigslist on my computer one Saturday afternoon, my muscles aching from the training session that morning. As I started scrolling through listings, the feeling of unease in the pit of my stomach only grew. Living with a stranger was opening up such a can of worms. Anything could happen.
Instead, I decided, I’d text a few friends and coworkers, asking if any of them knew of anyone who needed a roommate. But my fingers froze on my phone. I couldn’t do it. It was irrational and it was not pragmatic, but I just didn’t want to move and I didn’t want to live with anyone new.
I opened the computer again and pulled up my bank’s website. I had always been good at saving, and had quite a bit of money saved away despite my teacher’s salary. This wasn’t exactly what I’d planned to use it for, but what the hell. Maybe, for once in my life, I would do something that wasn’t the smart, pragmatic choice—even if I was doing it to avoid potential future problems. I would renew my lease. At least for another six months, I was going to live alone.
The decision made, I felt an immediate weight off my shoulders. Smiling, I shut my computer and went to the armchair, where Taco was sleeping soundly even though he knew he wasn’t allowed there. Rather than chastising him and throwing him off, I curled up next to him and snuggled him close to me.
CHAPTER 4
On Saturday at the end of training, Devin approached me. “Where’s our dog today?” he asked with a grin, and I wasn’t sure how to read his expression. Was he mocking me? Being genuinely nice? Joking around?
I looked at him warily. “I wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle the longer workout,” I said. “Besides, no one else brings a dog. I don’t want to overdo it.”
“But I want to see him,” Devin said. “Let’s go on a doggy play date this afternoon.”
A doggy play date? What exactly did that mean? The word “date” in there made me wary, but I wasn’t exactly in a position to say no to Taco’s former owner. I was starting to feel softer toward Devin after our run together a few days earlier.
We agreed on a time and place, and we met at a dog park later that afternoon. Devin played with Taco for a few minutes, and then we stood back and watched him bouncing around with the other dogs and running back and forth across the length of the park. He definitely had some spare energy that I did not.
We stood talking, and soon my curiosity got the better of me. “I have to ask,” I said, peering at Devin intently, “how did you lose Taco? You clearly care about him a lot, but I just don’t understand how he ran away and how you didn’t find him. I mean, he was in the shelter for two whole weeks.”
Devin’s face darkened. “I don’t understand it either,” he said. “But here’s what happened. I was taking him for a walk in my neighborhood. Another dog we passed tried to intimidate him, and he got scared and backed right out of his collar. I ran after him, but he was fast. I guess that dog really spooked him, because he was just gone.”
“Oh,” I said, startled. “So that’s why he wasn’t wearing a collar? I assumed he just didn’t have one.”
“No, he has a collar,” Devin said. “I still have it at home. It had a tag on it too, with his name and my phone number. And he ran away without any of it.”
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My heart dropped, imagining the situation. “You must’ve been so worried,” I said.
“I was. In fact, I still have his tag. You should put it back on him,” he said, looking straight at me. “Just in case he ever gets away again. He’s a sneaky one.”
“Okay,” I agreed, wishing I had thought to get a tag engraved myself. Devin suddenly seemed like a much more responsible dog owner that I was myself. “So you looked for him?” I prompted.
“Of course. I looked for hours. I was so scared that something had happened to him.”
“Which day did you lose him?” I asked. “I found him on the 21st of September.”
He looked at me sideways. “You remember the date you found him?” he asked.
I blushed and looked away then. “Um,” I fumbled. “I guess…it was kind of an important day for me.”
“I suppose you have it on your calendar to celebrate Dog Day every September 21st now?” he chided me.
“No, not like that,” I said hesitantly. Should I tell him? “I mean, finding him was important, but that’s not why I remember the date. It was—I found him right after I got dumped.”
Devin nodded slowly. “Sorry to hear it.”
He didn’t ask, but I continued. “We were together for six years. And I didn’t see it coming. But right afterward, I found this amazing dog….”
“And you decided to keep him for yourself,” Devin finished for me.
“No!” I said, suddenly angry, my voice rising. “It wasn’t like that! I tried my best to help him find his way home. I followed him around. I let him lead the way. I looked for you—even if I didn’t know it was you. And when you didn’t show up, I took him to a shelter, in hopes that you would find him again. I did everything right!” My voice sounded shrill and I hated it, but I was angry that he would accuse me of something so patently untrue, so opposite of what I was trying to do for him. I had been trying to help.
“So why didn’t you get him?” I asked, my voice more accusatory than I’d intended.
“I looked. I searched the neighborhood every day. I put up missing flyers. I went online every day trying to find him. The animal shelters around here all post photos of the dogs they find, and every day I searched their database. At first I searched for black and white dogs with some shepherd in them, but then I got desperate and expanded my search to all dogs with any black in their description. Do you know how many dogs I had to sort through to see if I could find mine? There are a lot of dogs that go missing in this city.”
I froze. “You searched the database by fur color?” I asked. A creeping realization spread through my body.
He nodded.
“Taco was misidentified,” I said quietly.
“What do you mean?” he asked, wary.
“When I went to get him, after I got the call that his owner hadn’t—that they couldn’t find his owner, I saw the label on his cage. It said he was a brown and white dog.”
Devin’s eyes went wide, and he shook his head in disbelief. “All that time,” he said. “I can’t believe it. You have no idea. Sophie, you have no idea how hard I tried to find him.”
I felt guilty, even though I hadn’t done anything wrong. Or maybe I had: I hadn’t pressed when I’d noticed the brown and white descriptor on Taco’s cage, hadn’t even thought that it might mean anything of significance. And perhaps more importantly, I had judged Devin for his inattention, for letting Taco disappear, for not finding him at the shelter when he’d had the chance. And all this time he’d been searching for him. He’d put up flyers. Of course I hadn’t seen them—by then I’d been long gone. I’d only been in that neighborhood by chance that day because it was where Les Etoiles was. If someone else had found Taco, someone who lived in that neighborhood and would’ve seen the posters, they would’ve called Devin and told him where to find his dog. If a simple error hadn’t been made at the animal shelter, he would’ve found Taco. Maybe if I hadn’t been so quick to take him to the shelter in the first place, Devin would’ve found Taco in the park. He said he’d searched for hours that night, but I had only stayed with Taco for an hour and a half before I’d taken him to the shelter.
This was all a huge mistake. Taco should still be Devin’s.
I didn’t speak for a moment. The two of us watched Taco together as he play-fought with another dog, then ran back to hide behind our legs, then ran toward the dog again for a surprise attack. This dog who had felt like a gift of fate was not supposed to be mine.
Yet I had cared for Taco for weeks, had made sure he was safe that night. I remembered then the moment when Taco had almost run into the street. If not for me, he might’ve gotten hit by a car. He might not have had food or water, would’ve spent the night cold and alone. Taking him to the shelter had been the right thing to do.
Devin wasn’t the only one who had claim to the dog. It may have been due to random circumstances that he had become mine, but now I had a legitimate claim to him too. And he had helped me so much. Surely Devin couldn’t ask me to throw all that away.
“I had no idea that you tried so hard to find him,” I said finally. “I’m—I’m sorry, Devin. I don’t know what to do. It’s clear you really love him. But…I love him now too.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m glad you’ve taken such good care of him. It’s just…this sucks.” He lifted his arms in a full upper-body shrug.
I sighed. I had been so convinced that Devin was in the wrong, that Devin may have been fun and interesting and good at making people feel welcome in the running group, but that he was definitely a bad dog owner. I had been so convinced that my claim to Taco was undeniable and that he was crazy to ever think I’d give him back, that I was being generous by even agreeing to go on doggy play dates with him. But now I had to face the fact that that just wasn’t the case.
“Maybe,” I started tentatively, “maybe we could work something out. Like a…shared custody sort of thing.”
Devin looked at me with a crooked smile. “That didn’t work out so great for my parents,” he cracked, then straightened up. “Really?” he asked.
I nodded. “If you want to.”
He smiled at me now, a real smile. “That would be great, Sophie. Thank you.” The joy on his face was obvious, and my heart swelled for a moment at how happy he looked at the idea of spending more time with Taco.
Then I remembered that it meant I would spend less time with the dog.
It’ll be okay, I told myself. Focus on the rules for getting back on track. Taco was a lot of fun, but if anything he was a distraction from the rules. He was a chaotic force in my life.
“Want to go for a run?” I asked. I was feeling antsy, even though my feet were still tired from this morning.
“Right now?” he asked.
“I need all the training I can get,” I admitted. Devin probably could’ve run the marathon tomorrow, but I was far from ready.
“Sure, let’s do it!”
Devin called Taco over and attached his leash to him, and together the three of us left the dog park and began jogging on a path just outside it. Devin held the leash, but Taco was easily distracted, and as we ran Devin was jerked back over and over again as Taco stopped to sniff flowers and bushes and to pee on anything he could. Each time Devin pulled on the leash and told him to heel, and Taco would look up as though he’d forgotten what he was doing, and start running alongside him again.
We ran in silence, and my mind turned toward work. To make up for the kids losing art class, I was planning a few additional art-related activities, but it wasn’t enough. Surely I could find ways to incorporate art into the other activities I had planned. Let’s see…I could turn addition practice into an opportunity to paint popsicle sticks and build a box out of them. We could talk about how if you used nine sticks on one side of the box, you’d need nine sticks on the three other sides as well…
Absorbed in thought, I wasn’t paying much attention to where we were going, one foot in front of the other, over and o
ver, until suddenly Taco jetted out in front of me without warning. He was crossing my path to get to a beetle scuttling toward the grass, I saw in the last moment before I tripped over the dog and felt myself falling.
It happened so quickly that I hardly had a chance to react. One moment we were running along, and the next I was falling, hard, toward the gravel path. Trying not to fall on top of Taco, I made a split-second decision that landed me flat on one knee, and before I could even figure out exactly what had happened Devin had stopped and was examining the damage.
“Sophie, I’m so sorry,” he said, genuine concern in his voice. “Are you hurt? I should’ve held him tighter.” I remembered what he’d said the last time we’d met, about how he hadn’t pursued a skydiving job out of fear of hurting someone else.
“It’s not your fault,” I said.
I moved to a sitting position, my knee stinging. The marathon! I thought, fear creeping in. My knee was bleeding and covered in tiny gravel, and my wrist was scraped but not bleeding. It would probably be sore—I had caught myself on both knee and wrist—but right now I was more concerned with the knee. I could still run with a sprained wrist, but not with a hurt knee.
“How bad is it?” he asked. “Did you twist it, or just scrape it?”
“Just scrape it, I think,” I gasped out. “But—oh, it really hurts.”
“Sit there as long as you need to,” he said, and he and Taco moved aside to let other runners, bikers, or walkers who might come upon us on the trail pass by.
I was in pain, but more than anything I was angry with myself. How could I have let this happen? I wasn’t supposed to let anything happen to interfere with my plans. I was not supposed to get hurt, was not supposed to derail my goal.
After a couple of minutes I let Devin help me up, and we slowly made our way back the direction we’d come from.
When we came to an intersection, Devin offered, “You can stay here while I go get my car, if you’d like. You shouldn’t walk on that more than you have to.”