Freckles

by Amy Lane

  “Yeah,” Carter said, voice wispy. “Sure. Someplace I won’t step on her.”

  “She should settle right down.” Doc Marty gave him the extra-bright smile, and it seemed to bring him out of the horror trance.

  “Awesome,” he said. “Excellent.”

  “So, Mr. Embree, you have yourself a dog. Now fill out the paperwork with Sandy, and Cedar will get you the flea treatment, and I’ll see you back in two weeks!”

  “Two weeks.” Carter still sounded dazed.

  Sandy had him come over to pay for the treatment—and for the health insurance—and the whole time he just stared into space, like he was on automatic.

  “Mr. Embree?” Sandy said, trying to get him to sign the electronic keypad. “Mr. Embree, are you okay?”

  “I can’t keep a boyfriend,” Carter said, apparently still freaking out. “I can’t keep a houseplant alive. My parents wouldn’t let me have so much as a goldfish.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Oh, Mr. Embree,” Cedar chirped, pressing the flea treatment into his hand on the other side of the counter. “Don’t you worry! You and Freckles are going to be just fine!” She leaned over and scratched the dog’s head. “Oh yes, you will! You definitely will.” She reached behind herself casually and pulled out a couple of small-dog treats from her pocket, which she offered to the dog. Freckles woke up and nibbled them daintily out of her hand. “Good dog. Now here, you have a few more, and then,” she looked up at Carter seriously, “you make sure to feed and water her first thing, okay? Little dogs like this, they have no reserves—you need to feed her in the morning and the evening, or she’ll forget she has to eat and die.”

  Sandy resisted the urge to thunk his head against the laminate desk. “Thanks, Cedar. He needed that.”

  Cedar smiled back guilelessly. “He’s a lawyer, Sandy—he can take the truth! Now don’t worry, Mr. Embree. It’s not all dire. You’ll do just fine.”

  “Thanks,” Carter mumbled weakly. “That’s sweet of you.”

  Sandy signed him out and looked at Cedar meaningfully. “Here, Mr. Embree. You carry the dog, and I’ll get the stuff you bought, okay?”

  That seemed to pull him out of his daze. “Oh my God! I almost forgot! Thank you—uh, Sandy.” Saying Sandy’s name seemed to disconcert him. “Thank you—that would be really, uh, kind.”

  Sandy left Cedar in charge of the front while he ran to the bench and picked up bag after bag. “Lead the way,” he invited, and Carter lowered his brow, squared his jaw, and did just that.

  The night was crisp, and Sandy regretted going out in his shirtsleeves. Carter had a suit on, and he was shivering too, pulling the dog closer to his chest.

  “Wow, you’d think it’s November or something,” Sandy chattered. Carter led the way to one of the parking slots furthest from the store.

  “Sorry it’s such a walk,” he apologized, digging through his pocket. A white Toyota Prius chirped in greeting, and Carter hit another button to pop the trunk. “The place was packed when I got here.”

  “Yeah, well, dogs’ll wreck your plans better than anything I know.” Sandy set his packages down in the clean and empty space under the hood.

  “Hey, there’s a small bed in there,” Carter said, before Sandy could thunk the hood down. “Not the big one for the living room but sort of a flat one—”

  “Here you go.” Sandy pulled it out. It was smaller, and sort of a very average pink. “Do you want me to yank the tag on it?”

  “Please?” Carter smiled winningly, his plain, practical face not losing any of the magic he’d shown earlier. Yeah, this guy had something—maybe it took the dog to set it free, but he was definitely not the crazy-pants Sandy had assumed he was earlier in the evening.

  Sandy popped the tag off and set the bed on the passenger seat, amused when Carter came up next to him and set Freckles down on the cushion. She woke up enough to try to follow his hand, and Sandy reached into his pocket for another couple of dog treats. He and the other vet techs worked hard to keep the animals as happy as possible—treats helped. Was a fact of life.

  “Here you go,” Sandy murmured, aware that proximity to Carter was warming the space surrounded by the car door’s archway. He patted Freckles on the head and turned to wink at Carter. “She’s going to be okay, you know. I mean, I get why you’d be worried—they’re a big responsibility. It’s just like children. Do your best. Don’t do anything in anger. And remember, it’s not the dog’s fault.”

  Carter stood up so fast he bumped his head on the doorframe. “What? Ouch! What?”

  Sandy sighed. Yup. That was the big deal breaker. “It’s not the dog’s fault,” he said, meaning it. “If the dog is peeing on your rug, it’s probably because you forgot to walk her. If the dog isn’t sleeping, she didn’t get enough playtime. If she’s got diarrhea, she needs a different food. If she’s barking, she’s lonely or she hasn’t been taught not to bark. Whatever is going on with her, it is always what’s right for her. If you don’t like it, you need to fix what you’re doing to get her to behave a different way. It’s not the dog’s fault.”

  Carter gaped at him, and Sandy nudged him aside gently and closed the door before Freckles could decide that eight o’clock at night in the PetSmart parking lot would be the perfect time and place to escape the car and frolic.

  “It’s not the dog’s fault,” Carter echoed hollowly.

  Okay—maybe he wasn’t a total loss. Sandy reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the free magnets they offered. “Not the dog’s fault,” Sandy affirmed, and then he pushed the magnet into his hand. “I’m Sandy Corrigan. I work here afternoons or evenings, five nights a week. If you want to talk to me about the dog, call the number and ask me a question. If you want to talk to anybody about the dog, call that number, and ask a question. You’re paying the insurance, buddy. If some of that is reassurance, that’s okay too.”

  Carter took the magnet from him and smiled shyly. “It’s not the dog’s fault,” he said with some confidence.

  “Yup. That’s a lesson well learned.”

  Carter had planned to set the dog down on the floor on Greg’s side of the bed. Yup. That had been his plan.

  Greg’s side of the bed.

  The floor.

  No stepping on the tiny two-pound dog if the dog was on the other side of the bed.

  Good plan.

  He bought fast food on the way home and ate it in the car, something he never did, had abhorred when Greg used to do it in his car, and disapproved of other people doing on general principle. But he was starving, and . . . and . . . he had a dog in his car, and he was rattled enough that he could see the beginning of the end of all the things he’d thought he must or must not do.

  Starting with eating in the car.

  He got home and sat the dog on the dog bed, and the dog bed on the couch, figuring she’d just sit there while he ran around trying to instantly assimilate another creature into his world.

  Okay. Food and water—those things first, right? Isn’t that what the bouncy girl had said?

  He put the special new placemat down at the end of the counter, and the special tiny food dish with the pleasant blue and pink color scheme on it, and the slightly larger dish for water.

  He filled them both and then pulled out his purchases and set them on the table, mapping out where each thing would go. Freckles must have heard the dog-food bag and hopped off the couch (which terrified Carter—it looked like she was leaping off a bridge, ears flapping in the wind as she plummeted to her ultimate end), and trotted into the kitchen, sniffing curiously. She got to the food and dug in, putting each piece delicately between her teeth before biting it in half and swallowing.

  Carter walked around her gingerly, keeping a constant eye on her. That vision of Bambi under the Godzilla foot was going to haunt him for . . .

  Oh holy crap.

  The duration of the dog’s life.

  However long that should be.

  Carter leaned over h
is counter and tried to catch his breath. His chest tightened, his vision went dark, and he found himself resting his forehead on the cool gray marble tile.

  He hadn’t been this freaked out since he’d lost his virginity in college.

  Cold sweat sprang out over his body as he remembered the sex debacle, and he found another memory. His first court case, under Jacobsen. He’d sweat through his suit jacket and passed out during opening remarks.

  Yeah. There you go. The reason he would never go beyond second chair.

  His breathing slowed. He was second chair. It was like the girl had said. He would make mistakes, but his intentions were good. He just had to remember—

  A small yakking sound interrupted his self-soothing meditation. He spotted the dog just in time to see Freckles throw up pretty much everything she’d eaten on top of his shiny wingtip. She looked at him, brown eyes full of guilt, and was about to start licking the food off the top when Carter remembered that he used shoe polish and bent down hurriedly with a paper towel.

  “Freckles!”

  The dog cowered, all big eyes, and Carter’s heart shriveled.

  Remember, it’s not the dog’s fault. It’s never the dog’s fault.

  “Sorry,” Carter muttered. “Okay. I think too much too fast. Maybe we clean this up and you try again.”

  Freckles was nosing around the bowl again, and Carter finished wiping down his shoe, figuring he’d wear the oxfords tomorrow. And then he remembered the big picture of Godzilla’s foot coming down, and took both shoes off completely, tucking them on the shoe tree in the hallway like a human being and telling himself to calm the hell down.

  Okay.

  Putting shit away. Part two. The halter.

  Well, the halter was obviously going on the dog. Later—when she wasn’t so wiggly.

  The leash would go best . . . hanging from the closet door handle!

  The food bag would go best . . . hey, on the counter, with a little clip on the top to keep it fresh.

  The bed would go—

  Wait. Where was the dog?

  Carter stared at the food bowl blankly. Where’d she go? “Freckles! Freckles! C’mon, baby! You’re scaring me—where’d you go!”

  He had visions then, of her throwing up on all of his shoes, or chewing on them, or getting tangled in one of the dry-cleaning bags hanging from his closet, or . . . Oh.

  The sudden pungency assaulted his nose from the hallway carpet—he smelled it before he saw it.

  Or she could be pooping on the floor.

  “Crap.” He stared at her as she finished up and trotted toward him. He bent down unhappily, Sandy the vet tech’s refrain of It is not the dog’s fault ringing through his head. Freckles licked his hand with that crippling good nature.

  “You have no idea this is bad, do you?” he asked.

  Freckles wagged her tail and licked him some more.

  Carter scooped her up and walked around the tiny turds for the toilet paper and some carpet treatment. When he was done cleaning up the mess, he grabbed one of the pee pads that kid at the pet store had made him buy, and spread it out over the stain, thinking that maybe this could be her place to go, right?

  While he was doing that, he watched her squat on the little carpet in front of the bathroom. With a sigh, he put a pee pad there too.

  Finally—finally—he was in his flannel pajama pants and T-shirt, sliding into bed with a copy of Owning a Small Dog that he planned to read cover to cover before he fell asleep that night. A part of him was unamused that this was where his speed-reading skills from law school had brought him, but most of him was just frickin’ beat. Ten thirty? It was ten thirty at night? Jesus, he’d gotten home at nine the night before, and Greg had taken that as a hint to leave because it meant Carter was a selfish bastard.

  And yet Carter had spent the last four and a half hours dedicating his time to the needs of a thing not Carter.

  For a moment, Carter allowed this to seep in, because it was important. He had assumed he was the one at fault in that scenario. He worked long hours, he had trouble communicating when he got home from work, emotionally unavailable, yadda, yadda, yadda—but . . .

  But that tiny dog thought he was worthwhile.

  Carter sat up in bed, shoved Greg’s pillow behind his back, and settled down to read.

  “‘Congratulations on your purchase of a small-sized or “lap” dog—’” Grunt. Yip. Clatter.

  Carter looked over to the other side of the bed and saw nothing. “Freckles, stay,” he said sternly.

  “‘The first thing to remember as you welcome your new family member into your home is to make sure your new pet knows its limitations—’” Grunt. Yip. Clatter.

  “Freckles? Stay! ‘Small dogs may look helpless and adorable, but they are just as intelligent as their larger hunting and herding counterparts, and they need to be treated with the same resp—’” Grunt. Yip. Clatter. Yip.

  “Freckles!”

  “Yip!”

  And then he saw it—two eyes appearing at the edge of the bed and a flurry of paws as Freckles tried her damnedest to latch on to the comforter and pull herself up onto the bed.

  “Aw . . .” Clatter.

  Bound! “Yip!” Scrabble!

  “Aw, Freckles!”

  And like his voice was the magic word, the dog actually made it, digging and scrambling and probably pulling loops from the 600 thread-count sheets. She came trotting across the bed like an astronaut on a lunar landscape, and Carter watched her helplessly.

  The dog licked his face like he was the best human on planet earth and Carter and only Carter could save her from a life of loneliness and frostbite in the hostile environment next to the bed.

  Carter scratched her head and told her no licking, and knew her bullshit for what it was. Pure bullshit. The book was trying to tell him to scold her and set her back down in the dog bed.

  But she was a warm-blooded creature, and she wanted to sleep next to him, and honestly? Greg hadn’t wanted to do that almost since the beginning, really.

  But still . . . that terrible vision of the ginormous foot squashing poor Bambi morphed into an image of Carter, sprawled on his stomach with an abandon he’d never shown heretofore in his adult existence, and a lifeless little Freckles pancake under his chest.

  Okay. So, maybe a bid for sanity.

  Tucking Freckles into the crook of his arm, Carter walked around his sled-framed bed and picked up her dog cushion, setting it right square in the middle of where Greg used to sleep. He slid into bed himself and put her back on her cushion, making sure she had one of her rawhide chews from his three-hundred-dollar PetSmart purchase.

  She curled up happily, and he scratched the back of her neck while he read. Inside, he was thinking that he needed to put the halter on her in the morning, because he had the feeling there were walks—many walks—in both of their futures.

  “‘Small dogs need to be shown who is boss and that the pack leader is a strong and determined personality. If you are establishing a boundary, be it where the dog should sleep or what times it should eat, be firm and unwavering. The dog may protest for a while, but if these protests are ignored, the barking or whining will gradually desist.’”

  “Well hell.” Carter looked at Freckles, gnawing happily on her rawhide, and she pulled away long enough to lick his hand. “Okay, Freckles, if the book people ask, I have established your boundary for where to sleep as on top of my bed. This is a choice, okay?”

  Freckles went back to her rawhide, and Carter could tell she’d been deeply touched by his assertion of authority.

  As he ploughed his way through Owning a Small Dog, he could also tell something else.

  He was in a lot of trouble.

  He woke up with his alarm in the morning, but he didn’t let sleep amnesia get in the way of his goal. Given his recent absorption of all sorts of dog-raising tips, he did not pass go, did not relieve his bladder but, instead, took Freckles with him out into the blustery November morn
ing and sat her in the grass and said, “Freckles, go potty!”

  Freckles lolled her tongue and wagged her tail.

  Carter had forgotten his slippers, and his feet were cold and aching on the frigid concrete of the patio.

  “Freckles, go potty!”

  She ran up to him and licked his feet enthusiastically, like this was the missing piece of their communication puzzle.

  “No!” he complained, his bladder swelling like a softball in his groin. “C’mon . . .” He sat her down on the grass again. “Man, just pee!”

  She turned around and wandered around the yard, bounding a little because his grass needed cutting. For a moment he thought she was going to squat, but no, she’d just found a worm, wriggling out of its hole of dark earth near the base of a blade of grass. She started to bark at it, and Carter called out, “Freckles, for Chrissake, take a piss!”

  Freckles ran to him ecstatically, her ears flopping up and down, her tongue waggling from the side of her mouth, and hell—after that much enthusiasm, he felt compelled to bend down and at least scratch her behind the ears. The scratching behind the ears turned into her jumping for joy, and he was supposed to call, Down! but seriously. She was getting about six inches of air. He scooped her up and hustled into the house, thinking that maybe this “Freckles, pee!” thing would work better after he’d taken his own piss. He set her down on the hardwood floor while he turned around to shut the sliding glass door, and she ran a couple of feet ahead.

  Then he turned back and took four steps toward the hallway, and his heel skid as it hit a patch of warm water that hadn’t been there on the way out the door.

  “Jesus!”

  His hips hit the ground first, and he managed to round his back because he had a stomach tightened by about a hundred crunches a day. He kept himself up before his head hit, and then he relaxed back down, the mild thud of his skull against the hardwood a lot less significant than it could have been.