A crease appears between Dad’s eyebrows. “The . . . what?”
“It’s basic feng shui,” Beth says, as if that explains everything. “See the way this couch is facing? It keeps the energy from passing through the space in a natural way. Picture the energy coming into your home as water flowing in through your front door. The goal is to guide that water around the room in a smooth curve so it won’t run up against obstacles or leak out through the windows.”
“Huh,” says Dad. He looks totally confused.
“See, this window faces south. So to attract prosperity, that nice wooden chair should go there, in the southeast corner. Maybe with a small fountain? I have an extra one I can bring you. Here, help me move this couch.”
“Um,” Dad says. “Why don’t we talk about this later? Dinner’s almost ready.” He doesn’t sound upset, exactly, but he does sound pretty weirded out that someone who has been in our home for three minutes is trying to rearrange the furniture.
I like our stuff where it is, too, but more than that, I don’t want this to affect Dad’s feelings for Beth when she seems so cool in most other ways. I guess it’s not that weird—she’s obviously just trying to help us be more . . . energetic and prosperous or whatever. So I put on an enthusiastic voice and say, “It’s cool that you know so much about, um, all this stuff. It’s really interesting.”
“Proper energy flow can make such a difference to a person’s happiness,” Beth says. “When I help you put up your poster, I’ll take a look at your bedroom, too.”
“Sure, maybe,” I say. Fortunately, when I invite her into the kitchen in an attempt to change the subject, she follows me.
Dad and Beth open the wine she brought, and everything gets a lot better when they start talking about some environmental documentary they both want to see. The conversation flows easily now that they’re not discussing couch placement, and I relax; there aren’t any awkward silences at all, and they keep making each other laugh. Dad is way more animated than usual, almost exactly the way he used to be when he and Mom threw dinner parties when I was younger. A comforting warmth radiates out from my chest as I sip my lemonade and watch them. The inspirational poster and the energy weirdness don’t matter as long as Beth makes Dad happy, and it seems like she really could.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and when I see the message on my screen, I spring to my feet so quickly that my chair topples over.
Anjali: Minerva has been in labor for a little while! We’re expecting puppies within the hour!!!!
Dad gives me a startled look. “What’s the matter? Are you okay?”
“Nothing! Yes! I mean . . . Elvis and Minerva’s puppies are about to be born!” My hands are trembling with excitement, and it takes a few tries before I manage to type a reply:
Me: OMG OMG OMG!!!! KEEP ME UPDATED AND SEND PICS THE SECOND THEY ARE BORN!!!!!!!!!!
“Who are Elvis and Minerva?” asks Beth.
“Elvis is my stepdad’s dog, and Minerva is my aunt Anjali’s dog—well, my step-aunt, I guess? They’re both Welsh springer spaniels—Elvis and Minerva, not my aunt and my stepdad, obviously. Anyway! They’re having puppies, like, right now, and Anjali is giving me one of them!” As I search through my phone for a picture of Elvis to show her, it occurs to me that I probably shouldn’t have mentioned Krishnan in front of Dad while he’s on a date. But when I glance over at him, his face doesn’t look all pinched the way it usually does when I talk about my stepdad. Oh my god, having Beth here is helping already.
Beth takes the phone and peers at the screen. “Aww, he’s so cute,” she says. “I love dogs.”
“Me too! So does Dad. Do you have one?”
“Not since I was a kid. We had a Havanese-Maltese mix named Oscar. He was the cutest ever.”
Dad pulls a tray of his famous garlic bread out of the oven, arranges it on a plate, and places it in the center of the table alongside the pasta and salad. “Dinner’s ready, if you ladies want to sit down,” he says.
I love how he calls us “you ladies,” and when Beth beams up at him and says, “Smells amazing, David,” I feel like my heart is going to explode. This is exactly what I pictured when I imagined Dad being with someone.
Or . . . it’s almost exactly what I pictured. The garlic bread doesn’t taste the same without butter, and the pasta primavera isn’t as good without the cheese or shrimp Dad usually puts in it. It’s still tasty and everything, but I don’t understand why anyone would choose to be vegan on purpose. I think about getting the parmesan out of the fridge for Dad and me, but maybe it would offend Beth and mess things up, so I keep quiet and eat my primavera plain.
I try to pay attention to the conversation and watch for flirtatious gestures between Dad and Beth—I know it’s up to me to keep tonight on track. But after Anjali’s text, it’s pretty much impossible to concentrate on anything besides staring at the screen of my phone and waiting for it to light up again. It lies there silently for all of dinner, but the moment Dad starts clearing the dishes, a photo finally, finally comes through.
The puppy is the same size as the hand it’s sitting in, which looks like Krishnan’s. Its muzzle is mostly white, but there are two perfect auburn circles over its eyes, and its tiny floppy ears are pure auburn—perfect coloring for a show dog. Its nose is a soft pink, like the inside of a shell, and its eyes are closed. On the top of its head is a white splotch in the shape of a heart.
If you had asked me yesterday—or even half an hour ago—if I believed in love at first sight, I would’ve said no. But all of a sudden, I understand that sometimes it takes only a second to go from zero to loving someone with your entire heart.
Me: AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH SOOOOOOO CUUUUUUTE
Me: I LOVE IT SO MUCH
Me: IS IT A BOY OR A GIRL
Me: WHEN WILL IT OPEN ITS EYES
Me: CAN I HAVE THAT ONE
Me: AALFJNOWIRNGOINOEINKAJSKJFBOWBOEGBK
Anjali: LOL, it’s a girl. It’ll take her about two weeks to open her eyes.
Anjali: Don’t you want to see the others before you pick which one you want? There are going to be four more.
Me: NOPE I DON’T CARE I WANT THAT ONE
Anjali: LOL, okay. She’s yours, babe. :)
She’s mine.
“You guys,” I say, breathless. “Look at my new puppy. Just . . . look at her.” I’m buzzing with so much excitement that I feel like someone has plugged me into a faulty electrical socket, one that sends off random bursts of sparks and jolts of electricity.
Dad takes the phone, and his eyes get all melty when he looks at the picture. “Wow, she is really cute,” he says.
“I know! I can’t wait for you to meet her! Beth, look!” I hold up the phone, and Beth makes the appropriate awwwww sounds, and then I snatch it back and text the picture to my friends. They respond right away with a landslide of exclamation points and dog emojis and hearts.
“I’m going to name her Hermione,” I tell Beth and Dad, “and I’m going to train her to be a show dog. I’ll start when she’s really little, and by the time she’s big enough to actually compete, she’s going to totally trust me and do everything I want even if all I do is think it. It’s going to be, like, this crazy owner-dog mind-meld. I mean, I love going into the ring with Elvis, but this is going to be a whole different thing on a whole different level.”
“You compete in dog shows?” Beth asks. “That’s really cool. Oh, is that where you were the other day when—”
“Yeah,” I say, cutting her off before she can bring up the Dalmatian picture. “I’ve only done two so far, and neither of them was . . . um . . . very successful. But I’m actually competing at the National Dog Show in Philadelphia in two weeks.”
“Oh wow, that’s really exciting. That’s the one they show on TV over Thanksgiving, right?”
“Yup. It actually tapes the week before that. They don’t televise the juniors, though.”
“That’s a pretty big deal that you got in,” Beth says. “Congr
atulations.”
“I mean, I didn’t exactly qualify for it,” I say. “Usually you have to win first place at three shows to compete there as a junior, but they also do a lottery where you can be randomly selected to compete. It’s so a couple of people who are new to handling can see what being in a big show is like. And I got super lucky and had my name chosen this year, so that’s exciting! I’ve been practicing with Elvis so much, and I think he and I have really found our groove the last few weeks, so I know it’s going to go way better this time.”
“I’m sure it will.” Beth turns to my dad. “You must be so proud of this kid.”
“Always.” Dad reaches over to squeeze my shoulder.
“I’d love to go to one of those big shows someday,” Beth says. “I watch Westminster on TV every year.”
My heart leaps into my throat and makes itself comfortable there. All the planning and scheming I’ve done has led up to this exact moment, and now that it’s suddenly here, I don’t feel ready. But Beth couldn’t possibly have given me a better opening. I would be a fool not to take it.
“You should come!” I say with as much confidence as I can muster. “I’m sure you could drive down with my dad. Right, Dad?”
Beth’s eyes get all big and shiny. “A road trip! That would be so much fun! We did tons of those when I was a kid, so I know all the good car games. I’d be happy to split the driving with you, if you wanted. And my college roommate and her wife live in Philly! We could make a night of it, go on a double date. What do you think?”
“Um,” my dad says. He reaches up and rubs his bald spot so hard it’s like he’s polishing silverware, and then he opens his mouth again, but no words come out. He’s totally trapped, and I feel kind of bad for him; if he wants to look good in front of his new girlfriend, he can’t exactly tell her that he won’t support his own daughter because he’d rather not be in the same room as his ex’s new husband. But it’s hard to feel too guilty when I’m doing all of this for his own good.
“That sounds really fun, Dad,” I say. “You should definitely do it. I’ll probably be hanging out with my friends after, so you guys will have the whole evening free.” Under the table, I cross my fingers for luck, then cross my toes the best I can inside my socks.
And then Dad sighs and says the best two words I’ve ever heard: “Yeah, okay.”
Dad is coming to my show.
I did it. I did it!
I honestly didn’t think I could be any happier than I was when I got the picture of Hermione, but I’m so excited now that I feel like my brain is lighting up like the grand finale of a fireworks show. I don’t even care anymore if Beth covers my room in inspirational posters or moves the bathtub into the living room; she is going to be so, so good for us. She and Dad have only been on three dates, and she’s already making him so much happier and more relaxed and flexible and adventurous. Soon he’ll stop wearing his grungy clothes and hanging around the house all the time, and he’ll turn into his old self again, and everything will go back to how it used to be.
Just like I thought, all he needed was to start falling in love.
17
By now I’ve been to about a dozen dog shows, and I didn’t think anything about them could surprise me anymore. But my eyes bug out of their sockets when we walk through the door of the National Dog Show. When Krishnan told me there were 175 breeds competing today and that some of the most popular ones, like the golden retrievers, had more than a hundred entries, I figured he had to be exaggerating. But there are so many people and dogs in these three giant halls that it actually seems possible.
Krishnan signs us in and gets instructions for where to set up our grooming table, and we walk through Hall A and into Hall B, past more vendor booths than I’ve ever seen in one place. There’s a whole area full of JOG A DOG treadmills in various sizes, mostly in use, next to a huge banner advertising a dog masseuse who also does aromatherapy and crystal healing—Beth will totally love that. There are DogPedic memory foam beds and snack stalls selling horrifying things like cow kneecaps and buffalo knuckles. Even the dog bathrooms have fancy signs. Basically it’s dog paradise. I can’t wait to show it to Hermione next year. If all goes well, she will have been competing for six months by then and the two of us will have racked up enough wins that I’ll qualify to enter the regular way.
I wish my friends were already here so we could giggle over all this stuff together, but they aren’t arriving till noon; Mir’s mom couldn’t drive them down last night because of a work thing. Dad and Beth are supposed to show up around the same time. I’m nervous about how Dad will act toward Krishnan, but I remind myself that everything will be so much better now that Beth’s in the picture. Today he’ll see that being in the same room as my stepdad actually isn’t so bad, and my whole life will finally get easier.
My ring time isn’t until one, but Krishnan’s is early, and by ten o’clock, he and Elvis have already been eliminated from the competition. A dog named George Harrison gets Best of Breed and will represent the Welsh springer spaniel group in the televised competition later on. Mom and I hug Krishnan when he comes out of the ring, but he doesn’t really seem disappointed, which I can’t understand for the life of me. I guess losing isn’t such a big deal when you compete practically every weekend, but it’s different for me. It would be horrible to fail at my very first big show in front of literally everyone I love.
A slow tentacle of fear starts creeping up from deep in my stomach, but I manage to push it back down. I could not possibly be more prepared for today than I am. My treat pouch is secured around my arm. I know to make extra sure Elvis and I both have empty bladders when we go into the ring. I bet there’s not one single junior in this whole convention center who has practiced as much as I have, and there certainly aren’t any others who’ve done science experiments to learn how to communicate with their dogs better. When I was watching Elvis in the ring, I tried to predict which tail wags he’d do while he waited for his exam and trotted around and gobbled treats from Krishnan’s hand, and I was right a whole bunch of times, which means I’m finally learning to read him properly. I’m pretty sure everything is going to go perfectly.
So when Mom puts her hand on my back and asks, “You doing okay, Ellabella?” I give her a big, confident smile.
“Definitely,” I say. “I hope you’re ready to watch us win.”
Mom’s eyebrows crinkle together. “You’re going to do great,” she says. “But you know it doesn’t matter whether you win or not, right? You’ve worked so hard for this, and we’re all going be proud of you no matter what happens. The point of today is to have fun.”
I’m about to tell her that winning is fun, but my phone buzzes in my pocket, so I pull it out.
Mir: There’s an accident on the highway and we’re moving suuuuuuper slowly
The nervous tentacle thrashes through my gut again, more forcefully this time. I start to type a message back asking if they’ll still be here by one, but I’m not even done before another text pops up:
Dad: Hey Ellabee, we’ve hit some traffic and will be a little late.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” Mom asks. “You look pale.”
I nod and stuff my phone back into my pocket. All my people will be here on time. The universe couldn’t be so wildly unfair as to finally give me everything I need to make this moment perfect and then take it away again.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Dad and Beth and my friends are all running late, but they’ll get here.”
“I’m sure they will,” Mom says. “You want to go meet some dogs in the meantime?”
Obviously I want to meet some dogs.
While Krishnan catches up with some friends he hasn’t seen in a long time, Mom and I wander around the convention center, making all the furry friends we can: an adorable Labrador named Adi; a pointer named Tucker; a terrier named Pepper; a pug named Zoloft, which my mom thinks is really funny for some reason. I’d love to test them all for my science fair pr
oject—I’ve only got data on twenty-one dogs, and I want a sample size of at least thirty. But when I mention to Mom that I wish I’d brought my crate cover and camera, she says, “Sweetheart, you don’t have to be working every second. You have enough on your plate today. Try to relax, okay?”
An excited shout goes up from the next hall over, and when we follow the sound, we discover that the Diving Dogs competition is underway. One by one, dogs hurtle down a runway and leap into a massive inflatable pool with distance markers on the sides, chasing after the toys their handlers have thrown. My friends would love this. I text them a slow-motion video of a curly-coated retriever named Wally flying through the air, and they send back rows and rows of hearts and crying emojis and cars and those faces with the X-ed out eyes.
The next dog is my dad’s favorite kind, a Samoyed, so I film that jump too and text it to him.
Dad: Amazing!
Me: ETA?
Dad: Maps app says 12:41.
Okay, okay. Everything is going to be fine. I tell Dad they should come straight to ring eight when they get here, and he responds with a thumbs-up.
A golden retriever named Waffle trots up the stairs and into position at the start of the runway. “So,” my mom says in her I’m trying hard to sound casual voice. “Your dad’s bringing a date today, huh?”
I nod. “Yeah. Her name is Beth. She’s super nice.”
Waffle barrels down the runway and lands with a gigantic splash that showers the people in the front row. “Twenty-two feet, eight inches!” says the announcer, and everyone claps.
“How long have they been dating?” Mom asks.
“Not very long. They’ve only been out four or five times, I think.”
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