Take Me Home

by Lorelie Brown

  But she lays her muzzle alongside my neck as if hiding.

  “I think her leg is hurt.”

  “It was an accident,” Trish says, though she doesn’t bother to even look at me. “She jumped on the couch next to Mason’s head and I had to push her away.”

  My stomach twists into a knot. I wish I hadn’t eaten so much. It’s gonna be a bad scene if my anger makes me vomit. Maybe it’ll be enough that I’m shaking as much as the dog is.

  “You don’t ever have to hurt a dog,” Brooke snaps. “Maybe I should decide I have to punch you in the fucking throat?”

  My heroine. I have stars in my eyes.

  “She was going to jump on Mason!”

  Daphne glares at Brooke. “This is not your business.”

  “She wasn’t going to hurt the baby. You’re just pissed that your shitty husband is dicking some side chick and you took it out on a helpless dog!”

  “That’s enough, you dyke slut,” Trisha snaps.

  “It’s femme slut to you, cunt.”

  My mom steps between them and holds her hands up. “Everyone calm down. We can work through this.”

  “Mom, this dog needs to go to a vet.” Her body is tiny and her black button eyes look wet to me. Can dogs cry? She’s definitely whimpering enough.

  “Great, how much will that be?” Caleb groans.

  “Probably about five or six hundred bucks,” says my dad. He has his arms crossed over his chest in his Very Displeased Dad mode. Last time I saw that pose was when I got a C in pre-calc.

  “I can’t afford that right now.” Caleb seems to be talking to Daphne. “I can take her on the first.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Daphne answers. She bounces the baby on her hip. “We’ll give her some baby aspirin. And maybe a splint.”

  “Can dogs have aspirin?” I pet Snowy’s head, but she is not chilling out.

  “Would you want only aspirin if you broke a leg?” Brooke asks.

  I make a decision. “Mom, can you pack up a pie for me?”

  She knows what I mean without asking. “Half a pumpkin and half an apple crumble?”

  “That would be awesome.”

  “What are you doing?” Trish is not happy with the world.

  “I’m taking your dog to the vet.”

  “I told you I can’t afford it right now. Applebee’s cut back my hours.”

  I’d needle him about that, but I have bigger concerns. Namely the puppy cradled in my arms. “We’ll sort out the details later, okay? She’s in pain right now.”

  In the kitchen, Mom holds out my purse so I can hook it with one arm. This poor baby nuzzling my shoulder is tiny enough to fit in my Kate Spade. I can’t believe anyone would hurt her.

  Mom fishes out my keys for me, and Brooke takes the pie. “I’m pretty sure there’s a twenty-four-hour vet on Figueroa.”

  “If they’re not open, I have a friend in San Sebastian,” Brooke offers.

  “The vet on Seventeenth? You know them?” I rub Snowy’s head. It doesn’t stop her shakes, but at least it makes me feel better. “Are you sure they’re open?”

  “It’s not that they’re open so much as I can guarantee they’re available.” Brooke’s mouth bends into a wry smile. “I know where Tiffany is having Thanksgiving.”

  “Tofu or turducken?”

  “Tofu.”

  I’m so overwhelmed. The one on Figueroa would be a sure bet, and closer, but I always get the feeling they’re all about the bucks. I like the idea of having Snowy treated by someone with a personal connection. Still … “I don’t know if I can trust anyone named Tiffany.”

  “Don’t judge her for her mom’s obsessions. If it helps, she hates the name too.”

  “Okay, fine. But if she shows up with feathered bangs, me and Snowy bounce.”

  Mom and Sierra give me good-bye hugs, and Dad kisses my forehead. I take a moment to be still as he holds me, to feel it all the way through. Dad is our family’s rock, but today even he can’t contain the fears snaking around my insides. I’ve never felt this responsible for a tiny being before, much less one that’s hurt.

  It’s terrifying.

  “Snowy?” Brooke asks as she holds the front door open for me.

  “I refuse to call her Snow White.” I rub the tiny white blaze on her chest. The hairs there are curiously longer than the rest of her black pelt. “Besides, Snowy is ironic. Or something.”

  “I don’t think I’ve actually ever understood irony.”

  “I’m not sure anyone does.” I reach for the driver’s door handle and only then realize it’ll be hell to drive with this wriggling baby on my shoulder.

  “Should I drive or hold the puppy?” Brooke asks.

  Her calm, matter-of-fact manner filters through me. I take a breath. Snowy is hurt, but she’s not going to die from her broken leg. “You can drive. It’s push-button, so you don’t need the keys as long as I’m with you.”

  Brooke waits for me to come around the car and even buckles me in, being careful not to pin Snowy down. I get a whiff of lemon and rosemary in the instant before the feathering tips of Brooke’s hair brush my cheek. As she starts to pull away, I stop her. She feels like a rolling stone, an unstoppable force, but she freezes at only my fingertips on her forearm.

  “Thanks,” I say. “I know this isn’t what you signed up for.”

  “Are you kidding? I got mashed sweet potatoes, snatched the blessing out from under a fundie, and now I’m stealing his dog. A total win.”

  I look down at Snowy. How are her eyes so filled with pain when they’re completely black? “We’re not exactly stealing her …”

  “Oh? Are you willing to give her back to someone who hurt her?” Brooke slides me a glance out of the corner of her eye. “Are you that kind of person?”

  “Low blow.” I hadn’t planned on getting a dog. I like my life as easy as possible. Is Snowy even big enough to sleep through the night?

  “Sorry,” she says, but she’s not sorry in the least. I can tell. Maybe I should be mad at her for trying to manipulate me, but it’s pretty cool that she’s a strong animal advocate.

  On the way south to San Sebastian, Brooke uses my hands-free to call her friend and arrange for her to meet us at the clinic so she’s waiting when we get there. It’s a tiny storefront tucked between a nail place and a Vietnamese restaurant. They’re both closed.

  Tiffany is the only one in the clinic, and she opens the door for us herself. She’s a redhead with her hair in a ponytail and blunt-cut bangs that frame incredibly green eyes.

  “Thanks for this, Tiff,” says Brooke.

  “No problem. Maggie was already drunk and playing Melissa Etheridge songs. And Savanna’s baby is colicky. So fucking annoying.”

  “You’d put your arm in a sea lion’s mouth, but you hate babies?”

  “I don’t hate babies.” Tiff turns to me. “I just like animals more. Don’t believe her. Is this our little patient?”

  Instinctively, I turn Snowy away from the woman reaching out. I don’t know her.

  Brooke rubs my back. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”

  I don’t even know her, if we’re going to be honest, but her assurances make me feel better all the same. I let Tiff take the puppy, though I follow close on her heels as she takes the black tribble into an exam room. The metal table is probably freezing to Snowy, who’s shaking badly enough as it is.

  I stroke her soft, floppy ears and say sweet things while Tiff does the exam. It’s easier to concentrate on loving her than it is to let myself see how much pain she’s in. It’s probably the coward’s way out. I don’t care.

  “It’s looking like a possible fracture. I’ll need X-rays to confirm, and if I’m right, she’s likely going to need a cast.”

  I think of Trish and Caleb caring for a puppy with a cast and my lungs seize. “Okay,” I manage to say. “Whatever she needs.”

  “My tech is on her way in. She’s not far, but it’s still going to take a little bit of time. Why do
n’t you two head out and come back? In about an hour, hour and a half.”

  I shake my head. “It’s okay. I can stay.”

  “I think she means she’d like us to go. It’ll be easier for her to work.”

  “The animals can sense upset from the people around them,” says Tiff in a sweetly apologetic tone.

  “I’m not upset. I hardly know her.” I flick a tear away from my cheek. Fuck, I’m such an idiot sometimes.

  Brooke wraps an arm around my back and holds my shoulders. “Come on, Keighley. There’s a Target down the street. We can find some cheap video games and give them to people we don’t like for Christmas.”

  “Maybe I’ll give Caleb Grow With Me Grover.” I manage a smile.

  “Too good for him,” Brooke replies.

  I let her pull me toward the door. “Do whatever you need to for her.”

  “Of course,” Tiff says, and I feel my credit card cringe.

  It’s not even my freaking dog. But I swear she watches me as I leave the room, and she’s sending me “please don’t leave” messages. Once I get to the door and look back, her bangs, black eyes, and black muzzle mean she doesn’t really have a face. But I can still feel it.

  Brooke really does pack me off to a Target a couple of miles away. I stand inside the automatic doors and stare at the sea of red.

  “This place looks like a bomb hit it.”

  Brooke shrugs. “The door busters must’ve already been and gone.”

  “I bet they bought all the TVs.” Because if I’m dropping a ridiculous amount of cash on a not-my-dog, I might as well buy a nice screen to watch when I can’t afford to go out for the next year. Makes perfect sense to me right now.

  “Then you’re wrong.” Brooke points to the far side of the store, where rows of boxed TVs wait.

  To the left is the teeming maze of dazed humans and red shopping carts that is the checkout line. We go forward, toward the racks of pink and tangerine and whites. I find a cardigan with a pretty strip of lace down the back. I carry it around for a while, but then I stop in front of the wall o’ jeans. “I don’t actually need a cardigan, do I?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I need doggie supplies. That’s what I need.” I sigh. “Don’t smirk at me.”

  “I’m not smirking. I’m filled with the joy of watching a fur-ever home come together.”

  I narrow my eyes and make sure I’m not smiling. “Did you just say ‘fur-ever’? Not ‘forever’? Out loud? On purpose?”

  “You can’t prove it.” She takes the sweater from me, hangs it on a rack of flowery tunic dresses, and pulls me toward the other side of the store. She holds my hand all the way to the dog food aisle. “Damn, I should’ve gotten a buggy.”

  “Buggy?”

  “Cart.” She rolls her eyes at herself. “Buggy is the Southern word.”

  It’s easy to forget she’s from Tennessee. Standing in her skull-print dress, the toes of her Converse pointed in toward each other, she doesn’t look like she’s from Tennessee. The way her fingers are laced with mine and her soft palm nestled against me doesn’t feel like she’s from Tennessee either.

  Which is stupid, because of course there are gay women in the South, but still.

  “Stay right here,” she tells me, and I obey.

  I think I’m lost in a fog.

  She comes back with a cart that has a wobbling front wheel. “It was the best I could find,” she says and then kicks it.

  “It’s fine,” I tell her, because it is. At this hour, on pre-Black Friday, we’re lucky she found a cart at all. She could’ve come back with one missing a wheel and I’d still consider her my conquering heroine. “First thing is food, right?”

  “Unless you want to cook for her.”

  “That is so not happening.” I can’t tell if Brooke’s teasing. Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t. I don’t care. It’s a good day when I manage to cook for myself. Cooking for a dog is not going to be a thing.

  I compensate by buying the best food I can find and little treats that look like T-bone steaks. Any dog would like that, right?

  “Oh, look!” I find a soft bed which looks vaguely like a pig. It has soft pink fluff and an arching shelter with rounded ears on it. “Princess Snowy would be adorable in that.”

  “So cute it would hurt,” Brooke says. I think she’s patronizing me.

  I care so little that I drop the bed in the cart. “Perfect. On to toys.”

  “She’s probably not going to feel up to playing for a while.”

  “This is my new toy. I can decorate it how I like.”

  Brooke grabs my forearms. Her skin is soft but her fingers are not. She’s gripping me hard. I look down at the contrast between her inked hand and my tan.

  “She’s not a toy. If that’s going to be your attitude, she might as well go back to your cousin. A dog relies on you for everything. They trust you with everything they’ve got. They’re not like people.”

  “I know.” I mean, I do. She doesn’t have to be quite so intense about it. The light in Target is excessively bright and the scent of eighty-one different dog foods is getting to me. My eyes tear up. “I know. I was just teasing.”

  “Okay.” Her hold on my forearms slides down, her fingertips gliding over the insides of my wrists and making me jolt way down low in my body. She ends by clinching my hands and stays there. “I just wanted to make sure. Sorry.”

  “No, no,” I assure her with a squeeze of her hands. A completely altruistic squeeze, too. It has nothing to do with wanting to touch her and feel her all over. “It’s fine. It’s kind of cute. You really love dogs, don’t you?”

  “Definitely a dog person.”

  I realize we’re standing in a Target aisle on Thanksgiving, staring deeply at each other, and I’m hoping so hard that she’ll kiss me that I don’t want to breathe because maybe it’ll distract her.

  So I kiss her instead.

  She’s not surprised. Her mouth opens under mine. I taste sweetness in a touch of my tongue to her lip, but then I pull back. There’s no reason to rush this. I like her breath fanning over my cheek and the nearly sub-aural huff she gives when I move away.

  I lace our fingers together. Palm to palm, I can feel her heartbeat. Maybe that’s mine, taking over my hearing. “Should I apologize?” I ask, mostly because I want to hear her say no.

  She obliges, shaking her head and smiling at me as if she can see inside my skull. “No way.”

  “Good, because I didn’t plan to.” I sound so bold. Brooke seems like she would like bold girls. I hold my breath until she laughs like I hoped she would, then I give her my best “cool girl not trying too hard” smile.

  I must have hearts in my eyes. “So, you have to have a dog, right? Since you’re so into them?” I want to know all about her. I want Thanksgiving to last for days. Weeks. An eternity.

  Eating mashed potatoes every day might get old though.

  “I don’t have one.” She turns toward the wall of toys.

  “You don’t?” I think I squeak a little. I clear my throat. I try to think of how to ask if she had a pet die, but instead I just flounder a little, making stupid noises.

  She must take pity on me. “I keep meaning to check out the shelters, but work is in the way. And if I can’t even manage that, I don’t have the time to take care of a dog.”

  “Yeah,” I agree, but secretly I’m wondering how work would get in the way. She’s the tattoo artist. Doesn’t she mostly set her own hours? But it feels like it would be rude to ask.

  I really, truly don’t want to risk this thing that’s happening between us. I’ve had connections with women a lot, and I know Sierra is always saying I fall in love too easily, but she’s way too cynical for a seventeen-year-old. This thing with Brooke is different. I can tell.

  It takes us only a half hour to check out at Target, which I’m a little surprised at. But it seems like they have every human they could shove into a red polo at the registers, and one more employee
directing customers to the registers like a Navy seaman flagging jets to land on battleships.

  The doc has the puppy waiting, and I look away as the tech swipes my Visa card. I think I hear it scream in pain. Brooke helps me load the drugged-out doggie into my backseat and drives us to my apartment. She carries Snowy’s meds, my purse, and the pie upstairs, leaving me free to cradle the neon-yellow cast on the poor baby’s leg.

  “You can put all that down on the kitchen counter,” I say as I kick open my front door. “I’m going to get her settled in here.”

  The living room is about the size of a postage stamp, so getting her laid out fills the space between my small couch and my TV. Tiff gave us a blue tarp since she said Snowy will be very drugged for the first three days, but I can’t bear to lay her straight down on it. She won’t be cozy. I give Brooke directions, and she grabs a towel from my bathroom closet. Somehow it makes Snowy look even tinier, her scruffy black fur against the white towel. We put water near her and follow the vet’s other directions.

  I plop down on the couch once everything is done. “You think she’s going to be okay?”

  Brooke sits on the arm next to me. Her skirt falls to my thigh. “Sure. Tiff knows what she’s talking about.”

  “Yeah, but Snowy is so tiny.” And fragile and innocent.

  Brooke touches the back of my neck. “She’ll be fine.”

  I want her to promise. I settle for rubbing my cheek against her arm. I sigh, and my sigh is a fishing line between us. Invisible, yet taut with tension pulling from both directions.

  She leans closer, and I stretch upward until we meet in the middle.

  Oh, she tastes like heaven. She tastes like everything that could still happen in a thousand years. Promise. Excitement. My happiness.

  This kiss is magic. This kiss could make me.

  I keep my eyes shut and let it unfold. She’s so soft. I want to grab her and haul her down on top of me. I don’t. Maybe next time.

  Except once she backs away, she doesn’t seem as elated as I feel. She trails her fingertips over the line of my cheek. She’s looking at my mouth, my hair. Not quite at me. She sighs in a different way than I did a moment ago.