Love is a Four-Legged Word: The romantic comedy about canines, conception and fresh starts

by Michele Gorman

  Her parents never used platitudes about her beginnings. They didn’t call her chosen or special because she was adopted. She was simply their daughter. That’s why she was special. The same way her brother was special because he was their son. They didn’t sugar-coat her birth story either, and they didn’t tell outsiders about it. It was hers, they said, to share or not as she wanted.

  She’d been taken by Social Services at birth from a young woman who couldn’t look after herself, let alone a baby. Shannon was the woman’s third child. Her first two had already been adopted by other families and Shannon came to her parents straight from the maternity ward.

  Of course she’d had questions over the years about her ancestry. She wondered if it was genetics making her so lanky (probably, since she ate like a pig) and who to blame for her ginger hair (that was a mystery). Once she asked if her birth mother had loved her. Her parents were honest about that, too. They guessed she did, since she had tried to keep her babies. Shannon could go on the adoption register when she was eighteen if she wanted, they’d said, and possibly meet her to ask. She didn’t do it, though. She felt like her birth mother’s circumstances were tragic enough without stirring things up for the poor woman eighteen years later. Besides, aside from the ginger mystery she was satisfied with her parents’ answers. She didn’t long for blood-related parents or siblings, cousins or aunties. Her family had always been her family.

  ‘I did look at my adoption records when I was at uni, but there were no big revelations in there. My parents had told me the whole story already. They never made a big deal out of it, like your parents probably haven’t made a big deal that you’re genetically theirs. They never made me feel like it made any difference. So it hasn’t.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Rufus, ‘it just seems like the kind of thing you’d mention at some point to your best friend. You never tracked down your real parents?’

  Her fist found its strength again. She put her hand in her cardigan pocket. ‘They are my real parents! Crikey, haven’t you been listening? I’m banging my head against the wall for nothing if you can’t at least see that. Seriously, Rufus, this isn’t about me. It’s about you. You need to get some perspective or you’re going to lose the best thing that has ever happened to you.’

  As she stalked off, leaving him standing alone on the pavement, she realised it might not only be Scarlett she meant.

  Their friendship had always seemed unshakable. She was as sure of it as she’d ever been of anything. Yet his pig-headed stupidity was starting to taint her feelings for him. That was hard to admit and even harder to know how to deal with.

  By the time she picked up the pugs in the afternoon she was walking like Frankenstein’s monster. ‘Four minutes,’ she told Shaggy as she squatted down with a groan. ‘I am so unfit!’ Carefully she pulled his paw out of his pinstriped suit. ‘That’s better. Come here Velma.’ She unhooked the dog’s pale blue beaded flapper dress.

  Their owner had gone through her usual faff, searching for Scooby’s fedora this time, while Shannon waited in the hall. ‘Don’t forget, if anyone wants to post a photo…’ she’d said as she pushed more business cards into Shannon’s hand.

  ‘Hashtag Supercalipugalicous, I know.’

  She’d rung her mum on the way to the park. Partly she wanted to hear her voice. But she also had a question. ‘Do you think you’d have loved me and Simon more if you’d given birth to us?’

  ‘More? I can’t imagine how I could,’ she said in the high-pitched nasal tone that Shannon was glad she hadn’t been in line to inherit. ‘Differently, maybe, but I haven’t got anything to compare it to since I’ve never given birth. I only know how much I love you. Why do you ask, honey? I mean, why are you asking now?’

  ‘It just came up with Rufus. I told him I was adopted.’

  ‘I guess I assumed you’d told him already. Are you upset? Do you want to come over?’

  ‘No, no, I’m fine. I only told him because of some issues he’s having. He doesn’t think he could love an adopted child like he would his own.’ It sounded like an accusation. She hoped hearing it wouldn’t hurt her mum. ‘He thinks biological love is different.’

  Her mum was quiet for a moment. Thinking. She always thought a lot about everything. Shannon got that from her, genes or no genes. ‘I guess, maybe, if there is a difference, it’s that my love for you and your brother began the day I met you. It grew from there. I guess when you carry a baby it starts for the parents before the birth. But I think that love for your child is absolute once you feel it. At least it is for me. And, if you think about it, only the mother carries the child, so Rufus couldn’t feel the same pre-birth bond to a biological baby that Scarlett, for example, might. His love will have to grow from outside, as it were, anyway. And we know how devoted some fathers are to their children.’

  Shannon smiled into the phone, thinking of her dad. She really couldn’t have asked for better parents. ‘Thanks, Mum. Love you.’

  ‘I love you too, honey. Did you remember your brother’s birthday on Monday?’

  ‘… Yes.’

  ‘I can tell when you’re lying, Shannon.’

  Parents were parents after all.

  The pugs strained at their leads when they spotted Mr Darcy’s greyhounds in the park (Josh, she reminded herself, he was Josh). It was an unlikely friendship between the dogs – they didn’t exactly match each other stride for stride when they played – but it worked.

  Josh unclipped Stevie and Nick, who charged at the pugs to get in some quality bottom-sniffing time. It was a reach for the pugs to reciprocate.

  He was wearing his Dark Side of the Moo tee shirt again. It seemed to be his favourite. It was becoming hers, too.

  They coordinated their walks with the greyhounds and pugs now, meeting every day for a few minutes at least. And time had smoothed the sticky bits of their conversation as they got used to each other.

  A raven-haired teen started pointing at the dogs. ‘It’s them, yeah? It is! It’s like, Zoella but with dogs, yeah?’ she said to her friend as she took out her phone. ‘Supercalipugalicious.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Shannon said. ‘I’m really sorry, but could you wait just a minute?’ She rushed to the dogs as fast as her seized-up legs would let her.

  ‘What’s up?’ Josh asked as she shoved a dress into his hand.

  ‘Put this one on Velma, please. No, wait, it was Daphne, the black one with the wonky eye. Sorry!’ She called to the teen, who had her head cocked sideways. ‘I’ll just be a minute. You want them in their outfits, right? I mean, yeah?’

  Getting wriggling dogs into costumes wasn’t nearly as easy as getting them out, but she couldn’t let them be snapped au naturel. Anastasia would have a fit if she found out Shannon undressed them as soon as she got round the corner. She’d probably be fired.

  She arranged the dogs on the grass – in what Anastasia claimed was their homage to The Great Dogsby – and let the teens Instagram to their hearts’ content.

  ‘Well, that was weird,’ said Josh when they’d left. ‘Supercalipugalicious?’

  Shannon rolled her eyes. ‘It’s their owner’s blog. She dresses them in these weird outfits and takes photos. It is totally weird but it’s a huge blog. Well, you saw. That girl recognised them even without the outfits.’

  ‘And you dressed them up because…?’

  ‘Because I take the stupid outfits off as soon as I leave the house so they’re not humiliated.’

  Josh watched the dogs. ‘Those costumes are cruel.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘Really cruel. We’ll need to make it up to them.’

  We! ‘What have you got in mind?’ Suddenly her heart felt again like she was sprinting, even though she was standing perfectly still.

  ‘Well,’ he said with a glint in his beautiful green eyes. ‘I’m not sure dogs are allowed in many restaurants, so I guess we’ll have to have dinner together without them.’ He waited for her answer.

  �
��I’d love that. Though I do feel bad for leaving the dogs out.’

  ‘Then let’s take them for a walk now, and then meet for a meal later? I– If you don’t mind spending that much time around me in a day.’

  She couldn’t think of anything she’d like more. As they set off with the dogs, her phone started to vibrate in her pocket. ‘’scuse me a sec.’ It was Rufus. He probably wanted to apologise.

  She turned off her phone. ‘It’s not important.’

  It was about time it got to be her turn.

  They met at a little Italian restaurant near the university. ‘You look pretty,’ Josh told her as he kissed her cheek and pulled out her chair.

  She looked down at her floral dress and orange tights. ‘Thanks, so do you,’ she said. He was still in jeans, but he’d traded his tee shirt for a finely woven black jumper. Or maybe the tee was still under the jumper.

  She tried not to imagine what was under his jumper. She’d never make it through the starters if she dwelled there.

  The décor was straight out of a Dolmio advert, complete with bunches of fake grapes nailed to the walls and Chianti bottles dripping with candle wax, but she liked the kitsch of it.

  ‘Do you live far?’ she asked, then tried not to look like she was suggesting they go back to his.

  His expression was sheepish. Maybe he was thinking the same thing. ‘No, I’m back near the park, but I know the restaurant from uni days. My parents always took me here when they visited. Jesus, that sounds sad! Just to be clear, I have been out to restaurants without my parents, too. I am a big boy.’ His blush deepened at the innuendo.

  She was glad they had that in common. She’d hate to be the only one who always stuck her size sixes in her mouth.

  The waft of garlic nearly overwhelmed her when the waiter brought their starters. ‘Mmm, this was a good suggestion,’ she said, breathing in the tomatoey aroma of the minestrone she ordered.

  But she didn’t get to taste it. Instead of shifting her chair closer to the table and daintily dipping her spoon into the soup like a normal woman would do, she shifted the bowl closer.

  It was a bit too fast for the laws of momentum not to have an effect. A tidal wave of hot soup sloshed over the wide lip round the edge of the bowl. She watched it pour over the edge of the table. Then she felt it pool in her lap.

  Of course she hadn’t put her napkin down first.

  ‘Did you just…?’ Josh asked.

  She nodded. ‘I did.’

  ‘Isn’t it hot?’ When he trained his green eyes on her she nearly forgot to answer him.

  ‘Mostly it’s wet,’ she said. ‘Will you excuse me for a minute?’

  She gathered as much dignity as she could with a lap full of minestrone soup, blotted up some of the mess with her napkin and went to the loo to rinse out her dress.

  The two women who came in while she was in her bra and tights were surprised to find her feeding her dress into the hand dryer, but they were sympathetic.

  As far as first dates went, nobody could say it wasn’t eventful.

  Their conversations tumbled over one another, carrying them through the first seating, then the second and finally to the point that the waiters were conspicuously cleaning the floor around them. ‘I guess we’d better go,’ Josh said about half an hour after he paid the bill.

  He put his hand gently on her back as they walked together outside.

  ‘This was–’ she said.

  ‘I’m really–’

  ‘Sorry, go on.’

  ‘No, ladies first.’

  ‘I was just going to say that this was fun. Thank you.’

  He moved closer. ‘Thank you.’

  She did everything in her power not to lean in with her lips puckered.

  She didn’t need to. His warm lips met hers in a tantalisingly slow, amazing kiss. She opened her eyes for the briefest of moments. His gaze was questioning.

  She wasn’t in the habit of snogging men on the pavement. But then, she reasoned, she wasn’t in the habit of not doing it either.

  She leaned in to make sure her answer was clear.

  Chapter 34

  Scarlett didn’t need to look through the window to know who was knocking insistently on her front door. That wasn’t Rufus’s style. ‘Good morning, Shannon.’ She looked fevered, though she was so pale that even the mildest chill in the air raised the colour in her cheeks.

  ‘Morning. Guess what? Mr Darcy took me out for dinner last night,’ she said. ‘We snogged each other’s faces off. Can I come in?’ She didn’t wait for an answer.

  At least someone had good news. Scarlett needed it.

  ‘I had an epiphany,’ she said.

  ‘Are we talking about sex?’

  Shannon laughed. ‘No. I wish. I think he’s really keen, though. We’re going out again tomorrow, but that’s not the point. I came to tell you about my epiphany.’

  Scarlett waited.

  ‘When I got home after our date, the one person I wanted to tell about it most in the world was you. I wanted to tell you all about it maybe even more than I wanted to be on the date.’ She shifted from one foot to the other. Her eyes darted to Scarlett’s and away again.

  That accounted for her message late last night. ‘So… good. You’re telling me now.’

  Shannon made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. ‘No! I mean, yes, I know I am, but that’s not the point.’

  Scarlett crossed her arms. ‘You keep saying that. What is the point?’

  ‘Don’t make this hard. I can’t stop thinking about you and Rufus, about what’s going on. That’s normal, right, when your best friends are having trouble? But this goes beyond friendly concern for you. I care what happens to my friends, of course. I’d want to know if Julian was having trouble, and Rufus, obviously. I care a lot what happens to him, but with you it’s like my own flesh and blood is hurting and I’m… I don’t know, I’m desperate, I guess, to help you make things okay. So what I’m saying is that you’re the most important person in my life. Even when you’re being a dick, it’s you, Scarlett. You’re my best friend. Without going all lesbian about it, I think you’re my soulmate, too. That’s what I realised last night. So, I have something to say, about you and Rufus and me.’

  ‘Let’s sit down,’ Scarlett said. They moved to the table in the kitchen. ‘Do you want tea?’

  ‘No. Let me get this out.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I don’t want to lose you, Scarlett. I can’t lose you. And you can’t lose me. I know I’ve been friends with Rufus our whole lives, but you and I, we’re connected by… something. I don’t know what it is, but I know it might even be stronger than what Rufus and I have.’ She raised her closed fist. ‘Uteruses over duderuses. Yay. That’s really what I want to say. Whatever you need to do, I’m here for you. It’ll be devastating if you two break up, but if you decide that’s what you need to do, then I’ll be here to pick up the pieces for you both. And if you want to have a baby on your own, well, you won’t have to be on your own. I’ll help you. We’ll do it together, you and me. Whatever you need, Scarlett, you’ll have me here to lean on, no matter what.’

  Scarlett didn’t expect to cry. The tears just came, too full and fast to trace them back to every source. She knew that immense sadness was in there somewhere. Shannon was letting her know it would be okay to leave Rufus.

  She didn’t want to. She loved him. But she also knew herself. As intense as her love was, it would sour into even more intense resentment eventually. As months and years passed – knowing that Rufus wouldn’t, or couldn’t accept the alternatives that science gave them – it would wear away all the good that had been in their relationship. Then the whole thing would be left threadbare, even the part that had been so tightly woven that it seemed bulletproof.

  But she could keep that part of their relationship in her life, if only in her memory, as long as she didn’t give it the chance to turn.

  It would mean raising a child on her own. It terrified her to do that, but
with Shannon at her side, she felt like she might have the strength.

  ‘You really will do that for me, won’t you?’ she said through her tears.

  ‘Of course I will! We’ll be just like the two mummies from your book. Only without the living together part. Or the sex. Sorry about that. I’d rather get off with Mr Darcy.’

  Scarlett laughed. That felt good. ‘Thank you, Shannon. I love you.’

  ‘I love you, too.’ When she gathered Scarlett into her skinny arms, they felt as secure as steel.

  ‘I’ve got to get to Margaret’s,’ she said when Shannon let her go. ‘Today’s Biscuit’s last session.’

  Shannon nodded. ‘I’ll take the dogs with me.’

  And just like that they were back to normal. Only stronger, together.

  She thought about Shannon’s proposal all the way into London. Because that’s what it was, right? It was a proposal, and a promise.

  As good as it felt to have Shannon’s support, she couldn’t really be happy about it. It still meant losing Rufus.

  She couldn’t let herself think about that, though, not sitting on the train. She didn’t want to be the crazy woman snivelling into her Delice de France croissant on the London commute.

  There were things that she’d have to say to Rufus, though, things that made her sick to think about. Even though he was the one making it an either/or situation, not her. No matter how she phrased it, she had to say that she wanted a nameless, faceless, possibly non-existent baby more than she wanted him.

  She felt woozy just peeking over that precipice. Once she jumped and the words went out into the world for him to hear, she couldn’t scramble back to safe ground. There was no undoing that conversation.

  Max rang just as she came upstairs from the Tube. ‘Hi, Max.’

  ‘Do you know anything about Neuticles? I’ve been reading about them on the ’net. They’re prosthetic bollocks,’ he explained. ‘Murphy would never even know he’s lost his. They’re silicone. They’ll feel like the real thing.’

  ‘You cannot be serious, Max. A boob job for your dog’s testicles?’