by L. Duarte
“I’m not doing it for her. I’m just tired of being hungry.” I dropped to my bed. “But here’s the deal. After expenses, we save the rest, and when I turn eighteen, we’ll hit the road.”
“And go where?”
“Far away from this hellhole.”
“What about Mom?”
“She won’t mind, Jake. She’ll be thrilled to be relieved of the burden of having us around.”
Sorrow clouded Jake’s eyes. He sighed, a sigh so sad it made me want to wrap my arms around him.
I ARRIVED AT the shelter and parked beside a familiar pickup truck. Brandon and his wife, Meggie, were the founders and owners of the center that rescued abandoned dogs and cats, and helped them find a home. One or the other of them were always at the shelter, it seemed.
I hoisted my bag over my shoulder and strolled to the old brick building. Inside, the familiar smell of bleach and pine disinfectant filled the air. I waved at the receptionist. “Hey, Vanessa.”
“Hi, Luna, guess what? We got three puppies. They were left at the front door, inside a cardboard box. You gotta see them. They’re the cutest mutts in the world.” She grinned and sipped from her large strawberry milkshake. She blames her pregnancy for the constant craving, but I know better, she’s always adored the drink.
“At least they weren’t abandoned in the middle of anywhere,” I said. The previous week we got a puppy left on a deserted road. When we found him, he was dehydrated and starving. Despite our efforts, he died two days later.
“We’re waiting for you to name them,” she said in between slurps of the drink. Brandon and Meggie often reward me with naming some of the animals.
“I’m on it,” I responded, smiling genuinely for the first time that day.
I rap my fist at the office’s door before opening and entering. Brandon was on the phone with a toothy smile spread across his face. “Wonderful. We’re always in need of help. No, no, we currently have another volunteer about your age. Yeah, she’s always overloaded.” He waved to me and put a hand on the phone’s speaker. “Hi, Luna, we have a new volunteer interested. Wait a moment, though, I need to talk to you.” He motioned to the chair in front of his desk and returned to his conversation, his anxious tone giving away our dire need of volunteers. I shook my head; Brandon shouldn’t let interested people in on that little secret. Not until they’d committed to helping first.
I crossed the office and stuffed my bag inside my locker (a drawer in an old metal filing cabinet). Meanwhile, I overheard him continuing his campaign to recruit whoever was on the other line.
“Yep, sure. I’ll provide you with the initial paperwork. We need parental consent, and you’ll need to have an active health insurance and provide us with proof. We also would like a commitment of at least two hours a week, for a period of six months.” He said all of this in one breath. “But we can be very flexible, of course.”
His eyes sparkled while he listened. “As long as you agree with the requirements, fill out an application, and your parents sign a liability waiver, we’ll be good to go.”
I sank in a chair and pretended to be checking e-mail on my phone.
“Wonderful,” he said with an expression of great relief. “You need to go through orientation to be acquainted with our mission and regulations. During the orientation, we’ll provide you with a Volunteer Handbook. It’ll take about three hours. Will you be available tomorrow?”
After a pause, he continued, “Yes. Super. Today, I can give you the paperwork. I’ll give you a tour of the facility, and introduce you to the staff and volunteers. Tomorrow we’ll go through a full orientation.” He grinned again. “Perfect! See you then.”
He hung up the phone and directed his beaming eyes at me. “We got a new volunteer. He sounded very interested.”
I gave him a tight smile. I wasn’t in the mood for chatter. “What was it that you wanted to talk to me about?” I asked in an attempt to escape.
“I’ll have you mentor him. Show him around and stuff. But please, don’t scare him away by making it seem like we’re desperate for help,” he said, a deep frown in between his brows.
Is he serious? I simply nodded and gave a tight smile.
He handed me a pile of outdated brochures and envelopes. “If you have extra time, would you take care of these? We need to mail them. Our funds are running dangerously low.”
The center’s funds were always running low. “Sure, will do.” I gathered the papers and put them on top of the file cabinet. Was it all that he wanted to talk about? “Anything else?”
“No, no. Just wanted to tell you the exciting news. Another young volunteer Luna! Imagine that!”
“That’s super,” I said with my best to appear excited. I closed the office’s door and shook my head. I hoped it was no one from school.
I helped Maggie clean the kennel quickly so I could play with the puppies.
They reminded me of the Three Musketeers, so I named them Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. They were indeed the sweetest things in the universe. I settled them in the play area. I wish I could take one home.
“Hello,” a girl called, peeking her head through the door.
“Oh, hi. May I help you?” I asked.
The girl slid inside the kennel, closing the door behind her. “Hi, I’m Charlotte. Mr. Kite said it was okay for me to come and see the animals.”
“Sure, come closer, Charlotte.” I beckoned to her. “I’m Luna. I just started with some socializing time with these cuties.”
“You can call me Lottie. Everyone does.” She smiled and pushed back the glasses sliding on the bridge of her nose.
She approached, and her eyes twinkled behind the thick lenses. There was something familiar about her features.
Sitting on the floor, with one to the dogs sprawled on my lap, I asked, “Do you want to pet him?”
She leaned over to pat the furry pup. He made a sound that more resembled a lazy cat’s purr than anything else.
“Does he have a name?”
“This is Porthos.”
“We have a dog,” Lottie said.
“Yeah, what kind?”
“A golden retriever. Her name is Princess. She’s really old.”
“I used to have a dog, too,” I said.
“What happened to it?”
“It was a long time ago,” I simply said, and shrugged. “Do you want to hold him?”
“Can I?”
“Here, just don’t move too fast. He is still getting used to us.” I carefully placed Porthos in Lottie’s arms.
“Is your family here to adopt a pet?” I asked hopefully. We were running out of room. Soon we’d have to turn down animals. Which meant they would go to a different center and risk being euthanized.
“No, for volunteering,” she said, giggling as Porthos licked her face.
Oh, she must be the volunteer Brandon had talked about earlier when I arrived.
The door squeaked open, and I heard Brandon’s exultant voice. “This is our kennel.”
While Charlotte played with Porthos, I watched Athos and Aramis tugging a yellow squishy ball and listened to Brandon’s babbling. God, he was a horrible sales person. He said, “Part of your job will be filing paperwork, making phone calls, and providing tours to potential adoptees and small groups. Are you good with computers, video cameras, and photography?” Before the person responded, Brandon continued, “Are you okay with cleaning duty? Luna, one of our volunteers, cleans and feeds the dogs every evening. You could help her.”
Meggie appeared from the back of the kennel. “Oh, hi everybody,” she said.
“This is my wife, Meggie Kite,” Brandon said, by way of introduction. “This is Caleb Cahan, our newest volunteer,” he said as euphorically as someone who had just won a prize.
I froze. Caleb? It couldn’t be. I died a thousand deaths. My head whipped around to the entrance of the kennel, where Brandon and Meggie talked to Caleb.
Caleb’s eyes met mine, and he flashed his go
rgeous, white teeth at me.
“Oh, Luna will be happy to have help,” Meggie said, nodding my way. She turned to Brandon and asked, “Can you give me the pictures you want me to put on the school’s bulletin board? I’ve got to get Emilia, and I’m running late. The new dog vomited twice after we washed his stall,” she said.
“Sure. Well, Caleb this is it. Luna will show you the animals,” Brandon said and left with Meggie.
With a confident swagger, Caleb approached us.
“Cale, look, this is Porthos. I think he likes me,” the girl said. She motioned to me and added, “Luna, this is my brother Caleb.”
My eyes narrowed and I cocked my head. I tried to suppress my surprise and irritation, but the words spilled out of my lips nevertheless. “What are you doing here?”
“Volunteering,” he said with a shrug and his trademark grin, which I was starting to find very irritating. “As of tomorrow, I’ll be part of the gang.”
The surprise on my face must have morphed into horror because he chuckled, the bastard.
“You, um, you look different.” He pointed to my outfit, his eyes trailing over my body. The horror turned into full-blown panic. I almost died. Again.
“You look the same,” I said with forced sweetness.
“You know each other?” Lottie asked, furrowing her brows.
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” Caleb said at the same time.
“Do you know each other or not?” Lottie demanded.
“We, um, we have a class together,” I clarified hesitantly.
“And we have a date Friday,” he added.
“Cale, are you volunteering here because of Luna?” Lottie asked while stroking the puppy.
He smiled, full of mischief. “Giving of myself to animals in need played a role in my decision. But, yes, I thought volunteering would be a good way to start making new friends.”
“Wow, you’re smooth,” Lottie said, laughing and rolling her eyes, “but handsome.” She lifted her eyes to me. “All my friends say he is hot,” she observed. What a strange thing for her to say. “Do you think so too, Luna?”
Whoa! Did Lottie think there was something going between her brother and me?
“Enough, Lottie.” He reproached his sister the same way I would Jake.
She frowned. “What?” she protested. “You say girls are hot all the time.”
“That’s different!” He defended himself.
I collected the drowsy puppy from Lottie. “You’re good with animals. Being in a strange place, and the separation from his mother had made him hyper,” I said, returning the dog to a crate.
“Brandon wanted you to show me the kennel,” Caleb said with an idiotic grin.
“Follow me.”
The tour only lasted a couple minutes. I showed him the animals and explained their schedule and the procedures of how to handle them. When the mini tour was over, I pointed to an animal on the far end and said to Lottie, “Go check that cat, he just got here.”
When Lottie raced to see the animal, I turned to Caleb. “Why are you here?”
“Giving back to my community,” he said with what had to be mocking altruism.
“Cut the crap. How did you find out I volunteered here?”
“You shouldn’t go around acting like you think so highly of yourself.”
“Urgh. Pointless. Talking to you is pointless.” I narrowed my eyes and pointed a finger at his chest. “Piece of advice? Keep your mouth shut. You tell a soul about my khakis and you’re dead.”
“Chill, your rep is safe with me. Besides, everyone knows you work here. It’s not like it’s classified info. Andrew was the one who told me.”
“Well, they don’t know the details,” I said, planting my hands on my hips. I didn’t advertise my volunteering. It was for college-application purposes only.
He raised a cocky brow and said, “That you transform into an angel, talk like a fairy, and cuddle with kittens?” His eyes skimmed over my body. “I assure you, your secret is safe with me. I don’t want any other guy having the same fantasies about you that I’ve been having for the last half hour.”
AND THAT, LADIES and gentlemen, was the most horrifying moment of my meager existence, thus far. Why, one might ask. Well, there’s no way to put this nicely, so let me be blunt. I blushed. Yes, and it was mortifying. I didn’t do girly stuff, blushing was for the weak. What would be next? Giggling? Fainting?
“Are you for real?” Before he answered, I raised my hand. “No, don’t bother.” I was trying damn hard to be nice. I was. And he had the nerve to flirt with me? My patience was as stretched as the strings on a cello before a concert. Partly because of his tease, but mostly because of how I reacted. It was so out of character for me.
He reached his hand over and softly caressed my cheek. “You look different with this blush covering your face. Prettier.”
“I don’t blush.”
“Yeah, you definitely do.” His tongue skimmed over his lower lip before he sank his teeth into it.
Wow, he probably believed he was the most beautiful thing on two feet. Either that or he was hell bent on irritating me.
“I think you might have a crush on me,” he said playfully in a sexy, husky voice that tugged something in my belly, way down low. I was starting to think that there was something seriously wrong with me.
“From where I’m standing, I’m not the one doing all the stalking,” I said, pressing my lips into a tight line.
He had the decency to remain silent. We stared at each other. I refused to look away. My interactions with him had ended up with enough humiliation as it was.
“Lottie, time to go.” He finally called over to his sister, breaking eye contact.
Turning his face to me, he smiled and said, “See you tomorrow, love.”
They said good-bye, leaving a speechless me behind.
Since I had already cleaned the cages, I turned my attention to my last job for the day, “cuddle with the kittens.” I gathered Teardrop and nested her on my chest. “Hey, sweetie, you look much better today.” She purred and nudged my hand.
My recent interaction with the new student played over and over in my head. I needed to understand my reactions to him. It was the second time I had seen him, yet, it was as if he put me in some kind of a fog and I acted impulsively. Pathetic! On the occasions I had faced him, my rational side took a break, and my brain turned into a mushy piece of chewed gum. Or maybe it was the fact that he had accosted me at a vulnerable moment. If there was one time I let all the barriers down, it was when I was with the animals at the shelter.
I admit, I was a bit of a contradiction. While I was the fierce, bitchy, and cocky hustler elsewhere, at the shelter I allowed a sweeter side to surface, one that had almost disappeared after Dad’s death.
Often I wondered which side of me was the truer one. The bravado was for self-preservation. Inside, I was always terrified of the world, but worse, I was afraid of losing my essence. My mood swings were so often and so violent that I constantly gave myself whiplash.
Perhaps Megan was right, and I did have some sort of psychiatric disorder. Yes, her comment did bother me—a lot. So I looked up the symptoms of bipolar. I even did one of those self-tests over the Internet. Though the results were insufficient for a formal diagnosis, I certainly presented a number of the symptoms (ten out of twelve).
In a span of five minutes, I went from feeling strong, fierce, and brave to feeling defeated, insecure, and afraid. Surely, something had to be wrong with me.
Then again, hormones could turn the most stable of us into volatile beings. Yeah, I’m talking about that curse called menstruation. In my case, three dead giveaways told me it was that time of the month otherwise known as PMS. I craved pickles, had a dire need to commit murder, and cried over re-runs of The Lion King. My point being is that once women cross that milestone at puberty, there is no stopping the raging monthly bitch from flaring up. A few of us—I’m certainly not included on t
he list—try to tame the beast and succeed. Those rare species should be thoroughly analyzed by the scientific community.
I picked up Snowball and placed her next to Teardrop. It was time for them to socialize. “Go on. Welcome your new friend,” I encouraged Snowball, who proceeded to lick her paw. “I know, it’s hard meeting new friends.”
She remained stoic.
“You wanna know something, Snowball? The tricky thing about fear is: It wears a different mask every day.”
I scooped Fern from a cage. She was extroverted and sweet. “Here, you two need a push.” I placed the cat on the floor. Fern stared at the other shy cats and purred. I tossed a few toys on the ground and sat next to them. We could learn a lot from animals, especially the rejects. All species of the animal kingdom are one and the same, and though humans have sophisticated habits, deep inside we are just as primitive.
My foot stomped on the brake. I was too distracted to be sitting behind the wheel.
“Damn, Luna,” Jake said as his hand flew to brace against the dashboard of the car.
“You want to kill us both?” He grunted as I swerved to avoid a collision with a car cutting in front of us. He exhaled a sigh of relief and lit a cigarette.
When we started dealing, we had agreed that we would abstain from using drugs. Not long after, Jake had picked up smoking. He argued that cigarettes and an occasional buzz from liquor were okay. I disagreed, but through osmosis, we were both developing habits we hadn’t wanted to.
“Sorry, buttercup,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“What’s with you?” he asked with smoke billowing from his lips. “You seem on edge. Everything okay?”
“No, I’m cool. Everything’s cool.” Considering the minimal amount of sleep I got the previous night, everything was peachy. That morning I had to double my already heavy makeup. The dark circles under my eyes were advertising to the world that something bothered me.
“Go ahead inside. I have a date with Max,” I said, parking the car.
“See yah,” Jake said, slamming the car’s door shut.
Five minutes later Max slid inside the car and collected his usual coke.