Unencumbered by social distractions, she immersed herself in school and excelled in her coursework all through the primary and secondary schools at home. When she came to the states Dalaja assumed she’d perform even better at the university than her sisters, who didn’t have anywhere near the high marks Dalaja had. She had indeed done very well, at first. When there were a hundred students in a lecture hall she could hide, and study alone. As she entered the more specialized areas of study the class sizes shrunk, and personal interactions and teamwork became essential. She just couldn’t seem to make it work. Dalaja felt her classmates were erroneously interpreting her precision as arrogance. She also didn’t appreciate the jibes and little cracks about her accent and background. Her fellow Indian students found ways to bridge gaps with diverse groups, but even slurs that were clearly good natured deeply bothered Dalaja. She took them personally, and her reaction was often to point out the accoster’s academic flaws, which only added to her being viewed as smug. Her grades fell, and with them so did the only armor she had. She pulled away from her fellow students and her arrogance turned into insecurity, and even combativeness. Her poor attitude grew, and dogged her. She failed to impress her instructors, and also failed at her attempts to get into a good medical school…and then any medical school.
Out of desperation she switched to veterinary medicine, and her father still had to pull strings to get her into the vet program in Boston. Her father had always been supportive of her, and even indulgent to a fault, but her mother ruled the roost. She was tough on Dalaja, and frequently railed on her about her short-comings and poor choices. With the exception of a few prestigious clinics, veterinary medicine in India was mostly based on supporting agriculture. Pet ownership was far less common than it was in the states. Many of her mother’s peers considered it too western, and a vet in the family would generally be considered below their social standing. Her mother started to jokingly call her Kutta, and her sisters were quick to use the new nickname as well. The word means dog, and although it could be a term of endearment it was most often used as an insult.
Undaunted, Dalaja enjoyed her time at vet school. She fell in love with downtown Boston as it didn’t feel as overpowering as New York City had been. She made good marks and did particularly well in her surgical rotations. She still struggled working in teams but she thrived in the quiet and relative solitude of the operating room. Her small, deft hands also worked well in the tight spaces. She was trusted to move from dissection to live animal surgical work ahead of her peers and was given opportunities to stand in when interesting cases hit the operating rooms. She even wrote her well-received doctoral thesis on her own variant of a micro-suture surgical technique. It was published in the campus trade journal and very favorably peer-reviewed.
Where her performance in the operating room excelled, her clinical work faltered. She didn’t get along well with the patient care teams and finally had to face the fact that she just didn’t like animals much, unless they were under sedation. Being very short, and more than a little skittish, she was intimidated by the large animals and was scared by the exotics. She did better with cats and small dogs and decided to settle on pets-with-fur medicine.
Dalaja did manage to graduate, and once she had her degree she bounced around the Boston suburbs for a few years moving from clinic to clinic. Things would start out well enough at each new place but eventually she would not fit in with the other junior vets or the clinic owners. She also didn’t care much for the suburbs. She missed the city where she could anonymously observe the hustle of others’ lives. She just wasn’t well referred enough to land a position at the more upscale offices in town. With her poor bedside manner and growing attitude problem she couldn’t secure the hospital promotions needed that would allow her to do surgery exclusively. Dalaja fell into a downward spiral of serial clinic hopping. Her parents grew tired of what they called her Lambadi gypsy lifestyle, and her lack of a husband and children. Out of frustration they found a willing seller in Pembury and purchased the animal clinic for her. They paid far more that it was worth, which sent the previous owner into a happy, if premature, retirement.
Dalaja was initially upset about being forced into running a small town clinic by her mother, but when it finally sunk in that she could call the shots she was elated. She was determined to show her parents she could thrive in the states. She had no boss, the business was already well established, and Ronnie handled most of the larger animals and boring check-up visits. This allowed Dalaja to focus on the surgeries and the back room care. However, after the first year the realities of her inexperience with running a small business started to take its toll. Revenue and profits dropped off sharply as she wasn’t skilled at dealing with the vendors. The ordering and book keeping started to slip. She also struggled to forge relationships with the clinic’s customers. Ronnie could only handle so many appointments, and there were glaring differences in their bedside manners. Her vet tech easily read clients’ subtle cues and knew exactly how to handle concerns about cost, or when to take more time when explaining a treatment. She was also a master at navigating the loss of a loved pet. Dalaja could tell she was failing miserably at handling customers in this way. Partly she was just missing those cues that Ronnie seemed to grasp without effort, but Dalaja also struggled to comprehend how her clients and their kids could get so emotional about their pets. They were just animals, after all.
She wasn’t aware that she wore most of her disdain for them on her face. She also didn’t grasp that many of her clients knew each other. The loudest ones weren’t happy unless they had someone to bitch about, and the speed at which that bitching spread around the South Shore rivaled that of a Red Sox loss.
Dalaja kept the decline in her business from her parents, but she knew her mother would again ask to see the books at the end of the year. Soon she would be faced with either going home in shame or allowing her parents to bring in someone to take over daily operation of the business, which would be equally embarrassing.
And then Dalaja met Doug Dorschstein.
He came into the clinic one day dressed in a casual suit jacket and asked to make an appointment to speak with her. He wanted to chat about her land, which bordered some property he was considering investing in.
Her property covered five acres. The clinic’s parking lot and small building, which included Dalaja’s upstairs apartment, barely took up half an acre. The rest was thickly wooded but it was already zoned for residential development. Doug suggested Dalaja let him subdivide and build houses on the land, making her a lot of money in the process. She jumped at the idea and they had several more meetings to talk through the details.
Dalaja found him easy to speak with. She also felt he was knowledgeable not only about real estate, but also business in general, and the South Shore community that was so foreign to her. Their daytime meetings moved to dinner meetings, sometimes including wine and she started to share more about her business challenges. Doug suggested there were things she could do to maximize her profits and offered to have his accountant take a look at her books. Dalaja was thrilled. She would certainly welcome any help a fellow professional could offer.
At one of those meetings Dalaja told Doug about a client that had gotten a rescue puppy from a place in Vermont that specialized in high-kill shelter rescues from down south. The client had mentioned she wished there was such a lovely organization on the South Shore that she could support. Dalaja said she thought many clients would patronize such a rescue, and Doug nodded, and smiled.
After several meetings Dalaja reviewed Doug’s development proposal numbers, and the amount of projected income was impressive.
She was excited to share this with her parents as she would need their blessing. She was crushed when both of them chastised her for wasting time working on such a foolish thought. Her mother said she should be focusing on the business, and her father said she should be finding a husband, neither of which were going well according to her sisters. Dal
aja was devastated. When she met with Doug to explain her parent’s position she wasn’t able to keep her composure and broke down. She felt so foolish and weak crying into his shoulder, but Doug convinced her not to worry. He setup a meeting with his accountant to walk through every detail of her business, and assured her he would look at her financials and give her an honest opinion for free as a favor to Doug.
A few weeks later the accountant had finished his analysis. He suggested Dalaja hire him to take over the ordering and book keeping, giving her time to focus on the operations. He said he would not charge her a dime if she didn’t make back twice that in cost savings or increased revenue, and he wouldn’t charge her for the first month regardless.
Dalaja happily agreed and the accountant quickly changed her business model. He suggested applying different markups and charges, pushing more preventative care items and admitting as often as possible. Everything made good sense, and within a few weeks he showed her they were definitely making more money.
Her life became a rollercoaster after that. She tried to keep up with the details of the supplies and the billing reconciliation but she had also started going out a few nights a week with Doug. She was drinking a lot more wine and staying up late. Their evenings out had shifted from the nicer restaurants to some of the more seedy bars, and Dalaja didn’t mind one bit. For the first time in her life she was letting go a little, having some fun, and hanging out and partying with friends. She tried pot for the first time and really liked it. It was also very nice to let someone else worry about every little detail for once.
Doug started to apply more pressure to change the way she cared for the animals. She needed to be much more aggressive with admitting animals for overnight care. The kennels were to be full as much as possible and he wasn’t happy to see any one of them empty. She also needed to push the high-margin drugs and retail items. Dalaja threw herself into being a tough American businesswoman, not wanting to disappoint her new professional colleagues or look unappreciative.
One night Doug invited Dalaja to an upcoming party at his house, and she was thrilled. She had never been invited to a party at a business associate’s home, and certainly not as an equal. She had been to a few holiday parties hosted by coworkers at the other clinics, but everyone in the office had been included. She was sure they had invited her as a necessary courtesy. She always felt strange attending those parties as she didn’t have a date to bring, was never really included in their conversations, hated to dress up, and always ended up leaving the party early while others were just starting to have a wonderful time.
She had gotten used to Doug driving when they went out. Initially she had taken her own car but Doug said he lived just down the street and didn’t mind driving, and that way if she wanted to have a drink she didn’t have to worry about driving home. She found that funny as it never seemed to keep Doug from drinking, or smoking pot, or even taking some pills, but he always seemed fine to drive.
When he said he would pick her up the night of the party she protested as he was certainly going out of his way. She was surprised to find out that he wasn’t kidding, his house was indeed just down the street. It was literally the next house past the Walker farm from her place.
As they entered Doug’s small house Dalaja immediately felt overdressed. Most of the party goers were wearing jeans, and most had on what she thought of as biker-wear. She prepared herself for the typical judging looks and was ready with her excuse to leave early but no one seemed to notice her dress or even care, and she was immediately welcomed with a beer and a joint.
The rest of the night was a blur. She met Doug’s wife Jerry at one point and she hadn’t even known he had a wife. She met construction workers and tattoo artists, all of whom were extremely friendly and had some manner of alcohol or other substance for her to try. Dalaja was having the best night of her life. She danced with Jerry and another woman they called Minty Whorebitchel who had a tattoo of a cat covering her entire shoulder.
Dalaja had never danced in public before to western music. She did finally feel as free a Lambadi gypsy, and wished her mother and sisters could see her. She was completely confident and roamed the house starting a conversation with anyone she bumped into. The party had spilled into the back yard, and she ended up having an in-depth conversation about pit bulls with a couple sitting on a motorcycle.
The night had turned chilly and she had left her sweater somewhere in the house, but she didn’t want to break off her conversation to go find it. She started rubbing her arms and hoping in place to warm up when a well-dressed Asian gentleman strode up to her and draped his huge black leather duster coat over her shoulders. It was warm and smelled good, and she drowned in it as it puddled around her ankles.
Everyone laughed, and she smiled, and Dalaja didn’t leave Liko’s side the entire evening or the next day.
Chapter 24
Ben came around the side of the house at a dead run. He slid to a stop under the rear of Mimi’s Wagoneer like he was stealing second base as he kicked up a cloud of dirt from the gravel driveway. He shimmied further under the raised truck so he was hidden by the wheels, and spun around to look back the way he had come.
He was panting and sweating in the late May sun. He waited, focused on the flowers in the beds at the corner of the house where he had just raced from. They’d be coming around it any second, and he fully expected they would blow right past him. He’d speed back around the way he came and surprise them at the far side of the house.
Ben waited, and waited.
He slid out from under the wheel a little, not taking his eyes off the corner of the house. He was ready to sprint if needed.
Still nothing came.
He crawled all the way out from under the Jeep and crouched by the tailgate, thinking, Where the heck are they?
Ben turned quietly and started to tip toe away, and looked down at two extremely small black puppies standing side by side with their tails wagging in sync, looking up at him.
“You little buggers,” he said.
He marched back into the house while dusting off his jeans as the pups followed, and struggled to keep up with their tiny legs. They stopped to slurp little licks of water in unison from a small bowl as Ben plunked himself down at the kitchen table. Mimi put a plate and a glass in front of him and he started attacking it.
“How was your hunting party’s first foray into the great outdoors, Mr. Livingstone?” Mimi asked.
“I can’t play hide and seek with them anymore,” Ben replied, “I can’t stump them. It took them two days to figure out all my best hiding places in the house, but they did it in about an hour outside. They like to sneak up on you so you don’t see them coming.”
Mimi watched the tiny pups lapping miniscule amounts of water with their eraser-tip sized tongues darting and their tails wagging together. She had just started them on water that morning, using a ramekin for a water bowl. The whole thing was a little bizarre. The puppies were just so little, and she hoped he was kidding about the hide and seek thing, or at least exaggerating.
“Your mum called,” she said, “They should be at the new house with the truck around three or so.”
“Cool beans,” Ben replied.
Mimi watched him devour the chicken sandwich as the pups finished their drink and came around the table. They sat side by side at Ben’s feet, looking up at him.
They were about the size of his shoe. The pups both looked up at Mimi for a moment and back at Ben again, and both of them yawned. Mimi watched them stand up, together, and walk into their box.
Their box in the corner of the kitchen had a towel folded up inside it, and was turned on its side so they could go in and out. They walked around each other once on the towel and collapsed together into their napping ball.
Mimi smiled down at them and said, “Cute as muckle coo calves, the pair of you.”
They certainly were adorable, but Mimi turned to hide her concerned look from Ben.
She an
d Ben had brought them in for their two week checkup earlier that morning and although they were tiny little things they checked out perfectly healthy. Mimi and Ronnie’s formula recipe and regimen of feeding seemed to be working fine. When the pups walked out of their box and into Ronnie’s hands she couldn’t find anything wrong with them, other than the fact they had walked out of the box and into Ronnie’s hands. The pups were only two weeks old, and they should barely have their eyes open. They had opened their eyes at four days instead of the normal nine to fourteen. They were crawling well at eight days and started to walk at ten, instead of three weeks like most dogs. The pups were running without a wobble the next day but had to stop every few minutes for a rest.
The other odd thing was newborn puppies normally relieved themselves only when stimulated by their mother’s licks for the first few weeks, which Mimi had been duplicating successfully a few times a day with a warm towel. On the morning of day six Mimi found the pups cuddled up in their normal little ball on the towel in one corner of their box, and there were a few little milky streaks in the opposite corner. It seemed unlikely, but they must have crawled over to the corner, messed or threw up, and crawled back. After a discussion with Ronnie she got a bigger box and put a wee pad in the corner of it. The pups used it that night, and every night since for their messes.
Dr. D stumbled around with answers like, “Maybe the trauma of their birth,” and “Complications from the postnatal diet,” but Mimi and Ronnie both knew she was grasping.
Although their early development was odd, there wasn’t anything Ronnie could recommend they do differently as they were putting on weight just fine and otherwise seemed very healthy. Dr. D suggested restricted movement and they should be admitted for observation.
Spot and Smudge - Book One Page 9