by Linzi Glass
“Oh, I am sorry,” the woman said. “I just realized. The flyers that are posted everywhere. It’s your dog that’s gone missing.”
“Can you show me where you found it?” I looked up from the dog collar at her.
“Why, yes. Of course. Can I offer you a glass of water? You look a little ashen.” Her thin mouth puckered at the corners.
“No. Don’t worry. I’m fine.”
I followed her through the back gate into the alley, where a wheelbarrow overflowing with chopped-off leaves still stood.
“I was pruning. The hedges grow high awfully fast, and no one has trimmed them since my husband passed away.” She looked up at her handiwork. “Tim was an excellent gardener, you see, kept the yard pristine. I’m afraid I don’t have his green thumb.” She shook her head.
“Your garden is beautiful, Mrs….?”
“Martha. Call me Martha. And you’re Bree, is that right?”
I nodded. “I’m sorry about your husband.”
“And I’m sorry about your dog.” The sun was just starting to cast streaks of gold and orange ribbons across the sky as Martha and I faced each other in the early evening light. “I know how hard it is to be without someone you love. I see how much your dog means to you.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“By the way you ran your fingers over his collar. Touch tells us so much.”
Martha showed me the place in the bushes where she had found Danny’s collar.
I tried to imagine him sniffing the hedges and lifting his leg to mark the spot as his own, like he always did when I walked him. “You, Danny-O, think you own the whole neighborhood!” I would tell him as he lifted his leg on a wall or a tree base for the umpteenth time on a walk. “You know, some bigger dog is going to follow right behind you and claim the territory as his.” But Danny would just wag his tail and give me a big happy grin and keep on doing the thing that came naturally to him and all boy dogs, I guessed.
I thanked Martha for calling and offered to come and help her with the hedges if she needed.
“That’s very sweet of you, Bree. But sooner or later I’m going to have to get used to taking care of things on my own.” She picked up the wheelbarrow handles in her frail hands. “I was very lucky to have a wonderful husband like Tim, but I’m afraid he took care of most things, which has left me with lots to learn to do for myself now.”
I held the gate open for Martha and watched as she carefully made her way back into the garden that she had, I imagined, enjoyed with her husband for many, many years.
“Thank you!” I yelled through the fence.
“Stay in touch!” she shouted back. “I’ll say a special prayer tonight.”
I held Danny’s collar tightly in my hand and called his name over and over again as I made my way down the alley. I willed him to hear me, wherever he was. I told him that I was just as lost without him as he was right then and that I needed him back. Even though the light was fading fast now, I kept going. My bare feet were cold and the undersides cut from the sharp, biting gravel.
“DANNY!” I screamed, his name echoing back to me in the silent alley.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a dark, four-legged animal dart behind some large trash cans. I picked up my pace and shouted Danny’s name again. The animal took off. It was a dog; I could tell by the size and the gait. It was dark in shadows now, so I couldn’t make out the markings or color, but I was sure, as I had never been before, that it had to be, must be, could not be anyone, anything, but Danny.
I ran like I had never run before to catch him.
Chapter Eight
The dog ducked and darted down the alley and then kept going without stopping. I was gaining ground. Having been on the track team for a few years was now paying off. I remember telling my mother that track was taking up too much of my time right before I quit, but now I was grateful that my body was still in athlete mode, trained endurance. I moved at bullet speed, despite the searing pain in my feet. Catching Danny was all that mattered. I was close enough to see him turn and look back at me, a quick glimpse of white on his chest. My spirits rose. I screamed his name again and, for just a split second, wondered why he wasn’t turning around and running toward the voice that loved him most. “DA-AAA-N-Y!”
Just a few yards was all that stood between us now, but the world around me suddenly shifted into slow motion as horror filled my heart.
An expanse of street lay right ahead. Black asphalt, a deadly, dangerous river to cross. Then, a car’s headlights. The fast-moving dog galloping out toward it on a collision course with metal that would surely take him from me before I got him back.
“NOOOOO!” I screamed, my feet accelerating at a speed they had never reached before. Then I sprung, high and wide, every muscle in my body focused, like a cheetah onto its prey.
The night air whooshed by me. The screeching sound of brakes, the smell of rubber burning, my thigh hitting hard against the ground, a blast of pain, but beneath me was soft fur and a heart that I could feel beating louder than the car driver who yelled obscenities at me as I lay in the middle of the road with the dog pinned beneath me.
“You stupid girl!” the man bellowed. “Coulda killed you both!”
I didn’t move, couldn’t lift my head to see the person that suddenly responded to him.
“Damn brilliant, if you ask me. Haven’t seen a dog catch like that since Hurricane Katrina. I’m her mom. So sorry, sir!” a woman’s voice said.
“Danny,” I whispered into his fur as the sky and earth closed dark around me.
“Tell your daughter to be more careful!” the man yelled. I heard the sound of squealing brakes as his car took off.
I knew my feet were bleeding. My leg pulsed with pain. Then I felt someone’s hands laced through my bruised fingers and the person pulling me up slowly to sit. “Easy does it,” the woman said.
I caught a glimpse of a choke chain and leash in her hands, which she placed carefully over the dog’s head. I was dazed. My mom was in the Angeles National Forest covering a story, so who was this woman who had called me her daughter and helped me to the sidewalk, the panting dog on his leash at her heels.
“Mom, Danny,” I whispered, the world tilting as I lay my head down.
“No, not Mom, sweet pea. I had to say that to get rid of him. Didn’t need an angry man out of his car in the dark.” Long, curly hair covered my face.
“Not Mom…” I murmured, looking up at her angular chin.
“And not Danny,” she said softly. “This here is Clay.” Been trying to catch him all day. Thanks to you, we’ve got him now.”
“Not Danny. It has to be….” I mumbled.
I opened my eyes and looked at Clay, who seemed calm now beside the woman.
She had given him a dog treat and he was gobbling it down fast.
He was black, mostly, with a pointed nose and perked-up ears. How could I have thought he was Danny? Apart from their size and a splash of white on his chest, they looked nothing alike. I felt my head throb and my eyes burn.
“Clay, say thanks to the pretty girl who saved you.” The woman rubbed his coat.
“Danny.” I barely managed to get out his name. I wanted to tell her that he was my dog and he was missing, but my tongue felt thick and swollen in my mouth.
“He’s your dog and he’s missing. I know, sweet pea.” She moved toward my feet and wrapped them in her sweater. “Let’s get you some medical attention. Got a first aid kit in my truck.”
I looked at her properly for the first time. She was tall and lean and moved gracefully, like a ballet dancer. She instructed me to put my arms around her neck. I wanted to tell her that there was no way she could carry me and hold on to the dog at the same time, but she lifted me like I weighed nothing. My head was pressed up close against her neck. She smelled of lavender and wet earth, right after a rain. She held me in one strong arm and Clay’s leash in her other. When we reached her truck, which was parked in the n
ext alley, she opened the passenger door and carefully lowered me in, then whistled. Clay hopped over me into the driver’s seat. I watched him lick her face as she cooed in his ear and secured his leash to the headrest behind.
“You’re a bad boy for getting out, but you’re not going back. You, Clay-man, are comin’ home with me till we find you a better home.”
“He’s not yours?” I asked as she rummaged in the backseat.
“He’s one of my rescue dogs, who I’d placed in a home just a few blocks from here. Nice family, but careless. He got out the day after they adopted him, which was yesterday. In my book that makes them not eligible to get him back. At least they called to tell me right away.” She knelt beside me and propped my feet in her lap as she poured something cold and stingy into the cuts then wrapped a gauze bandage around them like she’d done it a thousand times before. As a final touch, she whipped out a pocket knife and snipped and tucked the ends.
“I was up all night trying to find him. Saw the flyers for your Danny dog, too, and hoped I’d find both of them. I was planning on camping out again straight through the night until you saved the day for Clay.”
She held a bottle of something unfamiliar to my lips and made me drink. “‘Elixir to fix-er’ is what my mama the homeopath always said, may she rest in peace.”
The drink tasted like sweet-scented flowers, a flavor I had never imagined before, but it seemed magically to clear my fuzzy, sore head.
“What’s your name?” I asked as she moved Clay to the back of the truck and hopped into the driver’s seat.
“Rayleen from Savannah, Georgia. You?”
“Bree from around the corner.”
She turned to look at me and smiled, her wild, caramel-colored curls bouncing like colliding music notes. There was a large gap between her two front teeth and her startling green eyes were set too far apart, yet she was beautiful in the oddest kind of way.
“Well, Bree from around the corner,” she said, and gave me a gaping smile, “which way is home?”
Home. The word sent a dull ache through me.
“Home is on Alta Drive. I’m not sure where we are right now.”
“Alta it is.” She revved the truck’s engine. “I walked this here neighborhood so many times in the past twenty-four hours, it’s startin’ to feel like I live here myself.”
“Where do you live?” I asked
“Topanga Canyon. Way the heck up there. Dirt road and no streetlights, but nobody gets to bother me and my barking pack of mutts.”
As she put the truck into reverse, I thought about how angry my parents would be if they knew I’d gotten into a car with a total stranger, a wild-haired dog saver in a truck. As we drove the few short blocks, with country music blaring from the radio and Clay adding an occasional bark, I hoped that when my mother saw my shredded feet, she would understand my taking a ride, just this once, from a woman I had just met.
Later that night I lay on the couch with a bowl of chicken soup that my mom had made for me. I’d had to explain the bandaged feet and what happened while she was out in the Angeles National Forest. I could hear her on the kitchen phone telling my dad, “Yes, Todd, she should have known better, but she couldn’t walk, for goodness’ sake, and the woman did bring her home safely. Well, then, come back and take charge. She’s understandably very upset at the moment about Danny and she got a C on a science test.”
“C-plus!” I yelled from my couch position.
She spoke a little longer to my dad, then hung up the phone and came over to sit on the couch opposite me.
“Bree, your dad says he’s sorry it wasn’t Danny that you were chasing, but now this woman knows where we live. I covered a story once about a young girl who got a ride home from a strange woman and two weeks later they were robbed. The burglars took everything out of their home that wasn’t bolted down.” She patted her hair. “This woman might be dangerous, you just never know.”
“She saves dogs, Mom.” I looked at my mother’s not-a-strand-out-of-place cap of dark hair. She was still dressed in her work suit, beige and tasteful.
She gave me a wan smile. “Just glad you’re okay, but don’t do it again is all I’m asking.” She stood up, stretched, and yawned. “Wanna come upstairs and watch TV with me?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“She’s taking me to the shelter with her on Saturday,” I said as she headed out the door.
My mom stopped in her tracks and turned to me.
“Sorry, Bree, what did you just say?”
“I said Rayleen is picking me up this weekend and taking me with her to an animal shelter where she volunteers. Look, Mom, you’re gone all day anyway. Isn’t it your weekend to play anchor?” I chose the word that I knew would make her perfect hair stand on edge.
“Not play anchor, Bree, honey. Be anchor,” my mom said.
I thought about how Rayleen had called me her daughter even though it had only been to get the angry driver who almost hit us to go away. I wanted to tell my mother but didn’t. Instead I tried the winning approach.
“Rayleen wants to meet you, Mom. She’s seen you on TV and thinks you’re gorgeous…and so smart,” I added just for good measure.
My mother walked back into the room and looked down at me. “Really? How nice of her to say that.”
Rayleen, I was sure, didn’t have a clue who Colleen Davies was. I doubted that she even watched TV, but I had already gotten myself in too deep. “Yes, that story that you did about the deaf boy who raised money to save his dying brother was her favorite.”
“Well, what do you know, someone liked the story.”
“I’ll make sure she’s here before you leave,” I added quickly. “She won’t be able to sit around and chat, though. She has to get to the shelter….”
My mother agreed that I could go with Rayleen as long as they met first and she could take down her driver’s license number. Rayleen had only lived in LA for a few months and probably had an out-of-state license. I hoped she wouldn’t mind sharing her personal details with my journalist mom.
Before I went to sleep I prayed that Danny was still alive and safe and that he would soon be back with me.
Chapter Nine
School the next day was not fun. Lulu had taken a fall off Soprano and was resting up at home, so I had to listen to Kate’s spa birthday details all by myself.
To add to my bad morning, my English teacher, Miss Jenson, asked me to stay after class so she could discuss my recent book report on Robinson Crusoe, on which I had received a stunning C, a grade I had never received before in her class. English was far and away my favorite subject. It must have been a result of all those “reporter” genes passed down to me by the newsparents—at least there was something positive that had come out of their creative hand-me-downs.
“You’re an A student, Bree, so what happened here?” Miss Jenson pointed her small chin in my direction with a scowl on her face.
“I’m not sure,” I lied. I wanted to get to my next class on time so I wouldn’t get the up-and-down stares from everyone as I walked in with a late note.
“Well, if you’re not sure, then I can’t help you. But this is not up to your usual work.” She tapped the typed essay. “Try harder next time, and take more time. This feels rushed and sloppy. Not like you at all.” She sighed and shook her salt-and-pepper pixie cut.
I promised Miss Jenson that I would try harder and rushed off to drama lab.
Ashton was seated at the back of the drama lab with an empty chair beside him. After handing Mr. Matheson my late note, I slid into the vacant seat next to him, hoping he would turn and look at me. But he didn’t.
Mr. Matheson, who had his hair in a faux Mohawk tinged with purple at the tips today, was reading the role of Helena from A Midsummer Night’s Dream in a high-pitched voice to a pretend Demetrius, who he had drawn on the chalkboard behind him. The class tittered as his voice went higher and higher in octave.
“I am your spaniel, and,
Demetrius,
The more you beat me I will fawn on you.
Use me but as your spaniel: spurn me, strike me,
Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
What worser place can I beg in your love—
And yet a place of higher respect with me—
Than to be usèd as you use your dog?
I felt my heart squeeze tight in my chest when the class laughed and applauded as Mr. Matheson walked toward the chalk sketch of Demetrius and curtsied and blew him a kiss.
“Encore!” everyone yelled. It was then, while the rest of our class was distracted, and focused on our pirouetting teacher, that Ashton turned to me. “Jeez, they sure treated dogs badly in Shakespeare’s day.”
I nodded. What had struck me about the pathetic plea from Helena was not the reference to the ill treatment of the spaniel that was used symbolically but the last line, “Usèd as you use your dog.” The words played like a song stuck in its track over and over again in my head. Had I used Danny to fill a void in me, to make me feel better, to keep me from feeling less lonely when the newsparents were gone? Did he somehow sense that he met some need, some requirement? Was he just a replacement? A gap stopper? And worse of all, did he feel all this more than he felt loved by me?
Mr. Matheson wrote an essay topic on the board and everyone jotted it down. It had something to do with why Shakespeare had truly happy endings only among the fairy folk in the play and not among the mortals. I put my head down on my desk for a second, feeling suddenly very tired by the weight of the question.
“Wakey, wakey, Bree.” Mr. Matheson rapped a ruler on his desk. Apparently he had asked me a question that I hadn’t even heard. I sat up with what must have been a down-turned mouth.
“Uh-oh, why the glum look on your face, Bree?” He walked across the classroom and stood directly in front of me.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“I asked how rehearsals were going with you and Ashton.”
The whole class turned to the back row to look at us.