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  “Well, there are a few other things I’d test for. Heartworm, parasites, things along those lines.” He leaned back on the counter.

  “Interesting,” I said, trying to act casual. I couldn’t cover up to save face if it meant Joe might not get the treatment he needed.

  “It’s rare, you know, someone dropping a dog like this at the pound, without a rescue group stepping in to take him.” He smiled and raised an eyebrow. “Take a look at this snout. He’s a purebred German Shepherd. Looks like he’s from European lines. Beautiful. And a really nice temperament.” I couldn’t help but notice that Dr. Brandt had a really nice temperament too, and a really nice smile.

  “I guess I lucked out,” I said, shrugging.

  “Down,” he said to Joe.

  Joe looked at him blankly.

  “Platz!”

  Joe just cocked his head to the side.

  “L’ahni!”

  Joe’s belly hit the exam table. Traitor.

  “Štekat’!” Dr. Brandt said, and Joe sat up and barked once. Dr. Brandt raised one eyebrow and looked at me.

  “He’s from Slovakia,” I blurted out. “I accidentally bought him online.” I wanted to hide under the exam table.

  “Well, that would explain why he’s trained in Slovak. My first guess was Germany.” He turned away for a moment and scribbled something in Joe’s file. I could see him smiling to himself, and when he turned back, his lips were firm and trembling slightly.

  “Go ahead and laugh,” I said.

  “I wasn’t going to laugh.” He looked shocked.

  “You know, I’d laugh if I were you,” I said. My face got hot. Joe nudged his head into my armpit.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “How do you accidentally buy a dog?” He smiled wide. He had nice teeth.

  “Vodka,” I said, “and a Rin Tin Tin marathon.” I knew my cheeks were flaming.

  “A dangerous combination, apparently,” Dr. Brandt said, laughing openly.

  I pulled Joe’s paperwork out of my purse and handed it over.

  Dr. Brandt smoothed the papers out on the counter and hunched over them, pointing to words on the page with his pen and muttering to himself.

  “Is he okay?” I asked. “He has all the shots he needs, right?”

  “Oh, of course! If you imported him, he had to have all the necessary injections before he got on the plane.” He gestured to the page. “See here?”

  I went over to stand next to him so I could see the paper. He smelled like soap and fresh laundry. Joe jumped off the table, pushed his way between us, and put his paws up on the counter.

  Dr. Brandt and I laughed. “He knows we’re talking about him,” he said. He scratched Joe’s head casually.

  Dr. Brandt pointed to the top of the page where it said 11/5. “This is his birth date,” he said.

  “I think there was a mix-up. They sent the wrong dog-the wrong papers. There’s no way Joe was born on November fifth.” I worried about Dr. Brandt’s abilities as a doctor. How could he think Joe could have gotten so big in just a few weeks? I didn’t know a lot about dogs, but I knew Joe couldn’t possibly have grown so huge so fast. Joe jumped down, and leaned against my legs.

  “He was born in May,” Dr. Brandt said.

  Finally, it clicked. “European dates are backward,” I said, smacking my forehead. “Eleventh day, fifth month. Oh, God! I thought they made a mistake and sent the wrong dog!”

  “You got a much bigger dog than you bargained for, didn’t you?” Dr. Brandt said.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Were you scared?”

  “A little.”

  “Are you going to keep him?” he asked.

  “Of course,” I said, shocked by the idea that I’d actually give him up. You can return a pair of jeans when they don’t turn out to be as slimming as they looked in the dressing room. You can return milk that’s gone sour before you even opened the carton. You can’t just return a dog. And, as much as Joe was driving me crazy, I didn’t want to send him back or give him up. I liked having him around.

  “Well, he’s healthy and stable. And he will calm down as he gets older. Just work with him. Make sure he gets enough exercise. Make sure he knows you’re in charge. You’ll be fine.” He copied a few things from the papers into Joe’s chart. I was still standing very close to him. My head buzzed like when your grade-school crush writes a note on your binder cover.

  He folded up Joe’s papers and gave them back to me, clicked his pen closed, and dropped it in his breast pocket. “So, looks like we’ll need to see you in three months for some shots. Take care, Ms. Leone.” He winked at me and walked out.

  Three months. It was silly, but I felt a little slighted. Shouldn’t he check back in with Joe sooner, just to make sure he was okay? By the time I thought to say “Thank you,” or even just “Bye,” he was gone.

  Chapter Twelve

  Joe had been with me for just under a week when I got the letter. I came home after a meeting to find a bright orange homeowners’ association envelope tucked into the storm door. All of the condo notices came in color-coded envelopes, because Mr. Wright, the homeowners’ association president, was the most anal-retentive person alive. Blue meant the water was being shut off for maintenance, green was always about lawn-related things-how many flamingos or gnomes or wind chimes you were allowed to display, or what color annuals you could plant-and yellow was all things electrical.

  I got an orange envelope once before, when I didn’t pay homeowners’ dues for the first three months I lived in the condo. I didn’t even know I had to, and then all of a sudden there was a bright orange envelope with an invoice for six hundred dollars and a handwritten letter from Mr. Wright explaining the importance of paying dues on time. After that, I paid two days ahead of the due date every single month, so by the time I opened the letter, I was already fuming. I’d paid my fees. There was no excuse for this.

  But I guess orange wasn’t limited to homeowners’ dues. Apparently Joe exceeded the weight limit for pets, which, according to the letter, was thirty-five pounds.

  I marched down the street to the Wrights’ unit and knocked on the door with my fist even though they had a shiny brass knocker. Mrs. Wright answered. Elizabeth Wright was a small, bony woman with sharp cheek-bones and a weary, pinched expression that never went away. Mr. Wright called her Eliza, but when we first met, she introduced herself as Betsy. He pruned her name to his liking the same way he made the bushes in their front yard look like they were made of pom-poms.

  “Oh, hi, Savannah. Come on in,” Mrs. Wright said, eying the envelope in my hand. “I suppose you’re looking for Harold.” She pursed her lips like she was eating sour cherries. “I’ll get him.”

  There was a framed watercolor of a duck wearing a kerchief and a big floppy hat in the entranceway. The condo smelled like meat loaf. I shoved the letter in my pocket, and took my leather gloves off. My hands were sweaty.

  I heard whispers in the other room, and then Mr. Wright walked over. He was wearing a smoking jacket over a white undershirt, and his salt- and-pepper hair was slicked into a bouffant. I fixed my attention on the duck until I knew my smirk was under control.

  “Ah, Savannah, I see you got my letter.” He folded his arms in front of him and leaned against the wall.

  “Yes. Yes, I did, and it’s absurd!” I pulled the wadded-up letter out of my pocket and shook it in his direction. “Mrs. Mackenzie has six garden gnomes.” I raised my hands to hold up six fingers to illustrate my point, but with holding gloves and the letter, I had no free fingers. I put my hands down. “Six. That’s three over the allowed limit for lawn adornment.”

  “Well,” Mr. Wright said, “Mrs. Mackenzie and I have an agreement about the gnomes. She- ”

  “Oh, I bet you have an agreement,” I said, loosening my scarf. The thermostat must have been set to eighty- five at least. “The unit three doors down from me has so many wind chimes I feel like I
’m in a creepy horror movie every time I walk outside. Do you have an agreement with them too?” I knew he knew about it. I’d seen him before, sitting in his living room window looking for rule book infractions through a pair of opera glasses.

  “I have to stress, Ms. Leone, that this is quite a different matter. Residents have complained.” He looked so smug. “And, if we let your dog stay”-he shook his finger at me-“the next thing you know we’d have pet lions roaming the cul-de-sac.”

  Pet lions. It made me think of Gail calling Joe a beast, and I realized where the witch hunt had started. It also meant I wasn’t just fighting Mr. Wright. I was fighting Gail and probably most of my other neighbors too. When Gail got fired up, she made it her business to get everyone on her side.

  If Peter were with me, he would know how to handle Mr. Wright. He had that lawyerly way of keeping his cool and acting appropriately. He would have looked down his nose at Mr. Wright and used words like ergo and ilk, speaking in quiet, reserved tones. I, on the other hand, wanted to pin Mr. Wright’s head in my armpit and give him a noogie. Mess up his damn hair.

  “So, because my dog is a little over the weight limit you think he should leave?” My voice wobbled. I knew I was chasing myself up a tree.

  “From my best estimate, your dog is at least fifty pounds over the weight limit,” Mr. Wright said. I could picture him in his window with his opera glasses, trying to get a good weight estimate when Joe and I walked past.

  My mind raced for a counterargument. “You don’t have a weight limit for people,” I said. I knew I was grasping at straws.

  “Weight limits for residents would be discrimination,” he said.

  “You’re discriminating against my dog.”

  “He’s not a resident,” Mr. Wright said.

  “He lives with me. He resides in my home.”

  Mr. Wright sighed. “He’s not listed on your mortgage.” He pulled at a thread on the sash of his jacket. “According to the homeowners’ association rule book, you have thirty days to find him a new home.”

  “Are the Parkers’ children listed on their mortgage? Because maybe they need to find their kids a new home too.”

  “Ms. Leone, you’re being ridiculous. Now, I can get you a list of shelters that will take-”

  “No, you’re being ridiculous! He’s my dog. I’m not going to take him to a shelter.”

  “We have these rules for a reason. We have these- ” His face was getting red. He took off his glasses and rubbed the sides of his nose.

  “Gail’s dog yaps all day long, and you let her keep him.”

  “Gail’s dog weighs seven pounds.”

  “Mr. Buggles wakes me up at five AM on Saturday morning, every goddamned weekend.” I smacked my gloves in my hand.

  Mr. Wright winced. “I understand that you’re upset, but I ask that you not take the Lord’s name in vain in my house.”

  “And I ask that you not tell me to find a new home for a member of my family.” I wanted to smack my gloves across his face.

  “It’s not safe. A dog that size isn’t safe. A bite from a dog like that could be lethal.”

  “But he doesn’t bite. And did you see Mitch’s hand when they first got Mr. Buggles? Mitch needed thirteen stitches.”

  “Exactly, and if a dog that size can do that kind of damage, think about the damage a dog the size of yours can do.”

  “That’s not the point. The point is- there are dogs who bite and there are dogs who don’t, and it’s not about size. It’s about being a good dog or being a barky, nippy piece of shit. Joe is a good dog. He’s my family.” I started crying. It wasn’t just tearing up, it was full-out crying. “Fuck!” I wiped at my face with the back of my hand.

  “Again, the language, I ask you to watch your language in my home.” Mr. Wright’s face looked like an overripe tomato.

  “Holy fucking shit! Are you happy? Gee fucking whiz!” I was bawling. The collar of my jacket was soaked. “FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!”

  “Savannah, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  “You don’t even have to ask,” I said. I walked out, and left the door open behind me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I tried to put it out of my head when I got home, but it was impossible. Joe could tell something was wrong. He finished his dinner and then circled the kitchen three or four times, whining, before he collapsed on the floor with a big sigh. “You’re telling me,” I said. He rested his head on my thigh and looked up at me with his big brown eyes. I scratched his ears and fantasized about having a truckload of garden gnomes delivered to Mr. Wright’s front yard.

  After a failed attempt to focus on a made- for-TV movie about a cheerleader who gets murdered by the class nerd, I got up and started pacing. Joe followed. We walked around the coffee table and into the kitchen again and again. Joe lagged behind and then ran up ahead of me, looking back to see where I would go next.

  I argued with Mr. Wright. First in my head, and then out loud.

  “How dare you! How fucking dare you tell me I can’t keep my dog in my home.” I slapped my hand on the kitchen counter. “I pay the mortgage. I clean the toilet. This is my house and he’s my dog and he’s not going anywhere!”

  I ranted and raved through at least a dozen trips around the first floor before I noticed Joe had stopped following me. I called to him from the living room, but when he didn’t come over to me, I walked into the kitchen to look for him. I found him hunched over by the door.

  “Hey, buddy!” I said. “Whatcha do- ”

  He started heaving. It was a loud, hollow, gulping noise and his whole body lurched forward. When he finally puked, it hit the door and splashed back on him. He plunked down on the floor when he was done, looking defeated and humiliated.

  “Joe!” I ran over to him and hugged him to me. The smell was obscene, like rancid meat, but I didn’t care. I rubbed his temples like my mom used to do when I was sick. He whimpered and pushed his head into my lap. “It’s okay, buddy. It’s okay.”

  After a few minutes, he started heaving again. He stood up, and I ran to the phone to call Dr. Brandt’s office.

  After the first ring, I realized it was ten PM. The phone kept ringing and ringing, and I knew that no one was going to answer. Feeling hopeless and scared, I started to panic.

  I was about to hang up, when someone picked up. “Hello?” answered a deep, scratchy voice. It wasn’t Mindy’s cheerful chirp. It was Dr. Brandt.

  “My dog- my dog is throwing up everywhere. I- ”

  “Okay. It’s okay. When he throws up, what’s the consistency?”

  “The consistency?”

  “Does it look like what he just ate for dinner, or is it more of a bilelike substance?”

  “It looks like dinner.” Joe stopped heaving and collapsed on the floor again.

  “It’s probably just something he ate. Don’t feed him for the next twelve hours or so, and see how he does. Okay?”

  Another round of vomit splashed against the kitchen floor. “Oh, God! He’s puking everywhere! I need help. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Ma’am, I think he’ll be fine. We’re actually closed right now, but I’ll give you the number of the emergency clinic, so if it gets worse you know who to call. Got a pen?”

  “If you’re closed- I just-I’ve never had a dog before and Joe is just- ”

  “Ms. Leone?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Well, who’s gonna forget a dog named Joe? Look, I’m pulling an overnight with an emergency. Why don’t you come down and I’ll take a look at him, if it will make you feel better.”

  “Fifteen minutes?” I asked.

  “I’ll be here all night.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I buckled Joe in the car and backed down the driveway before I realized I hadn’t changed my pukey clothes. I didn’t even care; I just wanted Joe to be okay.

  I had to knock on the door of the clinic for five minutes or so. The lights in th
e waiting room were off, but the heat lamp in the reception desk iguana tank gave off enough of a glow that I could see Dr. Brandt walking across the waiting room. He had a little hop in his step that made his hair flop in and out of his face. He came to the door and opened it with a key.

  “Ms. Leone, good to see you,” he said, with a big smile and no sense of urgency. “Come on in.”

  He held the door open for us. I walked in and Joe followed.

  “No leash?” Dr. Brandt asked.

  I rubbed Joe’s head, and he leaned up against my leg. “He still pulls like crazy. It’s easier without it.”

  “I would try for a leash when you take him out. If you work with him, he’ll get better. Come on back; I’ll take a look at him.” He gestured grandly toward the hallway behind the reception desk. I felt like he was inviting me into his home.

  “Exam four on the left,” he said, and pointed in front of me. He didn’t seem fazed by the fact that both Joe and I smelled like vomit.

  “Why are you here so late?” I asked.

  “I had an emergency call with a Golden. Car accident. She made it through okay, but- I like to make sure.”

  He pushed the pocket door on room four open, and smacked the exam table. Joe jumped up.

  “Is he okay?”

  “Let’s take a look.” He pulled open Joe’s mouth. “Tongue’s pink. That’s good.” He reached under Joe and pushed up on his stomach. Joe licked his face. “Well, that’s good. If he had bloat, his tongue would be turning purple, and his stomach would be sore. He’s fine.” He patted Joe’s rump. “Dogs get sick sometimes, and Shepherds have sensitive stomachs. They tend to be high strung. A lot of things can trigger it. Something he ate, something that threw off his routine.”

  Maybe my ranting and raving about Mr. Wright made Joe puke. I felt so guilty.

  “I think he’ll be just fine,” Dr. Brandt said, smiling.

  “Okay.” I hadn’t realized that I wasn’t taking full breaths until I relaxed enough to breathe all the way again. But once I started breathing deeper, I started crying. Hard.

  “Oh, oh, oh!” Dr. Brandt came running over to me. “Oh, Ms. Leone! He’s going to be just fine.” He put his hands on my shoulders. “Look at me. Joe is fine. He’s okay.” His eyes were clear, bright blue.