“Parker,” Reese whispers.
I open my mouth, but all that comes out are soapsuds.
“Faith!” shouts Dr. Bryner.
Dog-flavored soapsuds. Yuck!
Great. Daydreaming. Again. I make the mistake of wiping my tongue with my hands before I realize that I’m just getting even more soap in my mouth. Amateur move.
“Darn it!” I pull up the collar of my T-shirt and use that to wipe the suds away before spitting into the utility sink. Ladylike, I know. Carley, the corgi mix who I’m prepping for the adoption drive tomorrow, dodges just in time. “Sorry,” I moan.
“Faith!” Dr. Bryner calls again from the front desk in her singsong I-mean-business-but-in-a-polite-way voice. “You think you can squeeze in another grooming before heading home? Bumble really needs the extra love. And I have a feeling this could be the weekend she finds her forever home!”
I glance up at the clock. Grandma Lou is a stickler about Thursday dinners. It’s casserole night.
Bumble, a scrappy pit mix who came to us with a face full of beestings, is practically a resident here at All Paws on Deck Shelter and Clinic. I think if she doesn’t find a home this week, Dr. Bryner’s wife, Kit, might just give in and let her come live with them.
“Yeah!” I yell back to her, as I rinse off Carley’s belly. “I’ll take care of Bumble.”
I close my eyes for a moment, letting my imagination wander back to last night’s season finale of The Grove. I knew it! I just knew Parker wasn’t dead. First of all, she’s too integral to the plot, and if they kill her off, surely it won’t be for another season or two. And second of all, I knew Meredith Souza, the actress who plays her, was just on hiatus after her very public breakup with the Dakota Ash, who plays Reese. I’m not one of those people who always has to be right about everything, but there’s something extra satisfying about being right when you run one of the biggest Grover (yes, that is our fandom name) blogs around and your theories on Parker’s mysterious disappearance have been on the record for months now. Talk about some serious Grover street cred. As if I needed any more!
I’m gloating, I know. But is it really gloating if your online persona is mostly anonymous and you’re only internally smug?
“I think not,” I mutter to no one but myself and my corgi companion.
Carley shakes the suds off in response and leaves me covered once again in dog-flavored soap. She even manages to splash the ADOPT, DON’T SHOP poster above the sink.
“Real nice,” I tell her. But I can’t hold back a laugh. The only thing cuter than a corgi butt is a soapy corgi butt. Well, actually, Dakota Ash is cuter than a soapy corgi butt. Okay, well, maybe Oscar Isaac, too. He is a literal cinnamon roll.
Katy Perry’s voice echoes out from the pocket of my apron as she sings “Hot N Cold,” interrupting the Star Wars slash fic rabbit hole my imagination had disappeared down. I run my hands down the front of my apron before answering the phone on speaker and dropping it back into my pocket. “Hello, Matty!”
“We talked about this,” says Matt. “Matty isn’t a nickname. Matt is the shortened version of Matthew. That’s as close to a nickname as my name logically gets.”
“I was trying it out. Just to see if it felt right.”
“Well, it didn’t feel right,” he says.
“I’m guessing coffee with Kenji was not a success?”
He sighs so heavily into the receiver that my speaker crackles. “He’s so worldly. Like, he cares about things like apartheid—which I had to discreetly google while he was talking, by the way—and some kind of South American beetle that’s at risk of becoming extinct.”
“Well, I’m sure you’d care about those things too if you knew more about them.”
“Faaaaaaaaaith.” He says my name in almost the same way Grandma Lou does when she’s caught me in a lie. “He wouldn’t even drink coffee on our coffee date, because the Bean didn’t have any fair-trade brews. And I’d already ordered! So he just sat there and watched me drink my greedy capitalist murder coffee. Which wasn’t even that good, by the way.”
I giggle. “I’m sorry,” I say. And I really am. Matt is aching to be in a relationship. I don’t really feel that same urgency myself. I mean, I’m all for a sweaty make-out sesh—not that I’ve had many or really any—but I barely have time to do my homework, let alone maintain a relationship. I never said anything about crushes, though. I love a good crush. It’s almost as good as the fandom high you ride when you first discover a new obsession. “I’m sure he liked you a lot.” I wish I could make Matt see what a catch he really is, but I guess we’re all a little shortsighted when it comes to ourselves. “And if he didn’t, he doesn’t deserve to get to know you—”
“Faith!”
I startle at the sound of my name, and my feet float an inch above the floor for a second before I check my adrenaline and plant my feet firmly on the linoleum.
Dr. Bryner crashes through the door and to the exam table on the far side of the room, carrying a stiff-looking sandy-colored mutt. Oh no. It must have been hit by a car. Poor baby’s in shock. Either that or Dr. Bryner has a passion for taxidermy.
“Matty, I gotta go. I’ll call you on my way home.”
“My name isn’t Matty!”
I reach into my pocket and hit the end button. “Carley, stay put.” The corgi hears the no-nonsense tone in my voice and waits dutifully as I chase after Dr. Bryner.
I take off my soapy apron and use some hand sanitizer. “What’s going on?”
Dr. Bryner pulls the stethoscope up around her ears and presses the other end to the dog’s chest. “Hmmm.” She listens for a moment more before removing the buds from her ears. “Has Skye left for the day?”
I nod. “Just me.” No vet techs.
“Help me check his veins, will you?”
“Of course.” I look down at the dog, a medium-sized mutt, for the first time. His legs are rigid and his eyes glazed over. If it weren’t for the shallow rise and fall of his chest, I’d assume he was dead.
I reach down into the cupboard across from the exam table. “Who brought him in?”
“Good Samaritan,” she says, like she’s trying to parse out a riddle. “Found the little guy on the side of the road.”
I come up with a fresh pack of needles. “Are you sure it was a good Samaritan? He looks like he might have been hit by a car.” Sadly, sometimes people bring animals in and know exactly what happened to them but aren’t so eager to take the blame.
She shakes her head. “No abrasions or cuts. Just some matted fur. A little dehydrated.”
“What can we do for him?” If anything at all. I have to wonder if the little guy is in more pain than we know.
“Let’s start with some bloodwork. And then fluids. We’ll leave him with the overnight crew and plan our next move in the morning. I might call Dr. Gerard at the university to see if he can come by for a second opinion, depending on what we find.”
I nod. I like a plan. I remember when I was just six or seven and I told Grandma Lou I wanted to be a veterinarian. She didn’t blindly encourage me like most grandparents would. She looked at me seriously and said, The hardest part about work like that, baby, is that it’s not always about helping a living thing live. Sometimes it’s about letting them die. My dad let out this nervous laugh, telling her to take it easy. Grandma Lou and Mom never censored themselves around me, but Dad wanted me to live in a rosy little bubble. Even if it was just for a little while. I don’t recall being very put off by what Grandma Lou said. I gave her a toothy grin and jumped up from the kitchen table as I announced that I was equally interested in life as a career unicorn. I guess I was leaving my options open.