A New Leash on Life (18 page)

“Don’t waste your time obsessing over her. She’s involved with someone. She’s complicated. She’s moved on with her life and so should you,” he said to me, crushing out his final cigarette.

I trusted Josh. “You don’t think it’s possible that she’s still in love with me?”

“After thirteen years?”

I drew on my cigarette and pondered this. “I need to get laid, don’t I?”

He stole my cigarette from my fingers. “Now you’re speaking truths.” He inhaled the last bit of it and tossed it into the fountain below. “You need to get the control back. You’re sounding like the old, desperate Olivia. That’s painful to listen to. Get out of that mode and find some hot chick. Go have some fun.”

Later as I retrieved the cigarette from the water, I shook my head. He hit it head on. I had zero control over my feelings for her. Chloe steered this ride, and I loved the rush of it all too much to get off. I liked sitting beside her and watching her kick it into high gear. She revved my engine. The rush powered me. Her sex appeal could drive me from point A to point B in a flash. I wanted things to go right back to how they were before, before she stomped on my heart like she was crushing out a cigarette.

~ ~

To get my mind off of Chloe, I turned to Google and researched Melanie’s former lover. Scrolling before me were listings of Jacqueline LaFleur’s book in various online stores, including Amazon. I clicked onto her author page and stared at her picture. Her face was smooth and barren of makeup, her eyes happy, and her jaw strong and square. Boxy and masculine, she sported a short silver hairstyle. A gorgeous red-haired dog sat next to her, sporting a leather doggie vest, a smile planted on her face.

I clicked on her Facebook link and landed on her fan page. Her timeline showed her in many pictures with her red-haired beauty named Penny. She was tagged. Curious ever more, I scanned Penny’s page, too. Jacqueline had written a long biography. Ah, a woman with tremendous heart.

“My special angel, Penny, is a mixed-breed; a cocker spaniel, beagle, golden retriever mix with a cubby bear snout. I adopted her on March 6, 2010 at age two. Penny lived in a foster home with my friends. I first learned of Penny when my friends sent me a picture. I fell in love with her instantly. I drove immediately to meet her. When I arrived, Penny laid curled up on the couch next to my friend, Kyle.”

I adored this woman.

“Here is how Penny came into my life. Penny, docile and loving, was being fostered because a local no-kill shelter was overloaded.
The shelter took in dogs from the south who were rescued and sent north for adoption. When Penny arrived, she had an ID tag on her collar with someone’s information. At home with my sweet baby girl, I stared at her tag and contemplated calling the number, hesitant of losing Penny. One night, I called anyway. What I heard, I truly didn’t expect. Sure enough, the woman on the other end of the line knew Penny. She told me that she lived in South Carolina, where “kill shelters” were a tragic reality. She decided to go into a kill shelter one day and ask which dogs faced euthanization within those twenty-four hours. Included in that group was Penny. This lady adopted all of the dogs who were scheduled to be killed, four in all. She brought them to a vet and had them all fixed and immunized. Then she brought them to a groomer and had them shampooed and primped. After that, she contacted the shelter up north and had them shipped there and put up for adoption in a safe place where their lives weren’t threatened.”

Melanie needed to contact this lady.

I continued reading.

“She attached her name and address to the ID tags of the dogs, just in case they were lost in transit. The lady didn’t do this for any reason other than altruism. She saved my Penny’s life, and I will be forever grateful to this angel on earth who brought my ANGEL to me! So, PLEASE
consider adopting a pet from a shelter. They are filled with angels just like Penny.”

When I stopped crying, I clicked into Penny’s photos.
Penny obviously enjoyed lounging by the pool and eating ice cream cones. I loved how Penny’s face lit up when she sat next to her mama in the sidecar of her motorcycle. Jacqueline and Penny could roll. I liked them already.

Jacqueline looked like she’d be a blast to down a few beers with. A real and true person. I could picture Melanie and her together, walking down the street— Jacqueline the protector with her hand pressed against the small of Melanie’s back guiding her to the ice cream stand despite Melanie’s argument against such artificial treats.

I wanted them to reunite.

I clicked back on to her page and read over her information. Widowed, she lived in Pennsylvania and had two kids in master’s programs at Delaware State. Pennsylvania wasn’t that far. My mind raced with scenes of the two reuniting after all of these years.

I sent her a quick message telling her who I was and that Melanie, not a technical person, asked me to touch base and see if they could chat.

If they were meant to meet, so be it.

Half an hour later, my cell rang. “You should come to the shelter,” Melanie said, her voice cracking.

“Why?”

“It’s Snowball. She’s had a relapse.”

Chapter Eleven

Chloe

The staff suffered from work overload and the construction of the new wing hadn’t even begun. People dropped off more animals than the shelter could handle, and Olivia refused to turn them away. She called foster parents and other no-kill shelters scrambling to find temporary housing for them. She spent fifteen hours a day working at the shelter, and that didn’t include when she educated crowds on animal rights and responsible pet ownership issues. She answered the phone more curtly, trembled, and dashed around the shelter like her feet had transformed into roller skates. She looked ready to crack under the pressure. I’d never seen someone as dedicated and strong-willed. I told her she needed to hire more people. She told me she didn’t have time.

People scuttled in with their pets, dropping their leashes in our hands and walking out alleviated of all responsibility, like we ran a five star resort. The number of people willing to discard their family pets like they were nothing more than trash saddened me.

On Saturday, I helped out at the front desk and handled the dogs so Natalie could train a new volunteer. Olivia ran back and forth between clinic visits, caring for a relapsed Snowball. Melanie and Phil sat vigil by her side, hoping for the best. With an IV hooked up to her arm, the poor little girl slept most of the time. Melanie sat beside her, holding her head in her lap, petting her, feeding her energy, no doubt. She kept saying how she should’ve visited her at Phil’s and kept up with her daily treatments. “This is why she relapsed. She was too weak to be on her own. My treatments were keeping her strong.”

Phil patted her back and twisted his face into a sad smile shushing her and telling her not to blame herself. She leaned against him, anguish spreading across her face.

The place felt more like a morgue than a place of hope. Men and women would walk their dogs into the shelter, hand off the leash to me, Natalie, or Trevor and ask us to find their beloved pets a good home.
Are you freaking kidding me? What the fuck was wrong with people?
I could see the death of a master being a good excuse, possibly even financial hardship if the dog suffered malnutrition because the family couldn’t afford to feed him anymore due to a job loss. Any other excuse sucked. A family pet should rank above smoking cigarettes and eating cheese doodles.

Yes the accommodations were pretty, comfy, and safe for these abandoned pets, but they certainly weren’t home. No one spoiled them with constant love and petting and walking. These babies craved devotion not much differently than we did. We could’ve hired triple the staff, and we’d still lack the time to devote the kind of love they all deserved.

People browsed the kennels and cat room as if browsing furniture.
Not this one, he’s too curly. Definitely not this one, she looks too sad. This one is too tall. This one is deaf.
Why couldn’t they see the love like the rest of us could? Maybe the beige walls looked too institutional? Department stores understood this philosophy. Dress up a display with fun colors and designs and the people will come. Maybe this place just needed some art.

I went up to the front desk to where Natalie prepped a family about adopting a cat, and I called a friend I had met at a benefit dinner a few months back. I asked about the artist they had hired to paint a mural at a children’s hospital. Within minutes, I called the artist. He would arrive in three hours to consult. Before hanging up, he already fed me his ideas. He envisioned painting colorful birds, hopping rabbits, happy dogs, and curled-up cats all among a lush green field of wildflowers.

After the family left, cat-less, I asked Natalie, “Do you go home and bawl after working this front desk?”

“You get used to it, unfortunately. I used to leave here and think about the dogs shaking and shivering in their kennels alone all night long with no one to hug them or cuddle up to them. I wanted to take them all back to my house with me and spoil them with table scraps and Milk Bones and long walks on the carriage trails in back of my home. As it is, though, I already foster four of them. But too many are being dropped off, and even with the expansion, we’re still going to find ourselves running out of space.”

“Sounds like you need more help in here.”

“You think?” Her voice cranked out a soprano note. “Thank goodness for the foster families. They volunteer their homes, their food, and their time to care for these doggies until a family arrives to bring them home. If it weren’t for them, we’d never be able to remain no-kill. It only gets worse with time.”

“Olivia said she had everything under control.”

“Olivia always says that.” Natalie rolled her eyes. “She’s consumed with clinic visits from people who can no longer afford to take their dogs to their family vet office for routine shots. So, we now have a busy clinic on top of an overloaded no-kill shelter. Olivia can’t refuse any creature.” She pulled open the file cabinet and dug out a new folder. “In fact, this one time, this boy came in with a turtle and said he found it in the middle of his road and was afraid it’d get run over. The turtle was hurt and dehydrated and needed care. Most shelters as over capacity as we were would’ve turned the poor boy away. Not Olivia. She took the turtle off the little boy’s hands, reassured him she’d fix him up and return him to where he belonged, in the woods.”

I smiled at the vision of this.

“She babied that turtle, nursed him back to health, and we walked down to the creek behind the old drugstore on Main Street and released him into the wild. She cried when he crawled out of our sight.”

I could see Olivia muddied up to her knees in a creek, releasing this turtle into the wild, hoping he’d become king of the creek. “She’s certainly committed.”

“Too much sometimes,” Natalie said. “Though, she needs to wrap herself around a task during all waking hours or else she’d start pulling her hair out or banging her head against the wall. Some people just thrive in chaos.”

She needed help, and I would help her. I would set up interviews and start hiring her some staff.

So, the following week when I returned, despite her fighting me over placing ads in newspapers without her consent, I reassured her that the two interviews I had set up would be worth her while. I told her that if she disagreed with me after, I’d volunteer to clean the kennel runs for a week.

She smiled at that one.

God, I loved her smile. I loved her laugh. I loved her soft eyes. I loved everything about Olivia Clark. I wish I could’ve told her. I wished I could’ve told her the truth about Josh and have her tell me the years smoothed over the hurt and that she couldn’t wait to meet her niece.

Later on that day, she granted me another peek at that smile when I lifted a leash from the peg and volunteered to take a very hyper Mr. Chipper for a walk. Two of the volunteers had called out that day and everyone else was drowning in tasks. Trevor and Natalie introduced families to some of the cats, and in between vaccinating dogs in the clinic, Olivia had been dashing in and out to check up on Snowball.

“You’d make me a very happy woman if you could walk him,” she said, relaxing into a sweet smile. “That front door has been opening and shutting all day with visitors and vendors and drop-offs. I haven’t had a moment to eat a string cheese or pee.”

“I’m glad to help whenever. Just let me know when you’re overwhelmed.”

“It’s been busy, but, nothing I can’t handle.”

I studied her twitching eye, her tense stance. “Hmm. Okay. I didn’t mean to insinuate anything. I’m just here to help, that’s all.”

She pointed her eyes in Mr. Chipper’s direction. He wagged his tail and perked his ears. “Someone’s waiting for you.”

I looped part of the leash through the handle to form a collar. “I best not keep him waiting, then.” We locked eyes for a moment, then Mr. Chipper barked. She smiled again before I tore away to unlock Mr. Chipper’s gate. I wedged my hips in between the gated door to block him from escaping as I looped the leash around his fluffy head and pointy ears. The two of us took off towards the waiting area.

“Don’t forget poop bags are outside of the front door,” Olivia yelled.

“Oh, I know. I placed them in there first thing this morning.” I winked and strutted forward, swaying my hips more than usual. “Come on, Mr. Chipper.” I pulled him closer to my side, walking tall and in full command of this furry, strong beast of a doggie who, no doubt, could easily take over as leader with a simple nudge. “We’ll be back in a bit.” I turned for one last wave. She stood in front of me, hands on her slender hips, with a small, sexy smile resting on her lips.

I turned back and my tummy rolled in delight.

~ ~

The artist had stuck to his word and arrived in time for Trevor to unlock the shelter’s door at eight o’clock the night before. He created a masterpiece, just as he had envisioned in our meeting. He painted happy, tail-wagging pooches enjoying lush fields with purple, yellow, and pink flowers in all sizes and shapes imaginable.