now. She stopped asking about him, which made sense. Why would he matter? On paper he was just a footnote.
A few days later I gave in once again to the email drafts in my head, and sent Masher a message.
Hi, Masher. I hear you’ve got arthritis now. That sucks. But I’m sure David’s taking good care of you and I’m here if you need anything.
I wasn’t sure what kind of response I was hoping for. I just wanted a response, period. Something to grab onto, although I didn’t know what I’d do with it once I did.
The reply came the next day: Thanks. I’ll be okay.
It wasn’t exactly an answer I could grab. But I could touch it, and that was enough.
The rest of July passed quickly. It was a busy time at Ashland, with people going on vacation and boarding their pets, animals getting dehydrated from the heat or infested with fleas. Dr. B had another vet come part-time to fill in the gaps.
I’d mastered the phones and the filing, and loved walking the dogs because they reminded me of Masher and because it forced me to explore the streets around the hospital. Unfamiliar houses owned by unfamiliar people, and I didn’t mind looking up to say hi when someone passed me on the sidewalk, because I knew I was a stranger to them. It still amazed me that even though I was less than ten miles from my neighborhood, I might as well have been in another state.
Eve found a nice family—blond parents, blond boy, blond girl, right out of a magazine—for the tabby cat twins Bryce and Denali. Then she placed Ophelia in a temporary “foster home,” aka a friend of hers who got suckered in, because the hospital needed the kennel space.
One day, we were all so busy that we had to work through lunch and Dr. B ordered in pizza for the staff. A bunny came in that had been attacked by a dog, and a cat who had a hairball stuck in its digestive system needed emergency surgery. When these kinds of life-and-death dramas swept through, I felt almost ill on adrenaline but tried to be as useful as I could. Please don’t die, I’d think while we waited for the outcome, watching the pet’s owner in the waiting room, planning to disappear if Dr. B came out with bad news. A few times, he did. I’d go into the bathroom and spend a long time making it really, really clean.
When we were finally caught up, and Tamara said Eve and I could go home, Eve turned to me and said, “I need a little coffee after that one. How about you?”
We stepped out into the late afternoon heat, and I followed her down the street to a strip mall. There was a café where we often had lunch.
After we ordered, I instinctively scanned the room to see if I recognized anyone, expecting that relief I’d gotten used to here.
Except I did see someone I knew.
Joe Lasky, sitting at the back of the room, staring at me.
I was so surprised that there was no way I could pretend not to see him. I smiled briefly at him, and he smiled back.
Okay, maybe that was that. I turned to Eve. But she looked over my shoulder and nudged me.
“Some cutie’s coming over to us,” she said.
I turned again to see Joe bouncing in our direction, a little too quickly, like he wanted to get it over with.
“Hey, Laurel,” he said.
“Hi, Joe.”
“I’m on my break from the movie theater,” he replied to a question I hadn’t asked. He pointed with his thumb to our left, and I remembered the little art house cinema at the other end of the shopping center. “What are you up to?”
“Just trying to cool off,” I said, as Eve handed me my drink.
“We’ve had a furry day,” said Eve, with no sense of how absurd that sounded.
Joe frowned. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a long story,” I said. We were all silent for a moment, so I added, “This is my friend Eve . . . Eve, this is Joe, from my school.”
“Do you guys want to join me?” asked Joe.
Eve glanced quickly between Joe and me, picking up on something. “I should get going,” she said. “But Laurel, you can stay.”
I knew I didn’t need Eve’s permission or even encouragement, but in that moment I was glad to have it. I looked at Joe now, at those eyes that had searched