worked to make my voice sincere, not condescending. “I’d like to have him, if you’ll agree.”
She squinted at me, considering. “You wouldn’t take him anywhere? Like, out in public?”
When I frowned, confused, she had the decency to blush—a faint ladylike tint high in her cheeks. “I’d hate for him to be in public, at music festivals or what not. What if he had a seizure and attacked someone? I’d feel responsible even though the dog wasn’t mine anymore.”
“Music festivals?” I was astonished she’d be so brazen.
“You know, like they have at Riverscape. Outdoor concerts, that sort of thing. The fireworks downtown when the Philharmonic plays.”
All the places where Dubey was likely to be. Places where he’d recognize his dog.
“No, I’d never take him to anything like that.” But your ex-husband might, you bitch.
She looked at her watch. “Well. All right. Do I sign anything?”
After Mrs. Weiss had signed a release and clicked out the door on her high heels, Aurora said brightly, “Well, he should fit right in with your crew.”
“No, no, no,” I said. “I’m not keeping him. I’m taking him to his real home right this second.”
When I got to Dubey’s house, though, a For Rent sign stood in the yard and no one answered the door. Booker whined.
We walked around to the back, just in case. I glanced at the cat lady’s house but was relieved to see only two cats on her porch.
I peered in the back-door window of Dubey’s house. The kitchen was empty.
Back in the truck, I dug in the glove compartment, past a syringe of horse wormer and some dog treats, to find Dubey’s original report. I called the phone number listed there, but it’d been disconnected. I called the Humane Society, but they had no other information.
Booker wagged his rump at me when I clicked shut my phone.
Great. Now I had an Australian cattle dog “with seizures.”
THE NEXT DAY, WE WERE SLAMMED AT THE CLINIC—TWO hit-by-cars coming in within an hour of each other—so we were performing surgeries long into what was normally our lunch hour. I had to bring Booker to the clinic, since I couldn’t leave him at home (he chased cats and I already knew that unlike Max, Booker would kill them).
It turned into the kind of day where I was scarfing down cold bites of sandwich between afternoon appointments. Even so, at every spare moment I made unsuccessful phone calls to the three Dubersteins in the phone book.
After I sent the last surgery patient home (an hour and forty-five minutes after usual closing time), I Googled Stuart Duberstein. I found several old notices about him performing at various places around town. Nothing to indicate an address or contact information.
I drove to visit the Davids with Booker panting in my backseat. I left the dog on the Davids’ screened-in porch, collected their mail and papers, and went inside.
Big David was cooking dinner. Davy stood with a Scotch, staring into the fireplace. “Where’s Ava?” I asked Davy.
“With Carol.”
“What number is that?” I cocked my head toward his Scotch.
“Who cares?” Davy asked.
I took his Scotch from him and set it on the coffee table, then hugged him. He put his cheek against my hair. I saw Big David in the doorway, watching. I gestured to him to come over. To my relief he did. I opened my arms to include him, too. I twisted myself so that the two men embraced and I was on the outside hugging them both.
“I’m so sorry,” Davy said to Big David. “I pretended not to see you cry this morning.”
“I know. It’s okay. I pretended to be sleeping so you wouldn’t know I was crying last night.”
“I . . . I wish I knew what to say to help you,” Davy said.
“I don’t know, either.”
The smoke alarm went off in the kitchen. “Shit,” Big David said.
“I got it!” I ran into the kitchen, snatched the smoking skillet from the burner, then waved a dishtowel at the alarm until it stopped. The chicken thighs were black on the bottom but, once extricated from the skillet, not really burned.
Eventually the Davids came into the kitchen and apologized.
“Don’t,” I said. “Think of all you saw me through.”
They invited me to stay, and, sensing they wanted a buffer, I agreed. We talked of my trip, I defended Vijay to Davy, they talked about Kim, and by the time Big David brought out the dessert—a perfect cherry pie from David’s Hot Buns—we’d even laughed a little.
As we lingered over coffee,