you’re fired. You haven’t been here since Halloween. Company rules.”
“What if I was sick?”
“Too sick to dial the phone?”
He had a point. “You’re not even paying me. Can’t you make an exception? Really, I don’t think it’s too much to ask. I’m ready to do my job. I need this job, David.”
His eyes began to glaze over. My babbling was working its usual charm.
“I don’t tolerate slackers.” He scowled anew.
So much for babbling.
I rolled my eyes at him. I knew that drove him nuts.
His scowl intensified.
“I’m in the midst of a major life upheaval, you know.”
He laughed. The man’s mood swings were making my head hurt. “I’m forty-two years old, my wife’s pregnant and my teenager’s cutting school to buy peas. I’ll see your life upheaval and raise you twenty.”
Well what did you know? The man actually had noticed his family’s issues. There might be hope for him yet.
“I could make some fries.” I used my best you-can’t-live-without-me-and-I-cost-you-nothing voice, but David was visibly unimpressed.
“No.”
“Drive the Zamboni?” I choked a bit on that last word, but if that’s what it would take to smooth out my little pity-party absence, I’d do it.
“No.”
I needed this job. Heaven help me, I wanted this job. Without the ice rink in my daily schedule, I had nothing but an obedience-challenged dog and my dreams of reinvention to fill my time.
I shrugged. “I give. What’ll it take to get back into your good graces?”
“Go clean the bathrooms.”
I jumped back a step. “You have got to be kidding me. Don’t you pay someone to do that?”
His scowl morphed back into a smile--an evil smile.
“All right,” I mumbled. “But I’m lodging a complaint with Diane.”
“If you toss in a purse or some maternity clothes, you might have a chance with that.”
Surprised, I blinked at him. “You know about the shopping?”
“I’m not stupid.”
Not stupid, I thought as I walked toward the restrooms. Who knew?
David called to me just before I turned the corner. “Supplies are in the closet. Don’t forget to glove up.”
o0o
When I got home that night, it was still unseasonably warm for early November. I’d left the screen door in my kitchen cracked open for fresh air, but it had been pushed off its track.
My heart seized up in my chest. My dog had made a run for it. He’d no doubt taken off in search of a non-wallowing, well-adjusted human.
I raced out into the yard and whistled. I should say I tried to whistle, because that trick had never been my forte.
Poindexter was nowhere to be found. Even worse, the back gate stood wide open to the athletic fields behind my house. I began to run, aimlessly at first, then methodically from yard to yard, checking every inch of ground fringing the edge of the field.
Cold tears stung my cheeks, but I slapped them away. I was tired of crying. Poindexter was obviously very tired of my crying.
I had to pull myself together, and I had to find my dog.
Sure, he had issues. He chased airplanes, he avoided confrontation like the plague, and now, apparently, he’d developed escape tendencies, but I needed him.
He might be an obedience school dropout, but he was my obedience school dropout.
I dropped to my knees, not caring that they sank into what I hoped was mud. I threw back my head and I yelled. Yelled like I’d never yelled before.
In public.
In my family, we didn’t yell. Plain and simple.
But I let my voice fly, bellowing in the middle of the huge field, while the windows of my neighbors’ houses looked on. Not caring who saw me, who heard me, or what they might think.
Then I closed my eyes and prayed with all of my heart.
I stayed like that for what felt like forever until I heard a sound, faintly at first, then clear and close.
Footsteps. The jangle of dog tags.
“Lose something, Number Thirty-Two?”
My new neighbor’s voice jolted my system like a shot of electricity. I opened my eyes, twisted in his direction, and spotted Poindexter barreling straight toward me, all happy innocence and doggie glee.
I opened my arms and choked on tears of joy, having switched instantly from desperation to euphoric blubbering.
“Wh...what happened?” I wrapped my arms around Poindexter’s neck and held him to me so tightly it was a wonder the dog could breathe.
I looked up at Number Thirty-Six and the kindness in his eyes sucked every ounce of air from my lungs. He shook his head. “Mrs. Cooke knocked on my door. Said your dog was loose in the