at the fence, digging to the core of the earth. She couldn’t say which one of them had scattered the marigolds all over the backyard, either. She couldn’t even guess which one had knocked Millie to the ground and then romped off to chew the garden hose left on the patio to bits as the child ate dirt. Or which one it was who had torn the bear apart and scattered stuffing across the lawn like so many snowballs—although she’d put her bets on Hazel for that one.
Mia suddenly appeared beside her holding Finn. Carly heard her sister’s breath catch, and she said, “Where’s Bo?”
“Bo?” Carly immediately yanked the door open and walked out, following a trail of cotton stuffing to the edge of the yard, where Bo was trying to fit himself through a narrow and freshly dug hole beneath the fence.
There was a lot of shouting and scolding, a lot of tears and apologies as Carly rounded up the dogs and the cotton stuffing and the bits of chewed hose. She left the marigolds on the ground and made Millie go in the house. Mia was dragging Bo by one hand, Finn on her hip.
“This is why I didn’t want a dog,” Mia said. “Does everyone understand now?”
“I do,” Carly assured her. “I totally do.”
Mia stepped inside and yanked her kids in after her. “Thank you, Carly. Call me later,” she said, and shut the door.
Carly looked down at her two mutts. They looked utterly exhausted from all their hard work and both would need baths. “Great. Juuuust great. Which one of us is going to call Mr. Sheffington and let him know this is not a piece of cake after all?” To ensure that he did indeed understand what a cakewalk this was not, Carly sent him a picture of the backyard carnage, complete with one she’d snapped of Millie and the dogs just before Mia had come roaring out of the house. Millie and the dogs were covered head to toe in dirt in the middle of those unrepentant bassets. All three beings were smiling.
Carly received a single text in response:
Ugh.
Ugh? That’s it? That’s all I get for the destroyed garden and two dogs that now need to be bathed?
Sorry.
That was the sum of his concern? He’d gone off and left his dog with a stranger, and his dog was wreaking havoc in spite of his assurances to the contrary, and his sole comments were ugh and sorry. She pictured him in a restaurant somewhere with his brother, having a great lunch and maybe even a cocktail since it was the weekend, maybe even a champagne cocktail, because apparently, the whole world got to have one while she dog-sat. He was probably checking out the girls as they went by, and swiping right, and he didn’t have time to engage with Chump Carly in Austin who was taking up space on his phone.
She took the dogs home and bathed them in the backyard, which delighted them to no end, and managed to soak herself in the process.
But things calmed down that evening after she cleaned out her car and showered off the drool and dirt and dirty soapy water they’d flung on her when they shook their coats. The dogs were exhausted and curled up, back to back, on one of the dog beds. They snored while she indulged in a medicinal glass of wine and a review of the pictures she’d taken—it would be funny if it wasn’t so horrible—and Carly could look at the two mutts and think, this isn’t really so bad. Maybe the obliteration of Mia’s garden was just a one-off. Maybe the dogs had been overexcited because the kids were running around, and really, didn’t Finn start it by picking the marigolds? That was just an invitation to a pair of dogs.
Maybe, she thought, after she’d had a second glass of medicinal wine and the evening seemed a little rosier, she needed a couple of bassets in her life. Maybe she’d be happier. She didn’t have a boyfriend. Her friends were fading away into their own schedules and demands on their time. And hadn’t she read somewhere that dogs added years to their owners’ lives? Something like that. She didn’t know how she would work out the dogs in New York, but it wasn’t impossible. Apparently people did it all the time. It would require a mindset adjustment, but she could do it.
Somehow, Carly snookered herself in those lovely hours