Live from New York, the Esme Weiner Show

Simon was hunched over the register the next afternoon, digging in the cash drawer like a dog after a bone. “Veronica,” he said when he looked up, “I’m running a business. Not a petting zoo. When are you going to take that dumb beagle off my hands?” Cadbury was alone again in the back. She wanted to punch Simon in the face for calling Cadbury dumb.

“Simon, don’t you have somewhere to be? Like the bank or at a meeting with your accountant or something?” Esme said. She was cradling a labradoodle puppy in her arms. In addition to her usual assortment of safety pins she was also wearing a plastic smock. Some dog must be getting a bath today.

“Snap,” Ray said. Ray might wear his pants low like a thug but Veronica thought he was a chicken. He’d never talk back to Simon. He probably didn’t even have the guts to talk to Simon in the first place, let alone talk back. Esme, on the other hand, wasn’t scared of anything.

“I do have somewhere to be, as a matter of fact,” Simon said, surveying the three of them. He held a crisp twenty-dollar bill up to the light, admiring it fondly before putting it in his wallet. “And when I return there better be a lot more money in that drawer. Capiche? You got three hours till closing. I want one more big sale.” He grabbed his keys and walked out the door.

Ray glanced at Esme and Veronica thought if he could, he would tell Esme how much he admired her moxie. “You look like a shower cap,” he said instead.

“Really? You smell. Like you need a shower,” Esme said. Her smock squeaked when she walked and Veronica giggled. “Cadbury’s still in the back, Veronica. You can take him out if you want to.”

Veronica scooted to the back of the store.

“You know another reason labradoodles are a stupid breed?” Esme called out to anyone who would listen. “Their ears are so woolly they always get ear infections. It is practically cruel to create a dog that is going to be so uncomfortable. Mutts, I tell you. Mutts are where it’s at.”

“Why you always got to say something about everything? Why can’t you just, like, be happy or something?” Ray turned up the radio, getting lost in a song declaring life an endless dance party.

Veronica sat with Cadbury, who tried, enthusiastically, to get some good sniffs of Veronica even though his cone was in the way.

“Ray. Have you learned nothing from me?” Esme asked. “America is falling apart. There is no affordable housing. No middle class. No attention to infrastructure. It is just consume, consume, consume, waste, waste, waste.”

Ray gave Esme a look and turned off his radio. He walked toward her and stuck a rubber bone under her mouth like a microphone. “Please join us tomorrow for another hour of Everything Wrong with the World, with your host Esme Weiner.”

Esme laughed. So did Veronica, even though it seemed like Esme really should have a radio show or some platform somewhere so she could expound on all her favorite topics.

“Seriously,” Esme said, “we should be taking care of what already exists instead of just always inventing and buying new things. The earth and its well-being should be the religion we organize around. Don’t get me started on honeybees. Do you know that there is a village in China that had to pollinate the trees themselves? It took, like, a whole year.” She fussed with the hose and the knobs, feeling the temperature of the water.

“But, Esme,” Veronica chimed in, “aren’t you kind of saying that since puppy mills are so bad, dogs in pet stores shouldn’t be bought? What about Cadbury. You know how much I wish I could buy him.”

“Oh, my poor sweet innocent child,” Esme said. Veronica waited for the rest of that thought, but Esme turned to the puppy instead. “Here, how is this temperature?”

The labradoodle licked Esme, which Esme seemed to take as an indication that the temperature was good. She sprayed the puppy and managed to pay perfect attention to his shampoo as she went back to addressing Veronica. “Of course, Veronica, this is no life for Cadbury. I am just saying if I were God, there would be no pet stores, no puppy mills. There would only be a way to rescue and foster animals. Okay, my little hypoallergenic friend, you are clean.”

A wet labradoodle is not a pretty labradoodle. The little puppy looked ashamed. He shook himself off with a force that was impressive.

Ray got completely soaked.

“Esme! What the—?” he yelled. Veronica and Esme laughed uncontrollably.

“Can you believe some rich lady with a botoxed kneecap is going to come in here and spend over two grand on this dog?” Esme asked.

*   *   *

Five minutes later, a curly-haired family came in and bought a leash, a harness, a fancy leather collar, twenty pounds of dog food, and a hundred dollars’ worth of dog toys, and paid $2,570 for the labradoodle.

Could it really be that easy for some people? Veronica pressed her face into Cadbury’s cone. His breath was meaty.

“Pretty soon I won’t be able to visit as much. I’ll start getting homework,” she said. Much to her surprise, Cadbury didn’t take the news hard. His tail wagged against her lap, making such a racket Veronica had to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. He was an orphan, unwanted, covered in hot spots, imprisoned by the cone—the list of injustices was endless. But he wagged his tail uncontrollably because he could be happy under almost any circumstance.

“I want to be like you,” Veronica told him. “If I were you I’d be so mad at Simon, at living in this way, at a million things. I am mad at a million things.” Cadbury came closer and gazed at her from deep inside his cone. “But you don’t hold grudges, do you? Your glass is always half-full, isn’t it?” she said.

She hated putting him back in his cage when it was time to leave.

“I love you,” she said as she gently closed the latch.

Veronica swore she felt his heart beating through the cage. She could definitely feel her own.