Cadbury

At three o’clock the doors to Randolf opened, spilling girls happy to be finished with their school day out onto the pavement. Veronica stood in their midst waiting for her eyes to adjust to the bright afternoon sun. She had survived her first day. Now she could visit Cadbury, the lemon beagle at Paws and Claws.

The sidewalk was slow to come into focus. The sparkles in the cement played tricks with her eyes as she followed them east. She crossed Madison Avenue, ignoring the shoe store her mother loved and the smoothie place she loved. There was no time for pizza. She could have a snack when she got home later. Cadbury was the first order of business.

At the corner of Lexington, Veronica saw the orange awning with its three white paw prints. A smile pushed its way across her face. She peered through the window looking for Simon. Simon was usually out in the afternoon, which made it her favorite time to visit Cadbury. Simon owned Paws and Claws. This made no sense since Simon didn’t like animals. Simon didn’t seem to like much of anything at all, except for making money. He tolerated Veronica when she was with her mother, sometimes he was even nice to her, but when she was alone he had no patience.

A cute Yorkshire terrier displayed in the front window jumped up on his hind legs to look at Veronica. Half his body disappeared into the mounds of shredded paper. He was so cute. Veronica wished she could buy every dog in the place. The good news was she didn’t see Simon. The bad news was she didn’t see Cadbury either. Her heart banged nervously inside her chest like a drum.

If Cadbury was gone she didn’t know what she would do.

Ray lurked in the background while Esme motioned wildly at Veronica to come inside. Esme was nineteen. She had jet-black hair with purple and blue streaks and a nose ring and a gold stud in her tongue. She had a haircut that featured long parts in the front and short parts in the back. She wore safety pins as earrings and black lipstick and lots of black eye makeup. Veronica’s mother thought Esme was trying to punish her mother.

“Why else would she try so hard to make herself unattractive?” Veronica’s own mother had said. But the more weird things Esme did to herself, the more beautiful Esme became. Veronica thought you could shave Esme’s head and cover her with bandages and bruises and a garbage bag and she would still be the prettiest person in the room. Veronica adored Esme. And since Esme had graduated from Randolf, Randolf must be a worthwhile place.

Veronica opened the door, scanning the store for Cadbury. Esme pointed toward the wall of cages in the back—there he was. Relieved, Veronica made her way to him, filling her lungs with the damp and earthy smells of animals and kitty litter and cedar shavings and pet foods. It was probably a smell some people didn’t like, but it was a smell Veronica couldn’t get enough of. It was outdoorsy, but outdoorsy in the perfect way for a city kid because it was indoors. Plus the smell of Paws and Claws reminded her of when she was little. Her mother took her there every day until she went back to work full-time when Veronica started kindergarten. Sometimes they stayed for hours. Her psychiatrist parents joked that they were going to publish a paper about a little girl who was socialized in a pet store by small animals instead of at preschool by small children.

“We could all be famous,” her father had said.

“Hi, Veronica Louise. Did your incarceration at the Randolf Penitentiary for Girls start yet?” Esme asked. Veronica curtsied in her uniform and Esme admired her from head to toe.

“Why you bother talking to that girl? That girl don’t never talk,” Ray said. Ray ruined everything. Without Ray, Veronica imagined, she would have long and wonderful conversations with Esme.

“Maybe she prefers higher life forms than you, Ray,” Esme said. “I know I do.” Veronica laughed.

“Snap,” Ray said. He shook his head, muttered something in Spanish, and went back to cleaning a hamster cage. Veronica loved the way they bickered. They bickered like family.

“Cadbury has hot spots again,” Esme said. “They’re healing well, but we had to move him.”

Veronica figured as much since Cadbury sat alone in a cage with a plastic cone around his neck and two bright red, oozing patches of skin that had been licked clean of fur gleaming on his right flank. He was desperate to get at the itchy spots. But if he kept licking he would spread the infection. He looked so frustrated. Veronica couldn’t stand it.

“Is it okay if I sit here?” Veronica said, pulling over a giant bag of bedding.

“Of course,” Esme said. “You can take him out and play with him.” Veronica gently took Cadbury on her lap, wondering if Esme had any idea how much she loved her.

There was lots to admire about Esme. She was so completely herself, for one thing. She was confident and opinionated and passionate. That was her way with people. With animals she was a little bit more respectful. With animals, she always made eye contact and asked permission before touching them, before picking them up, before petting them, before clipping their nails. Esme was going to be an animal rights activist when she grew up but until then she interned at a veterinarian’s office twenty hours a week. Veronica had no idea what she wanted to be when she grew up, but she wouldn’t mind being a lot like Esme.

Cadbury tried to lick Veronica but his cone got in the way. Veronica stuck her face right inside.

“Poor you. Poor, poor you,” she said. She was aching to take him home. For some unknown reason, Cadbury hadn’t been sold. All of his brothers and sisters had been taken home within three days of arriving, but no one except for Veronica had wanted Cadbury. Esme had a theory. Esme said no one wanted Cadbury because he was a lemon beagle. All of his spots were pale caramel, except for one brown triangle under his right front leg. He was named after a Cadbury bar.

“Lemon beagles used to be considered a mutation of the breed,” Esme said when the last of his litter had been sold. “But really, they’re so sweet. And some people say they’re calmer than the traditional black, white, and brown ones. Personality aside, they used to be put down because they weren’t desirable looks-wise, which is totally fascist but that’s another story. Anyway, that’s why I hate breeders. Correction: that is one of the reasons I hate breeders. What if my parents were like that? Oh, this child has hair we don’t care for. Put her down!”

Veronica agreed it was heinous, but she was also glad Cadbury wasn’t desired as much as his brothers and sisters. It meant he was still in her life. But for how long? If only her parents would buy him. He was getting big and this was no life for him. Her parents had bought her pets before, but the leap to dog was too far. It was incredible how many excuses they had for not buying a dog.

Her first pet from Paws and Claws was a fish named Shrimp. Shrimp died when Veronica accidentally overfed him. Poor Shrimp. Her parents bought turtles after that. But they always crawled out of their plastic habitat and that year—the Year of the Turtles, as her family had come to call it—was extremely stressful. Veronica spent most of the Year of the Turtles on her hands and knees searching frantically for escaped turtles. They blended in very well with her green carpet. She had been afraid they would die before she found them. Her parents spent most of the Year of the Turtles afraid of salmonella.

Eventually, Veronica’s kindergarten class got the turtles as a gift. They lived in a tank with a secure lid and a giant container of hand sanitizer nearby. Everyone was happier. After the turtles, Veronica pushed for a guinea pig. “I want a pet who is soft. Whose heartbeat you can feel,” she had told her parents. But her mother said she could not and would not ever willingly share her home with a rodent. So a dog was clearly the perfect new Morgan pet, right? And not just any dog, but Cadbury the dog. It was so obvious. But her parents didn’t get it. They didn’t see how time was of the essence, how every day was an opportunity for someone else’s family to scoop up Cadbury.

Her parents were preoccupied with non-Cadbury responsibilities. Her father was writing a paper about the correlation of emotions on the skin for one thing and that had totally hogged the attention of both Marvin and Marion, since Marvin read every draft to his wife. His theory was that emotions manifested themselves on the skin.

Veronica might as well be the lab rat for that idea. She was the victim of a finger rash, which flared up whenever she was upset. But the paper wasn’t about Veronica even if the theory was. Marvin Morgan would never put his family in any of his papers, so instead he had chosen his patient Edith Kreller, a name he made up to protect her identity. Edith Kreller suffered from psoriasis and an unhappy marriage. Mrs. Kreller’s emotions—her stupid psoriasis and her unhappy marriage—were all Veronica’s parents talked about lately.

Veronica was so sick of Mrs. Kreller. Why couldn’t they talk about Cadbury instead? She stroked him softly, careful to avoid his hot spots. She cooed and fawned and was suddenly struck by a lightning bolt of pure brilliance. In order to convince her parents to buy Cadbury, she had to appeal to them as professionals. They were obsessed with their patients. Cadbury was suffering from all sorts of anxiety and rashes and needed professional help too. He could be their new Mrs. Kreller. This was the answer, she was certain. But would she be able to accomplish this before someone else bought him? That was the question. She’d have to work fast.

“I will get you somehow, some way,” she whispered to her future dog. She grabbed her backpack and said a quick goodbye to Esme, who put Cadbury back in his crate.

“See, that girl don’t talk,” Ray said.

“To you, Ray. She doesn’t talk to you. But you don’t talk to her either,” said Esme.

“Snap,” Ray said and helped himself to a dog treat.