Things you can acquire at a dog park:
- New friends.
- Great memories.
- Social skills.
- Conjunctivitis.
- Herpes.
Doc McHottie looked down at me, his face sympathetic and kind. Or, at least I thought his expression conveyed those emotions. It was hard to tell for sure due to all the mucus covering my eyes.
“Conjunctivitis. It’s common when dogs hang out around other dogs,” he said, wiping away the slime.
“Pink eye?”
He nodded. “The canine form, but he has something else as well.”
“What?”
He touched my lip with his rubber glove. “Doggie herpes. Or, rather, canine oral papilloma.”
All the color drained from Miss Josie’s face and she sank into a chair. When her eyes met mine, I recalled all the lovely doggie kisses I’d given her recently. Lots and lots of doggie kisses. Sweet, slobbery, enthusiastic doggie kisses. All over her face.
Note to self: At least it wasn’t syphilis.
“Is it contagious?” asked Miss Josie, a hand on her throat.
“Yes,” he said, and when she let out a gasp, he waved his hand and clarified. “Not to humans, of course. He probably picked it up at Misty Mountain, along with the conjunctivitis.”
“He got the conjunctivitis yesterday?”
He wiped some of the goo from my eyes. “No. It takes a few days for it to set in.”
“Luke,” she muttered under her breath. She might be right. No Brows seemed to notice my symptoms, and my goopy eye, pretty quickly.
Doc McHottie prescribed some cream for my eye. “He doesn’t need anything for the bump on his lip unless it starts to bother him. It should resolve on its own.”
“Good,” said Miss Josie, still pale from the shock of my herpes diagnosis. I had a feeling I would not be kissing her on the lips any time soon. I also had the feeling she planned to take a hot shower the moment we got home.
As Miss Josie turned to leave, Doc McHottie stopped her. “Josephine, I’m sorry about what happened at the picnic. It wasn’t how I intended things to go.”
“Me neither,” she said.
“And I should have been more cautious about letting the dogs off leash.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “How could you have known Capone is a nut job?”
Hey, wait a minute. Did Miss Josie call me a nut job? I tried to get a good look at her face, but couldn’t, due to the thick layer of ointment Doc McHottie had slathered all over my eyes. I blinked, tilting my head to one side. A strange sensation, and it made me think of how poor Mr. Rochester must have felt in the PBS version of Jane Eyre we’d seen the other night.
Hmmm. Mr. Rochester could be the right name for me. In my currently visually impaired state, it fit. I nudged Miss Josie, trying to do a good Mr. Rochester imitation. She didn’t get it.
“Would you care to try again?” he asked, taking off his gloves and handing her the tube of ointment. “Maybe this Saturday?”
She already had a date on Saturday. How awkward. “I’m, uh, busy that day. Would Sunday work for you?”
“Sure,” he said. “Even better.”
I looked up at Miss Josie and winked, although, in all honesty, the wink may have been a side effect of conjunctivitis and all the cream on my eyes. Miss Josie, thinking we’d shared a sign of solidarity, gave me a pat on the head.
As we walked back to the bookstore, I realized Miss Josie had come a long way in her quest not to shut herself off from the world. She’d met up a few times with her old college roommate for dinner and drinks. They hadn’t seen each other in years. And she’d gotten in touch with some of her other friends as well. No one seemed to hold the whole Cedric thing against her, or resent her in any way, so she’d been worried about nothing.
Also, two handsome men had invited her on dates in two days. At this rate, she’d find her Mr. Darcy in no time flat.
But, when we passed the coffee shop, Miss Josie paused, her eyes sad. She hadn’t read Mr. Nate’s letter yet. I wondered if she ever would.
Jackson glanced at me through the window of the café, giving me a forlorn little wag of his tail. I missed my friend Jackson. I missed Mr. Nate, too.
That night Miss Josie made me a special dinner and, after carefully cleaning my eyes, allowed me up on the couch with her to watch Persuasion. It gave me a new hero to admire, Captain Wentworth, and it also made me realize the importance of letter writing.
Although I knew I might be making a terrible mistake, I thought Miss Josie should at least take a look at Mr. Nate’s letter. I picked it up off the coffee table and brought it over to her.
“You’re right, puppy. I should read it.”
I wagged my tail encouragingly. She took it out of its envelope and read each word, her face solemn. After she finished, she folded it carefully and put it back. I watched her, trying to figure out what might be going on in her head, but I didn’t have a clue. As well as I thought I knew Miss Josie, a lot about her still remained a mystery.