CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

WILLY NILLY

The side door of the clinic clicked shut.

Griff and the silent volunteer turned their heads in unison to look at me. “What just happened?”

“Tom just got Summer Silva’d. That’s what happened,” I said, suddenly no longer the slightest bit angry at her.

Griff said to the mute volunteer, “I’m assuming no one is cleaning the kennels.”

The volunteer shook her head no.

“Would you please return these dogs to their units? We’ll keep Peanut. The real Peanut.”

The mute volunteer shook her head with great disapproval, turned the dogs around, and walked out the front doors.

“I’m afraid to make a move,” I said. “Do you think he’ll figure it out?”

Griff crept across the shiny linoleum floor to peer out the smoked windows at Tom and Summer. I followed behind, touching the real Peanut’s back, running my fingers through his long fan of a tail. “I guess Peanut doesn’t look like himself,” I said. “The other dog, what’s his name?”

“Rambo.”

“Rambo does look a lot like Peanut before he lost all his fur.” I knew from approaching the windows for the last couple of days that it was easier to see out than peer through the smoked glass into the clinic. This afforded us some cover for viewing the goings-on.

Tom and Summer chatted, and she used every flirty-girl tool in the flirty-girl arsenal. She ran her fingers through her hair, touched her lips, brushed an invisible something off his shoulder.

“Look at her go,” Griff said.

“Yeah.”

Griff and I were so entranced by watching Summer hypnotize Tom that I didn’t hear Holly enter the clinic until Peanut started to whine, and she said in a voice that was decidedly not part of a stealth operation, “What’s going on?”

Griff jumped and let out a girlie scream. Holly had a tiny cat on her shoulder, the same cinnamon color as her own hair. When she saw who we were looking at, she said, “Is that Tom?” She took a step to the door, and I grabbed the cuff of her jeans and hung on.

“That’s our bus!” Holly yanked against my hand. “Does he have Peanut?”

“No. Hol. Peanut is right here.”

She glanced at Peanut, who sat with perfect posture next to Griff like he was getting ready for a photographer. “Is he taking our bus? Is Summer leaving with him?”

“Get down.” I tugged at her leg, and she pulled back.

“Let go of me. That dick. I’ve got a few things to say to him.”

She pulled so hard I slid toward her and felt Griff grab my waistband to anchor me. “Holly. Wait. Stop!”

I said it with such authority that Griff let go of my pants. Holly stopped pulling and peered at me. We must have been a sight. Two adults crouched beneath a window, spying at two other adults standing outside, an almost-bald dog panting at our sides.

“He came for Peanut. We told him Peanut had a parasite and was pooping everywhere. Summer and Griff convinced him to let Peanut get better, and after that she would deliver the dog to Tom. Summer showed him a different dog just in case he didn’t go for it. Summer is getting him out of here.” I saw Holly heard me, but the information didn’t seem to cool her anger or change her plans.

“He thinks he can just come here and undo everything we’ve done. He thinks he’s the only person with rights.”

I held my breath. We were minutes from getting away with something, but it was clear I wasn’t going to be able to dissuade Holly from confronting Tom. She had her hand on the door. In one second either Tom would turn his head and see her, or Holly was going to stride out like the High Plains Drifter and take him down.

“Holly,” I said desperately, “if you’re going out there, please give me that kitten on your shoulder first.”

I felt the tension go out of her. She touched the kitten, and in that moment of softness, I added, “If he gets out of here, we can leave today.”

The kitten on Holly’s shoulder nuzzled her neck, and I saw Holly put the pieces together. “Peanut’s not sick. Summer showed him the wrong dog.”

“Keep your eye on the prize,” said Griff. For some reason that struck me as funny, and I let out a hysterical giggle.

“He’s going to leave him here,” she said.

“Probably forget about him.” I wanted Holly to see how crucial this moment was, but I couldn’t get control of my laughter. I clapped my hand over my mouth, and my eyes teared up.

Griff nodded, and his shoulders started to pulse with suppressed glee. “This is all kinds of wrong,” he said.

“Is this okay?” Holly looked at Griff, and he shook his head.

“We deny people pet adoption for all kinds of reasons. We aren’t denying Tom anything, but he’ll never have him delivered. No way. I can spot commitment issues a mile away.” He said this like a balloon with a pinhole leaking air as he laughed into his sleeve.

I peeked over the windowsill. Tom opened the driver’s-side door while Summer looked on. He turned toward the clinic, and Holly dropped like a stone next to us. She landed on my leg and clutched my arm. I grabbed her bicep, like I used to.

Neither Griff nor I could breathe, we were laughing so hard.

Holly smiled, and it looked like she might laugh too. If I could have, I would have held my breath. Then she let out a muted cackle, a fraction of the unbridled laugh from her college days. The kind that when she let it loose, people in the bar stopped drinking and looked on with their own private memories of happy times.

I stopped short of hugging her, but my aura reached out and circled her as if it were valentine red and filled with cotton candy.

Holly peered out the window. “He’s in the cab. He just shut the door. The brake lights are on.”

Griff and I pulled it together and scrambled so we could see out the window. Summer stood at the driver’s-side door, Tom said something to her out the window. She smiled. He patted the door twice, and the camper rolled forward.

“Okay, but how are we going to get out of here if he takes the bus?”

“Summer has it figured out. We’re going to drop off his rental in Kanab, and we can get one for us.”

Summer gave us a surreptitious thumbs-up, but then the camper’s brake lights flashed, the white reverse lights came on, and the camper crept back into position.

“Crap,” said Holly.

“Hide Peanut!” I said.

Griff sprang into action. He took Peanut’s leash and led him back into his old quarantine room.

Holly crouched next to me, and we watched Summer jump lightly onto the running board. It was easy to see her as her younger self, before life and time pushed the girl into a woman. A surge of affection for Summer bumped my anxiety up another notch.

Summer stepped off the running board and jogged toward us. She slammed into the clinic and shouted, “Shampoo! He wants the shampoo for home!”

Holly turned to me, and as if the word shampoo were the baton in a relay race, shouted at me, “Shampoo!”

I turned and was about to shout to Griff, but he rounded the corner at a sprint hugging a heavy plastic jug with a pump top.

Summer tossed Holly the rental car keys and paperwork.

Tom opened the camper door. “No! He’s getting out of the bus,” I said, thinking he really wanted to impress Summer. Make like he was a good guy.

Griff handed off the jug to Summer. It had to be heavy, but she bore it like Wonder Woman.

Summer waddled to the door, pushed her back against it, and moved into the sun in time to intercept Tom. He smiled and loaded the shampoo into the trunk.

“Get into the bus,” I said.

“Get into the bus,” Holly repeated, and I felt myself smile, and it was like no time or anger had ever lived between us.

Summer said something, and Tom handed his phone to her. I’d seen this in movies, so I knew what was happening before Holly said it.

“She’s putting her number into his phone,” I said.

“She is truly taking one for the team,” Griff said.

We watched in wordless reverence as a Tinker Bell look-alike, master manipulator, got up on her toes and gave Tom the kind of hug no man would forget. She wrapped her long, slender arms around his neck like a high school girl at a nineties prom dancing to the theme from Titanic . When she pulled away, Tom coughed, smoothed his shirt over his torso, and reluctantly stepped into the cab.

“Go home, Tom,” Holly whispered.

Summer pointed down the canyon. We all held our breath and watched the camper’s taillights until they were out of view. Summer turned, wiped her hands on her pants like she’d touched something foul, and walked into the clinic.

Holly started a slow clap, and we all joined in. One by one, in deep appreciation of Summer Silva, the girl weaned on the teat of the fake Hollywood screen kiss, we applauded. Unlike any love interest that ever existed, she brushed her hands together and without a smile said, “Do you think he bought it?”

I rushed Summer and hugged her.

She gave me a pat as if to say, Okay, sweetie, we were never in danger . “Oh, for sure.” Summer held three fingers in the air and counted down. “And, three, two, one.” The bird whistle that was Summer’s text notification chirped. With a flourish, she pulled her phone from her back pocket and read. “And so it begins.” She typed something.

Griff came up next to me and whispered, “What’s happening?”

“We are watching what every reality show is based on. Who is the better player?”

“I am a mother trucker,” Summer said and winked at us. “I just sent him a heart emoji. That is going to make him crazy.”

“It will?” Griff asked. Summer looked at him with such unabashed pity even Holly sighed.

“I’ll drive the rental car to Kanab, get us another vehicle,” Holly said.

“Nope, I will,” said Summer. “I got us into this. I’m getting us out. You and Sam have to adopt some dogs.”

Holly had a shimmer that I hadn’t seen this whole trip. These hijinks were what College Holly fed off. Even if she wasn’t shining at me directly, I felt like I had helped bring her some of that joy.

Summer giggled with glee but got serious. “As soon as we get a few miles between us, I’ll block his number, but I’ll be able to track him. I turned on his location share on his phone.” We waited and watched in wonder at the celebrity slash CIA operative in front of us. While I’d been learning that lol meant laugh out loud not lots of love , Summer had probably been planting cameras in her bushes and filming a reality TV series.

“If we adopt Peanut, does that trump any future ownership for Tom?” I asked Griff.

“Yeah. If you officially adopt him right now, he’s yours.”

Holly and I shared a glance that said, Let’s go! And we bolted from the clinic.

Holly and I race-walked to the office of adoptions. The dry sand beneath our feet hushed our steps, and I felt the sun heat the back of my neck.

“Let’s get the papers signed for Peanut and Moose and then see where we’re at.” I cringed at my accidental mentioning of Moose. I was sure to get pushback from Holly, and I didn’t want to hear it. It was none of her business if I was bringing Moose home. I gave her the side-eye, and she looked determined and not mad; relief shot through me.

“Please tell me Summer isn’t going to do something crazy,” said Holly.

I wiped the sweat from my upper lip with the sleeve of my T-shirt. “I don’t think she will,” I said breathlessly, trying to keep up with Holly’s long strides. “She knows she almost screwed this up for us.”

No admonishment from Holly, no blaming me for bringing Summer along. We were going to get Peanut out of here and to Katie. We were working together without a fight. My heart whispered like an excited sorority girl, OMG!

Inside the adoption office, Holly pushed past me and spread her hands on the counter. “We need to adopt some animals,” she said with the intensity of a parched cowboy approaching a barkeep and demanding a shot of whisky. “ASAP,” she added.

The staffer said, “Yes! Griff called. I have the papers right here for Peanut and Moose.”

“And Utah,” said Holly. “I’m taking Utah with me.”

The kitten that had slowed Holly down from confronting Tom was on her shoulder, the threadlike fluff of a tail curled lightly under her chin.

I wanted to examine Holly’s face. This was not a development I had predicted. Instead, I said to the adoption staffer, “Okay. And apparently Utah.” I drummed my fingers on the counter, wanting the laid-back woman to speed up and catch our turbo-charged energy.

Holly looked at my fingers. “What, Sammie. What? Only you can make a snap decision and adopt an animal willy-nilly?”

The staffer blinked, and I said, “Please allow my friend to adopt Utah willy-nilly.” Holly lashed out when she felt vulnerable, and I let our shoulders touch to demonstrate, however subtly, unity.

The woman pulled out a form, and I watched her write Willy Nilly for the adoptive pet name. I considered correcting her for one-half a second, but decided instead to not say a thing.

I touched the map app on my phone. “Kanab, Utah, to Madison, Wisconsin, is twenty-four hours of driving. Three of us driving all night, we will be home by noon tomorrow.”

“Three of us? Summer’s not coming.”

I stepped back, examined Holly’s face. She looked like a little kid testing a parent, like she knew she was expected to protest, but there wasn’t any conviction there.

“I think she’d like to come, and I hope that’s okay with you.”

“First Moose, then Summer? Are you that afraid to be alone with me?”

Instead of firing off a defensive comeback, I examined her face. Pragmatic but vulnerable Holly looked back at me.

“I’m not afraid to be alone with you, Holly.” I did not look away.

Holly’s expression didn’t change, but she cleared her throat. “Three people is better. Also, we can shave off some time if we speed.”

“Oh, we’re going to speed, all right.” I knew that for all our differences, we had the same goal in that moment. To get home.

It took an hour for Summer to get back, but she’d done the job. With our adoption papers in hand, we met her in the parking lot of the clinic. She had our luggage stuffed every which way in the trunk of what Holly and I simultaneously saw was a sky-blue Prius.

“Oh boy,” I said. Three grown women, two dogs, and a cat would be stuffed into that sustainable vehicle all the way to Wisconsin. A clown car if clowns had dogs. I didn’t dare complain; Summer looked proud, with a few strands of blonde hair stuck to her damp forehead and her cheeks flushed from exertion.

At the car, Summer whispered, “I think Griff likes you” and bumped me playfully with her hip.

I peered around for him, nervous, and saw him moving toward us. “It’s nice to be liked. Get in.”

Holly, with her long legs, moved out of the clinic, and we all stood back as Griff coaxed Peanut into the back seat of the Prius.

I skidded to a stop, knowing how readily Peanut passed out when faced with a tiny space. Griff, with steady hands, ushered Peanut toward the car. He said something we couldn’t hear, and the dog stepped into the back seat and settled like a Victorian traveler waiting expectantly for the train whistle to blow.

“What the heck?” Holly said. “How did you get him in there?”

Summer dumped a bag of dog food into the trunk.

“We noticed he had trouble with small vehicles when he came, but we move animals around in golf carts. We had to get him comfortable. This thing he’s wearing isn’t a harness; it’s a ThunderShirt, and that helps a lot.”

“A ThunderShirt?” Holly asked, holding Utah close to her chest.

With surprising energy Summer heaved the last piece of luggage into the diminutive trunk, along with an empty ice-cream bucket and a milk jug of water. “It’s that thing that came from Temple Grandin’s research on reducing animal stress. You wrap them in a kind of Spanx, and they feel secure.”

“She’s right. Not Spanx exactly, but it’s the same girdling principle,” Griff said. “Plus, I put this pheromone ointment on his nose. Moose is with him. Peanut is ready for travel.”

This was happening! I was more than ready to say goodbye to the sanctuary with a new roommate in the loyal and adorable Moose.

Griff hustled to my side, holding what looked like a man’s travel shaving kit. He unzipped the case filled with syringes and insulin, and I steadied it. Our hands brushed, and we made eye contact. He wanted to say something to me, but while I felt his attraction, I didn’t want to encourage it. I saw that I could enjoy someone, even feel attraction to them, but hold myself apart. That if someone showed interest in me, I didn’t have to or wouldn’t just slide into a relationship without making an active choice. Most of all, choice didn’t have to entail a conflict, but it did require knowing what I wanted.

“What are you going to do if Tom completes the paperwork?”

“He won’t. He doesn’t want Peanut. We protect animals here. We do not hand them over to people who don’t take care of them. Remember what condition Peanut came here in? Summer saved me from having a confrontation.”

“Good. I’m glad. We wouldn’t be happy if we’d compromised the ethics of you or this beautiful place.”

“You have his feeding schedule and food. Try not to deviate from it. Under no circumstances should you give him one of those whip-cream cups from Starbucks.”

With her kitten on her shoulder, Holly said, “We don’t have cat food.” She pivoted on her heel and jogged into the vet clinic.

“Not to be mean, but whenever she moves fast, she looks exactly like a daddy longlegs,” said Summer.

“Have you tried NoDoz? For the sleeping thing?” Griff asked me. He pulled a plastic container out of his lab coat pocket, lifted the top with a pop, and extracted one oval capsule. “It might help.”

“You are a full-service veterinarian, aren’t you?” I asked, wanting to say something lighthearted but also as a segue to something deeper.

Summer’s phone whistled, and she yelled, “Shotgun!” And dove into the passenger seat.

“I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done,” I said to Griff. I considered offering my hand to shake and rejected that idea.

“I’d like to see you again,” he said, his brown eyes warm and direct. “You should come back.”

Summer stuck her head out the passenger door. “Get in, Sam. We gotta get on the road.”

Griffin looked at the spot on my forehead that I’d heard other mothers call the elevens. The two vertical lines that developed after years of world-class brow furrowing from worry and trying to understand Common Core Math. With a calloused thumb, he brushed softly at the bridge of my nose. I closed my eyes, and he swept his fingers over my brow. It felt nice, but I felt no zing, no magic. Not like I did with the few moments I had spent with Drew, and we hadn’t even touched. I wanted that for myself. Even if it wasn’t with Drew. I wanted the rush and tumble of chemistry plus possibility.

Holly came scuttling out of the clinic, one hand on her shoulder anchoring Willy Nilly and the other clutching a bag of cat food and a cup. I smiled at the physical comedy of the legs, the kitten, and the determined look on her face.

He opened the door, and I dumped myself into the front seat. I lifted my eyes, my hand with the keys automatically finding their place in the ignition. Griff pushed the door shut and secured it with his hip. I tried to find the window control, only succeeding in locking and unlocking the doors in frantic succession.

The car swayed as Holly heaved the cat food into the trunk.

I finally got the window to roll down, and I said, “Thank you, Griffin. You’re really something. But I don’t think it’s good for either of us to consider something so far away, on such a small time together. But I won’t forget what you did for me here. Or what you do for these animals.”

Griffin didn’t look disappointed or hurt. Instead he seemed to understand and appreciate my candor. For my part, I realized that putting your thoughts and emotions into simple sentences was easier than building a life where those sentences would never have to be uttered.

At the front passenger-side door, Holly rapped hard on the window.

“Out, Summer. That’s my seat.”

I saw Summer silently mouth shotgun . Out loud she said, “We have got to go!”

Summer hit the door unlock, and Holly, without her usual outrage, slid into the back seat next to Peanut and Moose.

“I am not sitting with these two for long. It’s like a hot, hairy, humid Roman bath for dogs back here.”

“Griffin! Thank you for everything.”

“Yes!” Holly said and stuck her hand out the window.

I hit the gas, and we were off.

“Turn right onto US-89 N.” The GPS spoke, and Summer pinched the screen and said, “It looks like we’re on 89 for an hour, but then it’s I-70 for almost five hundred miles.”

I calculated seven hours of driving during my leg of the trip. I wasn’t sure I had the staying power for that many miles despite my resolve to pull my weight behind the wheel. I felt my arms sag, and Summer said, “I’m working on a driving schedule. You won’t have to do this for too long.”

I heard a telltale gagging from Peanut, a sound all dog owners are familiar with. A repeated hiccup-swallow sound that usually ended up in a pile of grass and undigested food.

“Peanut just threw up on my shoe.”

“Are you okay? Should I stop the car?”

Summer hit the sunroof, sucking some of the odor from the car.

“No. Keep going,” Holly said, but it came out, “No”—gulp, cough— “keep going.”

“If you give Moose a minute, I’m sure he’ll just eat it anyway,” said Summer.

“Gross,” I said and glanced at Holly. She looked pale but not too sick, considering.

“Way to hold it together!” Summer said. “Just fifteen hundred miles and twenty-two hours to go!”