twenty-three

Tom was almost vibrating with excitement when he picked me up bright and early Tuesday morning. He had three dog crates in the back of his van—two big ones side by side for Jay and Drake, and a medium for his yet-unnamed puppy girl. Hers was snugged up to theirs at a right angle, just behind the front seats. I smiled at a plastic caddy full of cleaning supplies—a spray bottle of water, another of diluted Dawn, a third of no-rinse dog shampoo, several elderly hand towels, a roll of paper towels—resting on a clean crate pad next to the puppy crate. Leave it to Tom to be prepared for a carsick baby dog.

Jay hopped into his crate, wiggling his nubby tail, and Drake thumped back at him. I stuck my fingers between the bars of Drake’s crate and he pushed his velvety muzzle against them. “Brace yourself, old man,” I said. He cocked his head and lifted the base of his ears as if to say Why would I do that?

“There’s coffee in the thermos.” Tom leaned over and kissed me, handing me a travel mug in the same motion. “And breakfast in the cooler.”

“You don’t look like you need much more stimulant, Dr. Saunders.” You look like you might leap out of your skin. As soon as I had the lid back on my mug, he backed out of the driveway, a big grin on his face. I glanced at the doggy boys, both of them panting happily. “The boys are in for a surprise,” I said.

We beat the morning rush and were on I-69 headed south just as the sun prepared to clear the treetops. Tom slipped a Grupo Putumayo disc into the CD player, set it to background volume, and sang along to the beginning of “Madre Selva.” I took my own advice to the dogs and tilted my seat back a tad, savoring the morning light and the pleasure of being cocooned in a small space with three of my favorite friends. The coffee was rich and warm and smooth, with no acid bite and just a suggestion of cinnamon. I reached for the cooler, hoping for a bear claw or at least a bagel with cream cheese.

“You call this breakfast?” I asked, pulling out a container of sugar-free low-fat Greek yogurt, a baggie of hard-boiled eggs, and an orange.

“You said you were cutting out sugar and bread.”

“And you believed me?” I sighed, fished a spoon from the bottom of the cooler, and opened the yogurt. “At least it’s key lime.”

“If you start to feel faint, we’ll stop at the first rest stop and get some junk food from the machines,” said Tom, patting my knee and grinning sideways at me. “Shopping trip a success?”

“It was.” We laughed about the sales clerk’s confusion over my status as daughter, not mother, of the bride, and I changed topics. “Still no sign of Bonnie.”

“No. I talked to most of the neighbors within about a mile last night. But there’s a lot of land, and more than a little of it covered with woods and brush.”

The idea of that lovely little dog lost or hiding alone out there made my stomach heave. “We have flyers out all over the place, and Giselle has been posting to social media. Luckily, I had some pretty good photos of her from Saturday. Bonnie, not Giselle.”

We rode in silence for a few minutes. Leo had been abducted once, and my eyes still burned when I thought of that time. As far as I knew, Tom had never had a pet go missing, but I’m sure he could imagine the pain and guilt, fear and second-guessing the experience brings on. Even if Bonnie wasn’t our dog, her disappearance had spurred a lot of dog lovers to help with the search. I knew that if we found her, someone would give her a good home.

The sun cleared the tops of the trees and slammed into the side of my head. I pulled the visor to the side and down, but it didn’t reach far enough, so I gave up on my semi-reclining position and re-adjusted my seat. Maybe it was my movements, maybe it was the brighter light, but the mood in the car shifted again.

“Guess what?” Tom’s face was all grin.

“Let me guess … You’re getting a puppy?”

He laughed. “That too. But there’s more.”

“You have a new book contract?” That was true, too, but it was week-old news. Tom had signed a contract with Indiana University Press for a book on something to do with herbs and magic among New Agers in the desert southwest. He’d spent the previous summer doing fieldwork in Arizona and New Mexico, so much of our early relationship had developed over the phone and through emails.

Tom pulled me back to the moment. “More.”

“I think you’re going to have to tell me.”

“The house is sold!” He was practically bouncing in his seat.

“Yeah? The second showing?”

He nodded. “I accepted the offer last night. The realtor called while I was out looking for Bonnie, and I signed the paperwork on my way home.” He grinned at me.

“So now we wait to see if they get the loan approval? How long—”

“Nope.” Another glance and grin my way. “It’s a cash deal.”

I couldn’t imagine having enough cash to pay outright for a house. “No kidding?”

“They’re moving back here after thirty-five years in the Bay area, so they came with big-time equity from their house,” he said. “And they want to close and take possession as soon as I can get out.”

Whoa, screeched both my little voices. I’d been counting on a leisurely adjustment period between offer and closing to let me ease all the way into this realignment of the earth’s axis. I’d been living alone for decades. So had Tom. Neither of us was completely inflexible, but we had developed our own ways of living. It’ll be fine, said Janet Devil, eager as always for adventure and risk. Oh dear oh dear oh dear, muttered Janet Angel. He’s tidy. You’re not. He cooks. You don’t. He’s easy going. You’re a hot head. He minds his own business. You snoop. Not that I hadn’t thought of all that many times already.

“Janet?” Tom’s voice, still excited but stitched through with a slender thread of worry.

“That’s great news!” I said, meaning it. “I was just thinking … . I’ll have to speed up the reorganizing.” I had promised to clear out my guest-cum-storage room to make an office space for Tom, and I hadn’t made much progress. Plus we had to decide which pieces of whose furniture we wanted to keep. I might have to take Goldie up on her offer to lock me out and purge, as she put it, “all this crap.” And then there was the little matter of Phil Martin’s pet limit bill. “So, what are you thinking, time wise?”

“How does May Day sound?”

May Day! May Day! “Perfect,” I said.