Teacup Tubulence

by Linda O. Johnston

  Carlie laughed. “Yes, I do. It’s part of the gig. But I also respect privacy, at least to some extent. I won’t do anything here that conflicts with what Dante is okay with.”

  They all got to work then, everyone but me. But I did as I’d promised and called Dante to let him know what was happening. “Just filming the exterior now,” I assured him, watching that very act happen while I remained in the parking lot. “And your guy Al made it clear he’s keeping his eyes on the filming and won’t let Carlie or her crew overstep the bounds you established.”

  He laughed. “Well, we’re ready for your buddy Carlie here, too. Almost. I need you to bring a box of the collars along when you come. I’ll want to provide samples to Carlie and her gang, and we’re a little low here.”

  “Fine,” I said. “But you’d better tell Al or Jimmy. I don’t want them to think we’re stealing anything.”

  “No, we definitely don’t want that,” he said.

  The filming at the factory, though limited, took about an hour. The camera crew shot a lot of footage of just the outside, even though it didn’t move or change, although I suppose the lighting morphed a little as the morning sun moved higher into the sky at noon.

  Inside, there was a little more of interest, or so I thought, despite the restriction of staying in the hallways. But there were signs on the various doors that were fair game to be filmed. Some people, too, were curious and left their posts, where they had been attaching decorations onto the collars.

  Finally, as we prepared to go, Al told everyone to wait there but me. He’d talked on his cell phone a few times during the shoot, and at least one call had to have been from Dante, since he said, “Dante told me to give a box to you to take to the HotPets headquarters. Take your pick.”

  I couldn’t tell from the outside how gorgeous the contents were, so I did look at the labels and chose one randomly from the bottom, in a corner. Or maybe not so randomly. The packing tape on it was red, not clear like the rest, and that small difference attracted me, since I’d also seen one like it on the plane. Al carried it out and put it into my Venza for me.

  “I take it that you know where the HotPets offices are, right?” I asked Carlie.

  She nodded toward the person who was getting into the drivers’ seat of the van she was riding in. “I do, plus we’ve got GPS. See you there soon.”

  It took nearly an hour, thanks to traffic. But once we got to the offices, Dante’s assistant, Sheila, took us to a conference room where a nice buffet lunch had been laid out for us.

  “Dante figured you’d all be hungry,” she said, gesturing toward the spread as if she were a model on TV showing off some noted chef’s cuisine. And she did look like she could be a model, in one of those corporate catalogs perhaps, considering how nicely she was dressed, in a professional black suit. “Enjoy yourselves. He’ll join you in a few minutes, then introduce you to some of the Bling people you wanted to interview.” She was looking inquisitively at Carlie. “How did you get into a TV show like this? I heard you’re also a veterinarian.”

  Sheila wound up sitting down at the conference table in the room alongside Carlie, who seemed quite happy to explain how she’d been fortunate enough to have an executive at the Longevity Vision Channel bring his beloved dog into her clinic with some pretty scary medical issues caused by allowing the dog to roam free in his neighborhood. She’d cured the dog but had also reamed the exec out for endangering his cherished pet that way.

  He’d thought she should trumpet her ideas to the world—and set that up. The rest was history.

  I wasn’t sure that was the true story, but it was the one she used these days, and it sounded really good.

  A short while later, Dante came in, along with Chris Mandrea and Tom Fayler. Although Carlie had met all of them, Dante introduced her film crew to his staff members. They discussed the interviews that Carlie intended to conduct, including asking who’d come up with the idea for the Bling collars. That had been Chris, who had only just started working for HotPets in the marketing department at the time. He gave his usual impish grin as he described his vision, as well as his delight at being able to use his artistic talent in such an unusual way.

  And why had Tom been chosen to run the subsidiary that manufactured the collars? He described the successful pet-grooming chain that Naya and he had run for years and then sold at a healthy profit. Not wanting to rest on those laurels, he had approached his friend Dante to discuss the possibility of a job—at the right time, as it turned out, since the idea for the Bling collars had just been suggested.

  When lunch was over, Dante took us to his office, and the production guys set things up for the interviews. I watched from off camera and, even though I knew pretty much who was going to say what, I found the interviews quite fascinating.

  They lasted for most of the afternoon. I’d anticipated that and had told my crew at HotRescues not to expect me back until fairly late. In addition to being curious about how things would go, I’d been the liaison between Dante and Carlie and wanted to see for myself that the process was handled well, especially by Carlie and her people.

  And everyone rose to the occasion, and I thought things went absolutely wonderfully. Even Dante allowed himself to be interviewed, but he modestly deferred a lot to the Bling subsidiary people, acknowledging their prowess in design, hard work, and, so far, marketing.

  On camera, Chris didn’t act at all modest, but I figured that was his artistic pride coming through. He said he expected a lot and so far was achieving it. But there was a lot more to come.

  Tom was much more reserved, but he, too, expressed how much he expected the HotPets Bling label to achieve.

  When the interviews were finally over, I figured that Carlie had a lot to work with on her show, especially since she intended to visit some local HotPets stores and interview the managers about the Bling sales. Plus, she’d use shots of dogs of all shapes and sizes wearing Bling collars, not just teacup dogs.

  But she would also feature the TV ads and digital billboards on her show, the ones that had made teacup dogs so popular around here.

  Eventually, she and her crew packed up and got ready to take their equipment back to their vans. “Thanks so much for your cooperation,” she said to Dante. “And may I buy a few of the collars from you to use in my filming?”

  “For publicity like this, you can have them for free. Wait just a minute.”

  He got the box that we had brought from the factory, or at least it appeared to be the same one since it had red packing tape on it.

  I accompanied them out to their vans, in a nearby parking lot for which we’d all paid exorbitantly.

  “Thanks to you, too, Lauren. And I can’t wait till your party on Saturday to celebrate and showcase your newest set of teacups for adoption.”

  “Me, too,” I told her. “See you then.”

  Chapter 27

  But as it turned out, the next time I heard from Carlie was early the following morning while I sat in my office at HotRescues, having just done my first shelter walk-through of the day.

  “Hi, Carlie,” I said. “Everything okay?” Since I’d just seen her yesterday and we didn’t have any animals under the care of her hospital at the moment, I hadn’t anticipated talking to her again until our party tomorrow.

  “Well . . . I think so.”

  That wasn’t like Carlie. She almost never waffled about anything.

  “Look . . . Lauren, could you come over here to the hospital? I want to show you something, and I think it would be better to do it in person.”

  I couldn’t imagine what she was talking about, but she wouldn’t elaborate. “Sure. Want to grab lunch together?”

  “That’s a great idea.” She sounded relieved.

  When I hung up, I looked down at Zoey, sitting on the floor beside me looking as quizzical as I felt. “I can’t explain it,” I told her. “But I’ll let you know later what she’s hinting about.”

  About half an hour later, I h
eard voices in our welcome area and walked in that direction. Two women stood there, perhaps mother and daughter, and they looked worried.

  I smiled encouragingly, but before I said anything Nina told me, “These nice ladies have been looking everywhere for a small dog to adopt. And, yes, they’ve seen the HotPets Bling ads.”

  The younger woman gave a shrug and a half smile. “We’d considered adopting a dog even before that, but we wanted to finish some remodeling in our house. And now it’s done, but I guess there aren’t any cute little dogs we can bring home.”

  I looked quizzically toward Nina. She said, “I told them we didn’t have any available right now but would as of tomorrow.”

  “You’re sure?” asked the older lady. “We had a couple of shelters tell us that kind of thing and it turned out they apparently started scrambling and making calls after we left for the day but never found any dogs to bring in and show us.”

  “We’re sure,” I said. “We have a dozen little guys who are really eager for new homes, but they’ve been in our quarantine area to make sure they’re healthy before we send them on their way. You can check them out tomorrow, but I’d suggest that you attend our big coming-out party that evening. We’re going to celebrate their lives and let people start filling out adoption applications then.”

  “Really?” said the young woman. She looked at the older one. “We can come back then, Mom. And even though it won’t be a surprise for Denny, we can bring him along, too, to meet the dogs.”

  “If Denny is a member of your household, we’ll want him to meet the dog you choose anyway before you take him or her home.”

  “He’s my son,” the younger woman said. “He’s ten years old. Very sweet. Very responsible.”

  “That sounds great.” She’d obviously gotten the gist of what I wasn’t saying, too. Not only did everyone in the household usually have to meet a prospective pet, but I maintained the right to refuse an adoption if I didn’t like someone or think they’d take good care of the animal. “I could get someone to take you around HotRescues now so you could take a look at some other animals needing homes. We’ve seen a lot of cases where someone comes in thinking they know just the kind or size of pet they want, then falls in love with one who’s entirely different.”

  “Well, sure,” the older woman said. “Wouldn’t hurt.”

  “Wouldn’t hurt,” her daughter agreed.

  “Then wait a minute and we’ll get a volunteer up here to be your tour guide.”

  A familiar refrain, yes, but it worked a nice percentage of the time. I hoped these two ladies, who seemed to have potential as adopters, found the newest member of their household that afternoon . . . or on Saturday.

  By the time I’d finished interacting with them, it was time to go see Carlie. “You stay here, Zoey,” I told my sweet dog. I wasn’t sure where Carlie and I would have lunch.

  Even more important, I had no idea what she wanted to talk about, and figured any kind of distraction wouldn’t be a good idea.

  I drove to Northridge and parked in The Fittest Pet Veterinary Hospital parking lot, then went into the reception area. “Carlie’s waiting for you, Lauren,” the vet tech currently acting as receptionist told me. “I’ll go find her.” She excused herself, and I took a seat in the waiting room between a man holding a crate from which a lot of meows were emanating, and a young woman with a pit bull mix on a leash. Interesting, I thought. Sexual stereotypes would dictate that these two pets have their ownership reversed. But that was old stuff. Today, anything goes.

  In a couple of minutes, Carlie, in her white medical jacket, appeared in the doorway. “Hi, Lauren,” she called to me. “Come on in.”

  She had decided we would picnic in the central outdoor area of her animal hospital. Fortunately, part of it was segregated from where dogs were most often taken to do their business. On the other hand, that kind of thing didn’t bother me. I’d been in the animal-care field much too long to have a delicate stomach.

  There was a small picnic table with a bench where we sat, and Carlie brought out a couple of plastic bags with the logo of a nearby sandwich shop on the outside. I got my choice of pastrami and tuna salad and chose the first. Although she’d brought iced tea, too, I decided that bottled water was fine with me.

  Knowing I didn’t have to change clothes to impress Carlie, I’d remained in my blue HotRescues staff shirt and jeans, which worked out fine for sitting on a bench. We organized ourselves and extracted our sandwiches from the bags before I said what had been batting at my mind for several hours now. “So, what’s up, Carlie?”

  “I’ll show you after lunch,” she said. “But—”

  “But what?”

  She looked across the table toward me with troubled violet eyes. “Something seems a bit weird, and I’m not sure what you should do about it.”

  “What I should do about it? What is it? And why is it my problem?”

  “It’s not your problem. Not exactly. But it affects Dante. Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he knows . . . but it doesn’t make any sense.”

  I almost stood up then. “Carlie, you’re never this cryptic. Why don’t you come right out and tell me what the heck you’re talking about?”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them her expression looked both troubled and sympathetic. “You’re right. And I can’t be sure my cameraman was correct. But he’s not always been a cameraman. He was in the jewelry business for quite a few years. His family’s business.” The last couple of sentences were low enough in volume that I actually did stand and lean in so I could hear her.

  My mind churned, and my body tensed. I suddenly thought I knew where she was going with this. If so, she was right in many things. It made no sense. And Dante . . . ?

  But I went around the table and let her whisper in my ear. “I’ll show you in my office. But Lauren? Darius, my cameraman—he says that some of the jewels on those collars aren’t just paste. They’re real.”

  • • •

  When we were done eating, we went into her office.

  Not that I’d recognize a real gem, but what if she was correct?

  I hadn’t heard that HotPets was considering selling another level of Bling collars. Not that Dante would necessarily tell me, of course. But if so, he surely wouldn’t have given Carlie a box containing collars decorated with actual jewels.

  I took a look at the collars she proffered to me, holding them over her desk. “This one seems to have just the artificial stuff,” she said, indicating the blue leather one that had been in her left hand, “but this one, my cameraman said, has real diamonds and rubies among the paste.” This time, she moved her right hand, which held a black collar with embedded stones.

  The designs on the blue collar were ones I was quite familiar with: the dog bones and upright doggy ears. I’d taken some of them to HotRescues to sell.

  I recognized the designs on the black collar, too, though—tiaras and dog noses. I’d seen some of those in the remote storage room in the City of Industry facility, as well as in the boxes of collars that rode with me in the backseat of the flight to Las Vegas.

  “I know you said your cameraman had the background for checking out real versus fake jewels, but . . .”

  “But nothing.” Carlie scowled at me. “Have it confirmed professionally if you want. Or don’t. I’m just passing along the information I was given.”

  I’d rested the collars on my side of her desk, and now I raised my hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I’m just puzzled, that’s all. No one would necessarily tell me that they’d decided to ramp up the value of the collars, or some of them at least. But I’m still surprised that I didn’t have any inkling of it. And why would Dante have given these to you without telling you the value?”

  “I’m surprised, too,” Carlie said. “You’re not only in the inner circle of HotPets, with your connection with Dante, but also with their Bling subsidiary since you’ve become buddies with the guy who runs it. Somewhere along
the line, I’d have thought someone would have told you, or you’d at least have overheard a conversation or a rumor or something.”

  “Right,” I said. My mind was racing. Should I just call Dante and casually mention that I’d just learned of the possibility, thanks to Carlie? Should I go there with one or more of the collars that appeared to be decorated with the real things?

  What should I do?

  I expressed my quandary aloud. Whether she was irritated by my questioning or not, Carlie was my dearest friend—plus she was a really smart lady.

  “I’m not quite sure how to handle this. Should I act like it’s a major issue when I talk to Dante about it, or laugh about the possibility, or—?”

  “Why not make an appointment to see him at his office, as soon as he’s available?” Carlie suggested. Her expression had grown sympathetic. Our friendship was prevailing. “Just take one of the collars with real jewels. Hide it in your purse. And then broach the subject, see what his reaction is, and you’ll know what to do next.”

  Chapter 28

  Things got a lot more baffling after that. I excused myself from Carlie’s office, since I wanted a little privacy. Then I went out into the hallway and stood in a corner.

  I called the HotPets headquarters and asked Sheila if I could speak with Dante. He answered immediately.

  “We’ve got some confusion going on here, Lauren,” he told me before I could say anything. “The Bling folks say that the wrong box of collars was given to Carlie for her show. There are some designs that are just in the preliminary stages that they’re not yet willing to disclose even in L.A., let alone nationally. Could you have her exchange that box for another one?”

  That didn’t tell me anything about what Dante knew or didn’t know. Or what I should do next.

  Except that Carlie’s idea about visiting there might help me figure out if this was anything I should pursue any further.

  “Sure,” I said cheerfully. “I just happen to be at her veterinary hospital now.” What a coincidence—not. But I didn’t tell him that. “I’ll let you know if she has any problem with that, but otherwise I’ll just take the box she has back to you, then bring whichever one you say is appropriate to her on my way back to HotRescues.”