(Almost) Happily Ever After

by Annabelle Costa

  “I don’t see you as a doctor type,” I say.

  He nods in agreement. “Me either. Man, those guys wake up early. I could never do that.” His eyes meet mine. “But you. Becoming a vet. I’m still in awe.”

  “Yeah, well,” I mumble. “I’ve got a long way to go.”

  His light brown brows knit together. He looks like he’s going to say something, but then his phone bursts out with a Jefferson Airplane song. “White Rabbit,” I think it is.

  “Yo,” he says in a husky voice to whoever is on the other line. “Oh, hey. I’m kind of busy here, so…” He pauses to listen. “Right, I know, man. I’m steamed too.” He sighs heavily. “Okay, yeah. I’ll be there…. No, I get it. It’s important.”

  Reid puts down his phone, a troubled expression on his face. He chews on the end of his left thumbnail.

  “Everything okay?” I ask him.

  “Yeah, it’s fine.” He coughs and tugs at his hemp shirt again. “It just sort of sucks that there are a lot of assholes in the world who think they can get away with anything they want.”

  I raise my eyebrows at him.

  He glances at his watch. “Look, I have to go, but…” He sets his brown eyes on me. “Listen, do you want to come with me, Libby? I’m meeting some guys and… well, this is a chance to actually make a difference in the world.”

  What is he talking about? Make a difference in the world?

  I’m not entirely sure what to say. Reid seems like a really decent guy, but I don’t want to get talked into any crazy project he’s working on. I am very, very suggestible. Will thinks it’s hilarious that I want to eat or buy whatever was advertised in the commercials for the last show we watched. Fortunately, I have an excuse this time.

  “Actually,” I say. “I’m sorry, but I have to go now. I’m volunteering at an animal shelter. Walking some dogs.”

  Reid’s eyes widen. “You are? Wow, that’s so amazing.”

  I find myself blushing slightly. “Well, I enjoy doing it.”

  He lowers his voice a few notches. “You’re amazing.”

  I’m suddenly really glad I refused Reid’s invitation to come out with him. It seems like Will’s giant ratty T-shirt isn’t helping at all. What do I have to do to keep this guy from being attracted to me? Stop bathing prior to office hours? Show up in shorts with super hairy legs?

  Although honestly, if I did that, I think Reid might be so overcome with lust, he’d jump me right on his splintery desk.

  Chapter 8

  “So here’s the deal, Libby-Lou,” Mary Regan, manager of the animal shelter, says when I report for my dog-walking shift. She always calls me Libby-Lou. Despite my hinting several times that Libby-Lou is not my name and I’d ideally want to be called anything else. Cinderella, Hortense… anything would be better than Libby-Lou.

  “You want me for the shift, right?” I say. I’d be majorly disappointed if I had to head home right now without getting to play with some dogs at the park.

  “Of course I do!” Mary says. But? “But…” Here it comes. “Audrey is fighting a bad cold, and I have a ton of paperwork to catch up on. So it would help me a lot more if you could stay here.”

  I stare at her. “You mean you want me to help animals get adopted?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind, yes.”

  It takes all my self-restraint not to hug Mary. Yes, I want to do adoptions! Is she kidding me? That sounds like the most fun thing ever.

  Mary leads me to the back room of the shelter. This is a no-kill shelter, which means that we’ll keep an animal forever rather than put them to sleep. I can’t work in a shelter that puts animals to sleep, because I find it horrible beyond words and so I’d just end up adopting them all to keep them from that fate until my apartment would just be a sea of cats and dogs that I’d have to wade through to get to the front door. That’s how I ended up with Petunia.

  The shelter is split between cats and dogs. The dogs line the sides of the wall in their group cages. At the far end are the cats, who are caged individually, with the cages stacked on top of each other to make towers of cats. The whole place has that distinctive animal smell, and if I stick around too long, even though I don’t have allergies, I usually start sneezing.

  As it turns out, pet adoption is not quite the most fun thing ever. Mary spends a bit of time going over all the paperwork with me, but she doesn’t need to spend as much time showing me the animals, since I’m already familiar with most of them. Then I have to go around feeding the animals, which is definitely really rewarding. Granted, I already feed Petunia twice a day, but she’s a big, fat spoiled housecat.

  I’m there about an hour when a man comes in with his eight-year-old daughter. She tells me her name is Melanie, and she has the most adorable freckles splattered across her nose. “We want a cat,” Melanie informs me.

  “Or a kitten,” the man adds.

  Melanie shoots her father a look, which makes me smile. “Let me show you our cat lounge,” I say.

  The shelter has a room in the back where about half a dozen of the adult cats hang out and play outside of their cages, jumping on the cat tree and an assortment of chairs and pillows. I bring Melanie and her father back there, and she immediately starts fawning over a small black cat that reminds me a lot of Petunia. Well, the way Petunia looked before I adopted her and she became obese.

  “That’s Snickers,” I tell Melanie. “She’s eight years old.”

  I hand Melanie a cat treat, and Snickers eats the treat right out of her hand. I can tell they’re both smitten.

  “I want her, Daddy!” Melanie declares.

  The father glances at me. “I don’t know. Eight seems awfully old for a cat. Isn’t she going to die soon?”

  “Cats can live up to twenty years,” I reply patiently.

  “Hasn’t she been living on the street?” the father says. “She probably has all sorts of cat diseases.”

  “We take all our rescues to a vet to have them screened for illness,” I explain to him. “Snickers is perfectly healthy.” He opens his mouth and I anticipate his next question. “She’s also been fixed.”

  The man still seems uncertain, but little Melanie is adamant. She’s got Snickers cuddled up in her lap, and I can tell it’s going to be hard to separate them.

  “Fine,” the father grumbles. “I guess we’ll take her.”

  “Great!” I clap my hands together. “So let me just grab the paperwork for you, okay?” I run to the back to grab the forms for them to fill out, and I’m astonished to see that Will is sitting in the back room, chatting with Mary.

  “Look who’s here, Libby-Lou!” Mary exclaims. Mary absolutely loves Will because a year ago, the shelter was having some legal issue that she was super stressed over, and he took care of it for her, free of charge. Well, she did end up sending me home one day with two boxes of cookies, but I don’t think he handed her a bill with a charge for “homemade peanut butter cookies.” Ever since then, she always fawns over him when he comes to help walk dogs.

  “Hey,” I say. “What are you doing here?”

  Will adjusts his tie and smiles at me. It’s obvious he came straight here from work, possibly from the courthouse, based on the fact that he’s wearing a suit and tie. Honestly, Will is one of the best-dressed men I’ve ever met, especially recently. It’s funny because on the weekend, he’ll wear some beat up T-shirt he’s had for a decade, but when he goes to work, he takes his attire very, very seriously. He always tells me, “Dressing like you’re serious makes people take you seriously.”

  So not only does Will spend a lot of money on brands like Armani and Brooks Brothers, but he has them tailored to accommodate the fact that he spends his entire day sitting down. He has back pockets removed and the waist raised in the back. He says it makes a big difference in the way the clothes fit him.

  I also can’t help but notice how great he looks in the Salvatore Ferragamo leather oxfords I helped him pick out. Will has recently come around to my line of thi
nking, that the first thing people notice about you is your shoes. His look really classy, resting quietly in the footplate of his chair. He always keeps his feet pointed straight ahead, lined up perfectly next to each other. If he notices them get even a tiny bit misaligned, he fixes them immediately.

  “I need to talk to you,” he says, glancing at an interested-looking Mary. “Outside. When you’re done, okay?”

  “Okay…” I need to talk to you. That sounds… weird. Also, he seems nervous. He keeps adjusting and readjusting his tie, which is a nervous tic he has. “I’ll just be a little bit longer.”

  “If you need to leave, it’s fine,” Mary assures me. “I’m nearly done with my paperwork, so I can take over when you’re finished with that family.”

  My head is spinning slightly as I return to Melanie and her father with the adoption application. The application is only two pages, and I remember it well from when I adopted Petunia. It’s basic stuff, but the father seems affronted when I hand it to him.

  “It’s so long!” he complains.

  I don’t know what to say about that. “It’s two pages.”

  He scans the paperwork, growing increasingly upset. “You need two references? Are you shitting me? I don’t even ask the babysitters for two references. What do you think I’m going to do to that cat? Eat her?”

  “No, I don’t think you’re going to eat the cat.” God, this guy is sapping my strength. “But there are people who are cruel to animals, and we want to make sure Snickers is going to a good home.”

  “Um, she’s living in a tiny cage here,” the man points out. “I think anywhere she goes is better than that.”

  “Daddy…” Melanie’s eyes are filling up with tears. “You promised I could get a cat for my birthday.”

  “I know, but…” The man’s eyes go to the bottom of the second page and then widen. “You charge a $60 adoption fee? Are you serious? You should be paying us for taking this animal off your hands.”

  “It’s just a small charge to keep the shelter running,” I explain.

  The man shakes his head. “No. No way.” He taps Melanie on the shoulder. “Let’s go. Come on, I’ll buy you another Monster High doll or something.”

  “Daddy!” Melanie is holding Snickers protectively on her lap. “You promised! You said if I swore I’d take care of her…” She wipes tears from her eyes. “I’ll pay for her out of my allowance. I’ve already got ten dollars saved up.”

  “You’re a long way off,” he snorts. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Tears are now streaming down Melanie’s face. I know she’s only known Snickers for about fifteen minutes, but I can tell she’s going to love and take great care of that cat. I can’t let them walk out.

  “Listen,” I say. “I’ll pay the fee.”

  The man stares at me. “What?”

  “I mean,” I add quickly, “I’ll waive the fee. No fee. But you do have to fill out the paperwork.”

  Waive it, pay it… it’s all the same. What’s the point of having a wealthy fiancé if you can’t do a good deed every once in a while?

  _____

  After I take care of the paperwork for Snickers and slip in sixty dollars of my own money, I go find Will. He looks even more nervous than he did before, which is starting to freak me out. I need to talk to you. Christ, what’s this about?

  When we get outside, Will is rubbing his nose, because he also gets itchy from being in the shelter too long. But then he gets straight down to business. “Listen,” he says, “remember how the other day you were talking about… you know, getting pregnant?”

  “Yes…” Is he going to tell me I’m pregnant? No, I’m not sure how that would be possible. Despite my utter failure in biology thus far, I know a little something about reproduction.

  “So I contacted that fertility clinic where my friend went,” he says as he tugs on his tie. “They had no appointments for two months. But then… I just got a call saying they have an opening today. Like, in about half an hour. So I took it.”

  “Oh.”

  Wow, that happened fast.

  “Obviously, I can cancel it,” he says quickly. “I just thought… I mean, there’s no point in delaying…”

  “No, I agree.” I shake my head. “I’m just impressed you got us in so fast.”

  “It turns out I did some legal work for the receptionist’s mother,” he explains. “I guess she was happy with the job I did.”

  I swear to God, I think Will has done legal work for half the city at this point. A few weeks ago, I went to pick up a Hawaiian pie at our favorite pizza place, and the guy wouldn’t let me pay. “No charge for Will Kaplan,” he insisted as I held out some bills. It turns out Will helped them out with some legal advice (free of charge) and now I guess we get free pizza for life? Pretty good deal.

  Will has his car, so he drives us to the fertility clinic, which is in one of those state of the art new buildings with a shiny glass automatic door. Everything inside reeks of “expensive”—from the shimmering gold pillars to the ridiculously impractical wavy benches to the shimmering blue orb hovering above us. Will’s wheels glide effortlessly across the gleaming floor. He fits right in with his fancy suit, but I feel ridiculously underdressed in my Reid-repelling outfit.

  “Do I have time to change?” I ask Will as I tug on the hem of his T-shirt that I appropriated.

  “You look fine,” he says vaguely.

  “Oh my God, I do not look fine!” Is he kidding me? Sometimes I think Will doesn’t even look at me. Once I had a piece of spinach stuck in my teeth for at least an hour and he claims he had no idea. “I look awful.”

  Will looks me over, from my baggy jeans to my oversized shirt to my messy ponytail and glasses. He gets this grin on his face. “You’re wearing my T-shirt. It looks cute on you.”

  Oh brother.

  Considering I don’t have anything to actually change into, I give up on the whole thing. The doctor will just have to think I’m a slob.

  We head into the waiting room of the clinic, which also reeks of newness and expense. I look around to see two other couples waiting. I’d been hoping maybe since Will told me his disabled friend had used the clinic, I might see another patient in a wheelchair. But no—everyone looks entirely able-bodied. And crazy rich.

  Will checks us in at the front desk and returns with two clipboards full of paperwork for us to fill out. I’m glad we’re early, because I very well might need the rest of my life to fill out these forms. I can’t believe how much information they need about me. Did my mother deliver vaginally or C-section? Do I have a history of eye allergies? Who has been my primary physician for the last ten years? What do these people want from me—my blood?

  Hmm. Actually, they might want my blood. That probably wouldn’t be unreasonable.

  It’s a small miracle that I’ve gotten through my forms when a nurse calls us into the back, leading us down a long hallway. Will strains a bit as he pushes his chair on the carpeting, looking increasingly nervous. We end up in an office, with a dark brown wooden desk and two chairs in front of it. The nurse pulls one chair out of the room so that Will has room for his own chair, then leaves us to wait.

  I glance over at Will, who is staring at what appears to be a three-dimensional model of the female anatomy. “Getting turned on?” I ask him.

  He smiles thinly and tugs on his tie.

  Dr. Theresa Powell turns out to be a tiny, dynamic appearing woman with sharp black eyes behind black-rimmed spectacles. She looks like the kind of woman who would get you pregnant no matter what—even if she had to jam the baby in there herself. As she settles down in front of her desk, she doesn’t even glance at the paperwork I so painstakingly filled out, but pulls out a sheet of her own.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Kaplan?” she asks us.

  We both nod. Technically, I’m not Mrs. Kaplan yet. But I’m not going to correct her.

  “So how long have you been trying for a baby?” she asks us.

  She certainly gets
right to the point.

  “We haven’t been trying, exactly,” I say. “But… well, we haven’t been not trying. For a while. But just, like, in a general sort of way.”

  Will gives me a funny look, then turns to Dr. Powell. “Libby’s been off birth control for close to two years.”

  Dr. Powell nods curtly. “At your age, Mrs. Kaplan, we do testing after failing to conceive for six months.”

  At my age? Christ, am I really that old?

  “However…” She holds up a thin hand with strong-looking fingers. “There are obviously extenuating factors here.” She sets her gaze on Will.

  He shifts in his wheelchair. “I heard… I mean, I was told that you had experience with patients who are… who have spinal cord injuries.”

  “That’s correct,” Dr. Powell says. She looks him up and down, and I can see his ears growing pink. “What sort of injury do you have?”

  He rubs his knees. “It’s a T10 complete injury.”

  He once explained to me what that means. The “T10” refers to where the injury is—right at the tenth thoracic vertebrae, at the level of his belly button. The “complete” means that the nerve connections in his spinal cord were completely severed, that he has no feeling or movement whatsoever below that level.

  Dr. Powell makes a notation on her paperwork. “Yes, I’ve had several patients with similar injuries. Tell me, are you able to ejaculate?”

  He glances at me, then shakes his head. “No.”

  “Never?”

  He shakes his head again. “Never.”

  “What about during masturbation?” she asks.

  Will honestly looks like he wants to crawl under the desk right now. “I don’t…” he mumbles. “I mean, that’s not something I do. There’s no point…”

  “Well, it might be worth trying,” Dr. Powell says. “Masturbation can provide a more intense stimulus than sexual intercourse.”

  “Okay, sure. I’ll try it.” He snorts slightly. “It’s been a while…”