If the Fates Allow

by Annie Harper

  Avery glances at the TV, then back at Mary Anne. She feels sad that she missed I Love Lucy. But then, it’ll come again, or she can watch it online. And her car can be fixed, and there will always be more boring, pointless jobs, so she’s not really sad at all, actually. “Um,” she finally says. “Sorry?”

  Mary Anne throws her arms out at her sides; her skirt ruffles and sways. “You know what, Avery? I can’t. I thought moving in together was the solution. That maybe you needed to be in your own space to come out of your shell, but clearly you are a shell.”

  Avery frowns and replies, with a mouthful of ice cream, “What?”

  “You—” Mary Anne flaps her hands in Avery’s direction. “Are dead inside. And I am not going be sucked into your vortex of— of— of nothing, anymore. It’s over. We’re done.” Mary Anne stomps away down the hall. For several minutes the only sounds are drawers slamming open and closed, closet doors squeaking and then being thrown shut, loud rustling in the bathroom and kitchen, and then Mary Anne returns with her two matching suitcases: the big one that looks like a bumblebee and the small one, a ladybug.

  “I’ll get the rest of my stuff in a few days. Don’t be here.”

  She leaves. Avery sets the ice cream carton on the Ikea coffee table and turns on the TV. Finally, something goes right: There’s a different episode of I Love Lucy on, the one with the grape stomping. It’s one of her favorites. She’s seen it dozens of times, but tonight it’s not as funny as it usually is. In fact, Avery doesn’t laugh at all.

  Chapter Two

  “Am I dead inside?” Avery wonders out loud, to no one in particular. The idea has been haunting her for days now.

  She’s surprised to hear a response.

  “You are eating peanut butter from a jar while sitting on a park bench.”

  Avery frowns at the open jar clutched between her hands, then looks up at the children running through the open field of the small neighborhood park. “That’s a good point,” she concedes.

  Mary Anne came to pack the rest of her things and demanded that Avery leave, and she didn't have time to make anything for dinner. She doesn’t have an excuse for eating the same thing for lunch.

  “I’m just a stranger on a park bench so you don’t have to answer me, but— Are you okay?” The man arrived at the park with his kid, or more likely his grandkid, and sat next to Avery. He kept an eye on the kid while he scrolled through his phone.

  Am I okay? Avery, immobilized by the idea that she no longer feels anything and didn’t even realize it, has been going over and over that very question for days. “I don’t know.”

  Avery took so long to answer that the man, who has white hair and patchy white facial hair and whose cheeks are flushed red from the cold, appears startled that she spoke. He shuts off his phone, glances at the playground, then turns to address her. “Listen, uh…”

  “Avery,” she fills in.

  “Avery. I think if you were dead inside, you probably wouldn’t be worrying about it, right?”

  Avery shrugs. Maybe.

  She had a job that she didn’t hate; it was fine. Her apartment and her car are nice enough, or the car was until the rear bumper was crushed. She and Mary Anne were— Well, she thought they were okay. But now that she’s lost her job and Mary Anne and her car, she’s not angry or sad or worried. She’s not even numb; she just doesn’t care. Was she ever happy at all?

  “I wasn’t worried about it. I just think I should be.”

  The guy rubs his whiskered chin. “You look young, so from someone who’s been at it for a while: I get it. Being numb is the easiest way to get through life sometimes. But you gotta find moments of joy where you can. Then hold on to that joy, as tight as you can.”

  What was the last moment of joy she had to hold on to?

  They sit quietly until the man and his little grandson start to leave, and Avery thanks him for listening. If she had been sitting next to herself—a woman with unbrushed hair, who was wearing pajama pants and a poncho she found on the floor three days ago and has been wearing ever since, while eating peanut butter from a jar and mumbling to herself—Avery would have chosen another bench.

  “Happy to help,” the man says. “You look too young to be so world-weary.”

  Considering what the world is like, Avery doesn’t see how she couldn’t be weary.

  Back home, Avery discovers that Mary Anne took all of the Ikea furniture from the living room. There is just the TV and a pile of throw pillows on the floor. “Well, that sucks,” she says to the empty, quiet apartment. They paid fifty-fifty for that furniture, Mary Anne doesn’t get to just take it. She sighs and drops onto a floor pillow. It’s not worth it. Avery lived in this apartment before Mary Anne came along, and she’s fine living here without her. But she has to admit, sitting on the floor in the silence, that it’s lonely in a way that it never was before.

  It rains on and off the next few days, and, of course, it's a downpour during Avery’s Uber ride to the mechanic, where her car is ready and waiting. The always-bad traffic is even worse in the blinding rain, so she barely makes it before the garage closes for the night. They aren’t happy that she’s there so late, but are happy enough to take her money, and then she’s directed out back to a gravel parking lot. Avery drapes her poncho over her head as a makeshift umbrella and carefully but quickly makes her way through the parking lot that’s turning into a cold, muddy bog. Once safely inside her car, she tosses the damp poncho on the seat and shakes herself off, as if she’s shedding the doldrums of the last few days. A fresh start, that’s what she needs. Avery flicks on the headlights, puts the car into gear, and allows herself to be a little bit optimistic for the first time in a long time.

  And then she screams and clutches her chest in sudden terror.

  A demon blocks her way—a tiny demon with glowing eyes standing in the beam of her headlights. Or… Maybe it’s a gremlin—a soaking-wet gremlin that refuses to move even as Avery’s car creeps closer. She stops her car. The demon stares her down. She beeps at it, and the demon-gremlin doesn’t blink. She honks the horn longer. The demon ferociously barks back.

  “Oh.” Avery hops out of the car and throws her poncho over her head. “It’s a dog.”

  A scrawny, skinny little thing, its coat matted with mud and rain, ears flat and tail tucked under its body, shivers violently. Avery’s never had a dog, never wanted one; she finds their exuberant energy overwhelming. But she is still a human being with a heart— Or at least she hopes so. She shouldn’t just leave it here to freeze to death. Avery glances longingly at her warm, dry car. Someone else will probably help the dog. Like… someone in the office. She makes her way to the office to get help, but it’s locked and dark, as if they took off the second she paid them. The adjacent garage is also closed. There isn’t a soul around, just Avery and the stray dog in the parking lot. If she just left, no one would know. And it’s because of that, the fact that what she really wants to do is nothing, that she decides to act.

  “Okay.” Avery glances around for a box or cage or something. A giant net would be nice, but she finds nothing in the dark, flooded parking lot. As she approaches the dog, it growls and barks frantically, spins around and bounces up and down with the force of its yelping. Perhaps her initial assessment of it as a demon wasn’t entirely off the mark. “Okay. Okay. Okay.” She chants to reassure both of them. She twists the poncho into a sort of net, tries to scoop the dog up, but drags the fabric through a puddle.

  “Come on. It’s cold and wet. You don’t want to be out here do you? I sure don’t.” Avery throws the fabric out again and misses again. The dog doesn’t cease its barking and growling, but it isn’t lunging for her. It isn’t attacking. It’s backing up, terrified. Avery wipes freezing cold rain from her eyes. She’s shivering now, too. The poncho is completely waterlogged and useless. They could play this game all night or, she could be bold for once
in her passive, apathetic life. “I’m sorry, dog. I promise this is for your own good.” She drops the poncho right on top of the dog, and scoops it up like potatoes in a gunnysack.

  Chapter Three

  Avery and the tiny demon-dog have a chat on their way to the only shelter out of the dozen she called that was still open this time of night and had space. “I found a place for you. I’m gonna let you out of this poncho, and you’re gonna chill out, okay?”

  The dog doesn’t move or make a sound, so she takes that as a good sign and untwists the still-damp folds of fabric. The dog, to her immense relief, does not flip out. He shakes himself off, then stands shivering on the passenger seat, even though heat blasts from the vents. In the light of a streetlamp, Avery gets a good look at him. He’s filthy; his black and white coat is grimy with dirt and motor oil. He smells like wet garbage. His ears are too large for his head, and one sticks straight up, while the other flops over at an odd angle, and his eyes are big and brown and look out in two wonky, bulging, opposite directions.

  “Yeah, I still think you might be a gremlin.”

  Even if she wanted to keep the weird little thing, which she doesn’t, she has no idea how she can keep a dog. She doesn’t like them, or she thinks she doesn’t like them. She certainly can’t take care of a dog; she’s not doing a great job of taking care of herself right now. A shelter is the best choice.

  “Halfway Home” is the name of the rescue center. She enters a lobby bright with harsh white lights and white linoleum floors and a long gray desk off to one side. She tucks the dog against her chest and fills out a stack of paperwork. “Should I put ‘dog’ even if I’m only eighty percent sure?” she asks the front desk person, while the dog snarls and barks and thrashes in her arms like the possessed thing that he is.

  The front desk lady does not respond. Avery hands the clipboard back, and the lady calls for someone to take the dog. Avery’s mind is already on going home, wrapping herself in a blanket, and relaxing on the pile of pillows that make up her living room furniture now. She even has some ice cream left. So she’s only sort of paying attention when the shelter worker reaches to take the dog. The shriek of rage and terror that the dog lets out makes Avery twist away and instinctively curl around him.

  “Uh. Sorry I—It—Um—” Avery stutters.

  “No problem.” The woman smiles the most beautiful smile Avery has ever seen. Her name tag says “manager” and beneath that, “Grace.” She picks up the clipboard with the paperwork Avery filled out with as much information about the dog as she knows, which is very little. “So he was a stray? It was really kind of you to help him, especially in this weather.” She smiles again. Grace.

  It dawns on Avery that she’s supposed to say something in response, but she suddenly can’t remember how to speak or move or do anything but cling to this terrified and funny-looking dog who keeps snapping at Grace: Grace, with dark, wavy hair pulled into a messy ponytail, and a smile that lights up her whole face and the entire sterile lobby and Avery’s pathetic numbed heart.

  Grace reaches for the dog again. He growls and lunges and starts a new round of hysterical, high-pitched barking. “If you wouldn’t mind,” Grace says, with her smile slightly dimmed, “I think I’ll have you take him to a kennel, since he’s so aggressive right now.”

  Avery nods, wills her feet to move, and trails Grace down a hallway lined with metal cages. Most of the cages hold small dogs, some who bark and some who cower and some who watch quietly with nervous, sad eyes. Grace opens an empty cage, and Avery deposits the dog inside. Her T-shirt is wet where she held him. It smells terrible too.

  “Thanks for your help,” Grace says, then pulls a pen from one of the pockets of her blue cargo pants. Her gray T-shirt reads: Halfway Home Animal Rescue and Rehabilitation. “More paperwork,” she says with an excited, teasing gleam in her eyes. “Any ideas for a name?”

  “Oh.” Avery points to herself—how rude of her. “I’m Avery.”

  Grace laughs. It’s even more beautiful than her smile. “I meant the dog. But it’s nice to meet you, Avery.”

  Avery’s face warms with a blush. “Oh. Um. I don’t know. I found him at Rudy's Garage— “

  “Rudy it is.” Grace writes on a little card attached to the cage: Rudy. Chihuahua mix. Male. Stray. She gives him an ID number and marks the date of intake, then fishes a red pen from another pocket and puts an ominous red slash in the corner.

  Avery points to it. “Um. What does that… Is that bad?” It seems bad.

  Grace caps the pen. “It just means that he was initially aggressive so other employees and volunteers know to be cautious.” Avery glances at the dog— At Rudy, who is doing a pretty good job of making that clear on his own. Grace laughs again, a husky little hah. “Yeah, pretty obvious, right? Barking doesn’t always mean aggression, though.”

  Avery wants to find out what it does mean and she wants to know more about Grace and mostly she wants to see her smile again and maybe a million times after that, but Rudy has gone quiet in his cage, pressing himself against a back corner and trembling harder than ever. “What happens to him now?”

  Grace’s smile is sympathetic. “Tomorrow he’ll have a health examination and then a basic behavioral assessment, and we’ll go from there. He’s in good hands, I promise.”

  Avery glances again at the red mark. “Okay.”

  As if reading Avery’s mind, Grace adds, “Truly aggressive dogs…” She looks sadly at Rudy in his cage. “Are a bigger challenge,” she finally says, diplomatically. And then she gently squeezes Avery's arm. “Don’t worry. I like a challenge.”

  Avery’s breath catches; she swallows heavily. “Okay.”

  “Okay.” Grace says. Then her face draws tight. “You are freezing cold.” She rubs her warm hand up and down Avery’s arm and tugs her wrist. “Come with me.”

  Avery composes herself, then follows Grace down a different hallway, past larger kennels with larger, louder dogs, into an office that is as barebones as barebones can be with a plain metal desk, gray cement walls, gray cement floors, and a poster with a graph that reads: “Fundraising Goals.” Only twenty of one hundred marks representing needed money are filled in. Grace tosses Avery a hooded sweatshirt with the shelter’s logo.

  “Oh. I can’t—”

  “Please take it,” Grace says. “I’ll worry about you catching pneumonia otherwise.” Then she smiles, so Avery puts it on. It smells at first like the rest of the shelter, like animals. But as Avery zips it up she catches the sharp, sunny scent of citrus and wonders if it’s the smell of Grace’s shampoo. Avery tugs the loose sleeves down over her hands. It’s too long, but snug on her chest; Grace is taller than her with a slim, muscular body. “Thanks,” Avery says, looking down bashfully after Grace catches her staring just a moment too long.

  “Sure. And thank you for helping Rudy; most people don’t bother.”

  Any other day, Avery would have been one of those people. “Well, I should…” Grace cuts in, “Yeah. Right. Yes, have a great night.” Avery waves awkwardly, hustles out of the office, and stops to say a quick goodbye to Rudy. He’s in good hands. She is sure about that, though she hates that he’s stuck in that cold cage, terrified and alone.

  In the dark of her car on the drive home, Avery catches the whiff of dog on her poncho and citrus on the sweatshirt and she feels… She feels: warmth and excitement, concern and regret. She thinks about the man on the park bench with the kind eyes who told her to find joy. It’s a flicker of possibility, of something that could be something. That’s a start. Isn’t it?

  Chapter Four

  Avery begins the next day with a renewed sense of purpose. She makes herself a balanced, healthy breakfast. She showers and puts on clean clothes that she did not find on the floor. And then she searches for job openings that actually spark her interest, instead of being merely tolerable like her last two jobs. She also was
hes and dries the sweatshirt from Halfway Home and goes back to the shelter to return it. She’s holding on to that tiny spark of hope in her heart that perhaps there is joy to be found in the world and that maybe one hopeful bit of joy is named Grace.

  “Uh, hello, Deb.” Avery stands at the tall desk waiting for Deb’s reluctant acknowledgment, just as she had last night, but now with a folded sweatshirt in her arms and not a terrified demon dog. She hopes he had an okay night, Rudy. “I’m here to see Grace.”

  “Grace is out on calls today,” Deb says, brusquely. The rescue center is busy, with an adoption event filling the lobby and phones ringing off the hook.

  “Oh. Okay, well, I wanted to return this sweatshirt—” Deb deposits it behind the counter. “… And if you could tell her Avery dropped by? She probably mentioned me. I saved a dog’s life last night, no biggie.” Avery all but dusts off her shoulders with pride; she actually did something, something that mattered.

  “She didn’t mention you. I’ll give her that jacket, though. Have a nice day.” Deb turns to address one of the many people waiting at the counter as the phone starts to ring again and two dogs bark at each other. And then, a flash of hope, Grace walks in. She’s smiling and laughing just as she did with Avery, but with someone else. She doesn’t even notice Avery.

  Avery’s ember of hope grows cold. Of course Grace wouldn’t notice or mention her; Avery is one of thousands of people Grace interacts with here on a regular basis. Why would she remember Avery, of all people? Dejected, she heads home without even stopping to check on Rudy.

  This is why, she reminds herself, now wrapped in a blanket and hunkered down as comfortably as possible on her living room floor pillows. This is why she doesn’t bother, because hope leads to disappointment, which leads to despair, which leads to Avery being completely dramatic about a beautiful woman who smiled at her a few times. The doorbell rings. Avery answers it still wrapped in her blanket.