In unison the girls recited:
I look upon the universe so tall,
The sun warms my heart and the moon guides my soul.
The stars above sparkle and the earth below informs my feet.
The beast and the pebble, the rain and the dawn,
Side by side.
Harmony to all things, great and small.
Veronica didn’t say the words out loud. She wasn’t even sure she understood them, but they transported her nevertheless to a world of magic and kindness where dragonflies floated beside colorful butterflies, rocks offered sage advice, and fluffy-tailed squirrels helped mice crack open acorns. It was a world of complete acceptance.
It was her favorite moment of the day.
Cadbury
At three o’clock the doors to Randolf opened, spilling girls happy to be finished with their school day out onto the pavement. Veronica stood in their midst waiting for her eyes to adjust to the bright afternoon sun. She had survived her first day. Now she could visit Cadbury, the lemon beagle at Paws and Claws.
The sidewalk was slow to come into focus. The sparkles in the cement played tricks with her eyes as she followed them east. She crossed Madison Avenue, ignoring the shoe store her mother loved and the smoothie place she loved. There was no time for pizza. She could have a snack when she got home later. Cadbury was the first order of business.
At the corner of Lexington, Veronica saw the orange awning with its three white paw prints. A smile pushed its way across her face. She peered through the window looking for Simon. Simon was usually out in the afternoon, which made it her favorite time to visit Cadbury. Simon owned Paws and Claws. This made no sense since Simon didn’t like animals. Simon didn’t seem to like much of anything at all, except for making money. He tolerated Veronica when she was with her mother, sometimes he was even nice to her, but when she was alone he had no patience.
A cute Yorkshire terrier displayed in the front window jumped up on his hind legs to look at Veronica. Half his body disappeared into the mounds of shredded paper. He was so cute. Veronica wished she could buy every dog in the place. The good news was she didn’t see Simon. The bad news was she didn’t see Cadbury either. Her heart banged nervously inside her chest like a drum.
If Cadbury was gone she didn’t know what she would do.
Ray lurked in the background while Esme motioned wildly at Veronica to come inside. Esme was nineteen. She had jet-black hair with purple and blue streaks and a nose ring and a gold stud in her tongue. She had a haircut that featured long parts in the front and short parts in the back. She wore safety pins as earrings and black lipstick and lots of black eye makeup. Veronica’s mother thought Esme was trying to punish her mother.
“Why else would she try so hard to make herself unattractive?” Veronica’s own mother had said. But the more weird things Esme did to herself, the more beautiful Esme became. Veronica thought you could shave Esme’s head and cover her with bandages and bruises and a garbage bag and she would still be the prettiest person in the room. Veronica adored Esme. And since Esme had graduated from Randolf, Randolf must be a worthwhile place.
Veronica opened the door, scanning the store for Cadbury. Esme pointed toward the wall of cages in the back—there he was. Relieved, Veronica made her way to him, filling her lungs with the damp and earthy smells of animals and kitty litter and cedar shavings and pet foods. It was probably a smell some people didn’t like, but it was a smell Veronica couldn’t get enough of. It was outdoorsy, but outdoorsy in the perfect way for a city kid because it was indoors. Plus the smell of Paws and Claws reminded her of when she was little. Her mother took her there every day until she went back to work full-time when Veronica started kindergarten. Sometimes they stayed for hours. Her psychiatrist parents joked that they were going to publish a paper about a little girl who was socialized in a pet store by small animals instead of at preschool by small children.
“We could all be famous,” her father had said.
“Hi, Veronica Louise. Did your incarceration at the Randolf Penitentiary for Girls start yet?” Esme asked. Veronica curtsied in her uniform and Esme admired her from head to toe.
“Why you bother talking to that girl? That girl don’t never talk,” Ray said. Ray ruined everything. Without Ray, Veronica imagined, she would have long and wonderful conversations with Esme.
“Maybe she prefers higher life forms than you, Ray,” Esme said. “I know I do.” Veronica laughed.
“Snap,” Ray said. He shook his head, muttered something in Spanish, and went back to cleaning a hamster cage. Veronica loved the way they bickered. They bickered like family.
“Cadbury has hot spots again,” Esme said. “They’re healing well, but we had to move him.”
Veronica figured as much since Cadbury sat alone in a cage with a plastic cone around his neck and two bright red, oozing patches of skin that had been licked clean of fur gleaming on his right flank. He was desperate to get at the itchy spots. But if he kept licking he would spread the infection. He looked so frustrated. Veronica couldn’t stand it.
“Is it okay if I sit here?” Veronica said, pulling over a giant bag of bedding.
“Of course,” Esme said. “You can take him out and play with him.” Veronica gently took Cadbury on her lap, wondering if Esme had any idea how much she loved her.
There was lots to admire about Esme. She was so completely herself, for one thing. She was confident and opinionated and passionate. That was her way with people. With animals she was a little bit more respectful. With animals, she always made eye contact and asked permission before touching them, before picking them up, before petting them, before clipping their nails. Esme was going to be an animal rights activist when she grew up but until then she interned at a veterinarian’s office twenty hours a week. Veronica had no idea what she wanted to be when she grew up, but she wouldn’t mind being a lot like Esme.
Cadbury tried to lick Veronica but his cone got in the way. Veronica stuck her face right inside.
“Poor you. Poor, poor you,” she said. She was aching to take him home. For some unknown reason, Cadbury hadn’t been sold. All of his brothers and sisters had been taken home within three days of arriving, but no one except for Veronica had wanted Cadbury. Esme had a theory. Esme said no one wanted Cadbury because he was a lemon beagle. All of his spots were pale caramel, except for one brown triangle under his right front leg. He was named after a Cadbury bar.
“Lemon beagles used to be considered a mutation of the breed,” Esme said when the last of his litter had been sold. “But really, they’re so sweet. And some people say they’re calmer than the traditional black, white, and brown ones. Personality aside, they used to be put down because they weren’t desirable looks-wise, which is totally fascist but that’s another story. Anyway, that’s why I hate breeders. Correction: that is one of the reasons I hate breeders. What if my parents were like that? Oh, this child has hair we don’t care for. Put her down!”
Veronica agreed it was heinous, but she was also glad Cadbury wasn’t desired as much as his brothers and sisters. It meant he was still in her life. But for how long? If only her parents would buy him. He was getting big and this was no life for him. Her parents had bought her pets before, but the leap to dog was too far. It was incredible how many excuses they had for not buying a dog.
Her first pet from Paws and Claws was a fish named Shrimp. Shrimp died when Veronica accidentally overfed him. Poor Shrimp. Her parents bought turtles after that. But they always crawled out of their plastic habitat and that year—the Year of the Turtles, as her family had come to call it—was extremely stressful. Veronica spent most of the Year of the Turtles on her hands and knees searching frantically for escaped turtles. They blended in very well with her green carpet. She had been afraid they would die before she found them. Her parents spent most of the Year of the Turtles afraid of salmonella.
Eventually, Veronica’s kindergarten class got the turtles as a gift. They lived in a t
ank with a secure lid and a giant container of hand sanitizer nearby. Everyone was happier. After the turtles, Veronica pushed for a guinea pig. “I want a pet who is soft. Whose heartbeat you can feel,” she had told her parents. But her mother said she could not and would not ever willingly share her home with a rodent. So a dog was clearly the perfect new Morgan pet, right? And not just any dog, but Cadbury the dog. It was so obvious. But her parents didn’t get it. They didn’t see how time was of the essence, how every day was an opportunity for someone else’s family to scoop up Cadbury.
Her parents were preoccupied with non-Cadbury responsibilities. Her father was writing a paper about the correlation of emotions on the skin for one thing and that had totally hogged the attention of both Marvin and Marion, since Marvin read every draft to his wife. His theory was that emotions manifested themselves on the skin.
Veronica might as well be the lab rat for that idea. She was the victim of a finger rash, which flared up whenever she was upset. But the paper wasn’t about Veronica even if the theory was. Marvin Morgan would never put his family in any of his papers, so instead he had chosen his patient Edith Kreller, a name he made up to protect her identity. Edith Kreller suffered from psoriasis and an unhappy marriage. Mrs. Kreller’s emotions—her stupid psoriasis and her unhappy marriage—were all Veronica’s parents talked about lately.
Veronica was so sick of Mrs. Kreller. Why couldn’t they talk about Cadbury instead? She stroked him softly, careful to avoid his hot spots. She cooed and fawned and was suddenly struck by a lightning bolt of pure brilliance. In order to convince her parents to buy Cadbury, she had to appeal to them as professionals. They were obsessed with their patients. Cadbury was suffering from all sorts of anxiety and rashes and needed professional help too. He could be their new Mrs. Kreller. This was the answer, she was certain. But would she be able to accomplish this before someone else bought him? That was the question. She’d have to work fast.
“I will get you somehow, some way,” she whispered to her future dog. She grabbed her backpack and said a quick goodbye to Esme, who put Cadbury back in his crate.
“See, that girl don’t talk,” Ray said.
“To you, Ray. She doesn’t talk to you. But you don’t talk to her either,” said Esme.
“Snap,” Ray said and helped himself to a dog treat.
Mary
Veronica heard Mary’s little TV as she opened the front door. Mary was almost always stationed in front of the miniature TV on the kitchen counter watching some cooking show or a show about celebrity gossip.
“Ah, she lives! Congratulations. You survived,” Mary said as Veronica came through the kitchen door. Mary took care of Veronica and their house while her parents worked.
Veronica put her backpack on a stool and her head on Mary’s arm. There was nothing quite as soft and solid as Mary.
“See, you are tougher than you think,” Mary said, patting Veronica on the head. A plate of sliced bananas and Oreos slid in front of Veronica and before she could ask, a glass of milk appeared. Veronica took an Oreo and dipped it in milk.
“What are you watching, Mary?”
“I am watching how to live forever without cancer by making a smoothie from tofu and watermelon. You want to try?”
“Okay.”
Mary took blueberries and tofu and watermelon from the fridge. Then kale.
“You look worried. They say you cannot taste the kale,” she said.
“I’m always worried. You know that, Mary. You don’t exactly have to be a mind reader to figure that out, no offense.” Veronica unscrewed a second Oreo and put a banana slice in between the two cookie halves.
“None taken,” Mary said, and began cutting the watermelon. “How many times we have to tell you. You will make new friends. You’ll see. When I came here from Germany, I know no one. Now I know people. Why you don’t believe me?” The blender made a screeching noise as chunks of pink and blue and white and dark green churned separately until they were sucked into the wrath of the blades all together.
The pool of ideas the grown-ups in her life had access to was obviously bone-dry since Mary and her mother and her father said the same things all the time. Mary poured thick purple goop into a glass and pushed it toward Veronica.
“And you know what else, Veronica Louise Morgan? Cricket Cohen is not the only girl in New York City. Maybe you make new friends. Better friends,” Mary said.
Veronica didn’t think she told Mary lots of the things that worried her, like her entire relationship with Cricket Cohen for example, but Mary seemed to know anyway. Everybody knew. Sometimes talking about your problems was no help at all. But try telling that to a pair of psychiatrists.
Veronica hopped off her stool to look for her favorite straw. It was usually in the back of the side drawer where her mother kept various kitchen gadgets and take-out menus though they always ordered from the same Chinese restaurant. She stuck her loopy straw into Mary’s latest creation with glee. She had to suck hard at the purple slush to pull it through the loops into her mouth. It wasn’t bad, even if it had kale and tofu in it and was probably healthy. Mary was good in the kitchen. All the ladies in Veronica’s life were.
“You were thirsty. Now, my baby. Look at the glass. Is it full?”
“Oh, Mary. Please. Not the half-full lecture.”
“Yah, Veronica. Your whole life, you look at the worst side of everything. I think this year you change. I think good things happen to you at this school. I think you finally will change your perspective.” Veronica knew what Mary meant, but she also knew that however she looked at the glass—half-full or half-empty—it was still just half a glass. So who cared.
Mary patted Veronica’s hair and poured herself a smoothie. She drank some and the funny-looking purple mustache it left above her lip made Veronica smile.
“Yuck. You like this tofu business?” Mary said, and spit hers into the sink.
“Yah,” Veronica said, “and you could too. If you change your perspective.”
Mary laughed. She hugged Veronica close against her soft body and kissed her three quick times in a row like she always did.
Dr. Veronica Morgan, Dog Psychiatrist
On the Internet, later that afternoon, Veronica discovered three things responsible for causing hot spots. The first was tangled or matted hair. That only applied to long-haired dogs, not beagles. The second was allergies. Esme had never mentioned Cadbury having any allergies, so Veronica didn’t think that was relevant. The third was boredom, stress, or loneliness. Bingo.
“Your dog,” the site said, “may need more exercise, playtime, or attention. Lack of any or all of these things may result in a dog who maims himself by constant licking and scratching.”
The thought of Cadbury maiming himself made her finger itch and her heart break. Obviously if Cadbury belonged to the Morgan family, he wouldn’t be lonely, so he wouldn’t need to hurt himself. Adopting him was good for Veronica and crucial for Cadbury. Why should Mrs. Kreller be the only one to benefit from psychiatric intervention?
Veronica would lay it on thick tonight, at dinner, but she had to finesse it just right. Her parents had to think adopting Cadbury was their idea. Her plan was so brilliant she could barely stand it.
Meanwhile, it was time to walk Fitzy.
“Be careful, my baby,” Mary said. “And don’t bring him in here to say hello. He is one dog that ruins the whole bunch.”
“Of apples?”
“Yah, Fitzy is more bad apple than one bad apple.”
“Mary.”
“Yah?”
“Never mind,” Veronica said. Sometimes explaining the English language to Mary was a lot more trouble than it was worth. She grabbed a plastic bag from the kitchen and headed for the elevator.
Fitzy was a miniature dachshund who lived on the tenth floor. Fitzy growled at the doormen, bit her dog walkers, and took special delight in nipping at young children. She wore a monogrammed sweater and a bow at all times. Perhaps Fitzy suffe
red from too much attention. Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson called Veronica the Dog Whisperer because Fitzy adored Veronica. In fact, when their fifth dog walker quit, they offered to pay Veronica fifteen dollars a week to walk Fitzy. If Veronica had been able to convince her parents that she would be perfectly fine walking a ferocious dachshund, she had to be able to convince them to rescue an anguished beagle with psychosomatic hot spots.
A Chance for Success
Veronica returned from Fitzy’s walk with her plan for adopting Cadbury firmly in place. It was important not to engage with either parent too much before dinner. Her best chance for success would be at the table when her parents were relaxed and eating. She hung up her coat and steeled herself before going to the kitchen.
Surprise surprise, her mother had the Hunan Delight menu in one hand and the phone in the other. How many times a week did the Morgans order Chinese food? Too many. Still, Veronica hoped her mother would order the string beans. She turned on the faucet and washed her hands.
“Yes, chicken with yellow leeks,” her mother told the phone. “One order of dry sautéed string beans and one order of loofah. Thank you. What? Yes! Dumplings. Thanks for remembering! Life wouldn’t be worth living without your pork dumplings. Two orders. Fried.” Mrs. Morgan hung up the phone and flung her arms around her daughter. “How was school?”
“Okay,” Veronica said, taking a stack of plates and a pile of napkins from the counter.
“Let’s eat in the dining room tonight, okay, lovey? Tell me everything.”
“There’s not much to tell. My uniform is too long, but you already know that,” Veronica said, very pleased with herself. Her plan had three parts and thanks to that last remark, part one was officially in motion. Part one depended on making her parents feel bad about how awful school was, that she had no friends, etc. Part two was establishing how sad Cadbury was: hot spots, unwanted, etc. Part three: BUY CADBURY. She was a genius. Cadbury was almost hers.
The Good, the Bad & the Beagle Page 2
