by Linzi Glass
“You promised you’d be home by four, Mom,” I said glumly, looking down at my hands.
“I know, honey, but the traffic coming back from the downtown rally that we were covering was horrendous.”
“You knew this was important. Why couldn’t you be on time?”
“Oh, no, I think I missed the turn!” She did a screeching U-turn and I had to hold on to the car door as we lurched onto Olympic Boulevard. She glanced over at me quickly. “I’m juggling a lot, you know. I’m doing my best.”
“But this was—”
“I get it. I said I was sorry.”
“No, you don’t get it, Mom. You never do.” I shook my head.
We made it to the shelter with less than five minutes to spare. It was a small brick building on a cul-de-sac in the more industrial part of Santa Monica. The front doors had posters of a woman with two dogs standing next to her and a cat on her lap. It said VOLUNTEER AT THE SHELTER. HELP YOUR COMMUNITY ANIMALS.
A uniformed female officer looked up at us from behind her desk as soon as we rushed in. She wore a badge that said OFFICER SHEPHERD. What a perfect name for someone who worked with animals. My mom explained quickly to her that we had lost our dog. She handed the flyer of Danny over to the officer and asked if he had been brought in since she last called to check, which had been earlier in the day.
Officer Shepherd looked long and hard at the picture of Danny and shook her head. My mom had used a picture of Danny that stood on the mantelpiece in the living room. It was taken at a picnic that we had last year for my dad’s forty-fourth birthday.
“Great lookin’ dog. Wish I could say he was brought in. Our shelter’s small compared to most, so we remember the face of every dog or cat that comes in or is impounded.”
“Can we check, just in case…?” I blurted out.
Officer Shepherd looked up at the clock on the wall. The hands were clearly at five o’clock. “Too late now, young lady, but I promise you, he’s not here. I’ll post the flyer, though.” She stood up and walked toward a cork-board where there were pictures of other lost or missing pets. “You should come back and help out sometime. We’re always looking for new young volunteers.”
“Thank you for your time,” my mother said as we headed out the door, her voice filled with frustration.
There was no point in reminding her that had she been on time we could have at least looked through the shelter ourselves, just to be sure. For once we seemed to be in the same frame of mind. Upset and disappointed.
Chapter Six
I barely slept all night. I kept waking up expecting to hear a familiar bark outside announcing that Danny’s little runaway-from-home adventure was over and he was back. But all I heard were trees rustling and an occasional car passing by on our street. It seemed like my mom wasn’t sleeping much either, because the hall light kept going on and off and I heard her stop outside my room a few times during the night. I had a split-second twinge of wanting to call to her and have her sit on my bed with her thin, pale arms around me. (She never went in the sun if she could help it because a tan “makes you look dirty on camera,” as she always told me.) But the wanting of her company was quickly outweighed by the heavy gray lump in my stomach where all my sadness was collecting, like a giant stratus cloud that would surely burst and drown me if Danny didn’t come back soon.
Ashton Adams lived in a big Mediterranean villa in Brentwood that looked like a five-star hotel. It had huge, high walls around it and was gated and guarded like Fort Knox. The drive to his house had been uncomfortable, with my mom trying to make conversation and me mumbling incoherent answers. As much as I was dreading spending the afternoon at Ashton’s, I was relieved when our car was buzzed in and the giant, wrought iron gates, with a huge “A” emblem on them, swung open.
Ashton’s housekeeper, dressed in a starched, salmon-colored uniform that seemed perfectly coordinated with all the terra-cotta tiles and matching oversized potted plants in the huge entrance hall, smiled and led me into a den. Ashton was lying slouched in a leather couch with his feet up on a marble coffee table, engrossed in what looked like a dangerous mountain climbing snow expedition that was playing on a flat-screen TV that filled an entire wall. I shivered.
“I didn’t even hear you come in, Bree.” He clicked off the TV. “Guess we should go rehearse.” He sighed as he stretched and stood. I decided it was a signature sound that came out of him whenever the word “Bree” was involved.
I followed him into what turned out to be his father’s at-home office. It was like stepping into a “who’s who” in showbiz extravaganza. Covering just about every inch of wall space were photographs of Alan Adams—Ashton’s dad—posing with major movie stars. His white capped teeth gleamed almost as brightly as the three gold Oscar statuettes that were strategically mounted in a chrome and glass case on the wall behind his huge, mahogany wood desk. I recognized the wood as mahogany because my dad had bought my mom a much smaller mahogany desk when she announced last year that she wanted to do her story research from home instead of at the network so she could be around more. She had never used it except as a place to throw designer jackets and pants that needed altering and glossy magazines that she subscribed to but rarely read.
I looked over at Ashton’s father’s desk. I gave it high marks for neatness, but that was probably the housekeeper’s doing. All it had on it was a laptop, a pile of scripts, and an oversized picture of himself—Mr. Powerful and Famous Movie Director—and a very pretty young blond woman, who was the only person in the pictures I didn’t recognize as someone whose face had been on a billboard on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood.
Ashton sat down in his father’s leather chair and faced me like I was there for an audition. He looked right at me with his hazel eyes, a sour look on his otherwise perfect face. I wished I was back in my mother’s SUV, tension and all, rather than here in the Hollywood Hall of Fame with a boy who clearly had no interest in being here with me. Turns out that look was meant for someone who had died over four hundred years ago.
“Shakespeare. Ugh. Bo-oring….” He made a face again.
“Depends how you look at it.” I sat down in the chair across from him. “His plays have all the same stuff in them as films today.”
“Like what?” Ashton challenged me.
I squirmed in my seat under his intense stare. Being ignored by him suddenly felt like a welcome alternative, but I had argued this very issue with my dad not that long ago and felt sure about what I would say next.
“Murder, violence, love, power, comedy. Do those sound familiar?”
Ashton stared at me for what seemed like a long time.
“You’re a brain. You get only As in class, right?”
“No, not lately,” I answered. I was wearing a new pair of flats and my feet felt like they were swelling like dough rolls in the oven, as if they needed to be free of the confining shoes and the look on Ashton’s face.
“Why not lately?” He picked up the picture of his dad and the pretty blonde and turned it facedown on the desk with a smack.
“My dog ran away a few days ago and I’m having a hard time concentrating in class and I’m scared he won’t come back,” I blurted out in one long sentence without taking a breath.
“Man, that’s the worst,” Ashton said, shaking his head.
“I keep imagining he’ll show up any minute, but it hasn’t happened yet,” I said softly.
Ashton stood up suddenly and walked to the office door that lead to the huge expanse of gardens and let out a shrill whistle.
“Buster, Bullwinkle!” he yelled. “Come to Papason!”
There was a low, guttural bark, followed by another that got closer and closer, and then they were jumping on him, fat paws pulling, flat noses snorting, and wide jaws slobbering, their short, fat tails wagging. It was an attack of the best kind. Dog licks and jumps that had Ashton falling on the floor with them. A rolling around together of tails and tongues and legs and arms.
“Meet the bulldogs from hell!” Ashton laughed as they pinned him down.
The smiling, salmon-uniformed housekeeper suddenly appeared at the study door. She wasn’t smiling anymore. “Your daddy say no doggy in his office!” she scolded Ashton in her broken English.
“Okay, okay, Consuela. Don’t look so mad.” He got to his feet and punched her lightly on the arm and gave her a big white-toothed smile. I watched as she melted, like butter in a microwave. Zap, zap, zap.
“You take the doggies out from here, okay, chico? Me no say nothing to your daddy.” She patted Ashton’s arm affectionately before leaving.
Buster and Bullwinkle had since discovered me in the chair and were trying to sniff every inch of me. I realized that the last time I had worn these jeans I had been lying on the couch in the den watching TV with Danny, who had been pressed up close and snuggly in front of me. Ashton’s bulldogs could clearly smell him on me.
“We should rehearse,” I said, feeling suddenly sorry for myself. Ashton had a perfect life, a perfect smile, and two perfectly safe dogs, slobber and all.
“I’m really sorry your dog’s gone. I mean, if anything happened to these two…” He leaned close to me and hugged their big heads. “I’d be totally out-of-my-mind crazy.”
“What do you mean?” I said with surprise.
Ashton walked over and sat down behind his father’s big desk again.
“The parents had a nasty divorce a year ago. My mom moved to New York. I haven’t seen her in almost five months. And Dad”—he picked up the photograph that was facedown and held it up—“is about to marry her.” He jabbed his finger at the young blonde’s face. “Yeah, wannabe actress and half his age.”
“Wow, I had no idea….”
“Yeah, no idea about anything is what soon-to-be stepmonster Stephanie is all about. The only thing she knows for sure is that she doesn’t like me. Or my dogs.” He shook his head. “I worry that once they’re married I’ll come home from school and they’ll be gone. Like she’ll take them and dump them somewhere.”
“She wouldn’t!” I said.
“Nah, Consuela’s been our housekeeper since I was three. She’s my dog guard, or guard dog, if you know what I mean.” He put the photograph of his father and his fiancée back down on the desk facing the right way up and sighed. I knew it wasn’t meant for me. “But I still wouldn’t put anything past Stephanie.”
“I’m sorry, really, I am.”
Ashton coughed and cleared his throat. “What’s your dog’s name?”
“Danny.” The sound of his name spoken in this unfamiliar place made me miss him even more. At home I could still picture him, his shiny silver bowls engraved with the words “food” and “water” still waiting to be filled in the kitchen. His big downy doggy bed still left with the imprint that his body had last made. At home I could still hold on to the fact that Danny still was. But out in the world there were no markers for me to run my fingers over to remind me that he still existed.
“I’ve had him since he was a puppy,” I said quietly.
“Yeah, I got Buster and Bullwinkle when they were ten weeks old. They’re brothers, from the same litter.”
“That’s lucky. They’ve always had each other…and you,” I said.
“And Danny’s always had you,” Ashton added.
“I guess I just expected he’d always be around. I never thought something like this would ever happen.”
“It’s horrible.” Ashton shook his head.
“I was at the Santa Monica Shelter yesterday hoping he’d be there, but he wasn’t.” I sighed. “You know, I just realized, I’m not the only one. There are other dogs and other owners who are missing their pets, too. I want to help them.”
Ashton looked at me. I mean, really looked at me in a way that made me want to turn away, but I didn’t.
“That’s cool, Bree.” He smiled. “Thinking about other people when you’re dealing with your own lost pet.”
“Thanks.” I blushed.
“Listen, if you like, I’ll help you find Danny. No sweat.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really. Dog lovers have to stick together, don’t they?”
Chapter Seven
I was anxious to speak to my mother on the ride home from Ashton’s. I wanted to tell her about Buster and Bullwinkle and Ashton’s wicked soon-to-be stepmother, but most importantly, I wanted to share with her that the most popular boy in seventh grade was going to help me find Danny.
But at 6:30 P.M., which was the time we had agreed for her to come, she didn’t show up. My cell phone, which I’d put on vibrate while we were rehearsing, buzzed in my pocket. I assumed it was a message from my mom, calling to say she had been let through the “A” gates and was waiting for me like a dutiful mother in the circular driveway. But she wasn’t.
“So sorry, honey, but the station needs me to cover a bear attack in the Angeles National Forest. I’m racing over there as fast as…No, Larry! The 210 freeway, not the 405!” she yelled suddenly. “Sorry, the cameraman’s driving us there. Anyway, I’m sure there’s someone in that enormous house who can give you a ride home. Far left lane, Larry! Yes…left! Don’t be mad, Bree. Please, okay. I’ll make it u—” I hit delete without waiting to hear the rest.
The family driver was out running errands, so Ashton got Consuela to drive me home in her old car. She insisted that I sit in the backseat, but I refused. I was embarrassed enough by the whole ordeal and didn’t want Consuela to think I expected her to act like a chauffeur. I must have said “muchos gracias” a thousand times to her for driving me. On the way Consuela filled me in on how bad everything was for Ashton since his parents had split up. She said she was glad that he had such a nice friend like me and that I must come over a lot because “he is very sore in his heart now.”
“But Ashton has tons of friends,” I told Consuela as we pulled up outside our two-story house.
“Si, he has lots of amigos to laugh with.” She turned the ignition off and her car came to a muttering stop. “But is all like play you rehearse. Is act.” She turned to look at me with her warm, liquid eyes. “He is, I see, different with you. Is because, I feel, you are a little sad, too. Yes?”
I drummed my fingers on the cover of my copy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in my lap and nodded.
Consuela made a clucking noise with her tongue. “Is parents also divorce?”
I shook my head. They were together, just never around, I wanted to say, but didn’t.
“Good news! Somebody stay married in this crazy city.” She slapped her hands on the torn leather steering wheel as if everything were suddenly solved. “In my country we stay together. No thinking to divorce, even if one is working many years in America and one is still in Guatemala and not possible to see each other very much.”
I wondered if Consuela’s husband and family missed her a lot since she had lived with Ashton’s family for so long, but I didn’t want to seem nosy and ask her.
“You be happy girl now.” She smiled and patted my arm as I got out of the car.
“Thanks again, Consuela,” I said, then turned and walked toward the empty house.
I was planning on calling Lulu immediately to fill her in on the afternoon’s turn of events with Ashton, but when I picked up my bedroom phone to call, the triple beep let me know that there were three messages waiting. The first was from the newsmom letting me know that she was rushing so she didn’t have time to write a note, but that there were chicken and a salad in the fridge for dinner and she’d be home by nine. The second call was from Kate’s mother. She wanted to tell me that she wouldn’t be sending out invitations to Kate’s birthday party because there wasn’t time, but ten of us would be spending the day at a spa getting “the whole shebang,” whatever that meant. The third message was from a person whose voice I didn’t recognize.
“Hi, my name is Martha Stein. I hope someone will get this. You see, I was pruning the outside hedges”—her voice was slow and halting�
��“and I found a collar, a dog’s collar, I believe, with your phone number and address, so I’m calling right away.”
I felt the whole room tilt and my heart drop like it was speeding downhill on a roller coaster.
“Yes, Danny, it says right here,” the woman continued. “Well, I do hope that someone gets this message. I’ll be home all evening, so feel free to come by. I live at 1293 Marguerita Avenue. A yellow house with white trim; you can’t miss it.”
I had kicked off my shoes when I got home and didn’t even wait to put them on again. I ran barefoot out the front door, down the driveway, and onto the street in the direction of Marguerita Avenue. Within the space of the few minutes it took for me to get there, a hundred thoughts raced through my nervous, excited, jumbled brain. As I sprinted through an intersection at Fourth Street and made a quick left onto Marguerita, I had to believe that, surely, if there was a collar, there must be a dog not too far behind.
I rang the doorbell of the white-shuttered house with rows of daffodils leading up the pathway to the front door. I was completely out of breath, more from anxiety than the jog over.
A small gray-haired woman opened the door.
“I’m Bree Davies.” I sucked in air. “I just got your message, about the dog, I mean, dog collar.”
She looked me over with kind, watery blue eyes and took in my naked feet.
“You must have been in an awful hurry to get it back.” She smiled and held the door open for me.
I followed her through her quaint house filled with vases of brightly colored flowers and hand-stitched lace cloths that covered every surface. She opened a drawer in her immaculate kitchen and handed me the painfully familiar, worn, brown leather collar. The sight of it made me feel hopeful and crushed all at once. She held it out to me and I took it slowly from her. I ran my fingers over it and I noticed that a few of Danny’s soft hairs clung to the inside. Then I saw that at its most worn spot it had snapped.
“Oh, no!” I said. “It broke and came off his neck!”
