by S. Bennett
“No thanks,” I reply, and then bend my head to my put nose to Atticus’ head. His fur smells clean and fresh from the bath he got yesterday, and I inhale to compose myself and garner strength.
I rub my cheek against him for just a moment, while I take a fortifying breath. “I have something important I need to talk to you about.”
Charmin turns to me, worry in her eyes because my tone is so dire sounding. She sees the puppy in my arms, and the worry dissolves into a huge smile that spreads across her face. “Oh my God,” she shrieks, making grabby hands for my dog.
She freezes for just a moment, whips around, and shuts the stove off before spinning back so fast, her bleached-blond hair flies around and smacks her in the face. She makes grabby hands again, silently beckoning for my dog.
My instinct is to take a step back, but I’m also surprised she’s such a dog lover. I had no clue, and that bodes well for me.
“Where did you get that puppy?” Her hands open and close furiously in desperate need to hold him. “He’s so cute. Let me hold him.”
She gives me no choice, pulling Atticus from my grasp. I reach out and unhook the leash from his collar, then Charmin turns him so she’s cradling him like a baby. She puts her face right up to his and starts baby talking. “Gosh, you’re such a cutie. Look at those eyes. And those eyebrows. You’re so soft and fuzzy wuzzy. I could just cuddle you for days, you little cutie patootie.”
Atticus responds to her tone, his tail wagging furiously with excitement as he starts licking her face. A stab of jealousy spears me dead center.
Charmin pulls him in close to squeeze him, and I almost leap forward to pull him away. I restrain myself and instead tell her, “Be careful. He’s got some cuts on him.”
“Oh, you poor thing,” Charmin says as she relaxes her hold on him. Her gaze lifts to me. “Whose puppy is this?”
“Mine,” I say, my own eyes cutting away so I don’t have to face immediate rejection.
“Yours?” she asks in confusion.
I have no choice but to face the music. Scratching at the back of my head, I nod. “Found him yesterday in a ditch, injured. Took him over to a vet and got him patched up.”
“So you’re going to keep him?” Every bit of exuberance over a cute puppy is now completely gone from her tone, although I note she’s still cuddling him gently with one hand stroking his belly. Atticus’ eyes roll around his head in ecstasy.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I want to know if I can keep him here. He won’t be a problem, I promise. I’ll even pay you a little extra each month if you want.”
“I’ve got a no-pet policy in my lease, Hazel,” she reminds me.
“So does everyone in this complex, but they all still have pets,” I counter. She knows this as well as I do. I then make a bold assertion. “If he damages anything, it’s my responsibility. If we get caught, I’ll get rid of him lickity split.”
That last was a lie. There is no way I am getting rid of Atticus.
Ever.
This was the first thing I felt truly committed to on such a deep, personal level that I know inherently failure would probably destroy me.
I would just make sure we never got caught.
Charmin swivels her head between Atticus and me.
I go ahead and throw everything I got at her. “He was in a ditch, Charmin. Wrapped in barbed wire and thrown out like used garbage. This dog deserves a chance. Please let me give it to him.”
Her face morphs, and pure sympathy radiates from her very pores. “Oh, poor baby,” she coos to Atticus. “Who would do such a thing?”
“Right?” I ask, incensed and offended all over again on my dog’s behalf. “It’s evil.”
“Pure evil,” she concurs.
“So can I keep him?” I ask. When she lifts her eyes to mine, I bat my eyelashes shamelessly while clutching my hands to my chest. “Please, please, please, Charmin.”
She doesn’t hesitate. “Of course you can keep him. Good thing Chuck likes dogs.”
I barely restrain myself from rolling my eyes. I never speak bad about Chuck to her because even though Charmin and I are friends and coworkers, she’s so far over the moon for him I know where her loyalties will lie.
CHAPTER 10
Atticus
Hazel is my new owner, but she’s more than that.
I didn’t even know my other owners’ names. They were just a man and a woman.
They didn’t shower me with affection or call me nicknames like “Mister, Mister” or “Little Man”. Heck… I didn’t even have a name. I was just the “orange”.
Yeah… Hazel is more. I had lots of love for my dog mama. She licked me a lot and never begrudged us all fighting over her. But she gave us all equal attention. None of us were overly special in her eyes.
I’m the only special one in Hazel’s eyes, and that makes my insides tumble all over the place with glee.
After Hazel shows me around my new home where I’ll be living with her, and her friend Charmin feeds me some fried bologna, we go outside.
It’s not overly hot and the old winter grass is prickly under my feet, but I can see patches of softer green starting to grow.
Hazel plays with me for a really long time. I must delight her because she laughs a lot, especially when I start hopping all around, trying to pounce on a cricket.
She brought out an old sock and plays tug-o-war with me. She’s way stronger than I am, so she really just holds it while I try to take it from her. I grab onto it hard, shake my head ferociously, and growl as I try to pull it away from her. Just when I think I can’t pull any harder, Hazel lets it go and I fall to my butt.
She does this over and over again, laughing each time I tumble.
This time, I lunge for the sock, determined I’m going to succeed and I won’t fall. Except I get so caught up in the game I don’t pay attention, so when she lets go, I fall again. This time, something jabs me in my butt and it scares me so bad I yelp really loud. Hazel’s face gets worried, and I run straight for her. She scoops me up and starts cooing nice things to me.
Truth be told, I feel a little foolish, but I’m not complaining about the way she fawns all over me.
When I’m too tired to play anymore, we lay in the grass. I roll to my back and show Hazel my belly. She understands me perfectly and starts to rub it.
My tail wags because it’s the most perfect place to get scratches.
Hazel leans over me, and I smile up at her while she pets me. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you, Atticus?”
Why yes. Yes, I am. I give a little woof of acknowledgment.
“I’ll always take care of you,” she promises, and I believe her. My chest swells, and I get so delirious with love for my new owner that I pee a little in excitement. If Hazel notices, she doesn’t say anything. She just keeps rubbing my tummy.
Eventually, Hazel takes me inside. We lay on the couch for a little bit with me on her chest. She tries to watch some TV, which I don’t like because that means she’s not paying attention to me. I consider ways to get her to focus back my way, but then I get distracted by these shiny things hanging from her ears. They beckon to me, and I inch forward on her chest to check one out more closely.
I snuffle at her ear, and she bats me gently away. Laughing, she says, “Stop. That tickles.”
But then her attention goes back to the TV.
Craning my neck outward, I get very close to the dangly thing hanging from her ear and grab ahold of it with my teeth. As I did with tug-o-war, I start to pull.
Hazel shrieks, flying upward off the couch. I instinctively release my hold on the dangly thing as I tumble onto the cushion, landing on my back.
Hazel looms over me, pointing her finger. “Bad dog. You don’t pull on my earrings. That hurts.”
I don’t like the way she’s talking to me. It makes me feel sad, and I’m not quite sure why she’s doing this. My ears flatten down, and I turn my head so as not to look at her.
“Hey, buddy,” she says softly, and I feel her hand on my chest. My tail wags in response to her sweet tone, and I dare to take a peek. She’s smiling, and her voice is gentle. “I didn’t mean to scare you. You just caught me by surprise.”
I’m elated and my tail wags harder. I bark at her, so she knows I’m not mad at her either.
“Come here, you silly thing,” she says, and then I’m back on her chest while she cuddles me.
We end up taking a long nap together.
CHAPTER 11
Hazel
There’s a chance I could be fired tonight.
There’s a better chance I won’t.
As long as Cary sticks to his routine and sits out with the general bar population, I should be good. He’s a hands-off boss and if I’m serving his customers in a timely manner, keeping the bar clean, and doing it all with a generally nice disposition, he doesn’t have much to say and he rarely even ventures behind the bar.
He almost never goes into the stockroom, which is where I currently have Atticus stowed.
Charmin agreeing to let me keep him at her place was shocking to say the least, and I can only credit it to the fact that she’s a true animal lover and my dog is like the cutest thing ever. As I sat on the living room floor and played with my new pup, I listened in amazement as Charmin held her own with Chuck after she’d called him to let him know about the newest housemate. He didn’t put up much of a fight so hopefully Atticus will be a non-issue in our living arrangements as long as the landlord remains ignorant.
My afternoon before I had to come into work was spent getting to know my dog. We sat outside in the sparse grass. I used an old sock of mine that was missing its mate, and we played a lot of tug of war. He makes the most amazing sounds from deep inside his chest. He tries to be so ferocious, but they sound more sweetly spunky than anything.
I wish I had a computer or a phone to research his breed. Maybe one day if I save some money, I can Uber across town and use one at the library, but for now I’ll just have to pick Dr. Peele’s brain. I spent time today studying Atticus. His fur is fuzzy, almost like it’s frizzed from humidity, and it’s so soft I can’t stop touching him. His markings are absolutely perfect.
His legs are tricolored starting with white paws, before sharply changing over to a gorgeous rusty brown at mid-leg. Whereas the white and brown are sharply delineated, the brown then morphs into a midnight black up to his shoulders which extends over his back and sides.
When he went belly up on me the first time, I noticed the outside of his back haunches are black while the insides are brown.
His chest is snowy white and practically blinding. I foresee a lot of baths in this dog’s future to keep him clean.
That face, though. Such a study and a tricolored patchwork. But those eyebrows… rust against coal-black that move constantly to change his expressions. When he gets mad—for example, when he can’t tug the sock away from me—they knit closer together in both concentration and consternation.
When he’s happy or chill, the eyebrows relax and open. His mouth parts, tongue falls out the side, bottom teeth poke out, and he just has the dopiest grin ever.
When he’s inquisitive, his head tilts and the eyebrows raise just ever so slightly. I can actually read his expression. Please tell me more, Mom.
But when it’s all said and done—and I get past the gorgeous markings and the softness of his hide—his eyes are what makes him unique. I know he’s not the first dog with different-colored eyes, but I don’t care about those other dogs. I only care about that blue eye that seems to see things that I can’t.
At one point today, his gaze lifted, and that blue eye peered at something over my shoulder with such intensity the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
“What are you looking at?” I asked him after I looked over my shoulder and saw nothing.
His gaze came to mine. Just slid to me in a calm fashion, and he fixed that blue orb on me. So clear and almost humanlike in the wisdom it seemed to hold despite his youth. I labeled it a truth teller. In that moment, I felt it had the power over me to keep me honest. His expression said, You can’t lie to me, so don’t even try.
I’ve known Atticus for less than two days, yet I think I was meant to love him from the beginning of my life.
Such a different type of love, too.
With my parents and sister, that’s sort of wired into the DNA. There’s years of relationship building—and hurting—that goes into familial love.
With Darren, my husband, love was part of a contract. He promised to love and honor and protect me. He may have loved me at some point, but he failed on the other two—a fact I’ve still not been able to quite reconcile in my mind. That type of love was cyclical. I gave him love so he would give it back to me, and I desperately needed it.
But with Atticus—after two days of knowing this dog—I don’t feel like it’s remotely close to the other types of love I’ve felt. My love is new and I can imagine will only grow, but I give it to Atticus without expecting a single thing back from him. He doesn’t need to offer me words of adoration, and he certainly can’t help pay my bills or put food in my stomach. I don’t need a single thing from this dog, and yet… I know he’ll give me everything.
And this is what’s odd. I’m a needy person. I’ve always been. I get every bit of my self-worth from the way other people treat me. My husband tells me he loves me, then that means I’m worthy of love. My parents tell me they’ll always support me, and that tells me that my endeavors have meaning.
With Atticus, I don’t need him to make me feel good. I mean, he makes me feel good no doubt. I can’t help but constantly smile and laugh around him, but I don’t require it of him as a precursor to what I can give him back. I just know inherently I would give this dog everything no matter what he could potentially offer me.
So very weird and without any further scientific, religious, or cosmic explanation, I just have to accept Atticus is my fate.
“Hello… earth to Hazel, come in Hazel,” I hear someone say, and then my eyes focus to find Bernard standing in front of me snapping his dry and cracked fingers. They make more of a rasping sound.
My lips curl upward, and I shake my head. “Sorry about that.”
Bernard moves over to his stool while I pour his beer. When I sit it down in front of him, I’m stunned to see him push a crisp twenty dollar bill my way. “Four beers tonight, Hazel, and an eight-dollar tip for you.”
“Where did you get that?” I ask, not even making a move for the money.
I glance down at the end of the bar, noting Charmin can handle the early drinkers if I want to take a moment to talk to Bernard. It’s Thursday night—the early beginning to the weekend—which is much busier than the earlier week nights, so Cary puts two bartenders on shift.
Charmin thought I was crazy as hell for bringing Atticus into work with us tonight, but I wasn’t about to leave him at home alone with Chuck.
Bernard is a welcome sight. Truth be told, he’s probably my favorite customer. I like how he listens to me, and the sometimes-sage advice he gives. He doesn’t let me get away with bullshitting him, and in some respects, that makes him seem like a father figure to me.
I nod down at the twenty, and Bernard’s eyes don’t sparkle with any extra brilliance that amount of money might bring to him.
He just shrugs. “Had an unusually generous person give that to me up at the intersection of 17 and Maplehurst. So I’m enjoying a few beers and paying it forward to you with a good tip.”
Snatching the twenty off the bar, I tell him over my shoulder. “I am not taking an eight-dollar tip for serving you four beers when the tap sits less than two feet from your bar stool.”
I ring up his beer, take one dollar and stuff it in the tip jar, then hand him his change. Over the course of the rest of his beers, he�
�ll push another dollar or two my way, but I’m not taking more than three.
Maybe four.
I really need the money, but I don’t want to cheat him. Bernard really needs the money, too, and yes, I know he squanders some of it on beer when he shouldn’t, but he’s an adult. He’s lived a long life. He should do what he wants to do.
“So,” he drawls as he leans forward on his seat just a bit. “What were you daydreaming about? New beau?”
Chuckling, I put my forearms on the bar. “First, no one says the word ‘beau’ anymore, and second, I resent the use of the term daydreaming. I was multitasking in my head.”
Bernard snorts and takes a long pull on his beer. It’s relatively mild out tonight, so he won’t linger long past his last once he drinks it. He usually only stays longer than Cary likes him to in the colder winter months.
I look down the bar at Charmin. She winks at me when I catch her eye. I look over to where Cary’s sitting with his friends, where they are starting the first leg of their journey tonight toward getting shit faced.
When I focus back on Bernard, I tell him with an uncontained smile on my face. “I got the dog.”
Grayed eyebrows fly upward, and it reminds me of Atticus’ eyebrows. That makes me smile bigger. “And where are you keeping it?” he asks.
The corners of his lips are tipped up slightly and I take that to mean that he’s not only amused by my clear happiness over such a bold move in my life, but also because he might be a little proud over me doing something I didn’t think I could.
“Charmin said I could keep it at the apartment, but tonight… I have him in the storeroom. I wish you could see him, Bernard. He’s so damn cute. In fact, I need to go check on him soon and take him out for a quick pee behind the building.”
