Other People's Pets Read online

  Pinching her worn cotton shirt—an old one of Clem’s that swallows her—away from her chest, La La fans herself with it. She should have stopped taking Zev’s money a long time ago. But until yesterday, she believed he owed it to her. “I could pay O’Bannon.”

  Zev disappears into the kitchen. “Oh, yeah. How would you manage that?” he calls. Cabinets open and close, and he returns with a jar of metal polish, a rag, and a newspaper.

  “The same way you would, if you weren’t stuck in the house.”

  He spreads the newspaper on the coffee table. “Nope. No way. You have to finish school.” Dipping the rag into the polish, he goes to work on the lock though the steel already gleams.

  La La lifts Mo onto her lap and strokes the cat’s belly. “If a public defender represents you, you’ll end up in prison.”

  “I’ll end up in prison no matter what.”

  “You saved the guy’s life. O’Bannon will make the DA see that. He’ll get you probation.”

  Zev lifts the rag from the metal. “He said that?”

  “No.”

  He polishes the shackle. “I’m your father. I take care of you. You don’t take care of me.” He rubs the lock so hard, La La expects the rag to tear. “I’ll see if I can get a loan on the house,” Zev says.

  La La sinks back into the cushions, relieved to keep her own ambitions alive, so close to fulfillment she smells sterile wipes when she breathes. She’ll return to the veterinary hospital on Monday as if no call ever came from O’Bannon.

  As Zev pads into the kitchen, one white tube sock bunched below the ankle monitor, the other pulled taut, La La eases Mo from her lap and follows. She heads for the chair that has always been hers, the one pressed against the far wall and too close to the table. Its rubber-tipped metal legs have erased the star pattern in the linoleum. The vinyl seat cover is cracked. She sucks in her abdomen and slides in.

  On the side of the yellowing refrigerator, below photos of her college graduation, hangs a castle La La drew in first grade. Gray crayon for the stones; blue for the moat; her mother looming over the turrets, a giant stick figure with brown hair; her father holding La La’s hand. She wonders for the hundredth time why Zev never packed it away.

  Zev stores the polish and scrubs his hands. A pot of coffee is warming, and he pours a cup, sprinkling cinnamon on top. He adds a spoonful of Nestlé’s, stirs, and hands the cup to La La. Inhaling the rich smell, she takes a sip. “Little-known fact,” Zev says, “I invented the mocha latte. Starbucks stole it from me.”

  “Maybe we ought to report the theft.”

  Zev smiles, and La La is glad that despite everything, he still has a sense of humor.

  “All I had to do to get a visit from you was to get arrested,” he says. “If I had known that, I would have walked into the precinct years ago.”

  It’s been weeks since she’s seen him. Veterinary school keeps her busy. She warms her hands on the ceramic mug, whose fading decal reads WORLD’S BEST DAD. When she was ten, he suggested she buy it for him at a mall, and she did, though she was already becoming skeptical, wondering what her life would have been like if he’d just stuck to locksmithing.

  His sweatshirt smells of laundry detergent. The floor reflects a muted shine. “Stay for dinner,” he says, as he wipes the counter.

  “Sorry, I can’t.” She’s looking forward to eating with Clem and to pretending for a few hours that her life is normal.

  “I guess the quack expects you.”

  “Don’t call him that.”

  “Why not? He pretends to be a doctor.”

  “People choose to see him. They’re not always as happy to get a visit from you.” La La stands up and sets her cup in the sink.

  “Even the people I rob need me,” Zev says, washing the mug. “I teach them about impermanence.”

  “Where’d you pick that up? Some new-age magazine?”

  “Maybe.” He dries the cup.

  “I’m sure whatever you read didn’t suggest stealing other people’s stuff.”

  Taking out a broom, Zev sweeps the pristine floor. “Not exactly.”

  He hands La La a dustpan. She lowers it, catching the invisible dirt Zev pushes into it, going through the motions of emptying it into the trash. “I have to get home.”

  “You used to call this home.”

  She buttons her coat.

  “You’re always welcome back. If it doesn’t work out with the quack.”

  Annoyed, she embraces him loosely and returns to her car.

  * * *

  When his daughter is gone, Zev sits on the couch and lifts his right foot onto his left knee to get a better look at the monitor that transmits GPS data so the authorities can tell if he’s left the house. A fiberoptic beam runs through the length of the strap that secures it to his ankle. Cutting the strap would sever the beam, setting off an alarm at the monitoring company. The device makes his skin itch. He pushes his fingers beneath the too-tight band, trying to scratch. The officer at the jail, sadistic son of a bitch, laughed as he fastened it.

  As he lowers his foot to the floor, Zev says to Mo, “We got ourselves into a mess this time.” The cat is asleep on the back of the couch. She blinks, then throws a paw over her face. “Believe me, I’d rather ignore the whole disaster, too.”

  Mo whistles in her sleep, the only sound in the too-quiet house. Grabbing the remote control, Zev flips to a Sopranos rerun, one of the early episodes, where Tony’s on his way up.

  * * *

  In the car, La La’s cell phone plays “Honky Cat,” the ringtone for Dr. Bergman. She lets it go to voice mail. As their family vet, Dr. Bergman taught La La how to care for Tiny and Mo. He was the first to recognize her empathic connection to animals, even before she understood it herself. Without his encouragement, she might not have gone to veterinary school. Now and then he checks to see how she’s doing and to ask about interesting cases she’s following. She doesn’t know how to tell him about Zev.

  Ash trees with grim, leafless crowns, and tent-like blue spruce line roads streaked with tar, temporary fixes for cracks that constantly widen. In the west, the Rocky Mountains jab the sky. East the land is flat for hundreds of miles, to the Colorado border and beyond to Kansas. Longview is a town in transition. Cows feed in the shadows of packed residential developments. It takes La La ten minutes to reach the one-bedroom bungalow she shares with Clem.

  When she opens the door, Blue, a cattle dog mix with one cerulean eye and one brown, clambers up her side. Trampled by a horse, he lost a hind leg and the ability to herd sheep, and the farmer who raised him abandoned him. As if he were a broken tiller or a worn-out plow, La La thought when she learned what happened. Blue steals—socks, belts, keys, Clem’s wallet, untended food—burying the items under piles of snow in the yard or beneath sofa cushions. Her other dog, Black, is so excited to see her, he spins. Feeling dizzy, La La reaches a hand to the wall to steady herself. Black is part Labrador retriever with a short snout that turns up like a pig’s.

  Three and a half years earlier, right after La La and Clem moved into the house with a yard, they visited the shelter. In the crowded facility, barks ricocheted off gray cinder-block walls. La La stiffened. Growls rumbled in her throat. Longing for families who deserted them, the dogs whined, and La La’s eyes burned. She imagined locking their former owners in the kennels to show them what it was like.

  Black and Blue were caged together, their water dish upended, soaking a frayed orange blanket. Blue gnawed Black’s neck, the two as comfortable as littermates. La La wouldn’t be the one to separate them. Paperwork showed how long they’d been waiting for homes: Blue seven months and Black, a stray whose muzzle had whitened with age, an astonishing three years. La La wasn’t blind. With his square head, patches of fur lost to mange, and pig-like snout, Black was ugly. He also seemed familiar, an older version of the dog that had called her back from the lake. Yet dogs his size generally didn’t live that long. If she felt drawn to him, it was probably only
because she viewed herself as a kind of stray.

  “He’d frighten children. Don’t you think?” Clem said.

  “Then I guess it’s a good thing we don’t have any.” From the start, La La had told Clem she didn’t want kids. Elissa had demonstrated that parenting could be a form of cruelty. Zev had done the best he could but still put her in harm’s way. When La La imagined her future with Clem, which she often did, it was in a house overrun with animals. As she kneeled and reached through the bars, something in Black stirred, and he inched toward her, reinforcing a decision La La had already made.

  “If we don’t take him, who will?” La La said, looking up at Clem. “They’re good dogs.” He knew about her connection to animals.

  Clem reached into a basket of treats kept next to the kennel and fed one to each of the dogs. “She rescued me, too,” he said to them.

  In the shelter’s store, they spent more than they could afford on food, leashes, and toys. The shelter manager was so delighted that Black had found a home, he offered to forgo the dog’s adoption fee. La La waved aside the suggestion, never wanting Black to feel any less valuable than Blue, or that he’d been obtained at a discount.

  As she contemplates Zev’s predicament, La La sits on her living room floor and buries her face in Black’s neck, savoring the smells of dust and fur and the oils that waterproof his coat. Blue is on to his next adventure, restless energy driving him from one end of the house to the other. She loves them both, but Black is the one she turns to for comfort. With his heart beating alongside hers, she briefly forgets the upheaval of the last twenty-four hours. When she kisses his ear, he gives his head a vigorous shake.

  On her way into the kitchen to prepare dinner, she passes a photograph of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, hanging above the dogs’ toy basket. When Elissa used to describe traveling through the Southwest after college, her voice floated up and her eyes lifted toward the ceiling. The only other time her mother seemed that happy was talking about her work as a behaviorist with shelter animals. Instructing La La to get ready for school or to take a bath, her speech was clipped and low.

  La La tosses each dog a toy and pours herself a glass of red wine. She sautés mushrooms and chops salad.

  When Clem gets home, dinner is ready. Distracted, La La overcooked the spaghetti and burned the roasted garlic and mushroom sauce. Hearing him take off his boots in the entryway, she rolls her shoulders, trying to release some of the day’s tension.

  In the kitchen, he leans over and kisses her. Wraps her feathery brown hair around her ears. La La drops her forehead to his chest and closes her eyes.

  “Everything okay?” he says. “You’re home early.”

  “Clinic was slow.” She’s not sure why she’s lying. She isn’t the one who got arrested. When Clem plucks a piece of cucumber from the salad, La La slides the bowl beyond his reach.

  “Rosalyn Baylor stopped in,” he says. “Brought me a piece of pecan pie. Nice of her, wasn’t it?” He has a habit of turning statements into questions, a quality La La finds endearing because its effect is to include her in even the most mundane matters. “And Judge Macy had an appointment. I’m always afraid he’ll find a reason to sue me.”

  I know a good lawyer, La La thinks.

  While La La tosses the spaghetti, Clem massages her shoulders. “Let’s go to Florida for Christmas,” he says. “Surprise my parents. What do you think?”

  “I’m helping Dr. Roeder with clinical trials.” La La’s face is hot, and not from the steaming pasta. She finished her work with Dr. Roeder. But she can’t leave town as long as Zev is trapped in his house.

  “Too bad. My mom is always saying how she’d like to get to know you better.”

  “I’m your elusive fiancée.”

  He brushes aside her hair and nuzzles her neck. “You don’t feel elusive.”

  * * *

  La La met Clem when she was a junior at the University of Wisconsin, and he was starting out as a chiropractor. His office was in an old Victorian next to the clinic where she worked part time as a veterinary technician. As she left after her shift one day, he was outside the house, a tall man with cropped, curly brown hair and a beard. He dug into the pockets of his overcoat and pants, patted his shirt, then tried the door, rattling the knob without success. He reminded her of a bear that had tried to break into a locked dumpster behind a restaurant back home.

  “Problem?” she asked, approaching him. She wasn’t in the habit of talking to strangers, but she was pretty sure she could help.

  “Can’t find my keys. Thought I had them. Pretty lame, right?” He raked his fingers through his beard. Then tried his pockets again.

  “I might be able to open it, but you’ll have to show me your license.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I want to make sure that’s your name on the sign.” La La looked back toward the clinic, concerned she was revealing too much.

  “Are you a vet? The clinic seems to get quieter when you go in.”

  “I haven’t noticed. And I’m just a vet tech.”

  “I don’t know why I said that about the clinic. Crazy.” He pulled out his wallet and flashed his license. Satisfied, she slipped her plastic student ID between the door and the frame, and jiggled it. The door swung open.

  Clem raised his eyebrows.

  “Party trick,” she said. “You’re welcome. You should think about installing a dead bolt.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Louise, but people call me La La.” She was six when she overheard Zev tell someone on the phone the story behind her nickname. “When La La was a baby, she would lie in her crib singing ‘La La La, La La La,’ a fat smile on her face. One afternoon, Elissa complained, ‘Miss La La won’t shut up.’ The name stuck.” La La found it hard to believe she had ever been that happy, and the frivolous name didn’t suit her. She was reluctant to change it, though, because it was one of the few things her mother had given her.

  “I’m Clement, but I guess you already know that. Call me Clem.” He dropped his ear to his shoulder, stretching his neck, before putting away his wallet. “Can I take you out to dinner tonight? You saved me. I have a client coming in five minutes.”

  La La had never been on a date. Her first two years of college, she hadn’t made a single friend. Her classmates spoke a foreign language of small talk and teasing, bands and books La La had never heard of. What would she talk about on a date? Her father’s work? Her mother’s absence? “I have to study.”

  “How about tomorrow night?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  His fingers combed through his beard again. “I get it. No date. That’s too bad. There’s a new organic steak house we could have gone to.”

  La La cringed. “I don’t eat animal flesh,” she said, and then wished she’d used the word “meat” instead. She didn’t want to alienate Clem, who was attractive in a scruffy sort of way. She might enjoy sharing a meal with another person sometime.

  He looked down at his Rockports. “This isn’t going very well. Is it?”

  La La changed her mind, perhaps because he reminded her of the bear. “We could go to Serendipity.” A dog awash in relief padded away from the veterinary clinic with its owner. “It’s an organic vegetarian place.”

  “Great. Pick you up at seven?”

  “I’ll meet you there.” If the date went badly, La La didn’t want him to know where she lived.

  Back in her dorm room, she realized she had nothing to wear. Her clothes were worn and practical, ragged jeans and scrubs, clogs and sneakers. When she told her roommate, Althea, that she had a date, the girl let her borrow a black velvet dress and stilettos. She even offered to do La La’s makeup.

  “This shadow brings out the ocean colors in your eyes,” the art major said, stepping back to admire her work. “The liner,” she explained, as she held up the pencil, “will give your mouth shape.” Looking in the mirror, La La compared her own lips, which were the color of earthworms
and only slightly thicker, to her roommate’s red, heart-shaped mouth.

  La La’s loose clothes hid her small breasts, but the dress showed them off. She couldn’t walk in the three-inch spikes, so Althea found her a pair of wedge heels. When La La was ready for her date, she glanced in the mirror again and blanched. She looked like Elissa.

  “Wow,” Clem said, when La La took off her coat in the restaurant.

  She looked down, as if she’d forgotten the effort she’d gone to. “These clothes wouldn’t cut it in the clinic. I’d get blood on the dress when I assisted in surgery and trip over Simon, the cat who runs the place.”

  “You look nice in your scrubs, too. You seem happy in them.”

  “I’m happy around animals.”

  “Just animals?”

  “Let’s grab a table,” she said.

  Artsy photographs of vegetables—a giant radish, a wet head of romaine, chopped peppers—brightened the walls. Their table wobbled. A waiter took Clem’s order for a bottle of imported beer. La La said she’d have the same. At the salad bar, they filled their plates.

  Clem spilled dressing on his shirt and dropped his knife. La La didn’t know what to make of his sudden clumsiness. Searching for something to talk about, she discovered they shared an interest in anatomy.

  “A dog has one-third more bones than a human,” La La said, drawing a cartoon skeleton in the condensation on her glass. “Isn’t that surprising? Humans have two hundred six bones, while dogs have approximately three hundred twenty. Just one way dogs are more complicated.”

  Using both hands, Clem manipulated his neck, releasing a loud crack. “I wouldn’t want to work on a dog. It’s challenging enough to adjust humans.”

  “And most people are clueless about how dogs feel.”

  “Most people?”

  Revealing her empathic abilities had caused trouble for La La in the past. She’d been fired from her job at a clinic when a veterinarian heard her mention that a drug he prescribed was making a dog paranoid. College classmates demanded to know what she had smoked when she argued the solitary rabbit one of them kept was lonely. To protect herself, she’d learned to refer to how animals feel only in the most general way. “A dog’s pain threshold is very high. Unless you’re used to treating them, it can be hard to read. Their genetic makeup,” she said, changing the subject, “is more complicated, too. Humans have twenty-three pairs of chromosomes to a dog’s thirty-nine. People think humans are number one at everything. It’s ridiculous, because dogs have us beat in so many ways. I’d like to see a person sniff a jacket and track its owner. Or predict that a person is about to have a seizure.” The family at the next table had fallen silent and glanced at the young woman making a speech, but La La wasn’t finished. “Not to mention how loyal dogs are, which is more than I can say for some people.”