“I’ll text you the address so you’ll have it,” she said, pulling out her phone. “And the client wanted the dog walked in the afternoon, but they’re flexible with time. If they’re at home when you pick up the dog, just confirm that they want this to be a daily thing. And you should be all set.”
“Great,” I said again, realizing a second too late that I’d repeated myself. “I mean, good.”
Maya laughed at that, then slammed her back hatch closed and walked around to the driver’s seat. “You’ll do awesome,” she called as she got into the front seat. She started the car and drove away, waving to me out the window.
I closed my hand tightly around the keys—suddenly and irrationally terrified I would lose them and a dog would be sitting at home, unwalked and miserable, maybe having accidents on expensive rugs, and it would all be my fault. I dropped them in the front pocket of my cutoffs and headed for where I’d parked my car on the side of the road.
I’d just gotten behind the wheel when my phone beeped with the address. I glanced down at it, and felt my stomach plunge. But this only lasted a minute, as I made myself read the address again and realized there was nothing to be concerned about.
MAYA
Hi! The house is at 8 Easterly Terrace.
Call or text with any problems!
I let out a breath, telling myself to calm down, that this was ridiculous. But for just a second, when I’d first seen it, I’d read the address as East View Terrace, which was where our old farmhouse was.
I hadn’t been back since the day I’d left for Camp Stepping Stone. And even though I obviously wasn’t driving when I was twelve, I could have gotten one of the people staying with me to drive me over there. But I didn’t, and the more time that passed without me seeing it, the more I wanted to avoid it. My friends knew this and wouldn’t drive past there when I was in the car. Not that it came up a lot—the farmhouse was on the very outskirts of town. But now that I’d gone five years without seeing it, I was certain that I didn’t want to. What if the house had been replaced by something horrible and modern? Or—and this was somehow worse—what if it hadn’t? What if it was exactly the same house, and there was some other family eating dinner under my mother’s drawings, getting to see them every day, taking them for granted like I had done?
I punched the address into my phone’s GPS, put the car in gear, and headed over there. I was halfway to the Goetz-Hoffman house when my phone beeped with another text. I kept my hands on the wheel, ignoring it, until it beeped four more times, in rapid succession, and I knew that a text chain had started without me. I made a quick right on a side street, put the car in park, killed my engine, and pulled out my phone, hoping it was an actual all-four-of-us conversation and not just Toby texting until someone responded to her. I looked down at my phone and smiled when I saw everyone was on board.
PALMER
Okay, it seems that being a stage manager
means watching your boyfriend macking
on some random college freshman
BRI
Macking?
TOBY
PALMER
Toby, that is the opposite of
helpful right now
BRI
It was helpful for me. I had no idea
what you were talking about.
ME
You’ve seen Tom kiss lots of
girls in the other plays, P.
PALMER
Yes, but that meant I had to see him do it
only at the performances.
Now I’m having to live with it. Like every day.
TOBY
Egad. I see what you mean.
Or I would, if I’d ever had a boyfriend.
BRI
Please don’t say that you’re cursed
TOBY
BECAUSE I’M CURSED
ME
Seriously, T, you’re not cursed
BRI
Thank you.
I checked the time on my phone and realized that I should probably get going, especially since it was the first time I’d be walking this dog.
ME
Gotta go—I’ve got dogs to walk
BRI
Am I the only one who think that
sounds vaguely dirty?
TOBY
Yes
BRI
You don’t see it?
TOBY
NO. What’s wrong with you?
BRI
Andie?
ME
I am no way getting involved in this, guys
PALMER
Call me later?
ME
For sure
TOBY
PALMER
Seriously, Toby, we’re about to stage an intervention
TOBY
Wait, about what??
I smiled as I turned the sound on my phone to silent, knowing this conversation would probably keep going and that when I looked at my phone again, there would be a dozen or more messages waiting for me. I double-checked my directions to the Goetz-Hoffman house, then turned on my engine and headed that way.
I slowed as I reached Easterly Terrace and started looking for number eight. I pulled up in front of a gray shingled house and felt my jaw drop a little. Unlike the houses in Stanwich Woods, which had all clearly been built around the same time and by the same person, this house had character. It was big, with numerous windows all painted white and a round center section that looked almost like a turret, except really wide. There was a circular driveway with an SUV parked in the turnaround near a three-car garage with the doors down. I pulled around the circle and parked next to the SUV. It was beat-up and mud-spattered, with dents along the side, and it looked like it might have actually been used to go up mountains, unlike most of the SUVs I saw around town, which mostly looked like they were bringing kids to soccer practice. I got out of the car, holding on to an extra leash and the key, in case they weren’t home. As I walked past the SUV, I noticed it had Colorado plates. There was a lot of tri-state-area spillover in Connecticut—New York, New Jersey, occasionally Pennsylvania or Delaware. But Colorado? That one was new to me.
I took a deep breath and let it out as I walked up the wide front steps and pressed the doorbell. “Always knock, until you’re on a regular schedule and sure someone’s not home,” Maya had told me as we’d walked Wendell. “People get funny about you walking into their house, even if they’ve hired you to do just that.”
I didn’t hear anything, so I waited another second before I started trying the keys. There were three on the ring, but as soon as I tried the top lock, the door opened easily. I stepped inside, waiting to hear the sound of barking, a dog running down the hall toward me. I closed the door, then waited another second, but there was only silence. Maya had so prepared me for dogs being protective of their houses that it was a little disconcerting to be ignored.
“Hello?” I called into the hallway. My voice echoed back to me, and I took another step inside. “I’m, um, from Dave and Maya’s Pet Care,” I called, suddenly unsure if I should be calling out for a dog or a human. “Who’s ready to go on a walk?” I said in my best dog-excitement voice. I was about to call the dog, but stopped when I realized I didn’t know his name. I reached for my phone, but hesitated. I knew I couldn’t keep texting Maya for every little thing or she was going to regret ever hiring me.
I walked down the hall, still expecting that any second now I’d see or hear the dog I was there to walk. There were framed pictures evenly spaced down the hallway, most showing a couple, a man and a woman who looked like they were in their fifties. Most of the pictures looked professionally taken and framed, the couple usually in black-and-white, in formal wear or more casual, with the beach in the background. I paused briefly in front of what looked like a framed book cover—but it looked old, like from the thirties. The Most of Jeeves and Wooster, the cover read, and I looked at it for a moment longer before continuing on.
I walked to the end of the hallway, gripping the le
ash, still a little disconcerted that I hadn’t heard or seen a dog—or even spotted any dog stuff—anywhere. For a moment I panicked, worried I was in the wrong house. But then my rational brain took over, pointing out that if I was in the wrong house, the key wouldn’t have worked to let me in. I was about to call out again, but stopped, my train of thought temporarily derailed as I took in what was in front of me.
Books were everywhere. Not in haphazard piles—there was absolutely nothing about this place that seemed haphazard—but there were floor-to-ceiling built-ins on all sides of this very large room, and they were absolutely crammed with books. It was the kind of room—big couches, comfy chairs—that you would expect a TV in, but I didn’t see one anywhere. All I could see were books.
“Hello?” I could hear a voice, a hesitant one. It sounded like a guy’s, and like it was in the same room as me. I whirled around once, then twice, trying to figure out what was going on, until I realized that there was an intercom covered in the same taupe paint as the walls.
“Hi!” I said, walking toward the intercom, then pausing in front of it. Had the guy heard me? I tentatively pushed the talk button. “Hi,” I said again, probably louder than I needed to, if this was working. “I’m the dog walker? I’m here to walk . . . your dog,” I finished, wishing once again that I knew the dog’s name and hoping that Bri had been alone in her opinion that this sounded somehow dirty.
“Oh, right,” the voice said. It sounded somehow familiar, but maybe everyone’s voice started to sound the same when coming through an intercom. “We’ll be right there. Meet you in the kitchen.”
I heard a click that I assumed meant the guy was gone before I could ask where the kitchen was. But it didn’t take long to find it—it was next to the book room, taking up most of the back of the house, with big picture windows that looked out onto the backyard—an expanse of green with a large pool right in the middle. The kitchen was perfectly neat, like maybe nobody had ever cooked in there. But in keeping with the theme of the house, there were also piles of books in here, brightly colored cookbooks lining packed shelves.
“Hi,” a voice behind me said. I turned around, my best professional-dog-walker smile fixed on my face, but felt it falter, and my eyes widen, as I realized I knew the person standing across this immaculate kitchen from me. It was Clark, the guy with the white dog, the one I’d run into twice before. He was wearing jeans and a soft-looking plaid shirt, and his short brown hair was slightly askew, like he’d been running his fingers through it. He must have recognized me too, because his eyebrows flew up behind his glasses. “Oh,” he said, sounding surprised. “I didn’t know that—”
But whatever he’d started to say was totally lost as his dog barreled around the corner, nails scrabbling on the wooden floor, tail wagging furiously, as he headed right toward me.
“Bertie!” Clark yelled, lunging for the collar and missing as the dog jumped up on me, sending me tipping off-balance and back into the kitchen cabinets. “I’m sorry,” Clark said, yanking him back as the dog enthusiastically tried to lick my face.
“No, it’s fine,” I said, feeling like I needed to start asserting some kind of dog-walker authority in this situation. “How are you doing, buddy?” I asked, kneeling down, even though now the dog was taller than I was. I looked up at him and gave his head a gentle pat. “You ready to go for a walk?” “Walk” seemed to be a word this dog knew, as he immediately sat, his tail thumping rapidly on the ground. I reached for his collar, but Bertie immediately bolted, galloping out of the room as fast as he’d come in.
“Whoops,” Clark said, looking chagrined. “Um, sorry. I guess I should have . . . It’s like he thinks it’s a game. Every time I try to get his leash on, he runs away.”
“Oh,” I said, looking in the direction where the dog had gone, like this would give me some more information. I took a step toward the kitchen door. “Should I—” Before I could say anything else, Bertie barreled in again, stopping in the center of the room, giving us both the dog smile I’d seen that first day with him. His tail was wagging so hard that his whole back half was swinging from side to side. I took a cautious step toward him, but Bertie jumped in the air and ran as fast as he could out the door again.
“He seems to calm down after a while,” Clark said. “But you can’t say that word. I usually spell it if I have to, like W-A . . .” He seemed to realize that he didn’t need to keep spelling “walk” for me and stopped talking, looking down at the kitchen floors.
“Right,” I said, hoping I seemed like I’d seen all this before and wasn’t totally thrown by it. “That, you know, happens sometimes.”
I looked over at Clark, who was leaning against the kitchen counter, and was suddenly aware of the strained silence between us. I’d had to interact with only one owner so far, and in that instance, the small talk had been totally handled by Maya and had revolved only around the dog. I looked to where Bertie had gone, like this would give me some indication of when he might be back again. “This is a great house,” I said, after trying for a moment to think of something I could say about a dog who wasn’t currently present.
“Oh, thanks,” Clark said, crossing his arms, then uncrossing them. “Yeah, it’s . . . good.”
Silence fell again, and I listened for the sound of paws scrabbling on the wooden floors, thinking that now would be a great time for Bertie to show up again. “Lots of books out there,” I said, gesturing toward the other room when I failed to think of anything else to say.
“Right,” Clark said, nodding a few too many times. “There are.”
Silence fell again, and I decided rather than continue to make insipid comments about the house, I was going to wait for Bertie to return.
Clark cleared his throat, then asked, “Uh—it’s Andie, right?”
I nodded, a little surprised that he’d remembered. I’d remembered his name, but that was because it made me think of mild-mannered reporters who were secretly superheroes. The glasses really weren’t helping to take away from that either. “Andie,” I confirmed. “You got it.”
Clark nodded, then took a breath. “This sounds really cliché, and that’s not how I mean it,” he said, all in a rush. “But you look . . . really familiar. And I know I saw you the other day, but I don’t think that’s it. . . .”
I nodded, taking a breath, prepared to jump right in. Topher would never tell people where they knew him or his mother from, would just look at them blankly like he had no idea as they stumbled through their polite confusion and leading questions. But I always nipped it in the bud. Even if it turned out that wasn’t what they were asking—because I actually knew them from mock trial semifinals, or something—I always led with my dad’s job. It was easier, and that was usually what people were trying to pin down anyway. I was on the verge of saying what I always said—My dad is Congressman Alexander Walker. Maybe you’ve seen me in his campaign ads?
But then I remembered the conversation I’d had with Maya and how now, in the wake of this scandal, the thing I’d been saying for most of my life whenever anyone asked about me—a description of my father’s job—was no longer relevant, or something I would want people to associate with me now.
I looked over at Clark, who was waiting for me to answer a not-that-difficult question, but then looked away. “Well—” I started, even though I had no clue what was going to follow this. Silence fell between us again, but I was saved from having to say anything else by Bertie flying back into the room. As though we’d discussed it beforehand, Clark and I jumped into action, moving toward the dog from opposite sides at the same time. This seemed to confuse him, and he froze, giving Clark the chance to grab his collar. Bertie, seeming to accept the game was now over, sat down and started enthusiastically licking Clark’s ear.
“His stuff is over there,” Clark said, pointing to a cabinet while clearly trying to keep Bertie at arm’s length and out of licking range. I walked over to it and pulled it open—it was stocked with all manner of dog paraphern
alia. There were leashes and extra collars, bags of food and treats, and a monogrammed canvas bag that read BERTIE W. I looked at that for a moment, wondering what the W was for if Clark’s last name was Goetz-Hoffman, but then realized I had other things to focus on at the moment.
“Great,” I said as I set the leash I’d brought down on the counter. I didn’t know if dogs preferred their own leashes, but since Clark had shown me the Bertie cabinet, it would seem like he wanted me to use his accessories. I reached for the nearest one, then hesitated. “Is there one he likes best?” I asked. Clark looked at me, blank, and I added, “One that you’d like me to use?”
He shrugged. “I’m not really sure—like I said, I don’t know much about dogs.”
I nodded, trying not to let any annoyance show on my face. Bertie might have been primarily Clark’s parents’ dog, but that didn’t mean he was allowed to claim total dog ignorance. I knew that Bri would never have said something like that about Miss Cupcakes, and she was certainly no fan of that cat. “This will probably be fine,” I said, grabbing a long blue one with B.W. woven into it. Clark’s parents certainly seemed into their monogramming.
“So, uh, I didn’t think you’d be here,” Clark said as I knelt down to fasten the leash to Bertie’s collar. Clark was still holding on to it, and I looked up at him and realized just how close together we were. Clark must have realized this at the same moment, because he let the collar go and pushed himself up to standing. “I did the interview thing with—I think his name was Dave?—so I assumed he’d be the one to, you know, walk Bert.”
“We sometimes trade off,” I said, disappointment making my stomach drop. Why was I upset that he’d rather someone else walk his dog? I tried to tell myself it was because it would mean I’d miss out on getting my first regular client. But as I looked up at him, at his deep dimples and his unfairly long lashes, I knew that wasn’t really the reason. “But I can tell Dave you’d prefer he walk your dog. Happy to pass on the message.” I gave him a big smile, then looked down at Bertie, trying to mentally convey to the dog that this would be a great moment to start the game up again and make another run for it, anything to add some distraction. But Bertie just looked up at me with another one of his dog smiles, tail thumping on the kitchen floor.