Page 17 of Puppy Love

“I smile all the time!”

Al shakes his head. “No. No, not like that.” He gestures to me, as though that explains something. “Not that kind of smile.”

“Well,” I say, pinching a piece of shredded cheese between my fingers and popping it into my mouth. “I guess I’m having a pretty good week.”

“Good,” he responds, as he hands me a pile of napkins. “You deserve it.”

Al has such a genuine demeanor about him, which is part of the reasoning behind my daily lunch routine. He knows more about my life than my parents, and he actually seems to care, even if sometimes he gets a little too personal.

“Hey, how’d it go with Mal?” he asks. The sound of the metal spatula scraping against the grill makes me cringe, or maybe it was the name that came out of his mouth at the same time. I can’t help but scrunch my nose at it, which feels mean even though it was a biological reaction.

“Okay, okay, nevermind,” he says defensively. He quickly changes the subject. “That new girl start yet?”

The mention of “the new girl” makes my stomach do a strange twist. I don’t know if has to do with the heat of the interaction, the embarrassment at being ditched, or the shock that she now works with me. Still, it’s better than talking about Mallory. I consider telling Al about what happened, but there are some things that should remain unsaid. No matter how amazing those things may be.

“On Monday,” I say, tucking my food into the side of my cheek while I speak. “She’s kind of a mess.”

“Okay,” Al says with a confused, breathy laugh. “And we’re smiling about that because?”

Because I had her tongue down my throat a few days ago.

“Because she’s going to be great!” I say instead.

“You just said she was a mess.”

I swallow a mouthful of crunchy tortilla and spicy green tomatillo salsa and ponder for a moment how both things can be true at the same time. Sure, I may have said it to deter from the fact that we had an… encounter, but that doesn’t mean I’m lying.

Cam is different. She’s definitely more reserved, like Avery, and maybe even a bit unfriendly at times. Messy too, given the random stains on her dress and the cute little mascara smudge. Of course, that could all be circumstantial.

I’ve peeked through the salon window multiple times to check on her (not to check her out, obviously), and she just looked happy. In her element. Even when I saw her struggling with a rather snappy Shih-Tzu, she controlled her emotions and took the time to gain his trust. The dog’s mom was ecstatic and said every other groomer has had to muzzle him.

It’s the same reason I hired Avery. You wouldn’t expect this large, masculine guy to be such a softy. Yet, he knows every dog in the facility, maybe even better than I do. Not just their names, but what they like, what they don’t like. How old they are, what they’re allergic to. If they were rescued, rehomed, or purchased from a breeder. He even remembers to take pictures of them wearing birthday hats on their birthdays. When I offered him the assistant manager position, his only concern was that he wanted to still be able to work with the dogs.

I get the same sense of dedication and patience from Cam.

“I just know she can take it.”

Al bobs his head, understanding. “Yeah, well, I don’t know how y’all do it. Dogs are assholes. I can barely handle Remi.”

I chuckle, taking another bite of my tostada. Al isn’t wrong. Dogs are assholes, and this job isn’t just playing with puppies like everyone thinks. Your day is spent in piss, shit, vomit, shit-vomit, then vomit-shit. Dogs will jump up, bite, snap, and pummel you. You have to know which dogs get along with which and who hates who.

It’s a lot, but I like it enough. Well, I like the dogs. The job itself, I could do without.

“You should’ve thought about getting a Basset Hound or something. I told you Rotties are a lot of work.”

“Whatever.”

I crumple the foil wrapper into a tight ball and toss it from the bench into the garbage can, missing horribly. After getting up to throw it away properly, my fingers dip into the fabric of my front pocket, and I pull out a smooth, round black stone. I hand it to Al, who looks confused.

“What’s this one? Doesn’t look very healing.” Recently, I’ve been teaching Al about crystals.

After he lost his daughter to cancer, I didn’t see him for a really long time. When I finally noticed the little white truck parked down the block again, I went to say hi. The man was a wreck. He could barely speak more than a few words at a time. Frankly, it broke my heart. I’m not religious. I don’t believe in God, or Satan, or any higher power at all really. But I do believe in energy.

“I mean, Einstein stated that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, so when you die, where does it go? It has to manifest somewhere,” I said to Al one day, after staying up all night researching. A lot of the things I read sounded like bullshit, but when I came across the idea that energies manifest again, it made sense to me in some weird way. “Life came from the Earth, so who’s to say it doesn’t get recycled when it’s over?”

He laughed at me when I brought it up, but I didn’t mind. It was the first laugh I had heard from him in months. He took the first stone, an amethyst for healing, while still making fun of me. It only took him two weeks to ask for another. That’s when I brought him a clear quartz, for clarity. Four weeks later, I gave him a Topaz for good fortune, and coincidentally (or not), his truck started to get really popular. Though he hasn’t yet asked for another, I know he needs it.

“It’s obsidian,” I say, placing it in his palm. “It helps get rid of negative energy and releases any emotional blockages you’re having.”

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