Page 19 of Salty Pickle

I can’t make phone calls without her disapproving gaze. I can’t hold meetings in here with her goat overlord.

And Devin leaves without any updates on the progress in finding a home for her.

I shove the mangled pages into my drawer and clear the desk for the inevitable return of the goat. Lucy has chomped into her sandwich with gusto and pays me no mind.

Time for a temporary exit. I step outside of that hellscape, carefully closing the door. Can’t have the goat getting out.

Devin looks up from a spread of printouts.

“What’s the progress in finding her a place to stay?” I ask.

“I had Angelique keep looking while I was gone.” He neatly stacks the printouts with images of cabins and barns. “She brought me these in order of likelihood.”

There are quite a few pages. That’s promising. “Just choose one and make it happen.”

“Are you okay with her being upstate?”

I hesitate. “What do you mean?”

“If we admit to having a goat, there’s no place in Manhattan.”

“How far?”

Devin shuffles through the papers. “Warwick. Patterson. Syracuse.”

“Syracuse? That’s hours away.”

“You want her close?”

“Not necessarily.” I gesture for him to keep talking.

“There are some goat farms with spaces you can rent. Some are B&Bs, others cabins.” He glances up. “Warwick is the closest at an hour and a half. There’s not a lot of options. Places are rare and often booked out.”

“You think she’ll go for that?” I ask.

“She loves her goat.”

“Which one is that?”

“A dedicated goat farm. Halson Family Farm. It has tiny houses to rent. There’s goat yoga. A whole barn and milking operation. Should be right up her alley.”

“Print out some nice pictures of it. We’ll convince her. Get her out of here.”

Devin’s face is pinched as he stacks the papers. “We’ll have to find a doctor out there. What if she expects you to be involved?”

“She called me a damn fixer-upper. We’re completely incompatible.”

“But if she’s having your baby.”

“If it’s mine, we’ll work custody out with lawyers like any civilized set of parents with irreconcilable differences.”

Devin’s face is a mask of disapproval.

I sigh. “What?”

“You’ve been concerned about morale. Leadership. Company culture. She could help.”

“How? By parading around barefoot with her goat?”

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