Page 10 of The Incredible Kindness of Paper
The good part of working at the Met, though, had been when kids came on field trips and Chloe got to show them how tofeelthe meaning of a piece, rather than just seeing it as “some dusty old painting.” She loved how their eyes lit up when they suddenly understood, and she realized that these small moments could change a person, that she could do more than dust sculptures but could instead help shape young people’s lives.
That was when Chloe decided to become a high school counselor, and she had worked hard to get her master’s degree through night school. When she finally landed the guidance counselor job a couple years ago, she thought she’d made it.
And look where she was now.
Chloe sighed.
She doodled a minuscule heart-shaped rosebud onto the receipt bookmark, then threw herself into reading for the next hour. In the meantime, she absentmindedly folded the receipt into a tiny rose, but Chloe was so deep into her book, she didn’t notice when the breeze kicked up, rustling through the maple leaves and blowing her paper flower away. She only figured it out later, when Zac had finished his workout and appeared in front of her, and she reached for her bookmark on the bench beside her but found nothing there.
“Hmm.” Chloe frowned and scanned the grass all around her.
“What are you looking for?” Zac asked.
“A receipt I folded into a little flower.”
He did a cursory sweep of the area, then shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. People leave trash behind all the time.”
Chloe frowned. Sure, it was an old receipt, but that didn’t make her paper rose trash. And even it if were, she didn’t like being a person who littered.Despitewhat the Threadbare Countess believed.
But her origami was nowhere to be seen, and there was nothing she could do about it. Who knew where it had gone by now. Chloe liked to think, though, that it wasn’t just lying in the dirt somewhere in the park. Instead, maybe a bird had picked it up for its nest. Or maybe a squirrel had stolen it and hidden it away like a treasure in the hollow of a tree.
Maybe the receipt flower had higher aspirations than remaining Chloe’s old bookmark.
After a lunch of leftover veggie soup and a slightly stale brownie by herself (Zac had to go to the office and Becca was, thankfully, on the Saturday shift at the health food store), Chloe went downstairs to grab today’s mail. But as she descended the staircase, she was greeted by barking.
Happybarking.
What was going on?
Chloe reached the first floor, where the usually closed door to unit 1A was flung open, and a half dozen residents were gathered inside, their dogscheerfully playing with Rufus, the terrier that lived there. There were a pair of Lhasa Apsos wearing collars embroidered with the namesBarneyandFreddy. A stout English bulldog, a feisty white Maltese, an Instagram-ready Corgi with a red bow tie, and another terrier apparently named Rocky, because his owner kept saying, “Rocky, calm down! Rocky, I know this is fun, but shh…” before she gave up trying and devolved into giggles.
And Thelma the Threadbare Countess was standing on a folding chair, holding court, andgrinning.
Chloe stuck her head inside 1A. “What’s happening?”
“It’s the new doggy daycare center,” a woman with short curly hair said. “Aren’t you here because of the ‘Thelma the Terrier Lady’ flyers in the Hell Room?”
Chloe shook her head. “I haven’t been to the Hell Room yet.”
“Where’s your dog?” a man in horn-rimmed glasses asked. “This is Arthur and Ford Prefect.” He gestured at the two shelter dogs jumping at his feet who did, indeed, look like an adventuresome duo worthy of their literary namesakes.
“Um…” But Chloe didn’t get to respond that she didn’t have a dog (despite loving them), because Thelma clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. The crowd turned to her.
“Welcome, welcome, to what I hope will become ‘Thelma the Terrier Lady,’ the premier—and only—doggy daycare within a ten-block radius!” Thelma said from atop her folding chair. “Seeing all of you makes my heart sing. Just yesterday, I was despondent because I thought I was going to be evicted. My darling husband, Tyrell, passed away a few years ago, and with one measly social security check and the rent going up, I haven’t been able to pay what I owe.
“But then, last night, Rufus—that’s my dog—sniffed something important in the mail room, and it changed everything. He found this…” Thelma reached into the pocket of her cardigan and pulled out an origami rose. The one Chloe had made with the smiley-face-pattern paper.
Chloe gasped.
“Inside, there was a message for me.” Thelma unfolded the origami and began to read. “?‘Chin up, buttercup.’?” Her smile trembled. “It might seem simple, but it was, for me, a revelation, because that is what Tyrell used tosay. ‘Chin up, my dear Thelma,’ he’d tell me whenever I was sad or discouraged. ‘How can opportunity find you if you are looking down? Chin up, my buttercup, chin up, so you can look opportunity in the eye.’?”
The dog owners murmured in appreciation.
Chloe blinked in disbelief. How serendipitous that she’d writtenexactlywhat Thelma needed.
“So I held my chin up when I came back to my apartment,” Thelma said. “And do you know what I saw? The old corkboard where Tyrell used to pin flyers for activities he was interested in. Ballroom dance classes. Model airplane hobby meetings. Book clubs. And in the middle of them all was an advertisement for a pet daycare, which I suppose he must have thought would come in handy one day if he and I were planning to be out and needed someone to watch Rufus.
“But that daycare was on the other side of the borough. So it got me thinking, there are a good number of you young people in this building—and in our neighborhood—who have pups. But you work all day and no one is home to play with them. And I have sweet Rufus, who I adore, but I don’t have the same energy I used to and he could use more. So, I thought, what if I opened my apartment to your dogs?”
