Page 12 of Second Time Around
Chapter 4
Monday afternoon, Kyra slotted dirty plates into the ancient industrial dishwasher in the Carver Center’s kitchen, a task so mechanical that her mind was free to wander to Will, as it had all weekend.
She had spent the rest of her shift at Stratus trying not to interpret his gratifying text too literally. He was just continuing their Shakespearean exchange. Yet she couldn’t stop a little smile from curling her lips every time she thought of it.
Then she had debated how to answer it. It had to be another line from the Bard, but she needed to dial back the overblown emotional content. Finally, she typed in,Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow.
Friendly. Noncommittal.
That was before she closed out her electronic server book, and the club’s computer system showed that Will had left her a one-hundred-dollar tip for his free drink. Although she was accustomed to large tips—that was why she worked at Stratus—she’d felt awkward about how to respond. Should she thank him? Should she pretend it was all in a day’s work and accept it without comment? In the end, she texted a casualThank you for the generous tip.His response was a simpleYou’re welcome.
She couldn’t help wondering if he intended for her to use it to buy an appropriate outfit for the Spring Fling. She might have given awayher lack of wardrobe by how closely she questioned him about what to wear. The thought made her close her eyes in mortification.
“Hey, Ms.Kyra.” Diego’s voice pulled her out of her reverie and back to the kitchen of the Carver Center. “Ms.Emily say ... says you got the dog food ready to try.”
She pivoted to see Diego and Felicia standing by the counter, the thin little girl dwarfed by Diego’s height and breadth.
“Sure do.” Kyra opened one of the motley collection of donated refrigerators and retrieved a plastic container. “Let me warm it up a bit to make it more appetizing,” she said, plopping two tablespoons full of shredded boiled chicken, pumpkin, and brown rice into a glass bowl and popping it in the microwave.
“If Shaq thinks we going to warm up his dinner every day, he got another think coming,” Diego said.
Felicia giggled in her high-pitched voice. “Shaq don’t ... doesn’t care whether his food be hot or cold. He just loves to eat.”
“But you can’t give him treats all the time,” Diego said sternly. “It ain’t good for his health to get overweight.”
Kyra smiled as she watched the two kids. “Did you tell your mom how much everyone liked the taco macaroni, Felicia?”
The girl nodded, her braids swinging and her huge brown eyes warm with pleasure. “She say she going to send in another recipe for next week, but I tell her I got to spend time with Shaq, so someone else will help you.”
“I’d love the recipe,” Kyra said. “Although I’ll miss having you as my sous-chef.” However, she was touched by how much the girl cared about her dog.
“I really want this food to work,” Felicia said, “’cause then Shaq can come home with me for a slumber party. But Mama don’t ... doesn’t want no barf or diarrhea in our apartment.”
Kyra choked on a laugh. “I can’t blame her for that.” The canine slumber parties were the center director’s latest brainstorm. With theparticipation of parents or guardians, the kids were allowed to take their K-9 Angelz home with them for a night or a weekend. Emily Wade believed it made them feel as though they truly owned the dogs.
When the microwave dinged, Kyra pulled out the dog food and tipped it into the gleaming stainless steel dog bowl Diego had brought. She handed the dish to the boy. “Let’s see what Shaq thinks of my recipe.”
Felicia poked it with her finger. “He’s gonna love this.”
“Since I think it looks good, he’ll think it’s lit,” Diego said, sniffing the experimental dog food.
“That’s good, right?” Kyra asked.
Diego grinned and nodded as he led the way downstairs to the “kennel” on the ground floor. When he reached the bottom of the steps, a glossy black dog leaped up from a dog bed by the wall and raced over to the boy.
“Hey, Mario,” Diego said, kneeling to ruffle the dog’s ears with one hand. Diego’s dramatic rescue of the black dog had become a Carver Center legend. He’d interrupted Max Varela’s first visit to the center and prompted Emily to commandeer Max’s limousine to get the injured dog to the vet. That was before she and Max were even dating. “This ain’t ... isn’t for you, though.” He gave a hand signal, which made the dog look at him reproachfully before he turned to walk back with dragging steps to the bed.
“Mario doesn’t have to go lay down. He and Shaq be cool with each other,” Felicia said.
“We don’t want Mario distracting Shaq. This is called a controlled experiment,” Diego said, satisfaction shining in his eyes because he knew the terminology from his science classes.
The dogs’ crates—at this time of day empty except for Shaq’s—were lined up in what had once been a storage room. Now the formerly dingy walls were a warm cream, and the two windows at the back sketched rectangles of spring sunshine on the pale gray paint of the cement floor.
Emily had wisely laid down strict rules about where the dogs could eat, sleep, and play. They were always fed in the kennel area, although Kyra had seen the kids slip their adopted K-9 Angelz a treat or two upstairs in the main lounge. However, Diego obeyed all the rules, even though Mario lived with him and not at the Carver Center. The boy felt strongly about setting a good example.
Felicia walked to the giant crate at the end of the row and unlatched the door, signaling that Shaq could come out. Under the pit-bull mix’s beautiful brindle coat, massive muscles rippled as he rose and walked out into the kennel area, his thick tail wagging. Kyra couldn’t help thinking that Shaq would be a more appropriate dog for Diego than for skinny little Felicia, but the girl knelt and hugged him while Shaq gave her doggy kisses with his long pink-and-black tongue.
“How do his front paws stay so clean and white?” Kyra asked.
