Page 40 of Nanny for the Athletes

I was expecting the answer to beyears, so Claire’s answer shocked me: “Last week.”

It all made sense, now. This was the reason she was so angry and uncooperative.

“Oh my God. Claire, I’m so sorry.” I hugged her, but she remained stiff and unresponsive. I couldn’t blame her. And I definitely couldn’t leave her alone.

“Do you want to stay in here doing your homework,” I asked, “or would you rather come help me take care of the dogs?”

“I don’t like dogs.”

“I know, but maybe you’ll enjoy seeing how a dog boarding business works! It’sreallycomplicated, and I bet a smart girl like you will understand it. Unless you would rather stay here and do your homework…”

“Okay!” she said. “I’ll watch you work.”

“But first, we need to put away all of my grandma’s clothes back where they belong.”

We spent a few minutes cleaning up the clothes, then I led Claire outside. Suzie was scooping poop near the kennel, so I introduced her to Claire.

“It’s nice to meet you, sweetie!” Suzie said.

“Don’t call me sweetie,” Claire snapped. “You’re not my mom.”

Suzie glanced at me. “Okay, you’re on your own.”

I led Claire into the kennel and put her in my office chair. Then I retrieved Sassy, the French Poodle who needed a bath today before her owner picked her up this afternoon.

“Some dogs love getting baths,” I explained to Claire as I worked. “Othershateit. That’s why we always clip the dogs into this harness before we work. It keeps them in place so they can’t run away.”

As I rubbed shampoo into the Poodle’s fur, Claire watched with round, curious eyes from across the room. I lathered the shampoo, then rinsed the dog off, and finally toweled her dry before using a blow dryer to finish the job.

“Some dogs hate the blow dryer, but Sassy doesn’t mind.”

“She seems nice,” Claire said, although she still made no move to get closer.

“Do you want to help me dry her off?” I asked.

Claire shook her head.

I finished up Sassy and put her back in her kennel so she would be all ready to go when her owner picked her up. Then I collected the next dog from the field, a mutt named Rocco.

Once again, Claire watched intently from across the room while I bathed the dog. She swiveled in the chair, spinning around and around, but always kept her eyes on what I was doing with the dog.

Halfway through bathing him, I had an idea. “Claire? Can you help me real quick?”

She paused her spinning to look at me suspiciously. “What kind of help?”

I nodded toward the bottle on the table. “I can’t reach the shampoo. Can you hand it to me?”

She looked at the bottle, then at the dog, then at the bottle again. “Do I have to?”

“You don’t have to do anything. But it wouldreallyhelp me out, and I would bereallygrateful.”

After a few more moments of thought, she hopped down from the chair and approached. Rocco was too busy enjoying my fingers in his fur to notice as Claire reached for the bottle, clutching it in her small fingers.

“Here,” she said, handing it to me.

“I can’t grab it. I’m all soapy.” I showed her my lathered hands. “I need you to squirt a little bit on Rocco’s back.”

Claire’s mouth hung open. “But Ican’t.”

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