What the Dog Ate (38 page)

After dropping her two-ton hint,
she kept her eyes on her cup. She was afraid to look up.
What’s
he thinking? God, is he ever going to say something?
She glanced at him,
her heart pounding.

He studied his own cup. He chewed
his lower lip, then looked at her from under his eyebrows. His features were
tight, she couldn’t read them, but then a slow half-smile began to spread
across his face.

Oh God, I think
he gets it. I think he
gets
my hint
. She held
her breath.

He cleared his throat with a
single, short cough and said, “Are you saying I don’t have any brains?”

She looked down at the table,
blinking rapidly. Her temperature spiked with the effort to hold back her
tears. The back of her neck flamed hot; her chin trembled. She felt bright red
patches bloom around her nostrils.
Well... guess he doesn’t
want to hurt my feelings. Make a joke. Act like I never said anything. OK...
She was glad the lights were dim. She hoped he wouldn’t see how upset she was.
She pushed away the last of her tea and stood up. “No, I’m not.” She forced a
smile and glanced up at him. “Better go.” She busied herself with her purse.

She let a few silent tears seep
into his shirt as they hugged at his door.

He kissed the top of her head and
murmured, “I promise I’ll come see you.”

“Better.” She opened her lips only
enough to slip the single word through.

He offered to walk her to her car,
but she shook her head. She peeled herself away from him, flashed a goodbye
wave one last time, and ran down the stairwell. She didn’t want to stand there,
feeling miserable and crying while she waited for the elevator. She cried in
her car until she felt calm enough to manage the drive home.

The next morning at six, after a
night of almost no sleep, she loaded Kona into her packed Honda, and they drove
off toward the rising sun and their new life in Jacksonville.

~~~

Their first evening on the road, at
the Best Western in Lordsburg, New Mexico (where Kona was supposed to be
staying off the furniture, but she’d given up and laid out a blanket she
brought in from the car so he could get up on the bed with her), Maggie
released a long sigh. She sat on the wild multicolored polyester bedspread and
poked at her cashew chicken from the Happy Palace with her chop sticks. Kona
lay next to her, dutifully staying on his blanket, but at the ready in case she
dropped a morsel.

She stared at the TV.
Miracle on 34th Street
was on, but she’d turned the sound
off. On top of the TV sat the silver and gold gift bag from Russell, the
crumpled white tissue paper lay on the floor below it. Next to the bag was a
burgundy wool scarf, curled upon itself like a nest. She couldn’t wait until
Christmas. She had missed him, missed home, wondered again if she was making
the right decision, and had decided to open the present. When she did, she’d
smiled, pulled out the scarf and rubbed the soft material against her cheek.
The card read, “Merry Christmas. Thought this ‘Russell Original’ would look
pretty with your hair.” She wished things had gone differently last night.
Wished they were together and imagined his large, rough hands wrapping the
scarf around her neck. She’d held it to her nose and breathed deeply, hoping to
find his scent on it, but no trace of him lingered.

She looked at the scarf now, on top
of the TV set, and gave the cashew chicken one last poke. She held the remains
of the takeout box for Kona.

“I’m glad you’re here, Bud. This
trip would be a total nightmare otherwise. I don’t think I could make it
without you.” She stroked his head. “In fact, I couldn’t have made it through
this past year without you.”

He finished licking the takeout box
and looked up at her.

“I love you, Buddy.”

He held her gaze with such a
tender, solemn look that she swore he understood what she had said. Or, he
might have been thinking, “Are you going to eat that fortune cookie?”

Maggie noticed the time/temperature
sign at the bank across the street flash back and forth between nine a.m. and seventy-five degrees as she unlocked the door to Kona’s Smoothie Shack. Kona
followed her into the cool, dim space. She hadn’t expected the Jacksonville
weather to already be this hot by April, and in fact the locals assured her the
stretch of eighty-five degree days they’d had was unusual. But she wasn’t about
to complain, since the weather kept the customers coming in droves. Business
had been great ever since she opened this location in mid-March, following in
the footsteps of the original Shack ten miles across town, but now the heat
wave was really driving sales through the thatched roof.

She was helping out, opening the
store every morning this week while her manager was on vacation. She liked
opening. Get there early, do the prep, enjoy the quiet for a bit. And she
wanted to try out a new flavor. She’d had an idea to add a few gourmet
selections to both the human and pooch smoothie menus and wanted to try out a
bacon and sweet potato combo for the dogs. In testing at home, Kona had given
it an enthusiastic six-lick rating. Maggie would judge flavors by how many
times Kona would continue to lick his lips after she’d taken the cup away. Now
she wanted to try making a large batch with the equipment at the shop and see
how that went. Kona had come along to make sure the batch was up to snuff.
She’d have the staff give samples away today and see if the average canine
liked it as much as her personal taste-tester.

She straightened the framed
newspaper article on the wall above the work station (
New
Biz Brings Cool Treats to Dogs & Their Humans
it said in bold type
at the top) and then got busy slicing potatoes. She’d read it so many times she
practically knew it by heart. The photo of Kona and her in front of the
original Shack always made her smile. The picture included the outdoor seating
area, enclosed by a low, white picket fence and filled with the tables,
umbrellas and the “hitching post” where customers could tie up their dogs while
they came inside. The neon sign was also visible over the top of Maggie’s head:
a volcano spewing pink smoothie while a Labrador sat under it catching drops on
his tongue. The lettering underneath read: “Smoothies for Pooches & Their
People.”

The article explained that this was
no ordinary smoothie shop, for in addition to “nutritious and delicious
concoctions, including many lo-cal options,” customers also received a free Dixie-Cup-sized
“pooch smoothie, specially designed for the canine palate.” The article quoted
Maggie saying, “We’ve already got lots of regulars. Folks take their dogs for a
walk and stop by to get a smoothie for themselves and their fuzzy friends.” The
reporter had asked what was the “most popular flavor with the four-footed set,”
and Maggie had told him it was “bacon—hands, or rather
paws
,
down over the other flavors.” Although there were lots of customers who liked
the cheese, chicken, and peanut butter flavors as well.

The article also described the
Hawaiian-themed décor and mentioned the local artist Maggie had hired to paint
the interior murals. The walls were vivid blue and green tropical island
backgrounds, with larger-than-life dogs of all breeds wearing Hawaiian shirts
and sipping smoothies. At this second shack, Maggie had hired the same artist
and had him paint dogs in leis and grass skirts. She looked around at them now
and smiled.

The publicity had certainly helped
bring people in, as if Gram wasn’t already drumming up enough business for her.
Gram had turned out to be quite the pusher, getting all the seniors and staff
from her building hooked on Maggie’s smoothies, whether they had dogs or not.
Mom had been coming by pretty regularly as well, along with her new beau,
George, whom she’d met while on side-by-side treadmills at the cardiac rehab
center.

One day in early March Mom brought
Gram by the original shack and Maggie had left her staff in charge while she
went out and sat with them in the sun for a bit.

“Can you believe how well this is
going?” Maggie had asked, after telling them about the sales growth she was
seeing and her progress on opening the second Shack by the university.

“Of course we can, sweetie,” Gram
had said.

Mom had added, “We’ve always known
you’d be a huge success, no matter what you decided to do.”

“Come on, though, you had to think
I was crazy when I told you I was going to start a smoothie shop that would
include flavors for dogs, didn’t you?” She’d grinned. “Maybe a little?”

Mom had given her that new variant
on her duck face that she’d been doing a lot lately, mostly since meeting
George. It was the same stretched yet pursed lips, but with an added move: the
corners of her mouth turned up. Maggie interpreted it as her “I don’t really
want to smile, but can’t help myself” face. Mom had made her happy duck face
and said, “Well, maybe a little.”

Maggie checked the boiling sweet
potatoes and decided they were tender enough. She glanced up at the clock as
she drained the water. She had about an hour to finish up here, then by the
time the staff got in and took over, she’d still have enough time to go home
and get cleaned up for the meeting with Collin.

Her lawyer meetings now were
nothing like the ones she’d had in San Diego. Collin was a sharp dresser,
witty, erudite. They always chatted pleasantly for a while before getting down
to business. Twice they’d gotten so carried away, Collin had had to stop and
look at his online calendar and say, “What we were supposed to be talking about
again? We might have to carry this conversation over into lunch.” And they’d
done just that.

No, meetings with Collin were much
different. His office had huge windows with a view of the water, and
he
wasn’t hard on the eyes either. It also helped that the
reason for their meetings was so much more pleasant: he was drawing up a
franchising contract for her business, which was his area of expertise. Two of
her regulars, Lawrence and Ethan, wanted to take her idea with them when they
moved to Miami next month.

Maggie had met Lawrence through
Gram; he was Gram’s favorite nurse at the senior complex and one of the people
she’d gotten hooked on Maggie’s smoothies. He and his partner, Ethan, lived
near the Shack and would come by a couple of times a week with their pug, Yentl.
Yentl would do just about anything for the peanut butter flavor, and the three
of them were some of her first, and most loyal, customers. In fact, Lawrence
and Ethan had been the ones who convinced her to start selling T-shirts and
hats with her logo, which were selling surprisingly well.

They’d ended up becoming good
friends. The three of them would often try out new restaurants or visit art
galleries. Maggie wanted to start volunteering again and they’d been going to
various museums around town with her. So far, the Museum of Contemporary Art
was her top pick, but Lawrence and Ethan wanted to be sure she found “the one
with the best energy.”

She’d been sad when they told her
that they’d decided to move to Miami, but thrilled when they had then asked
about taking her business idea with them. They thought Kona’s Smoothie Shack
was “fab” and wanted to use her recipes, the logo, the name, everything.

Swell. Two more
names for my long-distance-friends list
. As she cooked the bacon, she
thought of the two she missed so much on the West Coast—Helen, who continually
claimed to not believe in “that BSP,” but somehow always knew exactly when
Maggie most needed a phone call; and Russell... Russell.

She sighed as she thought back on
it all now. She’d seen both Helen and Russell once since she moved. Helen had
flown out in early January to help scout locations; Russell had been out in
February for a business trip, but also stayed the weekend to install shelves in
the newly-opened Shack’s storage room. She’d felt that same spark at seeing him
(and tortured herself with a sleepless night wondering how he didn’t feel it
too—it seemed so palpable, so intense), but no more hint-dropping for her. As
he’d hugged her goodbye and said “see you soon,” she’d replied “hope so,” while
telling herself to finally accept it; they’d never be more than friends.

As she tossed the ingredients into
the large blender, Maggie stopped thinking about her old friends and looked
forward to seeing her new ones, “her boys” as she called them. Lawrence and
Ethan were meeting her at Collin’s office to go over the franchise paperwork.
She crumbled in big handfuls of the crispy bacon slices and threw Kona a chunk.
She flipped the switch on the powerful machine; the ingredients melded into a
lovely dark orange shade. She was pouring some into a small cup (in addition to
Kona, Maggie also tested the dog smoothie flavors—after all, it was all good,
high-quality ingredients) when her cell rang.

“It’s me, Russell. How are you? Is
this a bad time?”

“No, it’s perfect. I’m good.”
Maggie smiled the second she recognized his voice. Just like Helen, Russell
also had a knack for calling when Maggie was thinking of him. “How are you?”

“I’m good, too. I wanted to talk to
you about something, though, if you have a minute?”

“Sure. I’ve gotta get cleaned up
for a meeting later, but I’ve got plenty of time. What’s up?” She held the
phone to her ear with her shoulder while she finished topping up the cup. She
dipped her pinky in and licked it.
Oh, that’s good
.
She nodded her head and gave herself a thumb-up rating.

“It’s been, what, about two months
since I was there?” Russell asked.

“Yeah, two months too long. When
are you coming again? Is that why you’re calling?”