“She’s a nice woman, but she’s a bit of a busybody. She’s currently dishing with Lauren and Paige like she’s their mom. Well, more like a kooky aunt than a mom, I guess. She’ll probably come here next to tell you you’re too thin and she’s got just the woman to set you up with.”
“That does sound like my mother.” Although, his mother hadn’t been pushing him to see other women yet. She understood he was still smarting from the divorce. She had, however, never been Kara’s biggest fan and didn’t seem particularly brokenhearted when the marriage had ended.
“So brace yourself. Diane tries to mother everyone who works and lives in the building. It’s just her way.”
“Seems unusual. I haven’t lived in New York that long, but it seems like more of a ‘keep your head down and get where you’re going’ kind of place. I don’t think I could even come up with the first name of the guy in the apartment next to mine if I tried really hard.”
“And that is how it should be. I say hello to my neighbor when we pass in the hall, but otherwise, if I’m home, I just want people to be quiet and leave me alone. And at work, I only want to talk to people who work here and the patients.” Olivia sighed. “What’s up next today?”
“You have a Pekingese with the sniffles coming in at two. Then I have a follow-up appointment with that dachshund from last week with the lump we removed. Let’s hope the blood tests continue to look good.”
“Yeah, I hope so. The tumor was benign, right?”
“It was, yes. I think the blood tests should be fine, but I want to do a full panel.”
Olivia nodded. “Seems smart. Better to rule out something more sinister.” They’d discussed before that cancer in pets was particularly heinous. They had the capabilities to administer chemotherapy to small animals at the clinic, but it was such a tough call choosing whether to treat cancer aggressively in a way that might make the animal sick or to let the animal live out the rest of its life as comfortably as possible. And that was without accounting for costs. Those decisions often devastated the pet owners and were upsetting to watch as the doctor.
An older woman with white hair breezed in then. Caleb remembered her vaguely; they’d met right after he’d started working here. “Hello, doctors. How are things today?”
“Good,” said Olivia. “How are you, Diane?”
“I’m fine, dear. Please don’t tell me you need to hire more help, though. Lauren wants to hire more people. Possibly also a pastry chef.”
“A pastry chef?” asked Caleb. “To make pastries for cats?”
Diane let out a belly laugh, as if that were the funniest thing she’d ever heard. “Maybe!” She gave Caleb a light punch on the shoulder. “Rumor has it you and Lauren haven’t been getting along.”
Good to know that was common knowledge. “It’s not that we don’t get along…”
“It’s that they don’t agree on anything,” said Olivia.
Caleb tried to remember when Olivia had even been around for one of his arguments with Lauren, and he remembered suddenly that she’d been around a few days ago when they’d had quite a loud fight about proper kitten care in the back room, and then had quickly made up by making out on top of a stack of bags of cat food. Hopefully Olivia had only heard the first part.
“Did you see them sparring last night?” Olivia said, reminding him she’d been at the adoption party, too. “I couldn’t tell if they wanted to tear each other up or tear each other’s clothes off.”
“Hey, now,” said Caleb, embarrassed his boss had witnessed him arguing with Lauren more than once. “I try to get along with her. She just gets under my skin.”
“Uh-huh,” said Diane.
“She’s too much sunshine for Caleb the Grouch,” said Olivia.
“Am I really that grouchy?”
Olivia gave him a “please” look.
And maybe he had been a little. He supposed this tendency to keep everything at arm’s length had infiltrated every part of his life, spreading like a disease. At first, he was just trying to keep his heart safe from emotional entanglements, and he wanted to keep professional distance from his clients so when a dachshund with a tumor showed up, it didn’t break his heart. But maybe he’d been rude to everyone.
When had he become this person? He didn’t like this person much.
He sighed. “Well, anyway, I did apologize to Lauren after we argued last night and she…took it well. I don’t see us becoming friends or anything, but I will try not to argue with her in public anymore.”
Diane laughed. “That’s delightful. I mean, don’t stop having public arguments on my account. It’s fun to have some gossip to speculate about. I’m an old retired lady, I need some fun sometimes.”
Caleb wasn’t thrilled she was having fun at his expense, but if he remembered correctly, she was a widow who lived alone, and her only real job seemed to be running this building. So, fine. He could be the butt of the joke for a little bit.
Although, as Diane and Olivia talked about the kittens and when they would be adopted, Caleb sat at the desk and thought about whether any of what was happening with Lauren was sustainable. How long until someone caught them or discovered what they were really up to? How long until Lauren got sick of him? How long until she met a guy she actually got along with?
He didn’t want whatever was between them to end, but he recognized it had a short shelf life.
