NIK
Mom and Dad want us all to come over for dinner tonight. 7 pm.
NAT
I won’t be done with my rounds till 730. I'll swing by then.
ME
I'll be there. Thanks for the heads up, Nik.
Nik gives my message the thumbs up.
NAT
What about the boys?
NIK
They're already going to be there. Mom told me to tell you two.
The bell over the door dings, announcing my next client, so I shove the phone back in my pocket and head out onto the floor. My client is Abby Sheffield, an every-two-week regular who comes in for a color touch-up, blowout, and a mani-pedi; she tips like a boss, and I enjoy talking to her, so the four-hour appointment goes by fast and takes me through the rest of the day. She always books the next appointment that day, so the big time block is always reserved well ahead of time. Some of thegirls don’t like the long bookings, preferring to turn the chair over faster, but I do enjoy them. I like getting to know my clients and the longer blocks allow that. I pay closer attention, honestly. It’s the quick cut-and-color with the every-few-months clients I tend to tune out. Maybe I shouldn’t, but hey. I make the rules, right? No one ever complains that I’m not paying attention. I’ve always been able to multitask well, splitting my attention into different tasks.
Once Abby is done, I close up my station and head home. I don't have to be at Mom and Dad’s for another hour and a half, so I change into yoga pants, a tank top, a hoodie, and sneakers and go for a walk. I put in my AirPods, crank my favorite playlist, and head out.
I rent a tiny Craftsman a few blocks from downtown—close enough that I can walk or ride a bike to work in nice weather but away from the bustle of downtown, so it’s quiet. I’m in the zone, tuned into the music and the rhythm of the walk, arms swinging, feeling good.
I’ve tried gym memberships, yoga, Zumba, dance classes, and spin classes, and even I borrowed Nikki’s Peloton while she was on vacation, and the only thing that I do consistently and enjoy is walking. I’ll never be some skinny, jacked CrossFit athlete with a snatched waist, but I think I look pretty good. I walk three or four miles at a brisk pace almost every day, except in torrential downpours or the most brutal of winter days—when that happens, especially in winter, I borrow Nat's gym card and walk the track at the Y.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the glass of a storm door as I pass a house: five-seven and…curvy. I’m not fat or overweight by BMI standards, I just tend to carry some cushion around the hips and thighs, although my bust isn’t exactly small, either. My ass does look pretty good in the yoga pants, if I do say so myself.
I’m a true ginger with ivory skin, liberal freckles, and kelly-green eyes to go with it, courtesy of recessive genes since no one else in my family has red hair or green eyes. Everyone else—Mom, Dad, Nat and Nik, and Nathan and Noah—are blond with either brown eyes or blue. It fits, though. Nat and Nik are identical twins and older than me by four years, and Nathan and Noah are also identical twins and younger than me by four years—I’m thirty, making Nat and Nik thirty-four and the boys twenty-six. I’m smack dab in the middle and unlike any of them. The running joke in the family is that Mom had a secret affair with the mailman. It's only a joke because it's patently untrue: Mom and Dad have had the same mail carrier for forty years, a sweet old Black lady named Helen.
As usual, I’m lost in my thoughts and only half paying attention. Thus, when something warm and heavy hits my legs, I'm shocked and knocked off-balance. I hit the sidewalk hard, scraping my palms and ripping the knees of my yoga pants.
"What the heck?" I yelp, rolling to my butt. "Where didyoucome from?"
My assailant is a dog. Medium size, it looks like a lab-pit mix, with short brown fur, floppy ears, and big brown eyes. No collar, skinny, and dirty. It looks up at me pathetically, wriggling its tail even as it hunkers down in fear.
I hold still, extending the back of my hand toward the pup. "Hiya, friend. You lost?"
I catch a glimpse of its undercarriage—a female. She wriggles and shimmies toward me, afraid and trying to show submission. She sniffs my hand, sniffs again, and then licks.
"I can't bring you home, but I can bring you to the shelter. How about that? You seem like a sweet girl. I'm sure someone will bring you home." I carefully move to my feet, realizing only as I look around that I'm only a few doors down from home. "Come on, girl. I'll help you."
She seems to understand and follows me down the sidewalk to my house. I grab my purse, ignoring the stinging on my skinned palms, and then grab a bungee cord from the garage to use as a makeshift leash. The dog waits for me at the end of my driveway and lets me wrap the bungee around her neck and secure the hook. She’s clearly had a home and training because she jumps up into the backseat of my aged-but-serviceable CR-V without hesitation.
The drive to the animal rescue is less than fifteen minutes, but the eager, sweet little dog can't sit still, leaping from the front seat to the back and then to the front again, trying to crawl onto my lap even though she'sdefinitelytoo big to be a lap dog, drooling on me and smearing drool on my window.
"You're a lot, girly, you know that?" I rub her floppy ears as we park behind Three Rivers Animal Rescue. “But I guess some people could say the same about me, huh? Brennan sure got annoyed with me a lot.”
The dog gives a little bark, grinning at me.
"You know, you're right. Frick him. We don’t need to even think about stupid, dumb-dumb loser-butt Brennan Engler. Do we? No, we don't." She ruffs again, flipping at me with her long pink tongue. "Okay, sweet girl. Let's go inside."
She hops onto my seat and waits for me to grab her makeshift leash before making the jump to the ground. I bring her inside, and she seems perfectly at ease, looking around and panting happily as I wait at the counter.
The rescue is a cacophony of animal sounds, mostly a chorus of barking dogs. The dog sits at my feet, looking up at me occasionally.
