9
Ashanti felt as if she were wearing leaden cross-trainers as she trudged up the steps to Barkingham Palace. Mrs. Short stood outside with her watering can, tending to the marigolds in the window boxes in front of the house. Ashanti contemplated speaking, but only for a second before deciding against it. She was not up for a confrontation, especially now that it looked as if she and this curmudgeon would be neighbors a lot longer than she was expecting.
She brought her hand to her stomach to stave off the nausea.
She could not believe she’d allowed this to happen. That house was supposed to be hers. She had already mapped out the floor plan. The pet suites were going to be three square feet larger, and there was even room to do two queen suites, big enough for families with multiple dogs or one very spoiled one.
And, just like that, it was gone. She was stuck in a building her business had outgrown. There was only one other house in this entire city that even remotely fit the bill—her dream location—and Ashanti knew she wouldn’t be able to afford it even if it miraculously went up for sale. Not with twin sisters to put through college and the overhead of running this place.
She entered the daycare and stopped short. Deja, Ridley, Evie, Leslie, and Mark were all standing in the reception area, facing the door as if they expected Ed McMahon’s ghost to come in with a check for five million dollars.
Mark was the first to speak. “Thank God,” he said, making the sign of the cross. “You didn’t get yourself arrested. Unless they allowed you to come back to get your purse. Do cops do that?”
“I did not get arrested. Don’t be ridiculous,” Ashanti said.
“Good. I can go back to work now.” He gathered her in a hug and added an extra squeeze.
The phone rang, sending Deja running to the reception desk. Ridley and Evie continued staring at her with guarded looks, as if they were waiting for her to spontaneously combust at any moment.
Or to burst out crying. Which was highly likely.
“So, did someone really buy the house?” Evie asked.
Ashanti nodded. The sudden lump that had formed in her throat made it difficult to speak.
“I knew it,” Ridley said.
“Not now, Rid,” Evie said.
“Well, she’s right,” Ashanti said. “I didn’t believe someone had bought the house even after Ridley told me. And you would never guess who bought it,” she called to Deja.
The receptionist held up a finger, then after a moment hung up the phone and said, “Who?”
“Mrs. Sutherland’s grandson.”
“The hottie?”
“Who’s a hottie?” Ridley asked.
“Girl! You should have seen him!” Deja said, rounding the reception desk and returning to where they all stood.
“Mrs. Sutherland is Puddin’s owner, right?” Evie asked. “He’s sweet on Duchess. They’re the cutest.”
“If you think they’re cute, you should see her grandson.” Deja pumped up her arm. “Muscles, face, voice. Baybee, he ain’t missing none of them. Got it all, you hear me?”
“Yeah, well, now he has my house too,” Ashanti said. “He and his business partner are turning my house into a sports bar!”
“Whose house?” Ridley asked.
Ashanti leveled her with a look she usually reserved for the twins to let them know she was done with their bullshit.
“I’m just saying.” Ridley raised her hands. “If you had made an offer on the house when I told you to, Mr. Hottie would not have had the chance to swoop in and buy it.”
“You’re not helping,” Evie said. She turned to Ashanti and enveloped her in a hug. “I need to get back to the practice. I’ll call you later, okay?” She captured her chin in her palm and smiled. “You bounce back better than anyone I know, Shanti. Don’t let this get you down.”
They were used to her always look on the bright side of things attitude, but Ashanti couldn’t summon up a bit of that right now. The most she could manage was a wan smile.
“Thanks for coming in to check on Lulu,” she told Evie. “I owe you.”
“Oh, don’t worry. You’ll get my invoice at the end of the month as usual.” Evie laughed. She hugged Ridley, then gave her a playful punch on the arm. “Ease up on her. It’s not about you being right all the time.”
“Says who?” Ridley asked.
Evie rolled her eyes as she hefted her ever-present backpack—she’d upgraded to higher-priced designer brands since college—and left the daycare.
Exhausted, Ashanti took a handful of treats from the reception desk and started toward the back. Ridley followed.
“Will I not be allowed to mourn losing my house in peace?” Ashanti asked over her shoulder.
“Again, it is not your house. I warned you about claiming it before buying it and now look what’s happened.”
She usually didn’t mind a good I told you so, but this time it grated on her still very raw nerves. Probably because that house was integral to all her plans. Without it she didn’t have a place to expand the daycare or to start her bakery. Without it, the kitchen at home would have to continue working overtime to churn out doggy treats.
But how long could she sustain that? Something would have to give.
Ashanti felt the seductive pull of negative thinking creeping along the edges of her mind and forced herself to snap out of it. She did not have the luxury to spend time wallowing. She had too many responsibilities tugging at her from every crook and crevice of her life.
“It doesn’t matter,” Ashanti said. “This just means the house was not meant for me and that something better will eventually come along.”
“Oh, so this is what we’re doing? You spend over a month detailing all the ways you’re going to turn this house into the perfect new spot for your daycare, yet now it wasn’t meant for you?”
“Evie was right, you’re not helping. You harping on me won’t change anything.”
“First of all, I do not harp,” Ridley said. “Secondly, I don’t want to see you lose out on something fantastic, Shanti. You, of all people, deserve a damn break. And this could have been your big break if you had not been so hesitant to pull the trigger. Stop betting against yourself, sweetie. That’s all I want for you.”
She would give anything to deny Ridley’s words, but her friend had just read her like the latest Brit Bennett novel. Ashanti had allowed fear to stop her from making an offer on that house. Fear that this business, which had already proven to be successful by its rapid growth over the last three years, would suddenly fall out from under her. She had been afraid that the doggy treats were just a fluke, despite now getting so many orders that she had to turn some down.
Why was she so afraid that someone would show up and tell her this was all a lie? That her accomplishments were not real, and that everything she had worked so hard for since losing her parents would be taken away from her?
She stopped at the door that led to the pet suites and turned to face Ridley.
“There’s nothing I can do about any of this now, Rid.” Ashanti shrugged. “All I can do is make sure I never let another opportunity like this one pass me by. If I ever get another opportunity,” she added.
“You will,” Ridley said. “And you had better believe that I will hold those petite feet to the fire.” She held her arms out. “Give me a hug. I’m not going in there. You know I don’t like being around those dogs.”
“Yet, you’re always here.”
“Which should tell you how much I love your ass.”
Ridley headed back to her office in the Central Business District, and Ashanti went in to check on the dogs. All were doing fine, except for her dog.
A French bulldog’s smushed face could look forlorn even at the happiest of times, but it was obvious Duchess was back to missing Puddin’. She refused to play with the other dogs and ignored her favorite chew toys.
“I’m sorry, baby,” Ashanti said, rubbing behind her little bat ear. “I know you miss him, but maybe we’ll run into Puddin’ somewhere around town.”
Duchess’s nubby tail began wagging the moment Ashanti mentioned the poodle. Her dog was truly missing her man. Yet another reason Thad Sims had quickly become enemy number one. Not only had he stolen her house, but he was making Duchess miserable.
“Let’s go for a W-A-L-K,” Ashanti said, hooking a leash onto Duchess’s harness. Anyone who worked in a kennel knew to never actually say the word walk unless they wanted a dozen dogs scrambling to get out of their pens.
Just as she turned for the door, Kara burst through it.
“You are going to love me,” she said in a singsongy voice. Duchess seemed to have forgotten that she was supposed to be melancholy. She shot toward Kara and began trying to climb her like a tree. Her sister dropped to the floor and rubbed her ears in the same way Ashanti had. Duchess ate it up.
Pleasure hound.
“Hey there, girl,” Kara said. She looked up at Ashanti. “Guess what? I found a printer that can do glossy labels for a third less than the one we agreed to go with.”
“Why aren’t you at school?” Ashanti asked.
“It’s lunch. Anyway, we will have to make sure we are absolutely in loooove with the design, because to get that price we have to buy like twenty thousand labels.”
Ashanti wasn’t sure she would be able to keep making treats long enough to sell another two hundred.
She didn’t want to think about this right now, but she knew she had to. Just because she didn’t feel like dealing with it, it didn’t mean she could ignore her business.
“Send me your latest designs,” she said. “I’ll pick one.”
“I sent them to you an hour ago, but ignore those because I came up with something better.”
“You should have been in class an hour ago,” Ashanti told her. “I don’t care that you get all As, you still have to pay attention in class, Kara. And you need to stop skipping. You’re only a few weeks into the new school year.”
“I told you we’re at lunch!” Kara said. “Oh! Oh! Oh! Did I tell you that Atilla emailed me? Can you believe that? Email, like it’s the 1950s.”
“What did she want?” Ashanti asked, not bothering to correct her erroneous assumptions about the history of electronic communication. “And stop calling her Atilla.”
Even though their father’s older sister, Anita, had rightfully earned the nickname. Who was she kidding? Attila the Hun had nothing on Anita.
“She wants to take me and Kendra to a plant show in Baton Rouge.”
Ashanti frowned. “What’s a plant show?”
“That was my question.” Kara took out her phone. “I had to look it up, and it is exactly what it sounds like.” She turned the phone to face Ashanti. “An event where you go to look at and buy plants.” She said it in the same tone one would use to describe an event where you would go and buy body parts. “Why, Shanti? Why is that woman like this? Dad wasn’t like this, was he?”
“You were ten years old when Dad died. You know he was nothing like his sister.”
“Who hurt her? And why does she want to inflict us with that same pain?”
“Don’t worry about Atilla—Anita,” Ashanti corrected. “I’ll make up an excuse for you and Kendra for the weekend. Maybe I’ll tell her that you both have to help clean out the pet suites here. In fact, you can start now.”
Kara looked at her phone’s blank screen. “Would you look at that? It’s time for my world history class. I need to be getting back.” She pointed at Duchess. “This dog is suffering.”
“I know,” Ashanti said. She tipped her head to the door. “Come on, Kara. I’ll follow you to the lobby. I need to get a longer leash.”
“You have to get Puddin’ back here,” Kara said. “Fans of the doggy cam were so excited when he showed up for the pageant, but now they’re back to wanting to riot. They miss the Duchess and Puddin’ show. The public demands an explanation for why it is not happening.”
“Yeah, well, you can tell the public that the Duchess and Puddin’ show is over because Puddin’s new owner is a complete ass,” Ashanti said over her shoulder as she slid the lobby’s pocket doors open.
“Is this how you talk about all your customers?”
Within seconds her entire body went from ice-cold to raging hot. She turned, fully expecting Thad Sims to be irate. Instead, she found a subtle smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. The grin was as devastating as it was irritating.
“Umm… hey, Boss Lady,” Deja said. “Mr. Sims would like a word with you about Puddin’.”
“That is, if you don’t mind talking to a complete ass,” Thad said.
As if she had a choice.