Pardon My Frenchie

11

Ashanti pushed her fingers through her microbraids, slightly tugging on them as she chewed her bottom lip. She immediately dropped her hand and reached for the dog bone–shaped stress ball she’d received from a vendor. She didn’t need an early trip to the hair braider on top of the rest of these bills.

Her office door opened, and Leslie walked in carrying a familiar white paper cup with a green logo. Ashanti wanted to tackle hug her.

“Bless you,” she said as she captured the salted caramel latte between her hands as if it were the Holy Grail.

“What had you so upset when I walked in?” Leslie asked. “That was the third time I’ve seen you frowning this week.”

Ashanti took the lid off the coffee cup and lapped at the sweet whipped cream before recapping it and taking a sip.

“It’s been that kind of week. The liability insurance is going up by fifteen percent—probably because of the mauling at that daycare in Philadelphia, even though it was determined that the guy had been harassing the dog. And they’ve discontinued the special shampoo the Martins like us to use on Baxter.”

“Want me to try to find some on the black market?” Leslie asked.

“Even if you could find it, it would probably cost us an arm and a leg.” Ashanti let out the sigh she had been trying to withhold all morning. Sighing made it seem as if she was giving up, but there was only so much she could take. “I’ll have to tell them that they either supply it themselves, or Baxter uses the same shampoo as every other dog.”

“Shelia Martin will just threaten to take Baxter to another daycare.”

“Let her do it,” Ashanti said. “I’ve had it up to my hairline with difficult pet owners.”

Her phone vibrated a second before the Stars Wars “Imperial March” began to play. Ashanti dropped her head to her desk.

“Speaking of difficult people,” she mumbled. She sat up straight, lifted her coffee and mouthed thank you to Leslie, and took another sip. Then she answered the phone, putting Anita on speakerphone.

“Hello, Anita, can I help you?”

Leslie backed out of the office, giving her a thumbs-up on her way out.

“I want the girls this weekend,” Anita answered, not bothering with a greeting.

Ashanti dropped her head on the desk again. She was not up for this today. Or any day, for that matter. Any day that involved speaking to Anita usually ended with Ashanti indulging in a rare glass of wine.

Before she could respond, Anita started in on a monologue about the annual Plant and Garden Show and how it was an opportune time to buy exotic plants that were not native to the area.

Ashanti rolled her eyes, grateful they were not on a video call.

She had never had the best relationship with Anita, even as a young girl, but it had taken a nosedive after her parents died. Ashanti’s hands still clenched into fists whenever she thought about how Anita had come to her at the repast meal following the funeral to tell her that she would be seeking custody of Kara and Kendra. The woman had not seen the twins in years, yet all of a sudden, she wanted to raise them?

When she thought about how close they’d come to that happening thanks to her ex-boyfriend’s decision to drive while intoxicated, it made her want to hurl her coffee against the wall.

“I’m sorry, but I promised the girls I would take them shopping for supplies for their science project,” Ashanti said.

She took another sip of coffee and made a decision she should have made a long time ago.

“Actually, that’s a lie,” Ashanti said. She was done pretending, and she no longer cared about keeping the peace. “The girls do not want to go to the plant show with you.”

“How do you know that?” Anita said.

Because I’m psychic.

Ashanti stopped herself before she could blurt out the disrespectful reply. “Because Kara told me she doesn’t want to go,” she said.

“What about Kendra?”

Yeah, right. She could barely get Kendra to talk to her. Kendra would probably growl at Anita if she came near.

“She doesn’t want to go either,” Ashanti said.

“Well, you make them,” Anita said.

“No. They’re sixteen, not ten. The girls can decide how they want to spend their weekend, and no one will force them to do anything they don’t want to do.”

“You’re behind this, aren’t you?” Anita hissed. “You’re turning my brother’s children against me.”

Ashanti had heard this song too many times. She was not up for a repeat.

“Look, I have to go. You have both Kara’s and Kendra’s phone numbers. Call and ask if they want to go shopping for plants with you. Like I said, they’re old enough to make their own decisions. There’s no need for me to play the middleman.”

She didn’t bother saying goodbye before disconnecting the call. She would probably hear something about her rudeness, but she couldn’t bring herself to care about Anita’s feelings anymore. Lord knew the woman had never cared about hers.

Anita had not even been on speaking terms with her brother when he died, but no one would know that based on her attitude these past six years. She came across as a paragon of sibling love. Ashanti still wasn’t sure if it was guilt or just an act. She doubted it was true grief.

Her office door burst open for the second time in twenty minutes. This time it was Kara who came rushing in, a wide smile stretched across her face. Ashanti hadn’t seen when she left the house this morning, so she’d missed today’s purple hair color.

Ashanti checked the time on her phone.

“Why are you not at school?” Yet another question she was tired of asking. “And I don’t want to hear the excuse that you’re at lunch because lunch isn’t for another two hours, at least.”

“No, no, I’m definitely cutting class right now,” Kara said, rounding the crowded desk. “I could have texted, but I had to see your reaction when you saw this. Look!”

She stuck her phone in Ashanti’s face. Ashanti took it from her and stared at the screen. She immediately recognized the setting.

“It’s the doggy cam,” Ashanti said.

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“Hey! Language.”

Kara rolled her eyes. “Just keep watching. This is footage from yesterday. Make sure you’re looking at the pop-up tent in the bottom right corner.”

There were twenty-four doggy cams in Barkingham Palace, including one in each of the pet suites that could be accessed through their website with a password. But there was one public webcam with a live feed that ran twenty-four hours a day. Ashanti always found it interesting—and a bit disconcerting—that people watched the feed in the dead of night, when the dogs were all in their suites and nowhere near the public camera. There had to be something better on Netflix or Hulu.

“I don’t understand,” Ashanti said, throwing her hands up. “What am I looking for?”

“Just wait,” Kara said. “Riiiiight… there.”

Mark lifted the pop-up tent and unveiled Duchess and Puddin’ sharing one of Duchess Delights’ signature dog treats. They were eating it Lady and the Tramp–style, each with an end between their teeth, their mouths nearly touching. The dogs looked up at Mark, then ran in opposite directions, like two teenagers who had been caught kissing under the bleachers.

Ashanti burst out laughing. “Okay, so maybe things have gotten out of hand between those two.”

“Shanti, do you understand what’s happening?” Kara asked, her voice frustrated.

“What?” she asked.

“Look at the number of views!” She pointed at the screen.

Ashanti squinted as she peered at the phone. “Does that say…”

“2.5 million,” Kara said. “And climbing. The video was posted to this IG account this morning and it’s already been shared over sixty thousand times.”

“Who posted it?” she asked, searching for the Instagram handle. “What does Jinyoung4Lyfe mean?”

“They’re a K-pop fan, but they’re also one of our regular viewers.”

“I didn’t realize we had regulars.”

“You know nothing about any of this, do you?” Kara asked.

“Hey, I know enough,” Ashanti said. She didn’t know nearly as much as she should. She left all the online stuff to Kara because she was good at it, and her labor came cheap. Basically, free.

“And that’s not the best part,” Kara said. Her fingers swiped across the screen. “Not only has that video blown up, so has our IG account. Barkingham Palace has been holding steady at eight hundred fifty-three followers for the last month. Now…?”

Ashanti gasped when Kara turned the phone to face her again. “Over fifteen thousand?”

“It’s obscene,” Kara said. “Of course, I’ve been driving people to the YouTube channel all day in our Stories. I’m going to search through archived livestream footage and make some Reels to post to IG.”

Ashanti avoided social media as much as one could in this day and age. The thought of posting every aspect of her life on the Internet for strangers—even for friends—made her break out in hives. But she couldn’t expect Kara to handle this on her own.

“This means I will have to use Instagram more often, doesn’t it?” Ashanti asked.

“Yes, unless you want me to drop out of high school to become Barkingham Palace’s full-time social media manager. I think that’s the route we should go, to be honest.”

“I think we can manage between me and Deja,” Ashanti said.

“We can manage what?” Deja asked, sticking her head into the opened office door.

“Social media?” Ashanti said.

“I can do some TikTok dances,” Deja said. She shimmied her shoulders.

“Or maybe not,” Kara said.

Deja hooked a thumb toward the front of the building. “Umm, I don’t know what’s going on, but the phones have been ringing nonstop for the past two hours. I just had a woman call from Jackson, Mississippi, wanting to bring her Chihuahua down to spend a day at the daycare. Not because she wants to explore New Orleans. Coming to the daycare is the entire point of her trip.”

“And it starts,” Kara said. “We are officially a destination.” She plopped down in the office’s lone other chair, folded her hands behind her head, and propped her feet up on Ashanti’s desk.

“If you don’t get these shoes off my desk,” Ashanti said, shoving her purple tennis shoes away.

“Can someone explain to me what’s going on?” Deja asked.

“Puddin’ and Duchess were caught canoodling on the doggy cam and it went viral,” Kara said.

“No way!” Deja came farther into the office.

“Yep!” Kara shoved the phone at her. Ashanti could tell the moment the canoodling was revealed by Deja’s delighted squeal.

“If you asked me, you should make a silhouette of this shot the label for Duchess Delights,” Deja said.

“Yes! Oh em gee, that is genius!” Kara hopped out of the chair. She covered her eyes with her fingers, opening and closing them like she was playing peekaboo. “Wait, no. No, I don’t… Yeah, I can see it. Yes, I love that idea.”

Ashanti rolled her eyes at her sister’s dramatics.

“Get back to school,” she told her.

“Do you really expect me to be able to concentrate on calculus when the Duchess and Puddin’ Show has just hit the mainstream?”

“Yes, I do,” Ashanti said. “And tell your sister that I expect her to be home for dinner. It’s po’ boy night.”

“Fried catfish with no lettuce and extra pickles for me,” Kara said, as if she had not been ordering the same po’ boy every week for the past six years. “And Kendra has cheerleading practice, even though she is the grouchiest cheerleader I have ever seen.”

“What’s going on with her?” Ashanti asked.

Kara hunched her shoulders. “I would say PMS, but that doesn’t last weeks.” She picked up her backpack and pulled the strap over her shoulder. “Don’t worry about Kendra. She’ll snap out of whatever is going on with her.” She held up her cell phone. “If I were you, I’d get to making more treats—specifically the I Woof You chew sticks. People are already blowing up our DMs asking where they can buy them.”

“How many?” Ashanti asked, but Kara had already left the room. Ashanti picked up her phone and clicked on the Instagram app. She tried to sign in but she couldn’t access the daycare’s account.

She hopped up from her desk and rushed out of the office, catching Kara in the lobby.

“Hey, what’s going on with the Barkingham Palace Instagram account?” Ashanti asked.

“Oh, I changed the password. Can’t have you doing rogue IG lives the way you did the other morning.”

“What is the password, Kara?”

“Sorry, calculus awaits,” her sister said in the singsongy voice she used when she wanted to annoy Ashanti. It was working.

“Kara!”

“Fine,” she said. She took Ashanti’s phone and started typing on it. “I’ll let you in, but don’t touch anything. And, by all means, do not post or reply to anyone.”

“You do realize this is my business, right?”

“Oh yeah? Log into your YouTube channel,” Kara said.

Ashanti snatched the phone from her hand. “Get back to school.”