Chapter 2 #2
“No, sorry,” I say and shake my head. Just like the six other times I said no.
Obviously, she’s nervous, and I can totally understand that.
I’d rather have a nervous dog mom in here than ones that don’t care at all.
But unless the dog, God forbid, passes on the table, there will not be an update until it’s all done.
Although I haven’t said those exact words, because I’m not heartless, I’ve alluded to it enough where I’m surprised it hasn’t sunk in.
“I’m sure Kona is doing just fine.” I keep my smile as bright and disarming as possible, even though this is getting annoying. “This is such a routine surgery.”
Her nostrils flare at this and she stomps away. Literally, boots against the floor, stomping with a heavy thud. What the hell? I glance a side-eye at Leo. “What did I say?’” I whisper.
The clicking of the keyboard doesn’t slow as he peeks at Colby and shrugs. A few moments pass when he stops, and cracks open a pop. “Emma and I are talking about heading to Mall of America this weekend. You wanna tag along?”
Leo’s a dude, not always the most emotionally intelligent, and his invite is genuine.
But that’s exactly what I’d be doing—tagging along.
Besides Leo, I have mostly a sprinkling of what I like to call acquaint-ends.
Lots of people that I see, that I chat with, that I engage with at whatever activity that happens to be my flavor of the month.
But none that I’d feel comfortable enough to ask to come with me for a day trip to the Mall of America, and certainly none that I would be comfortable enough sharing anything even remotely personal.
“No thanks. I’m trying pickleball this weekend.
” Yep, pickleball. I’m heading down to the local senior center, hand to God I’m not joking, to join some retirees in a fierce game of whatever the hell pickleball is.
Yes, friends. This is where I’m at in my life.
But living in a town of a few thousand people, the options for local activities are running low, and beggars cannot be choosers.
Today is busy. The lobby area is filled more than normal, which is never a great thing for a vet clinic.
Not all animals are friendly or comfortable around other animals.
Colby moves from the bench so someone can have her spot, which is kind and all, but now she’s pacing like a caged zoo animal.
I can’t exactly kick her out of the place, but any more of her dark, anxious energy, and I’m pretty sure the dogs in the exam rooms are going to start howling.
The automatic door opens, bringing in a breeze and an elderly man, a cane in his left hand and a shar-pei attached to a leash on his right. The dog seems to have more control over the man than the other way around, and I leap from my chair to make sure that no catastrophes occur.
“Oh, hey there, sweet thing,” I say as I approach the barking dog, using my calm voice and demeanor to sooth the canine’s nerves.
Too bad I can’t have treats in my pocket to hand out, but we never know what the animals are in here for and the very last thing I want to do is mess up a lab or flare an allergic reaction.
“Are you okay if I take the leash from you?” I ask the gentleman.
When his liver-spotted hand reaches over with the leash, I squat at the side of the dog and let him sniff my hand.
“Are you here for an appointment?” I ask, keeping my eyes focused on the man, who’s trying to dig out a paper from his pocket while balancing on his cane.
My attention goes to Colby, who’s still pacing, then dashes to a cat that’s meowing and pawing against the metal bars of its crate so much that the clanking sound screeches across the room.
A dog barks fiercely in the corner, and then…
no, no, no. The shar-pei cocks its leg and pees all over me.
And not even a little spray. That leg is lifted like a missile and lands a direct hit right down my shin.
Are you kidding me?
I jump back, the liquid seeping into my bare leg, so freaking gross, right as the doors swing open again.
In stumbles a very frantic mom, a barking chihuahua, and a toddler that gets loose from her grip and begins running, screaming, in a circle.
“Ah, wait… one second…” I say to anyone who will listen as the shar-pei that just decimated my clothes starts barking at the chihuahua.
“Charlie! Stop!” the mom yells, over the growling shar-pei and barking chihuahua and ringing phones.
I scramble backwards, hands up like I’m a soccer goalie.
The kid launches one hell of an impressive temper tantrum on the floor in front of the products, kicking his legs like he’s fighting a demon, and lands a foot on the stacked cans of wet cat food.
The crash of metal cans hitting the floor terrorizes the eardrums of everyone in the place, and makes the dogs outbid each other in a ferocious barking contest. Leo leaps from the desk to help wrangle the humans, or dogs, or cans.
I can feel the trickle of dog pee dripping down my leg and getting my sock soggy, which might even be a worse feeling than my leg being wet.
In less than two minutes, Leo and the mom have taken control of the situation, and I’ve escorted the shar-pei to a room. I return to the desk and start stuffing paper towels in my socks to soak up as much urine as I can, when Colby marches over to the desk.
“Please, it’s been five hours,” Colby says as she tugs on her ponytail.
“Can I have an update?” I hear the desperation in her voice, I really do, but for God’s sake this is the seventh, maybe eighth time she’s come up to the desk.
I have pee seeping into my shoes, I haven’t eaten for a few hours, the phones are ringing off the hook, the lobby is jam-packed.
And I’m sorry, but she is not the only person in the world needing an update.
The doctor is good here, but strict, and only comes out when ready to address the caretaker; otherwise, they’d be cornered in the lobby for half the day.
The quietness, stillness, that I thought Colby had before is quickly shifting. I’m beginning to think that she’s just the type of woman who is used to demanding things and getting her way, and does not take kindly to people telling her no.
My patience is hovering slightly above zero, and I think if she asks again, I might lose my shit.
“Seriously?” I say, a little harsher than needed, but my God.
This is probably why we tell people to leave and come back when their animals are ready to be picked up.
Colby’s beautiful brown eyes narrow at me with a deep fire.
“I have pee all over me. We are crazy busy. There are products all over the floor that are both a human and animal trip hazard, and I told you before, there is no update.” The constant ringing of the phone is piercing my ears.
“I’ll let you know when she’s done. Please, can you go outside or something?
Maybe go grab yourself a coffee or pastry or something at the coffee shop? ”
Her mouth drops open, her huge eyes going even wider. “I absolutely will not go outside or go grab a coffee. I have every right to be here, to check on the health of my animal.”
Jesus. This feels a little reminiscent of me—dramatic, over-the-top, and a bit attention-seeking.
Did Colby grow up in a home with six siblings, an absentee father and overworked, exhausted single mother, too?
Tightness spreads in my jaw, but I breathe it out.
“Your dog is receiving excellent care. Our veterinarian is one of the best in the state.”
Her gaze pins me, and she crosses her arms across her hooded sweatshirt. “I need you to go check. Now.”
The firmness in her voice almost makes me recoil.
It’s absolutely reminiscent of my college days when I worked at a dive bar in Duluth and people snapped their fingers to get me to come to the table.
Heat rises in my chest, crawls up my neck, and is most likely going to turn my face as pink as my hair.
“Look,” I say, matching her steeliness and exhaling through the disrespect she’s throwing my way.
“I can appreciate that you’re nervous, but we have a strict policy.
We wait for the doctor to update us, otherwise we’d be constantly agitating and interrupting the animals—”
“There’s no way you can’t just go peek at the chart, or crack open the door, or something.”
And now, I straight-up bristle. I don’t go into wherever her place of business is and tell her how to manage her job. Nor do I want to be on the receiving end of the doctor’s wrath—who is amazing with animals but isn’t as fond of humans—by breaking her rules.
Colby strums her fingers against her arms. “So?”
“For God’s sake, I’ve said this like ten times,” I say, tightening my spine. “The. Doctor. Will. Let. Us. Know. When. They’re. Done.”
If this were a cartoon, I’m pretty sure this is when smoke would have billowed from Colby’s ears. She plants her hands on the counter, seething. “Do you not have a heart? I just need a fucking update!”
Is it coincidence, or did all animals stop barking, the phone stop ringing, and the place go eerily silent?
I look around the room, the people stare back at me, and my cheeks are now definitely burning.
I pull my lips into my mouth and anchor them between my teeth before I really say something to escalate. How dare she.
And then… one of on-duty vet techs comes out and whispers to me that Kona is ready. Although this is normally my favorite part of my job—bringing animals back out to meet their owners—I practically stomp back to the recovery area and burst into the room. But one toe in, my body softens.
Oh, sweet thing with her shaved leg. Yes, I see dogs with a half-shaved leg post-surgery all of the time.
But they always look so chilly with their missing fur.
Couple that with the stitches running across the skin, and a plastic cone hanging from a drooping head filled with anesthesia disorientation, and you’d have to be totally heartless to not feel something.
Some people here at the clinic have gained a level of desensitization. I have not.
The vet tech on duty, doctor, and I have a quick logistics chat, then I grab the leather leash.
“Come on, girl,” I say to Kona, “I think your mama is very anxious to see you.” With notes in one hand, and the leash in the other, I push through the door to the lobby and walk slowly with Kona as she tenderly puts weight on her leg as she trails slightly behind me.
In the lobby, Colby glances up at me and Kona and leaps from her seat.
She drops on the floor next to the dog as she hugs Kona.
“Oh, baby girl… are you okay?” A half-choked sob sounding like a strangled hiccup escapes her throat.
Tears slide down her cheeks and drip from her chin as she swaps back and forth between hugging Kona and checking her wound.
My heart positively melts. Colby obviously adores this dog. We all have different reactions to when our loved ones are in surgery. And even though I could’ve done without the drama for today—which is saying a lot since I normally thrive on drama—I can see how worried Colby was.
Colby swipes her eyes with the back of her hand and her chin trembles. “She’s okay?”
And I see it—the heartbreak, the fear, the red in her eyes that highlights the beautiful soft amber within the brown. There’s so much pain there, so much worry, and a deep urge consumes me to take it all away.
“She was a champ,” I say, crouching to meet her and Kona at eye level. “A really good girl, and everything went perfect. The doctor will meet you in the consulting room in a minute to talk about follow-up care, and I can schedule some post-op appointments for you.”
Colby is looking at me, a little, but her focus is almost entirely on her dog.
I speak a little more, but it’s like Colby can’t hear me, at all.
She’s cooing in Kona’s ears, swiping away tears, taking full, shaky breaths.
Is it crossing a line to give her a hug?
I don’t normally hug customers, but she looks so broken.
I know broken. I’ve seen broken, and this is it.
Instead of crossing that line, however, I settle for a hand on her shoulder and hold out a tissue.
“Colby? The doctor has some follow-up notes.”
Finally, she blinks up at me, and the anger she had before is gone.
She gratefully accepts my tissue and wipes her nose and face.
“Thank you,” she says as she rises. Her gaze sweeps the floor, and she tucks a loose tendril that fell from her pony behind her ear.
“I’m so sorry about before… the way I spoke to you… I, ah… I guess I was nervous.”
There’s more there. I can see there’s more, and why, why, why is there desperation to know more, to ask more, to somehow help and take it away?
I don’t even know this woman, not really anyway, and yet in a snap, I’m falling into a laughable, predictable pattern.
But I almost don’t care. I want to know what the more is.
The doctor escorts Colby to the room, and through the window I see her nod, run the corner of her palm across her cheeks to catch a few more fallen tears, and never remove her hand from behind Kona’s ears. After several minutes, she steps out from the room and grabs the paperwork.
She glances at me through phenomenal, dark, long lashes. Her mouth opens, then closes, when her gaze sweeps the floor. “I’m sorry again,” she says, then turns and slowly moves to the door with Kona trudging at her side.
Something about watching them leave tugs on my heart in a way that it shouldn’t.
I work in a vet clinic. I see all kinds of injured or sick animals, and upset owners, but in all my years, nothing has produced this level of tug.
But I’m not an idiot. I know this tug is for Colby.
I also know my pattern, my need for a thrill, to seek out the next great thing.
So, therefore, I need to plant my plump ass right here, in this office chair, and go back to logging notes.
The words on the screen blur, and I close my eyes. Don’t do it. Don’t do it, don’t effing do it. A few hard heartbeat thumps later, I leap from my chair, grab my jacket, and race to the front door.