Chapter 20
September 28, 2023
Brynn:
Hey you, hope your drinks thing went well. let me know if you want some company later x
Lucas:
Went great: I actually talked to an editor from Penguin about you!
Brynn:
Oh wow! Thank you!
Lucas:
She’s going to look into some stuff. I’ll keep you posted. See you in a couple of days for our first fun New York date.
Brynn:
First fun and free remember?
Lucas:
I got this!
Corey gets home from a work function in the small hours of the morning. Her voice is loud and mixes with the clumping sound of her stomping around our wooden floor with heels on. She’s also not alone and she giggles a lot. I groan and put the pillow over my head.
My phone ringing wakes me in what feels like a few minutes later but is actually hours. The time on my screen says eight o’clock. The rude early phone calls are becoming a habit that I’m not enjoying.
‘Hello?’ My voice sounds croaky.
‘Brynn? Brynn, this is Doug from Dogue’s.’
Oh shit . I jump out of bed and scramble around my room looking for my printed schedule. I was sure I had a day off. Corey and I have lunch plans.
‘Hi,’ I say.
‘Look, I know it’s your day off ...’ I breathe a sigh of relief and sit back on the bed as Doug continues. ‘Hilde has called in sick, and I need someone to cover the desk between now and the afternoon shift. Do you think you could come in?’
I sigh. Corey and I so rarely have matching schedules these days and I was looking forward to lunch. On the other hand, a shift means extra money. ‘Okay,’ I say. I clamber out of bed and look in my closet for clean jeans and a work t-shirt.
‘That’s terrific, thank you very much, I appreciate it.’
I nearly fall over from shock; Doug is thanking me for giving up my time? The world has gone topsy-turvy.
At Dogue’s, I walk into the sound of Doug in his office yelling followed by someone else, crying and apologising. Robert is standing in the playroom with the door open—he’s got one ear on the dogs and the other on whatever is going on in Doug’s office. There’s no one at the front desk. I go around and put my bag in the locker.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask quietly and Robert shakes his head. He points at the office door.
‘Listen for long enough and you’ll work it out,’ he whispers.
I take my seat at the desk and log in. From what I can gather from the screaming and crying, our newest front-desk girl checked in a dog that wasn’t feeling great a couple of days ago. The dog had giardia—a nasty stomach bug that dogs can pass on to humans. Now, it seems, half the dogs have it and half of the staff too.
‘This is the sort of shit that puts doggy daycare centres out of business!’ Doug yells and I hear another sniffled apology coming from the office. ‘Not to mention, I’ve now got no staff for god only knows how long.
‘I’ve had to call Brynn in to run the desk and she’s never done it before.’
Obviously, he’s forgotten the few shifts that I’ve done.
‘But I can tell you right now, she sure as hell wouldn’t let a dog with giardia into a playroom full of other dogs.’
‘What would I do?’ I whisper to Robert, because I actually don’t know what the procedure is for sick dogs.
‘Send them home,’ Robert says. He frowns a little as he speaks, rubbing at his chest as if the conversation we’re eavesdropping on is causing him pain and leaning against the door. ‘If the dog’s not feeling well, you have to refuse them entry,’ he continues. His voice is a bit louder now. I guess it’s pretty unlikely that Doug will hear us talking over his yelling.
A lady comes in and starts browsing around the store, but she leaves with a horrified expression after hearing Doug continuing to yell a stream of insults. Robert shakes his head when she leaves and closes the door to the anteroom, disappearing back into the playroom.
And just after that, Sienna walks in dressed in scrubs, her blonde curls pulled back into a messy ponytail and her face fresh and makeup free.
‘Hey!’ I say, beaming. My body brightens at the sight of her.
‘Hey,’ she replies, and a look I can’t quite place flashes over her face.
I clear my throat, suddenly nervous. ‘I haven’t seen you since ...’
‘Since the Daisy incident,’ she interjects, and I feel a little embarrassed, remembering Sienna witnessed me lose my cool and the weird way Lucas acted around her.
‘Yeah, since then.’ My mouth is dry and I don’t know what to say next. Why am I like this?
‘I did text you,’ she says after a moment of silence. But before I can tell her that I’ve been busy, she continues. ‘I’m here for work stuff. I need to grab Snowy, the Bichon? He’s got a vaccination appointment and his mom’s going to pick him up from the clinic. It should be on his notes.’
‘Oh sure, I’ll go grab him,’ I stand, my cheeks feeling hot. ‘But also, I should let you know there’s been a bit of a giardia outbreak.’
She nods. ‘Yeah, I know. We’re dealing with it too. So many dogs in the neighbourhood have it. I’ll give Snowy a check over.’
‘Cool, thanks. Give me a sec.’
She nods and smiles in a way that’s like ten per cent of the grin she usually gives. ‘Take your time.’
Something’s off with her. I thought we were heading into close friends’ territory after the burlesque class. I haven’t been the best at keeping in touch, knowing that I’ve been acting kind of dickmatised lately. But it’s only been a week since the Daisy incident and Sienna texted once in that time. Plus she has been on my mind, even if I didn’t let her know.
I decide I’ll ask her to come and have lunch with me and Corey when my shift is over. Some girl time is the answer to everything , I think as I tag into the little-dog room and ask Robert for Snowy.
But once I’m back out in reception, dog leash in hand, I stop in my tracks.
Lucas is standing at the desk talking to Sienna, Mulligan leashed at his side. Snowy has his own plan, and for a little dog is surprisingly strong. He drags me over to them where he jumps up and down on Sienna, then Lucas.
Why do my palms feel suddenly sweaty?
‘Well, it sounds like Brynn was lucky you came along,’ I hear Sienna saying and I notice that the smile on her face is strained and a bit fake.
‘I’m sure she could have handled it. Hey, honey,’ Lucas says, grinning at me.
Sienna’s eyes widen at the ‘honey’ and in truth, I reckon mine do too. After a week, pet names do seem a bit much.
‘Who’s this guy?’ Lucas murmurs, grinning at Snowy.
‘Hey,’ I reply. ‘This is Snowy. I can take Mully for you.’
I grab Mulligan’s leash and hand Snowy’s over to Sienna. I catch a weird look on her face as our hands touch.
‘Thanks, babe,’ Lucas says. Babe?
‘Are we still on for tomorrow?’ he asks, seemingly oblivious to the tension in the room.
‘Bye, Brynn,’ Sienna calls before I can answer Lucas. She’s out the door with Snowy before I even get a chance to say goodbye or ask her to lunch.
‘Yeah, definitely,’ I tell Lucas. ‘I finish at noon tomorrow, that’s not too early is it?’
‘Nope, that’s perfect. We need to be on the Upper West Side by one thirty, so it should be plenty of time. Just don’t forget a change of clothes.’
Excitement bubbles and I forget about the awkwardness with Sienna. ‘And how dressy should I be?’
He laughs. ‘I’m not spending any money, remember? Jeans are fine.’
‘Just not my dog jeans?’
‘Exactly. Okay, well, I gotta go and get this column written. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ He says and then he pulls me close and kisses me. It’s a long, lingering kiss that sets my insides on fire. I’m lucky Doug is in his office and can’t see me very clearly fraternising with a dog parent.
I drop Mulligan in with Robert and settle back onto the reception desk. Because it’s quiet, I open my TikTok page on the computer to work on editing my newest video: footage of me walking around the Cloisters at the Met to fulfill Mum’s ‘Do something that Claudia from the Baby-Sitters’ Club would do in New York’ Mission . I’ve just finished cutting together the footage when the office door slams and the reception girl Doug was grilling finally comes out. Her face is all red and splotchy and her eyes are already puffy.
‘Hi,’ she says, her voice thick from crying. ‘You wouldn’t happen to have a tissue? I just used a whole packet in there.’
‘Yeah, hang on,’ I take my bag out of my locker and hand her a plastic wrapped packet of Kleenex. ‘Are you going to be okay?’
‘Sure, being fired with no warning after getting literally no training at this job is great,’ she says. ‘Exactly what I wanted to happen.’
‘This all really sucks. For what it’s worth, I’m so sorry,’ I say, knowing that there’s not much she can do with my sympathy.
She leaves the store and a moment later Doug emerges from the office. ‘Brynn, you can leave at midday—someone will be in to take over.’ And then he huffs out of the store, leaving the place fizzing with his angry energy.
Once I’m sure he’s not going to come back, I go to the playroom and stand between the door, half in the anteroom and the store like Robert was before, so I can talk to him but keep an eye on comings and goings.
‘Giardia, hey?’ I say to him.
‘Yeah, it’s nasty. Wash your hands a lot. Pretend like we’re back in the pandemic.’
‘I mean, we are still in a pandemic,’ I say.
‘Touché,’ he says.
‘So that girl,’ I continue. ‘The one who supposedly let the giardia in and got herself fired for it ...’
‘What about her?’ he asks, running his hand across his head. His hair looks freshly shaved.
‘She said she didn’t get any training. And I wouldn’t have known what to do either.’
‘It’s kind of just the way things go here,’ he says, shrugging.
‘But it was a mistake,’ I say. ‘He fires people for making mistakes when they don’t know they’re making mistakes. And then there’s Cruz. It was like Doug just drew straws as to which one of the two of us would lose our job.’
Robert shrugs again and takes a hanky out of his pocket. He wipes his brow. He looks a bit peaky, and I wonder if he’s coming down with the stomach bug too. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say, kid, Doug is who he is. He’s kind of an asshole, but that’s how he runs his business. There’s a lot of things I’d change here if I could.’
‘But what about unfair dismissal? Back home people would have gone to a place called Fair Work and he would have had to give them a payout if the firing was unfounded. And this is America—isn’t litigation a big thing here?’
‘People need lawyers to do that,’ he says. ‘You’re right, they might have a case, but look at who Doug employs: foreign workers like you and Hilde who are on visas, and migrants and students who are fighting to get by. He employs people who can’t afford to complain about treatment while they’re working here and they certainly can’t afford to sue if they get fired.’
‘So there’s like, no free protection for workers here at all?’ I ask, completely floored.
‘I don’t think so, kid.’ He looks at his watch. ‘Can you print me the lunch list before your cover gets here? Just in case I get another one of the newbies.’
I nod and head back to the desk, anger stirring in my belly.