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Two and a half hours later, Tess stepped out of the old brick warehouse that was a couple of blocks from the Red Birds’s stadium in downtown St. Louis and tugged her jacket closed. The thick, dark blanket of clouds overhead was growing more ominous by the minute. She had several blocks to walk to reach the bus stop that served the line with the most direct route back to the Hill.
There was no hurrying either. Not when she was lugging her loaded-down spinner suitcase. She’d also brought along her old, heavy laptop and was carrying it in her backpack. She was thoroughly exhausted, and with any luck, the rain would hold off until she was on the bus.
To Tess’s disappointment, her meeting with the owner of Pouches and Pooches had been nothing less than chaotic and full of interruptions. They met in what was to be the newest location in downtown St. Louis, just blocks from Ballpark Village and in view of St. Louis’s best-known landmark, the Arch. What was sure to be a trendy and popular shop in a bustling downtown area was still a chaotic thousand-foot construction zone. The owner’s attention had been divided between Tess’s presentation and nonstop flooring and wiring questions by the construction crew.
She made it through her still-being-fine-tuned spiel and was attempting to show him some of her products and demonstrate their effectiveness with real-life success stories when he’d held up a hand, stopping her. He was sold. He’d recommend her services to the customers on his mailing list. And he had twelve thousand customers on it.
She’d been ecstatic before finding out that he wanted a 35 percent cut of any business she earned from his referrals. Considering that was Tess’s margin, it seemed all but impossible.
Tess was debating how to counter his offer and wishing she had more business savvy when a bigger emergency called him to one of his other stores. He gave her his card and told her to contact him once she’d had time to think about it.
A familiar wave of insecurity rocked her as she headed toward the bus stop. She’d visited almost every independent pet store in St. Louis and several veterinarians too. Why was the concept of truly healthy dogs and cats such a hard sell?
Noticing that the sidewalk ahead was torn up in several places, and that she was about to be forced onto the street, she hoisted her suitcase off the ground. It felt fifty pounds heavier than it had at the beginning of the day. Fat, cold drops began pelting her from the dark gray clouds, which didn’t help it feel any lighter.
As the rain dampened her clothes, Tess became uncharacteristically disheartened. When she’d left vet school two years ago, she’d had a vision. Maybe getting her idea off the ground would be easier if she’d taken business classes while getting her undergrad degree. Only, back then, she’d been dead-set on becoming a vet and figured the business end of it would come later.
As Tess neared Market Street and her bus stop, she saw she’d almost reached the end of the sidewalk construction. The muscles in her arm and shoulder were exhausted from carrying her heavy suitcase, and walking on the edge of the city street wasn’t the safest of actions. Just as she’d reached the spot where the sidewalk was no longer blocked off, a truck passed by, splashing a wave of cold, filthy water onto her leather boots and leggings. And with the rain picking up, she was starting to full-body shiver. She couldn’t reach the shelter of the bus stop quickly enough. Or her grandma’s small, cozy home where, after a hot shower, she’d slip into comfy clothes and sip on a mug of hot tea.
Three people were crowded under the bus stop shelter, two seated and one standing. The standing one, a lanky man in a dark suit, stepped over to make room under the cover. He gave her drenched clothes a sympathetic glance before becoming absorbed in his phone again.
Tess thanked him and attempted to tuck both her body and her suitcase under the thin slip of remaining roof and out of the rain. Her laptop was dry at least. Not only was it in a water-resistant case, but her long-used backpack still had waterproofing sealer on it as well.
The other two people crowded in the small space made no acknowledgment of her arrival. A woman took up most of the space on the bench, or at least her bags did. On the fraction of the bench remaining was an older man with a newspaper open on his lap. Rather than reading it, he was staring across the five-lane street and mumbling in disappointment about the Red Birds, St. Louis’s much-loved major league baseball team, and their disappointing end to what had apparently been their best season in nearly a decade. Not that Tess had any idea. To her baseball-crazy family’s disapproval, she’d largely stopped following the sport in college, then entirely when she’d left for Europe.
The intensity of the man’s stare had Tess following his gaze. On the opposite side of the street was Citygarden, the small but picturesque three-acre fountain and the sculpture park that opened to a view of the old courthouse and the Arch. In the wind and rain, the popular park was all but deserted. The only person visible, not far from the giant sculpture of Pinocchio, was a guy wearing an arm sling, balling up an empty leash and kicking at the grass in frustration.
When there’s smoke, Tess thought. She searched for signs of an escaped dog. She spotted it dashing through the bushes and sculptures at the edge of the park. The dog was small, stocky, and white. From this far
