“I want one of the mothers,” said Jillian.
“Then you’re in luck,” said the woman.
Jillian and Adam ate breakfast in the car on the way to the rescue place. They got it at the Starbucks drive-through. Jillian got her favorite kind of Starbucks and a scone and Adam got a donut and cocoa. They listened to and sang along with one of Adam’s favorite albums for the first hour of the drive, then switched to one of Jillian’s. She sang along to it while Adam said he had to pee. So far away, she thought, and tried to visualize herself NOT getting pulled over, ha ha, because that would not be a very good thing.
They drove until they came to the address, a ranch house with a big front yard. The gravel sounded under Jillian’s tires and she felt like a TV detective pulling up to the scene. Adam thrashed in his seat and Jillian smiled at him while she unbuckled him.
What are you thinking about? she wondered. Oh, well.
A woman opened the front door of the house and said, “Are you here for the dogs?”
“Yeah, hi. I think we talked on the phone.”
“You probably talked to our offices. I didn’t talk to anyone on the phone.”
“Okay,” said Jillian, but the woman was smiling so it was fine.
“There are so many dogs in this area that we all take turns fostering some of them. Come on in.”
“Oh, cool,” said Jillian. “I’d love to do something like this.”
She looked around the woman’s living room. It was carpeted and there were nice framed posters on the walls. The cream-colored leather couches were covered with blankets, and two dogs on the floor chewed rawhide bones.
The woman rolled her eyes and said, “Those things get so nasty.”
Jillian laughed and looked closer. The bones were dry and dirty on the bottoms, probably from the dogs’ paws, which held them pinned to the floor, and as she looked farther up the shafts of the toys she saw that the material became a lighter off-white color and then even farther up it was soft and foamy. The dogs worked the bones in semicircles with their teeth, and a little bit of foam made of hide and spit dribbled from the dogs’ lips. The dogs didn’t look up at Jillian when she came near, they just gnawed their bones, breathing heavily, and making a rhythmic grinding sound.
“They’re so calm,” said Jillian.
“These are mine, Misty and Fancy Pants. See her pants?” The dog had darker fur on her hind legs that did look like pants. “They’re used to company. I’m Emily.” The woman held out her hand.
“I’m Jillian and this is Adam.”
Jillian was embarrassed because her hands were sweaty, she was so excited, but she had to shake this woman’s hand. If I pretend it’s not sweaty, then it won’t seem so sweaty, she thought.
Adam said hello but his attention was on the TV and the collection of movies underneath it. He imagined the woman might invite him to watch one and give him a sandwich, because most women wanted to do things like that for him.
“Let’s go out to the run,” said Emily.
Jillian’s heart was pounding, she couldn’t calm down. Who is this woman, what am I doing here? Okay, calm down, you know, it’ll be great.
The back door was off the kitchen. Jillian could see it from the living room because there was an open wall above one of the kitchen counters. They walked through the kitchen, which had several bowls of dog food and water on the floor on children’s place mats. The lower cabinets were held shut by rubber bands wrapped around the knobs. There was a loaf of bread on the counter. Emily opened the back door, turned and smiled at them, and said, “This way.”
The backyard was nice and big and there were a few trees and a fence around the perimeter. It took a second to see where the dogs were. I guess this is what their natural camouflage is like, thought Jillian, noticing how the chocolate Labs blended into the shaded dirt under the trees and how the yellow Labs blended into the wood on the fence. A few white-and-brown-spotted dogs, which Jillian thought looked like English hunting dogs, walked around with toys in their mouths. “Oh, those look like Fancy Pants,” she said.
“Yeah,” said Emily. “Which one do you want to meet?”
“Adam?”
“I like those,” said Adam. He pointed to the brown Labs under the tree.
“I guess we want to meet those chocolate Labs,” said Jillian. Emily led them back to the tree and explained that, at least during the good weather seasons, it was better for the dogs to stay in a house with a yard.
“You know, better for them mentally. My house doesn’t always look like this. I usually have nice hostas along that fence,” she said, pointing to a dug-up spot along the fence.
“This is a really great thing you do,” said Jillian.
Adam crouched in the shade by the Labs, who were initially indifferent to him.
“They don’t bite, do they?”
“Not as far as I know. I think they’re pretty kid-friendly.”
“Hi, Choco,” said Adam. Choco raised her head. Adam crouch-walked closer to the dogs while the women talked about the rescue center.
“You’re Choco and you’re Crispy. Hi, Crispy. Hi, Choco the dog,” he said. Crispy got up, wagged her tail, and walked up to Adam and began to sniff his crotch. “Hi, Crispy,” he whispered.
“That dog’s name is Peanut,” Emily corrected. Adam didn’t pay attention to her. “I named all the dogs,” she said to Jillian. “That dog responds well to Peanut. It’s best to pick two-syllable names.”
Crispy licked the donut sugar off of Adam’s hands. Jillian gave Emily the money order, and then Jillian, Adam, and Crispy loaded themselves into the car.
“Hey, maybe we can talk about other names,” said Jillian.
“Why?” said Adam.
“Choco’s a cute name, what about Choco?”
“But, the other one was Choco,” said Adam. “This is
