The Unexpected Everything(84)

“Okay, M,” I said, as I straightened up again, hoping that when I brought him home, I could give a report on how the dog did without having to use his name. “Let’s do this.”

The dog trotted forward, tail wagging, and I started walking him down the long, steep driveway toward the road. As I walked, I pulled out my phone, telling myself I just wanted to listen to some music, pretending that was the real reason right up until the moment I scrolled to my brand-new audiobook section. I’d transferred the discs Clark had given me to my phone two days ago but hadn’t listened to them yet. It seemed like the time had come.

I took a breath and pressed play, and the sonorous voice of a very famous British movie star filled my ears.

“If it had not snowed on the second day of the Aspen moon,” he intoned, and I noticed, not for the first time, how everything sounded better with a British accent. “The life of Tamsin Castleroy would have been quite different. . . .”

I turned up the volume as I walked along with the dog, trying to pay attention so I didn’t miss anything, as I listened to Clark’s story.

? ? ?

“Wow,” Maya said, looking at me with her eyebrows raised. She glanced down at the pile of dogs at her feet. It was the three terriers again, the ones that were normally so hyperactive that my arm was always sore afterward from having to pull back against the leash the whole time. But now they were flopped on the wooden floors of the tiny office Maya and Dave ran their business out of. I had been walking them nearby and figured I might as well stop in with them, since I needed to get a set of keys for a new dog, and this way I could pick up my paycheck. All the dogs looked exhausted, and Tofu—normally the most hyperactive of them all—was starting to fall asleep in front of me, despite the fact that another dog was currently sitting on his head. “It looks like they really got a workout.”

“Yeah,” I said, busying myself by folding up the extra plastic bags I kept in my back pocket, avoiding Maya’s eye. “There were . . . um . . . lots of squirrels today.” Maya nodded, and it looked like she believed me. My explanation was almost as rational as the truth, though—that I was currently devouring Clark’s books, and the dogs I walked were feeling the direct effects of it.

Once I’d gotten the hang of listening to the audiobook, it hadn’t taken long for me to get swept up in the story of Tamsin, a rebellious princess who captured the attention of the Elder, the mysterious, Yoda-like figure who lived in the woods on the outskirts of her kingdom. There was a prophecy, and since Tamsin fit the description, many—including herself—believed she was the chosen one, the one who would unite the kingdoms torn asunder by a hundred years of war. I had my doubts about this, and the Elder did as well. But he started to teach her anyway, as Tamsin’s roguish brother, Jack, kept the kingdom more or less (oftentimes less) afloat, honing her abilities, especially her talent for communicating with birds. The first book had ended on a cliffhanger, as Tamsin and the Elder were forced to flee the kingdom, pursued with an invading army at their backs. I’d downloaded the second book immediately and was already about halfway through it.

I was listening to it constantly—in my car, in my room, before I went to bed, my phone propped on my nightstand and a sleep timer on so I wouldn’t miss anything. But the place I really loved to have the story told to me was while I was at work. There was something wonderful about being outside, moving, keeping an eye on the dogs in front of me while the rest of me was swept up in the story. As a direct result of this, all my dogs were getting much longer walks than normal, since I hated to stop in the middle of a really great part. The walks that were normally twenty minutes had turned into epic walks that took us all over town, and as a result, most of them were getting pretty wiped out.

“Well, it sure looks like they had fun,” Maya said as she bent down and scratched Banjo’s ears. Banjo immediately flipped onto his back and looked at her expectantly—he was a fool for belly rubs.

“Definitely,” I lied, since I honestly couldn’t have told her. Tamsin had been captured by the book’s great villain, locked in a tower, and separated from the Elder, so the amount of fun the dogs were having had not been my primary concern.

“So here are the keys for the Wilson house,” she said, handing them to me. “You got the e-mail Dave sent you?” I nodded. Dave was beyond on top of this—making sure I had dog information and addresses and instructions, most of it laid out on spreadsheets.

“I should probably get these guys back,” I said, looking at the time on my phone and realizing that I should have had them back an hour ago and was going to have to hustle if I wanted to bring them home before their owners returned from work.

Maya nodded, but then looked at me thoughtfully. “You’ve been doing a great job here, Andie,” she said. I looked at her, surprised. “I mean it. I think you really have a talent for this.”

“Dog walking?”

“Working with animals,” Maya said, looking at me steadily. “Not everyone does. Certainly not all the people we’ve hired have it. But you do.”

I nodded, trying to process this. At the start of the summer, I would have said that it was just walking dogs, that anyone could do it, but now I wasn’t so sure. Especially after Toby came on one walk with me and spent the whole time freaking out every time Bertie sniffed a tree. Maya gave me a smile as she clipped her carabiner filled with keys back onto her belt loop. “So . . . ,” I started, not really even sure what I was asking her. “Did you know you always wanted to do this? The whole dog and cat thing, I mean?”