Wishing for Wonderful (Serendipity #3)(28)

I probably should remind you that employment is not mine to do or undo. Lindsay is on her own unless she’s got a friend in Life Management, which, I can assure you, is an extremely rare occurrence.

~

On Sunday afternoon I watched Lindsay settle onto the sofa with the Courier Post, a ruled tablet and a ballpoint pen. She almost bristled with the renewed certainty of finding a job. Starting at the top of the listings, she read through them one by one. Automobile mechanic, babysitter, bakery assistant, cook, copywriter. She circled the copywriter ad and moved on. Delivery driver, engineer… After she’d read through every listing, she realized that even with the new resume her qualifications were suitable for only two of the jobs listed: copywriter and sales person for the Baby Boutique. She wrote both telephone numbers on the tablet and then colored in a star next to the number for the copywriter position. It didn’t take an all-seeing eye to recognize that was the job she wanted.

Tomorrow morning Lindsay planned to call both places, but until then there was little she could do. She set aside the Classifieds and picked up the weekend section. A Macy’s ad triggered the thought that if she got the job as copywriter, she would need a few new outfits for work.

Suits, she wondered, or dresses? She was flipping through the pages when she saw it in the upper right hand corner of the seventh page: the ad for Heavenly Acres Animal Rescue Center.

“It’s my dog!” Lindsay shouted and jumped to her feet.

With the folded back newspaper in her hand, she dashed into the kitchen where Eleanor and John were working on a crossword puzzle together.

“Is it okay if I get this dog?” she asked, waving the newspaper.

Paying little attention John mused, “A seven letter detective show starting with m-a…Matlock, that’s it!”

“Nope,” Eleanor answered. “The k has to be an r.”

“Oh,” John said disappointedly. He then turned to Lindsay. “What’d you say, honey?”

“This dog,” she repeated, handing him the newspaper. “Is it okay if I get it?”

“Since when do you want a dog?” John asked quizzically.

“I don’t just want a dog, I want this dog. It’s been following me everywhere.”

Eleanor leaned in and looked at the newspaper. “Following you?” she said. “How can the dog be following you if it’s locked up in the shelter and—”

“Not following me physically,” Lindsay replied, “but its picture is popping up every time I turn on my computer, and I hear it barking in my ear, things like—”

Both John and Eleanor were eying her strangely.

“What’s going on here?” he asked. “Is there something you’re not telling—”

“There’s nothing to tell! I’d just like to adopt this little dog and I thought since it’s your house, I ought to at least ask before I do it.”

Eleanor reached across and patted John’s hand. “Honey, I think having a dog would be good for Lindsay. If this beagle is the one she wants then—”

“It’s not a beagle,” Lindsay said. “It’s a Maltese or Bichon maybe.”

Eleanor and John looked at the advertisement for a second time. “It looks like a beagle,” they replied in unison.

Lindsay pulled back the newspaper. “How can a beagle be long and shaggy?” she said, but when she looked at the ad, her jaw went slack.

“This is the wrong ad,” she said and began leafing through the other pages. There were no other Heavenly Acres ads in the weekend section. “It must have been in another section.”

Lindsay turned back to the living room muttering something that went unheard…at least by human ears.

She searched every section of the paper, including the comic pages and real estate listings. The ad she’d seen was nowhere to be found. For a good hour, Lindsay sat there looking at the same pages over and over again. Finally, she came to the conclusion that she had somehow developed a strange new ability to see things and remember things that never were. It was, she decided, an extrasensory perception of both past and future. The high school incidents she’d shared with Traci were definitely from the past, but this dog had to be from the future, and Lindsay had a feeling he was an important part of her future. She had to find that dog!





Monday morning Lindsay called the Baby Boutique first.

“Sorry, honey,” the woman said, “that job was filled two weeks ago.”

“But I just saw this ad yesterday,” Lindsay replied.

“Yeah,” the woman said, “running it for a month was cheaper than two weeks. We’re still getting calls, and I’m thinking all this aggravation wasn’t worth the difference.”

Lindsay hung up and dialed the number for the copywriter job.

A woman answered, “Good morning, Genius Advertising.”

“Good morning,” Lindsay replied. “I’m calling about the copywriter position listed in yesterday’s newspaper.”

“Mister Morrissey is handling that,” the woman said. “Hold on, please.”

Lindsay waited for what seemed like an interminable amount of time until finally a gruff voice said, “Morrissey.”

He did not sound one bit friendly, which made Lindsay nervous right off the bat.