Fake Empire(74)

I’ve accepted it, embraced it even. But that’s different from relying on it. Perpetuating it. If it disappears, it will be that much harder to revert back to what our relationship used to look like.

I shut my phone off and focus on my surroundings. The lighting team is still getting set up by the carousel, so I people watch instead. Few people bother to glance over at the scene taking place off the path. Most are joggers or walkers. Frazzled moms or babysitters promising ice cream to screaming kids. One woman passes me with six dogs pulling her along. She stops at the bench next to mine and proceeds to tie them up to the metal armrest one by one. She manages to secure five. The sixth is a puppy with floppy ears, large paws, and fluffy golden fur. It can’t stop getting tangled up in its leash.

The woman lets out an exasperated huff. “Goldie! Hold still!”

“I can hold him for you.” The words are out without any conscious decision on my part. I’m a typical New Yorker. With the exception of my stints at boarding school, I’ve lived on the Upper East Side my whole life. I don’t stop and talk to strangers; I stride past them like I’m chasing the gold in a speed-walking competition.

A grateful smile erases any chance of taking the words back. “Really? That would be great. Thank you!” The woman, who looks to be in her late twenties, takes a couple of steps closer and hands the green leash to me. The puppy immediately turns its attention to me, alternating between licking my leg and sniffing my shoes.

The woman redoes her sloppy ponytail and bends down to tie her sneaker. “I was worried they’d pull me over.” She knots the wayward laces and then checks the other shoe. “I’m only supposed to walk three at a time, but the other volunteer called in sick this morning…so here I am.”

“You’re not a dog walker?”

“No. Well.” She stands and smiles. “I guess I sort of am. I volunteer at the Loving Paws Rescue. Dog walking is like less than five percent of the job. It’s mostly feeding and brushing and poop scooping and, well, you get the picture.”

I look down at the dog that’s stopped licking and settled by my feet. His little tail wags as he rests his head on a tiny paw. “These are all rescues?”

“Yep. Our landlord has a strict no-pet policy, and my roommates would kill me if we got kicked out of our shoebox.” She rolls her eyes. “So I volunteer and get to spend time with animals that could use some TLC. Most of it’s great. Some of it sucks.” She studies the dog attached to the leash I’m holding. “This guy is headed to a kill shelter in the morning.”

“What? Why?”

“Space. Only so much money and lots more hungry mouths to feed, you know?”

“They’ll kill him?” I look down at the face that looks like it’s smiling. Lolling tongue. Wagging tail.

“Goldie will have a few weeks there. But if no one adopts him…then yeah.”

“That’s so sad. He looks so happy.”

The woman’s face falls. “I know. At least he won’t know it’s coming. Not much to worry about when you’re a dog.”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

I’ve never had a pet in my life. When I was younger, I asked for a kitten. An animal that claws furniture and uses the bathroom indoors was my mother’s worst nightmare—or so she claimed. I can only imagine asking for a dog would have gone over far worse.

“Thanks for holding him.” The woman smiles and takes Goldie’s leash back from me. “Have a good day.”

“You too.”

I watch her walk away, tugged forward by the dogs as they strain and bark. Then shake my head and look back at my phone.

But the furry face stays with me throughout the shoot. As I’m looking through photos and selecting accessories. Consulting photographers and deciding on angles. By the time the shoot ends, it’s close to five p.m.

For some reason, I Google Loving Paws Animal Rescue as I walk toward my waiting car. It’s close, only a few blocks away. I figured it must be, since the woman was walking. Taking six dogs on a miles long trip doesn’t sound realistic.

I climb into the back of the town car. “Back home?” my driver today, Eric, asks.

For a few seconds, I deliberate. Leaving work at a reasonable hour is one thing. A living, breathing animal is another. But something possesses me to reply with the animal shelter’s address. Traffic is heavy. It takes fifteen minutes to make the short trip. The exterior of the building is nondescript. If not for the small, white sign, I wouldn’t have known I’m in the right place.

A bell rings above the door as I walk inside, past the five folding chairs and a display of pamphlets on rabies and neutering. The woman behind the counter isn’t the one I met this morning.

She looks up, her brow creasing. “Can I help you?”

I stride up to the desk and clear my throat. “I’m here to adopt a dog. Goldie?”

“We close in ten minutes.”

“He’s getting sent to a kill shelter tomorrow. I’ll pay extra. Whatever it takes.”

The woman studies me as she scoops her brown hair up in a ponytail and ties it. She’s wearing a t-shirt that reads I Brake For Squirrels. I take that as a promising sign she’s not in favor of the whole kill shelter concept. A brown clipboard gets unearthed from the papers littering the desk. “Fill this out.”