Landline(70)

“Petunia!” Georgie said, more urgently. “She’s having puppies in the dryer!”

“No, she’s not. She’s having a C-section in two weeks.”

“Great!” Georgie shouted. “I’ll go tell her!”

“Oh God!” Heather shouted back. She ran past Georgie toward the laundry room. Georgie ran behind her as far as the door.

Heather knelt in front of the dryer and immediately screamed. Porky was running back and forth across the tile floor—it sounded like someone rattling their fingernails against a metal desk. He was already hoarse from barking. “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” Heather chanted.

“Whoa,” someone said.

The pizza girl stepped around Georgie on the stairs. “Whoa,” she said again, crouching behind Heather.

“She’s gonna die,” Heather said.

The girl touched her shoulder. “She’s not.”

“She is. Their heads are too big, she has to have a C-section. Oh God.” Heather took a few crazy breaths. “Oh my God.”

“She’s going to be fine,” Georgie said. “She was built for this.”

“She wasn’t,” Heather said, crying now. “Pugs are bred to be useless. We have to take her to the vet.”

“I think it’s too late for that,” pizza girl said, looking into the dryer. “There are puppies in there.” Porky ran by the dryer again, and the girl scooped him up, running her hand over his skull and whispering, “Hush.”

“Right,” Georgie said.

Heather was still crying and breathing like she was making every effort to pass out.

“Right,” Georgie said again. “Heather, move.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to help Petunia.”

“You don’t even like her.”

“Move.”

Pizza girl tugged on Heather’s elbow, and Heather moved back.

“My OB didn’t like me either,” Georgie murmured. “Get out your phone, Heather. Google ‘pugs in labor.’”

“I would if I had a smartphone!” Heather snarled.

“I’ve got it,” ever-more-impressive pizza girl said. “Here—” She handed Porky to Heather. “—maybe you guys could get some clean towels.”

“Have you done this before?” Heather asked hopefully, taking the dog and wiping her face in its fur.

“No,” the girl said, “but I watch Animal Planet.”

“Google,” Georgie said, reaching into the dryer. Petunia had burrowed under the T-shirt again and was shivering, worrying something with her mouth. Georgie tried to nudge more clothes away, so she could see.

“Okay, okay,” pizza girl said. “It’s loading. Okay, here we go—‘giving birth can be especially challenging for both pugs and pug owners.’”

“So far, so good . . . ,” Georgie said. “It’s too dark, I can’t see anything.”

“Oh.” The girl held her key chain over Georgie’s shoulder. “There’s a flashlight.”

“That’s handy.” Georgie took the heavy key chain and found the stainless steel light.

“It helps when I’m delivering pizzas at night, to get the credit card numbers—okay, it says here that pugs have complicated pregnancies, and we should be financially prepared for a C-section. . . .”

“Skip ahead,” Georgie said. Petunia was wet and splotched with blood. The thing in her mouth was moving. Oh, God, she’s eating it.

“She’s eating the puppies!” Heather shrieked. She was leaning behind Georgie holding a stack of towels and three bottled waters.

“She’s not eating it,” pizza girl said, putting her hand on Heather’s arm. She held up her phone so they both could see. “It’s in its sac. They’re born in sacs, and the mom chews them out. It’s a good sign that she’s chewing them free. It says that pugs are notoriously bad mothers. If she didn’t do it, we’d have to.”

“We’d have to chew them out?” Georgie asked.

The girl looked at Georgie like she was insane—but still managed to look patient. “We’d use a washcloth,” she explained.

“I brought washcloths!” Heather said.

The girl smiled at Heather. “Great job.”

“What else does it say?” Georgie asked.

Still-competent-but-clearly-distracted pizza girl looked back at her phone. “Um . . . okay, puppies—there can be one to seven.”

“Seven,” Georgie repeated.

“Sacs . . . ,” the girl said, “chewing . . . Oh, she’s supposed to chew the umbilical cord, too.”

“Great.”

“And placentas—there’s a placenta for each puppy. That’s important. You need to look for the placentas.”

“What do the placentas look like?”

“Do you want me to Google that?”

“No,” Georgie said, “keep reading.”

Petunia was still working on the wriggly thing with her teeth. “Good girl,” Georgie said. “Probably.”

She patted blindly around Petunia and recoiled when she felt something else soft and warm.