Satisfaction Guaranteed(23)

I point my thumb at my sister. “Ignore her. It’s what I’ve done my entire life.”

“Please. You’ve never ignored me,” Truly says, parking her hands on the bar. “That’s the problem. I’m that little voice on your shoulder.”

Sloane meets Truly’s gaze. “I’m glad you’re his sister. I think he needs someone like you to keep him in line.” Sloane turns to me, satisfaction in the set of her jaw. “Because I’ve figured out your flaw.”

“What’s that?”

Her irises twinkle with mischief. “You don’t always listen to that little voice.”

Truly chuckles. “Oh, honey, there’s nothing truer than that.”

And it is true, because tonight, I’m listening to another voice.





18





That voice says Get to know her.

Once my sister heads to the end of the bar, Sloane sets down her drink, crosses her legs, and rubs her palms together. “Tell me what you’ve been up to. Tell me how you’ve been for the last few years. I’ve run into you now and then, and obviously I’ve seen you at work for the last week, but I want to know how everything is. How is your mom?”

We catch up, and it’s so much better than talking about work. Hell, maybe this is what we needed—this night to reconnect on a new level. To reconnect as colleagues, or perhaps even as friends. It’s dangerous to contemplate anything else.

I tell her that my mom has retired from jingle writing and is doing what she truly loves—training dogs. Her own dogs. I ask her about Brooklyn, and she tells me about the tiny thimble of an apartment she has there, but how she makes the best of it, shoehorning in room for her laptop and sock-making accoutrements, but that’s about it.

“When did you start the sock making?”

“A few years ago. It’s a fun outlet for stress. Something to keep me busy.”

“Sounds like you like being busy.”

She smiles. “I definitely do.”

“And is the sock business hopping along?” I ask playfully.

She winks. “It’s my side hustle. Socks with mottos. It brings in a few extra dollars, so I can’t complain. Tell me more about the clinic and how that’s been.”

I tell her I’ve loved building the vet practice, that my employees are the best, and that I admire the hell out of her father. I also admit I thought he was going to retire.

She takes a drink of champagne, seems to marinate on what I’ve just said, then puts down the glass. “Do you want him to?”

I go for the full truth. “Admittedly? I do. It’s been my dream to run the business myself.”

“Why is that?”

“Because of my dad.” Sadness creeps in as I remember him, but also as I fail to recall him too. He’s been dead for nearly as many years of my life as he was alive. “It was what he wanted to do. It was always his dream to own a neighborhood practice, to run it solo. He grew up here in the West Village, met my mom here, and he raised us here, so he had this whole vision of being a community vet.”

“That sounds lovely.”

“He wanted to be the guy who knew all the neighbors and would ask whether Tom the tuxedo was using his scratching post and if Dolly the bulldog mix was doing okay with her arthritis.”

Sloane sets a hand on her heart. “I love that.”

“That was one of the reasons he went into business in the first place. But when he became sick, well, he wasn’t able to do it.”

“Did he ask you to pick up the mantle for him?”

I swallow roughly, remembering those last days with him, the conversations, ever more brief, that we had. I shake my head. “That’s the thing. He never asked me to. He never said that he wanted me to do this or that. He wanted me to pursue what I wanted in life. But I also knew that I wanted to do it for him, to complete the dream he had. Because somewhere along the way, his dream became my dream.”

“You wanted the same things.” She rests her cheek in her hand.

“I like knowing the people who come into the practice. I like knowing Ms. Clarke and her monkey-humping dog, Ruby, and Mr. Franklin with the blind-in-one-eye white cat. I suppose my dad’s goals and mine became the same, and I wanted to own a practice here perhaps as a tribute to him. And yes, I’ve worked closely with Doug, and I’m a junior partner, but I’d like to be able to do it on my own. I mean that as no disrespect to your father. You know I think the world of him, and I’ve learned so much from the guy.”

She laughs lightly. “It’s okay. I didn’t take it in a bad way. I don’t have daddy issues, so I’m not bothered that you want him gone.”

“I swear, I don’t want him gone,” I say, mostly denying the truth.

She shoots me the side-eye. “It’s okay. I can tell you do.”

I sigh. “It’s not him. It’s that I’d like to do this on my own. But how is it for you working with him? Is it weird or tense at all?” I ask, glad that we can discuss him as her father rather than as the very real obstacle in our universe.

She purses her lips, seems to noodle on this, then nods. “It’s actually fine. My parents split up when I was three, and there was never a ton of animosity, even though my mom changed my last name to hers after the divorce. I saw Dad every other weekend. I visited him during the summers. He wasn’t an absentee parent, but he wasn’t terribly present either, so it made for a mostly uncomplicated relationship. My mom harbored no ill will against him, so I didn’t have to deal with that.” She takes a drink. “I see him more now than I did when I was a kid.”