Breaking the Billionaire's Rules(69)

Feebly she scratches Smuckers’s fur, but she’s focusing hard on me, whispering something fervently. I draw near. Eggplant, she seems to be saying.

“Are you hungry?”

“Eggplant…” she says, voice weak.

“Yes, Bernadette?”

“Eggplant makes your complexion…” she winces hard, “…wormlike.” She manages to infuse the word wormlike with incredulous contempt, as though I’ve performed such a feat of fashion monstrosity that she needs to muster all her strength to let me know.

“Damn. I was going for slug-like,” I joke as I adjust Smuckers so that he’s not on her tube.

She sniffs and turns back to Smuckers.

Over the three years I’ve known her, Bernadette has always been judgmental about my fashion choices. Did you get that out of a 1969 catalog for librarians, Vicky? Did JCPenney have a sale on drab pencil skirts? At times I literally seem to hurt her eyes, what with my uninspired ponytails and glasses and whatnot.

I have this suspicion that Bernadette came from money but that her fortune dwindled over the years. Clue one: her apartment is in an expensive neighborhood, but it’s really shabby inside, like it was once grand and went to ruin. Also, her clothes are worn versions of what was expensive maybe fifteen years back. Really, she seems to spend nothing on herself. But Smuckers? Nothing is too good for Smuckers. No expense spared.

I take her hand and put it where Smuckers most likes it so Smuckers will settle down.

“Smuckers,” she breathes.

I have this impulse to set a comforting hand on her arm, but human contact is not something Bernadette would ever want from me.

I’m really only around as an extension of Smuckers, a conduit for Smuckers’s important communications. Other than that, I’m chopped liver. If Bernadette could somehow automate me or keep me in a sardine tin with just the corner rolled up so my voice can escape, she would.

She looks up at me expectantly. I know what she wants. What does Smuckers have to say?

I’m at a loss for what to say, or rather, what Smuckers might say. I never signed up for this pet whisperer thing with her, and what with her being on her deathbed, it seems especially wrong.

But she’s waiting. Glaring. It’s Smuckers or nothing.

I suck in a breath and put on my whisperer expression, which I would describe as a curious listening face. “Smuckers says that you shouldn’t be afraid to die,” I say.

She waits. She wants more.

“He wants you to know it’s going to be okay, even though it might not feel like that right now.”

She nods, mumbles to Smuckers.

In terms of subject matter, this is getting into new territory. Smuckers has typically confined himself to lifestyle commentary—requests for certain styles of neck scritching or flavors of Fancy Whiskas dog treats.

Now and then he’ll speculate on the antics of pigeons outside the window. He has certainly never betrayed any divine wisdom about death or special understanding of esoteric secrets of the cosmos.

But I can tell from Bernadette’s face that she likes hearing that Smuckers said that.

“Vicky,” she says to Smuckers. “Vicky will care for you.”

“You know I will, Bernadette,” I say. “I’ll care for Smuckers as if he were my own flesh and blood.”

Though not literally. I don’t plan on racing around Central Park eating goose poop with him.

“He’ll live like a little king,” I amend.

Bernadette mumbles something and I settle into the surprisingly luxurious, leather-upholstered chair in the roomy private room they’ve given her. This is the hospice wing of one of the larger Manhattan hospitals where the news often talks about overcrowded conditions.

Maybe she has good insurance or something.

Bernadette scritches Smuckers’s neck. “Love you, Pokey,” she whispers.

I quietly scroll through Instagram, one ear attuned to the door, but all I hear is the sound of footsteps and muted conversations going up and down the hall, along with the occasional intercom announcement. I want to make this visit last as long as possible.

Smuckers will live like a little king, but maybe not a king of a wealthy country. More like a king of an impoverished nation, but one that loves their king. That’s the best I can do for him.

I took Smuckers home two weeks ago, the day before Bernadette went into the hospital. It wasn’t long before I discovered that the raw frozen food he gets is more expensive than spun gold, and I can only imagine what it costs to re-up his puffball hairstyle at his monthly standing appointment at the aforementioned dog salon, which has an original Warhol painting of a poodle in the waiting area.

I’ll just let you do the math on that one.

So, no, I don’t envision keeping Smuckers in the exact life he’s accustomed to. I’ve supported my little sister, Carly, ever since she was nine years old and I want her to have everything I never did. I want her to feel safe and dream big.

And if there’s some left over for a fabulous blowout, it’ll be her in that chair and they won’t have to tie her up to do it like poor Smuckers.

She’s sixteen now. It’s hard to raise a teen in Manhattan, but somehow we make it, thanks to my Etsy store of funky dog accessories. Someday I’ll break into women’s jewelry, but for now, it’s all sequined bow tie dog collars all the time.