The Lucky Dog Matchmaking Service (4 page)

“We get lots of husbands in here who got a puppy ‘for the kids’ or ‘for my wife,’ and most of them still see the dog as an expensive nuisance. Take it from me. Dogs, you can change. Men, not so much.”

Chapter 4

“Happy birthday!” Evan met her at the door with a fresh bouquet of roses. He kissed her, then pulled away, frowning. “Why do you smell like cotton candy and dog poop?”

“Don’t ask.” Lara had a feeling the tale of Titus and the birthday party wouldn’t put him in the right frame of mind to welcome a new rescue dog. “I just want to take a long shower and go to bed. But first . . .” She took his hand and led him out to the garage. “Are you ready to meet the new recruit?”

“Oh no.” Evan shook his head ruefully when he saw the scabby, shedding dog curled up in the back of the station wagon. “Not another one.”

Lara gave his fingers a squeeze. “This is Linus. He’s a good boy.”

Evan tugged his hand away and crossed his arms over his maroon Arizona Cardinals T-shirt. “So now we’re up to how many dogs? Some people would say you’re getting into hoarding territory.”

“None of those people have ever worked in dog rescue.” Lara popped open the car’s back door and tried to coax the skittish red mutt out. “It’s temporary. I’ll find him a home in no time.” She fished a treat out of her pocket and used it to entice Linus to jump onto the garage floor.

Evan’s expression softened. “Aw. He looks so dumb.”

“Evan!”

“What? That’s a good thing! The dumb ones don’t make any trouble. The dumber, the better—that’s my motto.”

Lara shot him a filthy look. “Cut the poor baby some slack. A vet tech found him abandoned in a yard with no food, water, or shelter. He’s had less than twelve hours to adjust to civilization.”

Linus shrank back against a tire and whimpered pathetically. While Evan went back into the house and herded the other dogs into the yard, Lara offered Linus a metal bowl brimming with kibble and canned food. He scarfed the food down so quickly that he started to choke.

“Come on.” Lara dragged a spare crate down the hall. “We’ll let him rest in the office for a bit before we introduce him to the others.” She stopped at the linen closet to grab a stack of old towels, which she used to pad the bottom of the crate. It took only a few minutes of sweet-talking and bribery to persuade Linus to duck inside the crate.

Finished, she sat back on her heels and turned her full attention to Evan. “Okay. How was your day?”

“Not as good as yours is going to be.” He helped her to her feet, led her out of the office, and pointed toward two new cardboard boxes next to the front door. “The UPS guy just dropped off some birthday loot for you.”

Lara ran the blade of Evan’s pocketknife along the seams of the smaller carton, revealing a perfectly packed, beautifully wrapped box topped with a bow and a card signed in unfamiliar handwriting:

Happy Birthday, Lara.

Love, Mom

“Looks expensive,” Evan observed as Lara untied the wide satin bow and peeled off the floral-printed paper.

“I’m sure it is.” She was equally sure that her mother had never laid eyes on the contents of this box; nor had she filled out the tag or tied the bow. Justine was a very busy woman who liked things to look a certain way—beautiful, flawless, and enviable. She had no doubt called up a sales associate in an upscale boutique, outlined her gift requirements, and tasked the employee with selecting and delivering the actual item.

Lara lifted the lid to reveal a buttery-soft calfskin handbag with brass hardware and a designer logo prominently displayed on one side.

It was lovely. It was classic. It was eerily similar to the bag her mother had sent her last year—the one Bugsy, a high-strung Weimaraner mix, had snatched off the hall table and gnawed to shreds in a bout of separation anxiety.

Justine gave people what she thought they should have, rather than what they wanted. And that went double for her daughter. For Christmases and birthdays, Justine sent hand-painted silk scarves, bejeweled stiletto sandals, and Italian cashmere. Lara stowed all of these luxuries in their original boxes on the very top shelf of her closet, for fear they’d be chewed up or desecrated by dog hair.

In return, Lara gifted her mother with generic, practical standbys like candles and cookbooks. Justine would accept these graciously, but they both knew that these items, too, would be relegated to a darkened closet shelf.

“You don’t like it?” Evan prompted as Lara blinked down at the bag nestled in tissue paper.

“It’s gorgeous.” She ran her palm along the smooth, cool leather. “But I wouldn’t dare use it. This thing probably cost eighteen hundred dollars.”

“For a
purse
?” He looked incredulous.

“My mom’s bag collection could pay for a small house,” Lara said. “The high-end stuff’s pricey. And do you know what happened to the Prada she gave me last year?”

“Someone mauled it?” he guessed.

“Bugsy,” Lara confirmed. “Two days after I got it. He ate half of it, then spent the rest of the night throwing up.”

Evan glanced at the dogs milling around in the backyard, then shook his head. “For eighteen hundred dollars, you should be carrying that thing all day, every day. Heck, you should use it for a pillow at night. Maximize your cost-per-wear ratio.”

Lara closed the box and set it aside. “I’ll just take it out and wear it when we see her on Mother’s Day.” She turned her attention to the other package, a huge, heavy carton.

“Oh my God. Honey, look!” She gasped as the box flaps unfolded to reveal a purple plastic behemoth with cyclone technology and a HEPA filter. “The vacuum of my dreams.”

The holy grail of pet hair removal. Not as expensive as the handbag, to be sure, but exactly what she wanted.

Then she came to the card:

Happy Birthday, La-la! You’ll always be my little girl.

She dropped the paper as if scorched, and Evan picked it up, scanned the text, and returned her look of alarm.

“Oh no.” She stood up and backed away from the vacuum. “What does he want this time?”

“Maybe he just wants to say happy birthday?” Evan suggested, but his voice lacked conviction.

“Yeah, right. ‘You’ll always be my little girl’?” Lara scoffed. “A Dyson? He definitely wants something. Something big.”

Evan didn’t refute this. He himself had grown up in an absurdly functional family: His mother packed his lunch every day, his father coached his Little League team, and everyone said grace at the dinner table before passing the potatoes and chatting about their days. When he and Lara first started dating, he’d urged her to take the initiative and call her father if she hadn’t heard from him in a while. Then Lara’s father, Gil, had started campaigning in August for Lara and Evan to come to his cabin in the mountains for Thanksgiving. He’d painted such a lavish, Norman Rockwell picture of communal family cooking and eating that Lara had finally agreed, rearranged her work schedule, and found a pet sitter for the dogs. Then, while she was packing her suitcase the night before, Gil called and apologized, explaining that he had decided to spend the holiday with his new girlfriend’s family instead.

Evan had immediately driven to the grocery store, where he nearly resorted to hand-to-hand combat to secure the last frozen turkey, spent the next twelve hours cooking, and never again suggested that she call her father.

She left the vacuum in the box, staring down at the label. Evan came up behind her, put his arms around her, and rested his chin on the top of her head. He didn’t say anything at first, just held her.

Lara leaned back against him and said, “It’s exactly what I wanted—I just don’t want it from him.”

“I know.” Evan kissed her temple. “But it’s your birthday and I’m feeling generous. Tell me what else you want, and you might get lucky.”

Lara nibbled her lower lip. “Well, the vet says that Linus may need surgery if he has valley fever.”

There was a long pause before Evan said, “Dog surgery. That’s what you want for your birthday.”

“Yes.”

“You know, most women would prefer jewelry and a candlelight dinner.”

“I’m not most women.”

Evan sighed and pulled away. “I’m starting to realize that.”

Chapter 5

Lara woke up the next morning to the low rumble of snoring. She turned over and reached for Evan, but her hand connected with fur. Maverick, the huge black Rottweiler mix, was sacked out beside her, his blocky head resting on the pillow. Maverick usually slept on the carpet by the foot of the bed, but Evan must have gotten up early for work.

She pushed herself up to a sitting position, which incited Rufus and Raggs, the brown and white spaniels, and Zsa Zsa, the deeply neurotic white standard poodle, to leap up on the mattress and swarm around in a frenzy of anticipation.

“Okay, okay,” she mumbled. “Breakfast is coming, you tyrants.”

Linus was still sleeping in his crate in the office, but there was an empty bowl just inside the doorway. Evan must have fed him and let him out earlier this morning.

She closed the office door and let him nap. The last thing she needed was a Rhodesian ridgeback and a Rottweiler battling it out for dominance before she’d had her coffee.

As she stumbled down the hall, she yawned and tried to rub the last remnants of sleep from her eyes. The dogs finished breakfast in approximately 2.8 seconds, then looked at her expectantly for more.

“Forget it.” She opened the sliding glass door and shooed them out. Then she herded everybody back into the bedroom and returned to the office to wake up Linus. After much coaxing, he finally got to his feet, followed her to the kitchen, and lumbered out onto the patio.

Lara leaned against the wall and observed him. The big red dog refused to venture past the border where the concrete ended and the grass began. Apparently the lawn freaked him out—either he wasn’t used to the feel of grass on his paws or he assumed that venturing into the yard would mean another stake and chain to confine him.

Yes, Linus was going to need a lot of work. Training and surgery and plenty of affection.

Dog rescue could burn you out—and drain your bank account. But Lara always felt she was at her best when she was working with animals. It was the one thing she truly excelled at, much to her mother’s dismay.

After putting Lara through one of Scottsdale’s most prestigious prep schools, Justine had urged her to enroll in Pepperdine University, a pricey private college in California. The master plan called for Lara to major in business or accounting, then spend a few years sharpening her teeth in the corporate shark tank before pursuing an MBA at Stanford. After that she would return to apprentice under Justine at her chain of salons, which Lara would inherit and expand into a global beauty brand like Redken or Aveda.

Every summer, while Lara’s college classmates took off for monthlong trips to Europe or signed on for cushy corporate internships, Lara reported for duty at the Coterie spa and salon. She dusted off the display bottles of hair product, made sure the floors and restrooms were clean, then settled in to answer phones and schedule appointments at the reception desk.

“The front desk is where you learn the business,” Justine always said. “You meet the delivery people, talk to the product suppliers, get to know the clientele, and figure out how to accommodate a team of extremely talented, extremely high-maintenance employees.”

So Lara had learned to juggle schedules, assess profit-and-loss statements, and politely but firmly insist on timely delivery from vendors. Although Justine very rarely made an appearance on the main floor, the rest of the staff treated Lara like family—more specifically, like an awkward but endearing little sister. The hairstylists and aestheticians delighted in performing “practice facials” on Lara and trying to shock her with tales of their wild after-hours exploits. Yes, the salon employees were happy to embrace a hormonally volatile, coiffure-challenged college kid.

The customers were another story.

From the moment Justine opened the doors at her first salon, she targeted a very specific type of client: rich, fashion-forward, and prone to pretentiousness. Young trendsetters with bloated trust funds flocked in to enhance their tanned, taut bodies and long platinum hair. For the most part, they ignored Lara, but when their gazes flickered over her, they registered a mixture of annoyance and pity. Lara always smiled back, offering to store their cavernous designer bags and fetch a bowl of water for their tiny jewel-bedecked dogs.

Papillon, Coton de Tulear, Japanese Chin, Havanese. All these pups could comfortably fit inside a Louis Vuitton satchel, and most of them had been styled to complement their owners. The girls bought them on impulse, charmed by the cute little fluff balls and the novelty of painting their dogs’ toenails the same shade as their own. But then, as the dogs aged and shed and started nipping or gnawing on the handles of that Louis Vuitton satchel, the owners’ affections lapsed.

“Ugh. She keeps pooping in my closet.”

“I’m going to Cabo for spring break and the resort doesn’t allow pets.”

“My new boyfriend doesn’t like little dogs.”

“Here,” one freshly highlighted socialite said as she deposited a tan teacup poodle in Lara’s lap. “Would you please watch Enzo for a second while I run next door and grab a latte?”

She never came back. At the end of the day, Lara tried unsuccessfully to convince one of the stylists to take the dog overnight. Finally, after she locked the doors and turned off the lights, she dialed her mother’s office.

“Yes?” Justine sounded neither pleased nor displeased to hear from her daughter. As usual, she was all business.

And so Lara tried to be all business, too. She explained the situation as briefly as possible, keenly aware that for Justine, time was money.

Justine didn’t bother with exclamations of outrage or surprise. “Where is the dog now?”

“Right here.” The poodle sat at her feet, staring up intently as though he understood every syllable. “His name is Enzo.”

“Who left it?”

Lara scanned the appointment book to find the name.

“Kristi Spillane.”

“Do you have a contact number for her?”

“Yes. I’ve tried to reach her multiple times, but she didn’t pick up, so I left voice messages.”

“Kristi Spillane,” her mother repeated. “How long has she been a client?”

“Today was her second time here, I think.”

“And who referred her?”

Justine insisted on keeping meticulous social as well as financial records, so Lara could check this with the click of the keyboard. “Bianca Altisanti.”

“Bianca’s brought us a lot of new business over the last year,” Justine said. “I’d hate to offend her over a misunderstanding.”

“But, Mom, this girl went out for coffee and never came back for her dog.”

“Maybe she’s dealing with an emergency,” Justine suggested. “Don’t panic. Just put the dog in the stockroom overnight with some food and water. Everything will be fine.”

Lara gasped. “I can’t just leave him all night long.”

“Fine, then come back before you go to bed and let him out to pee.”

“Mom, no. That’s inhumane.”

“We’re not dealing with a human—we’re dealing with a dog.” Her mother was clearly finished with the conversation. “Make him a little bed out of towels and be on your way.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why on earth not?”

“He’ll be scared! He’ll be lonely. He won’t understand what’s going on.”

“Stop. If this dog is anything like Bianca, he’s dumber than a bag of hair. It’ll take him at least twelve hours just to figure out where he is.”

“There is no way I’m leaving him in the stockroom overnight.”

“Then what would you suggest?”

“He can stay with us tonight. Beacon loves other dogs; they can have a little slumber party.”

“Absolutely not. I worked too hard to pay for our home and our furniture. I will not have it destroyed by some overbred, overindulged animal.”

Lara understood and appreciated the full extent of her mother’s sacrifices over the last two decades. Justine had given up everything—her youth, her social life, her sense of spontaneity—to build a life out of pampering others. But none of this was Enzo’s fault. Enzo, like Lara, had been born into a life where he was compelled to look and behave a certain way, regardless of his own preferences.

Plus, he was totally adorable.

“Just one night,” Lara vowed to her mother. “You’ll never even know he’s there.”

“Open your ears,” Justine shot back. “
No
means
no
. I caved and let you keep Beacon in a moment of weakness, but this time I’m holding my ground.”

Lara had no choice but to break out the heavy artillery. “Okay, but what if something happens to him in the storeroom overnight? What if he eats something or gets caught somewhere and gets hurt? What if he
dies
? How would we ever explain that to Kristi and Bianca? And all the girls they’ve referred?”

Justine didn’t reply.

“Or what if they, like, sue? The publicity would be
awful
. One night, Mom. Think of it as an investment in the business.”

Justine laughed dryly. “Your sales skills need some work.” But she relented. Lara brought Enzo home to the tiny two-bedroom bungalow located just inside the desirable Paradise Valley zip code. Beacon welcomed the little poodle as if he’d finally found his long-lost brother.

Kristi never returned. And when Lara finally got in touch with her two days and fifteen phone messages later, she mumbled something about moving, no pets allowed, before the connection conveniently cut out.

“And you’re telling me all this, why?” Justine asked when Lara called to update her on the situation. “I said no to a second dog, and I absolutely meant it. Drop him at the shelter on your way home from work.”

Lara gasped and clutched the poodle to her chest. “The pound?”

“Yes, the pound. He’s little; he’s purebred; he’s cute. He’ll be adopted before breakfast.”

“I can’t.”

“You will.”

“But, Mom—”

“This isn’t how you get ahead in life, Lara. You can’t take on other people’s problems.”

But when Lara looked at Enzo, she didn’t see a problem; she saw potential. “I don’t want to keep him. I just want him to go to a good home. Give me a few days to find him a family.”

“Do not ask me for this. I give you everything you need. Food, shelter, the very best clothes and education money can buy.”

Lara swallowed hard. She couldn’t deny the truth in her mother’s words, but neither could she deny her own heart. “One week, Mom. Please?”

“Fine,” Justine said, her voice clipped. “But this is it, young lady. I don’t want you coming to me for another thing for the rest of the summer.”

“I won’t. Thank you.” Lara hesitated. “I love you, Mom.”

Justine didn’t respond to this. “If I see so much as a single flea, I’m taking him to the pound myself.” She hung up.

Three days later Lara was dialing the towel supply service when a middle-aged woman with limp brown hair and dark sunglasses walked in.

“I’m sorry.” She apologized before Lara even said hello. “I don’t have an appointment, but I was hoping . . . I was wondering if I might be able to get my hair cut.”

Lara scanned the appointment book. Every employee was booked solid for the rest of the afternoon. “Of course. If you’ll excuse me for one moment, I’ll find someone to squeeze you in.”

After five minutes of begging, bribery, and blackmail, Lara had persuaded one of the stylists to work in an extra client. “Good news.” She smiled brightly at the woman. “Tasha will be with you in twenty minutes. What would you like to have done today?”

“Well.” The woman tugged at the ends of her messy bob. “I don’t know, exactly. I just need a change.” A tear trickled out from beneath the sunglasses.

Lara immediately offered a box of tissues. “Tasha’s a genius. You’ll be in good hands.”

“I’m sorry,” the woman said again as she pulled out a few more tissues and dabbed at her eyes. “I just . . . My mother passed away last week and my daughter left for college yesterday, and I can’t seem to stop crying.”

“It’s okay,” Lara said in a soothing tone. “Lots of people cry at the spa. May I offer you some lemon water or green tea?”

“I just need a minute to collect myself. Is there a restroom?”

Before Lara could give directions, Enzo popped out from under the desk and darted around the corner. He ran right up to the woman and started sniffing her sandals.

“Oh, my goodness, aren’t you precious?” She stopped crying and knelt down to say hello.

“Sorry.” Lara jumped to her feet, but the woman scooped the little poodle up and cradled him like a baby. She started crooning high-pitched, singsong nonsense that made Enzo wriggle with delight.

“Is he yours?” The woman took off her glasses and looked at Lara with the beginnings of a smile. “I used to have a dog just like this when I was a little girl. A tan poodle named Taffy. Oh, how I loved that dog.” She turned her attention back to Enzo, who lunged up to lick the tears from her cheeks.

Two hours later, that woman went home with a stunning auburn pixie cut and a newly adopted teacup poodle. And Lara had a new identity: the dog matchmaker.

There must have been some kind of underground newsletter for gum-snapping, spray-tanning prima donnas, because all of a sudden, Lara was the go-to girl for fashionistas trying to unload pint-size pooches.

“My sorority sister is allergic.”

“The breeder said he was only going to be eight pounds, but he’s already up to twelve and he’s taking up too much space in my bag.”

“Could you please just watch her for the weekend? I’ll come get her on Monday, swear to God.”

At first Lara tried to reason with the owners. But she soon realized that any sentence beginning with “I love my little pookie so much,
but
 . . .” was going to end with Lara opening up her arms to accept yet another high-strung pup whose paws had hardly touched the ground since birth.

She started volunteering on weekends at a no-kill animal shelter, bathing and walking the dogs that no one else had time for. She found a pet store that hosted obedience classes every Saturday morning.

Shawna, the trainer, taught Lara everything she needed to know to survive with a dog: Say it once and mean it; you get the behavior you’re willing to tolerate; you can’t show fear even if you’re terrified on the inside. Lara had never had a mentor before. But she strove to reach the goals she set for her dogs—and, by extension, herself—and by the end of the summer she had placed five dogs and emptied her wallet.