The Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances (34 page)

Mrs. Auberchon opened the door.

“Hi,” said Evie.

The Jeep was parked just behind her, running in idle. The window on the passenger's side was rolled halfway down. Poking her head out the open space was Dora the Scottie, nose up, sniffing, enjoying a breeze that was blowing through the inn's front yard, smelling not of winter but of almost-spring. She gave her head a turn toward Mrs. Auberchon in the doorway. She recognized the Warden and sent a slightly unpleasant look her way, as if she hadn't decided whether or not to hate her guts for making her get up from her cushion in the infirmary. But she was willing to put that aside for now, she was saying, as it was lovely to be out on whatever adventure this was.

“I sort of have a problem,” said Evie.

Well, there she was, in her expensive jacket. Her hair had grown longer. It was parted in the middle, pushed behind her ears. She looked tidy and alert and fresh from a shower. Mrs. Auberchon's first reaction was one of such huge relief, she very nearly threw out her arms to hug her for not being the bank manager. Then she had the sense that something was not all right, in a major way—something below the surface. She didn't know why her instincts were telling her that whatever problem Evie would talk to her about, it wasn't the same problem as the one that was bothering her.

Mrs. Auberchon reminded herself that Evie was, well, complicated.

“Come in, come in,” she said. “But first turn off the Jeep. And bring in Dora. It's still pretty cold out. I don't have any treats, but I'm sure I'll find something she'll like.”

Evie was shaking her head. She didn't come down here to come in. Mrs. Auberchon sighed.

“All right, what's the matter?”

“It's been a while since I drove. I sort of don't have a license. But I made it down the hill. Do you see I made it down?”

“I'm aware of that.”

“I still can't believe it. Do you know where the mall is?”

Mrs. Auberchon did. There was only one, outside the village off the highway. It was the type of mall that's all enclosed: an atrium, a food court, stores with wide rectangles of front openness. She used to go out there on the bus to kill time when the inn had no guests. That was a long time ago, before she was the Warden. But she might have stopped going anyway. She hadn't liked how it felt to wander around by herself, trying to seem like she was someone temporarily separated from her friends. “I told the staffers I'd drive Dora to the mall,” said Evie. “Remember when you had to drive for the new muffler because Giant George was only about ten or eleven?”

“He's fifteen,” said Mrs. Auberchon.

“You know what I mean. This is the same thing, except I'm not a kid, so the reason I don't have a license isn't the same as his reason. I can't get pulled over. Or have an accident. Please don't ask me why. I'm not saying I expect something bad to happen. I think I'd drive great. I'm just saying, it's a really good idea for me not to drive anywhere, like, in public. In a just-in-case way.”

“But I only got home a little while ago,” said Mrs. Auberchon. “Why don't you come in and . . .”

Wait a minute here. Why would Dora need to go to the mall? She had a vivid mental flash of the Scottie sitting with Evie in some corner of the Sanctuary and saying to her, actually saying, like any girl old enough to hang around at a mall, “I want to hang around at the mall today, but obviously, being a dog, I can't get there on my own.”

“Evie,” said Mrs. Auberchon, “what are you talking about with the mall?”

“I'm talking about Dora and maybe adopters.”

“At the mall?”

“Yes. I'm talking about . . . this.”

Evie pulled a sheet of paper from a jacket pocket and unfolded it. She handed it to Mrs. Auberchon. It was an announcement of an Adopt-a-Pet-Day being held at the mall in the atrium, in a section, Mrs. Auberchon saw, that wasn't near the food court.

“They're having cats too, but I think she'll be okay with cats,” said Evie. “I mean, we'll find out. And she needs a new collar. The pet store moved in a little while ago, one of those chain things. It's like a Walmart for animals. Usually I wouldn't go near it, but they're the ones sponsoring this. It's the first one, so I think we should be supportive. We can run in for a collar. It needs to be pink.”

Mrs. Auberchon looked at the collar Dora was wearing. It was a standard Sanctuary fabric one, a hand-me-down. Nothing was wrong with it. Then she met Dora's eyes with her own, straight on. She thought of
left alone in an apartment for an unknown amount of time.
She thought of
obstruction from a non-food substance.
She wondered if there was such a thing as a dog being bigger than a presence of loneliness so large, it couldn't be measured.

Then she thought of Dora turning deaf ears to Beatrix Potter and scorning Mrs. Tiggy-winkle. She decided to forgive her.

“I don't like to drive, you know,” she said to Evie, as a last defense. “I only keep a license because I don't want to be the kind of person who doesn't have one.”

“Did you get into an accident or something, and then you gave it up?”

“No. My record is perfectly clean.”

“Then you're better off than I am, Mrs. Auberchon.”

“Oh, I don't know about that.”

“But you can't tell them up there I'm asking you what I'm asking you. I didn't lie when I said I could drive the Jeep. I just didn't give them information I thought they didn't need to have. We need to get going, okay?”

What
was
it? A look was in Evie's eyes Mrs. Auberchon hadn't seen before. Somehow the bright excitement seemed a little too much like a gloss, hiding something that wasn't all the way hidden. Mrs. Auberchon wondered if perhaps she'd drunk too much coffee that morning. Or maybe she was on some kind of a drug—an upper type, the opposite of the stuff that was coursing through the system of Mrs. Walzer. She almost asked, as if questioning someone about pills, or whatever, was the most normal thing in the world. But that wasn't it. She was nervous, yes. She was . . . shaken. Something had rattled her. She was upset in herself in a deep place. Mrs. Auberchon realized she knew this just as she knew what was going on with a dog, just by looking at the dog on her screen. She thought of Hank and his pacing. Evie was pacing, without moving.

Again Mrs. Auberchon suggested coming inside. Again, no. It was ridiculous to stand here talking in the doorway, but at least it wasn't like the conversation in the bank. A calmness was inside Mrs. Auberchon. She was letting it grow larger, to try to absorb the vibrations coming at her from Evie. She wanted to know what was wrong. She wanted whatever was wrong to go away.

Suddenly Evie started speaking quickly, in a rush, as if she'd pressed a button to fast-forward herself. Her voice was almost yapping as she went on and on about her plans for Adopt-a-Pet Day and how she'd handle the potential adopters of Dora. Mrs. Auberchon was not to worry about how it would go! She, Evie, wasn't expecting someone to fall for Dora and then they pick her up and bring her home! She was being realistic, and she'd also be incredibly careful! She'd take names, and put anyone who signed up for Dora through a total, total background check. Plus a pink collar! Did Mrs. Auberchon agree that Dora would look fabulous in a pink collar?

Mrs. Auberchon spoke softly when Evie paused for breath. “I suppose she would. I agree. Pink would suit her. How about coming inside?”

Evie ignored that and exclaimed, “I hope they have bright pink ones, really hot ones. She's so not a pastel kind of dog. She'll probably want one with jewels, but I'm drawing the line. It's not like she'd understand what fake means. I mean, you can't explain rhinestones to a dog. Could you imagine that? Telling a dog what
rhinestones
are?”

“Evie, stop,” said Mrs. Auberchon softly. “Tell me what's the matter really.”

Evie blinked at her, a little stunned. “What?”

“Tell me what happened. Something happened.”

Maybe it was the directness that got through to Evie, or maybe it was the tone. Mrs. Auberchon had never spoken to her in her Warden's voice before. She looked past Evie to the Jeep. Dora was still in the window, watching silently. Her Scottie face was taut with concern. Mrs. Auberchon smiled at her and wiggled her fingers in a wave. She kept her eyes on Dora for a long moment, so that Evie would have the chance to get herself together and take care of whatever it was that needed to be cared for.

A slump came over her. She blinked rapidly, as if fighting tears, although her eyes were dry. Her face went as soft as if melting with . . . surrender. She was just like dogs in Solitary who figured out that they'd never get out of there on their own.

“I saw some of the pitties,” said Evie. “I mean, I saw them from the windows, from a distance, when they were coming off the truck. But this was up close. I went down there. It was early, practically not even dawn. I knew where the keys were, in the kitchen.”

Mrs. Auberchon tried to imagine what Evie's eyes had seen. She did not know what to say. Then she said, “They told you not to.”

“I know. But I was thinking, I'm going to have them in class. So I thought we should meet. I was only down there a little while. A volunteer threw me out.”

“They don't want those dogs to get agitated with people who don't have experience,” said Mrs. Auberchon.

“They didn't get agitated. Mostly, they were asleep.”

“Did you look in the infirmary?”

“Just a quick peek.”

Evie didn't need to say anything else about that. Her expression said everything. Mrs. Auberchon wondered if this was the way she herself looked through those horror movies she'd watched with Giant George, even though the pitties were real. A few beats of her heart went by in a speeded-up way, like she'd caught a bit of Evie's anxiety.

“I think it'll be a while before any of those dogs are ready for a training class,” said Mrs. Auberchon.

“I could see that. In the kennels, some of them woke up, like they sensed me. They looked afraid of me, and sad too, and all empty, even the puppies. But it wasn't, like, me. It wasn't even afraid and sad and empty, not really, like anyone would be if just one awful thing happened and you need to get over it. It was more, they were having their usual expressions. It's like, they were telling me they don't know there's such a thing as being a dog who doesn't feel that way all the time, or
ever.
I guess it kind of got to me.”

Mrs. Auberchon remembered Evie's page of writing about aliens and the monk who had a vision of Buddha. She felt a powerful aching for her. It was a little like a stomach cramp moving up toward her chest. She wondered if the heat it seemed to be generating was menopausal. Lately she'd kept herself on the lookout for hot flashes, which Mrs. Walzer described to her one treats-making day, in great detail. But she knew it wasn't that.

Everyone new to rescues, Mrs. Auberchon reminded herself, had to deal with the same thing that was happening to Evie.
It got to me.
Sometimes the “got to me” went deep, too deep, like something that could never be undone. She had to pick the right words to say in response. She had to think of just the right thing.

But Evie was telling her something else. She said, “You know what I read in an article online, when I was looking up dogfighting? A reporter doing an investigation went undercover with some hard-core fight guys, and he found out that, sometimes, they have vets who do surgeries to cut a dog's vocal cords, so the dog doesn't bark in a fight, especially in places where the fights are illegal for real, like places where the guys would actually get busted. They train dogs anyway not to bark, but with the surgery, it's guaranteed. They can put on fights in their garages and no one would hear, even if they live next door to a police station or something, or some animal-rights person. Do you know what that is, Mrs. Auberchon? That is . . . That is . . .”

Evie paused as if she would never find a way to say what she thought that was. Then she said, “What if some of our pitties had that done to them? What if, if they don't bark, it's not like when Shadow didn't? How can anyone handle that?”

Mrs. Auberchon saw her chance to take care of things. “Evie,” she said, “I never heard of that happening, but maybe it's because I have a book on pit bulls and fighting and I didn't get around to it yet. But one thing I know is, if dogs came into the Sanctuary without vocal cords to bark with, the sisters would
do
something. They'd figure out, oh, maybe a sign language class. There has to be such a thing as dog sign language. Let's think about that. Let's talk about that when we're going to the—”

Evie interrupted her with a sudden sharpness. If she were a dog, she'd be teeth-showing, snarling. Her voice was a little shrill, and sounded cold and harsh. Maybe she said what she said because she needed to use the word hate.

She was glaring at Mrs. Auberchon as if Mrs. Auberchon herself had done terrible things to an animal. “The sisters? You mean, the staffers? Of course you do. I hate it when people call people that, when they're not. I just
hate
it. Phyllis did it too. She told me one day they're all sisters. Probably, the other three told me the same thing, one way or another, but I don't remember exactly. I just tried to ignore it. But you know what? We're not on the mountain. We're down here, so could you please not call them sisters?”

“All right,” said Mrs. Auberchon patiently. “I'll say ex-sisters. Or ex-nuns. The
ex
can apply, more or less. They haven't lived in a convent or dressed in habits for at least as many years as you've been on this earth. So in a way, I'm agreeing with you.”

To Mrs. Auberchon's amazement, Evie's mouth opened wide, in a big, jaw-dropping O.