The Dog Year by Ann Wertz Garvin Page A

confident man. Straight-backed and lean, he pulled a well-worn baseball cap from his back pocket and covered a testosterone-fueled bald spot. She sniffed her hand, looking for Richard’s scent; finding only the smell of coffee, she turned the key in the ignition.
    As she inched her car forward out of the parking space, a small dog darted out from under the grocery corral. Lucy slammed on the brakes and her eyes met the dog’s, and for a moment—a moment right out of a wine commercial featuring attractive young people in a singles bar—she felt a connecting of souls. Then the dog darted away, moving like a Navy SEAL as it zigzagged around the wheels of cars both parked and in motion. Lucy cringed as she heard the screeching brakes of a black SUV.
    She bolted from her Subaru and into the path of a honking black Mini Cooper hell-bent on making its small-car way in a big-car world. She dodged a woman pushing a wheeled walker and flinched as the dog ran between the tires of a Holsum bread truck. The dog ran full out, ears flapping for speed, until both it and the woman with the walker exited the parking lot and headed straight into the oncoming traffic. Lucy held her hand out as a traffic cop might do in order to save school children.
    Through blaring horns and elevated fingers she shouted, “Dog!” One woman screamed, “Jesus fucking Christ,” out her car window in a reaction that would have been more appropriate during a terrorist attack.
    Across the street, Lucy jumped onto the grassy boulevard of a Pontiac dealership and scanned the area for the dog. A tiny flash of white and brown rounded the side of a Bonneville and headed for the back lot. She followed, waving at the salespeople behind the plate-glassed showroom, finally catching up with the shaft of a tail connected to a round, furry rump unflatteringly lodged in a wire fence.
    As Lucy approached, the dog stopped struggling and peered around at her with the large, buglike eyes of a chronic hyperthyroidism patient, soulful, desperate, unable to sleep for worry of where its next meal was coming from. Lucy let it sniff her hand.
    â€œYou’ve got yourself in quite the predicament. I’m living that same life, metaphorically speaking. I totally have my ass caught in a big gate.” The dog allowed her a scratch behind the right ear. “It sucks,” she said. “I know.”
    Lucy was able to push apart the pliable links of the fence so that the dog popped loose. But instead of making a break toward freedom, it stepped right onto Lucy’s knees, stretched up, and sniffed her neck, chin, and mouth. There was no overly forward licking or gratuitous wagging, just a gentle and serious snorting coupled with a stare that said something like,
I know all about you; where’s the roast beef
?
    â€œYou’ve got some burrs in your ears, little one. And no offense, but you don’t smell so good.”
    The dog opened its eyes and looked apologetically into Lucy’s. “You need a bath. And maybe a few less donuts. What’s a pretty girl like you doing wandering around, anyway, getting into trouble? Where’s your collar?” Lucy’s knees creaked as she stood and gathered the dog into her arms. “Let’s get you in a tub and sort things out.”
    The dog sighed and wrapped her tail around Lucy as if to say,
Oh thank God, I’m bushed. If you had some bath salts, that would be nice.
    A fifteen-minute drive later, Lucy carried the dog inside the house and without preamble lowered her into the sink in the kitchen. She stroked the small animal under her chin and tested the water to make sure it was warm enough. Slowly she began bathing her. Occasionally the dog licked Lucy’s hand or snuggled into her armpit, but mostly she just gazed into space in apparent bliss. Dirt ran down the drain, and what had been a stiff brown coat morphed into a silky fawn color with white highlights. Her toenails, too