Sleep with the Lights On. Maggie Shayne

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СКАЧАТЬ could tell. What’s wrong, Amy? You never keep quiet for this long. You afraid I won’t need an assistant anymore now that I can see, because honestly—”

      “Pshhhhh. Are you kidding? You couldn’t get along without me if you had four sets of twenty-twenty eyes.”

      “Oh, you think so, do you?” I looked her up and down for effect. She wore short black boots with killer heels and silver buckles, a pair of black leggings under a skintight miniskirt, an off-the-shoulder top that looked like it had been caught in the gears of the washer and torn up a little, with a white cami underneath, and a silver necklace with a giant skull. “Your job is safe, kid, unless I find out you’ve been dressing me like that, in which case, you are so fired.”

      She smiled so big I got distracted by her teeth. Straight and white except for the incisors, which stuck out in front of the rest a little bit.

      “You could not even hope to pull this off,” she said with a look at her own getup.

      “Why would I want to?”

      She rolled her eyes.

      “So, if you’re not worried about your job, then what’s up?”

      Her demeanor changed. I couldn’t put my finger on it until I stopped looking and started feeling again. Her body had shifted away from mine a little, and I sensed her shrinking into herself, not quite as open as before. She’s hiding something. Or wishing she could. But she knows she has to tell me, whatever it is.

      “Come on, Amy. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m dying to be alone in my house for a while. Just spill it, so you can leave already.”

      She did look at me then, and offered a crooked smile, more on the left than on the right. “I hope you never change,” she said. “You’re such a bitch. I just love you so much. So yeah, there’s one little thing.”

      “I’m listening.”

      “You know how we talked a while back about getting you a service dog?”

      Okay, that was not what I’d expected. “Yeah?” I stretched out the word.

      “Well, we got all the stuff, and then we never got the dog. But we never got rid of the stuff.”

      “The stuff,” I repeated.

      She nodded, and now she was hopeful, opening up a little more, I felt it, and heard it in her voice. I could see it, too, in the lift of her dark, perfectly plucked eyebrows. Are my eyebrows that perfect? I have to go check.

      “Yeah, the dog bed, and the leashes, and the feeding bowls and dog toys, and—”

      “But, Amy, I don’t need a service dog now.”

      “I know. But I wanted a dog, anyway. I mean, I got into the idea when we were thinking about one for you. And then my friend Nikki told me about this one that really needed a home. Not a service dog, just a...just a dog.”

      I was starting to get a very worried feeling.

      “She’s kind of old, and her owner died, and none of the family wanted her and she was going to get sent to the shelter. I was gonna keep her myself, but my landlord won’t let me, and—”

      “But, Amy, I don’t need a dog.” Hadn’t I said that already?

      “Oh, come on, Rache. You’ve got all this room. The place is already fenced in. You can afford to hire someone to take care of her—hell, I’ll take care of her. For free. And she’s just such a great dog, and she’s so quiet you don’t even know she’s here.”

      Not you won’t even know she’s here, but you don’t even know...

      “Just meet her, okay?”

      I closed my eyes. “She’s in my house, isn’t she?”

      “Once I saw her, I just couldn’t say no. She’s in the garage.”

      Of course she was. It’s not like I had a fleet of cars taking up space in the attached three-car garage. Hey, there was a notion. I could buy a car now. Of course I’d need a license first, which would mean learning to drive. Who the hell would have the patience to teach me? Fuck them, I’d teach myself. Practice in the driveway.

      Amy took my hand. “Come on.”

      Right. The dog. The invader in my domain. I would nip this little scheme in the bud right now.

      Amy all but dragged me across the huge kitchen, enthusiastic now that she’d broken the news. It was stainless steel and white. In fact most of the rooms on this floor were white, and that was going to have to change. The place needed color. Or maybe I needed it. Splashes of brightness everywhere. Why waste eyesight on white? We stopped at the door that led directly into the garage, Amy opened it up and said, “Myrtle?”

      Myrtle? Is she fucking serious?

      Something moved in the shadows. There was a snuffling, a snorting and then, I’m pretty sure, a fart. Amy reached around and snapped on a light switch I hadn’t even known was there—note to self, find and memorize locations of light switches. And then it came shuffling and snuffling toward us, and my newborn eyes widened as this short, fat, squish-nose creature that did not really look much like any dog I’d ever seen waddled closer, not stopping until its head bumped my shin. And then it sniffed and looked up.

      “Playing tricks on the formerly blind girl, are you, Amy? Thinking I don’t know a dog from a potbellied pig?”

      “She’s an English bulldog,” Amy said, hunkering down to scratch its fat little head. “Aren’t you, Myrtle? Yeah, you’re just a pretty little boodog, aren’t you?”

      Myrtle closed her eyes, sucking up the affection like a sponge.

      “Did you just say ‘boodog’?” I asked.

      “She needs us, Rache. She’s old.”

      “She smells it.” The dog’s earlier emission was wafting to my nose now, and I waved a hand in front of my face and tried to blink back tears.

      “And she’s blind.”

      I looked down again. I didn’t notice the smell anymore, and I was pretty sure that was because she’d sort of skewered my heart with that last revelation. “That’s not even close to fair, Amy.”

      “Look, if you don’t want her, fine. Just let her stay until I can find someone else to take her. Please? She won’t last a day in the pound.”

      The dog hit me in the shin with one forepaw.

      “I should fucking fire you for this,” I told Amy, struggling to hold on to my bitchiness and not reveal that my insides were melting like ice cream in the sun. “Fine. Fine, one week. You find this dog a home in one week.” No way in hell is anyone else getting this dog in a week. “Got it?”

      She smiled at me, and I realized I hadn’t been close to understanding what a “shit-eating grin” looked like until right then. Bitch knew me too well.

      * * *

      Amy СКАЧАТЬ