Pupcakes Read online

  By then the woman from the front desk had returned, and she stood watching them for a moment before interrupting. “Ms. Benson,” she said, looking down at Brydie’s license, “I’ll go ahead and show you back to Mrs. Neumann’s suite.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Sylvia.” Nathan waved her off. “I’ll show her on my way to make the rounds.”

  The woman smiled a kind of thin, waxy smile at Brydie. She wasn’t sure, but Brydie could have sworn she saw a look of jealousy come over Sylvia’s face before she said, “Whatever you’d like, Dr. Reid.”

  Brydie could hardly believe her ears. Doctor? Doctor? He was a doctor? Here? Trying to keep her jaw from hitting the floor, she tugged at Teddy’s leash, but he didn’t move, and she groaned leaning down to pick him up. She didn’t even know why she bothered with the damned leash and harness.

  “Are you coming?” Dr. Reid turned around to look at Brydie. And then, with a smirk, he said, “Keep him away from my shoes, if you don’t mind.”

  Brydie scurried after him, the dog tucked into the crook of her arm. “About that,” she said, catching up with him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have run off like that. I was embarrassed. Let me pay for your shoes. I’m sure they’re ruined.”

  “It’s not the first time I’ve had vomit on my shoes, actually,” the doctor replied. “Although I’m generally at work when that happens.”

  “So you work here? At the nursing home? You’re a doctor?”

  He nodded. “I’m usually at Baptist Memorial in the ER, but we doctors take turns at the home, here, as a bit of respite from the hectic schedule in Emergency. I’ll be here until the new year.”

  “Oh,” was all Brydie could think of to say.

  “You’re related to Mrs. Neumann somehow?” the doctor asked, stopping at last in front of a white door at the end of the hallway.

  Brydie stared at the door in front of her. Behind it was a woman she’d never met, a woman whose life, she thought, I’ve been living.

  Dr. Reid looked at her expectantly.

  “Sort of,” she said, not meeting his gaze. “Can I go in?”

  “Of course,” he replied. “When she said Teddy Roosevelt was coming to visit today, well, I didn’t know what to think.” He broke into a wide grin.

  Brydie peered into the suite, but before she had time to focus on anything, Teddy jumped out of her arms and bolted inside. He jumped right into the lap of the woman sitting at the window, causing her to drop the book she’d been reading.

  Brydie rushed in after him, leaning down to pick up the book. “I’m so sorry,” she said, handing the woman the book. “He got away from me.”

  The woman didn’t answer; she was too busy greeting her dog as he showered her with kisses. After a few moments, she looked down at Brydie. She was no longer smiling. Positioning Teddy Roosevelt into her lap, she said, “Is this a habit of yours? Letting my dog get away from you?”

  Brydie straightened herself. She thought about how Teddy Roosevelt had escaped from her at the dog park. Without realizing it, she turned her attention toward the doorway where Nathan had stood. He was already gone.

  “Hello? Young lady?” The woman stuck a foot out and kicked Brydie in her shin. “I’m talking to you!”

  “Ow,” Brydie replied, stepping back. “No, um, I’m sorry. No, I’m certainly not in the habit of letting Teddy Roosevelt get away from me.”

  The woman narrowed her eyes at Brydie. “Sit down,” she said. “I suppose you already know that I’m Pauline Neumann. I’ve heard quite a lot about you, but I can’t for the life of me remember your name.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m Brydie Benson.”

  “This dog smells like garbage.”

  “He keeps getting into the trash,” Brydie said. She bit at the corner of her bottom lip. “I sometimes forget to put the trash can up at night.”

  “How old are you?” Pauline asked. “They told me a young woman would be taking care of my Teddy. You look at least thirty.”

  “I’m thirty-four.”

  “And you’re not married?”

  “No.”

  Pauline made a quiet harrumph under her breath before she said, “No children, either, I suppose?”

  Brydie felt her chest tighten. How many times had she been forced to say the words “no, I don’t have any children”?

  “Children aren’t for everyone,” Pauline replied. Then a warm smile crossed her face, changing her angles, softening them. “Taking care of a dog is not entirely unlike taking care of a child sometimes.”

  Brydie took a moment to study the woman in front of her. She was dressed in a crisp linen dress and her legs were neatly crossed at the ankle. Her hair was completely white and had been braided and wound into a bun on the top of her head. Despite her deeply wrinkled face, her eyes were bright and blue, twinkling ever so slightly. The dog on her lap looked as out of place with her as he did at her house, but it was obvious she adored him, for reasons that Brydie had herself not yet figured out. “You don’t have any children either?”

  “I’ve had four husbands, my dear,” Pauline replied. “They were children enough for me.”

  Brydie suppressed a smile.

  “Teddy,” the old woman continued, “was a present from my fourth husband. He passed on four years ago, and this dog is all I have left of him. When the stroke took my legs and I came to live here, I worried I might never see Teddy again.”

  “I’ll make sure you see him often,” Brydie said, her heart breaking for the elderly woman in front of her.

  Pauline nodded. “I’m sure that you will, my dear.”

  “It’s just . . .” Brydie hesitated. She didn’t want to show the old woman how ignorant she was or make her think she actually wouldn’t do a good job taking care of Teddy. “It’s just I’m having a hard time getting him to eat. Or go outside on the leash. Or anything really,” she finished.

  “Oh, he likes to be carried,” Pauline replied. She gave her dog a scratch between his ears. “It wasn’t until recently, when I lost the ability to pick him up, that we tried the harness. The woman at the pet store said it was the best kind they made, but as you can see, he doesn’t care for it much.”

  “And his food?”

  Pauline shrugged. “Oh, I fed him table scraps, mostly. I bought him that dog food when I bought the harness. I’m sure it’s old and stale by now.”

  “I’ll buy him some more,” Brydie replied.

  “I know it’s not good to give him table scraps. It gives him awful gas.” Pauline wrinkled her nose. “But I can’t seem to help it.”

  “I imagine table scraps taste better than dog food,” Brydie said.

  “I imagine you’re right,” Pauline replied. “And you know, the next time you visit, he ought not to smell like he lives in a junkyard.”

  “I’ll work on that,” Brydie replied. After a moment’s hesitation, she blurted, “He’s my first dog. I’ve never taken care of one before.”

  The old woman cocked her head from one side to the other, looking very much like Teddy in that moment. “No husband, no kids, and no dog?” Pauline asked. “How does a woman get so far along in life without any of those things?”

  “I’m divorced,” Brydie replied.

  “Newly.”

  It wasn’t a question. Brydie wondered how she could tell that her divorce was new. “It’s been six months.”

  “New enough,” Pauline replied with a shrug. “That’s about how long my third marriage lasted.”

  “We were married for over a decade,” Brydie replied, her hackles rising. She didn’t know why, but she wanted to make sure the old woman knew that it hadn’t been that kind of marriage.

  “Takes some people longer than others to figure out they’re not right for each other,” Pauline said.

  Brydie swallowed. She wanted to argue, but she couldn’t. Clearly, since Allan met Cassandra and asked Brydie for a divorce, they hadn’t been right for each other. Still, that wasn’t a fact she was ready to admit to her
self, let alone to anybody else. Rather, she hadn’t been right for him. However, in the spirit of her new resolve to move on, Brydie said, “I suppose that’s true.”

  “I’m sorry,” Pauline said, breaking the silence. “I wish I could tell you that saying whatever pops into my head is a flaw that’s come with age, but it isn’t. I’ve always been this way.”

  “I’ve always wanted to be able to do that,” Brydie replied. “Say whatever I’m thinking. Instead, I roll the words around in my head for just long enough to become worried that they’re the wrong ones.”

  “Well, together we’ll make a perfect team,” Pauline. “You can help me think more, and maybe I can help you think less.”

  Brydie grinned at the woman sitting across from her. “It’s a deal.”

  BRYDIE EXPECTED THAT after a long, hot bath in the master bedroom, she’d find Teddy in the trash, since she’d once again forgotten to put it up. But he was in the exact same spot as she’d left him. He usually delighted in ravaging the trash for goodies, and Mrs. Neumann had been right—her dog did smell like garbage.

  Brydie retreated to the bedroom and threw on an oversize shirt—one of Allan’s that she couldn’t bear to part with—and began to run another bath. She felt a bit guilty for not having thought of it before. He would certainly smell better afterward, and maybe, she thought, he’ll feel better, too.

  She half-expected Teddy to protest, especially once she eased him down into the water, but he didn’t. Instead he sat there while Brydie took a cup and poured warm water over him, his eyes half-closed. Brydie couldn’t find any dog shampoo, but she did have her own strawberry-scented kind, and she figured that was better than nothing at all. She lathered him up, careful not to get the shampoo in his eyes or ears. When they were finished, she toweled him off, gently rubbing his fur in a circular motion, from his head all the way down to his paws. It amazed her how good he was being, but of course, she’d never had a dog before. The way he sat, so perfectly still and upright, reminded her of the way she used to sit after bath time as a child, when her father would help her out of the tub and make sure she was dry enough for her nightclothes.

  Her mother had often worked late at night, leaving Brydie’s father at home alone to care for her. Ruth and Gerald Benson had both started out as real estate agents, and it was how they’d met as young adults. However, after Ruth became the more successful of the two, and after Brydie was born, Gerald stayed home to care for her until she went off to school. Brydie adored being with her father. He was warm and gentle, and told the best stories. They went to the park and to the swimming pool in the summertime and to the movies and museums in the wintertime, sometimes driving all the way to Memphis to find interesting things to do.

  Her mother never went with them.

  Even before she went to kindergarten, Brydie knew and understood that her mother worked, needed to work, in order to support the family. Brydie didn’t mind it, and couldn’t remember a time in her life when she felt resentful for the work her mother did and the late hours she kept. No, it wasn’t resentment she felt when, after taking a bath and scrubbing herself clean and sitting on the couch fresh and pink in her pajamas, her mother would pass by her going to her office at the back of the house without so much as a look or a hug or a kiss. It wasn’t resentment that she felt when after dinner her father sat down in front of the television with a rum and Coke and zoned out past Brydie’s bedtime because it was her mother’s night to put her to bed and they’d both forgotten.

  No, it was something else that she felt, a feeling she’d had as long as she could remember, a feeling that lingered still, more than thirty years later. It was a feeling she’d been battling since her divorce from Allan. If Brydie had to put a finger on it, if she had to name this feeling, she guessed she would say it was loneliness.

  Maybe Teddy Roosevelt was lonely.

  Brydie shook her head. It was silly to place human feelings on a dog. But looking down into his wrinkled little face, she saw something she recognized. She gave his head a final rub with the towel and sat down beside him. At least if they were going to be alone, they could be alone together.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE NEXT MORNING, BRYDIE SAT IN HER FIAT AND STARED at the ShopCo building looming in front of her. Someone named Bernice had called her that morning for an interview. She’d been thick with sleep and when the phone call was over, she half-believed she’d dreamed it.

  “Thanks for coming over on such short notice. I figured I’d get a couple of days’ notice for an interview,” she’d said to Elliott when she and Mia arrived to watch over Teddy. “I just don’t want to leave him alone right now.”

  Elliott bent down to give Teddy Roosevelt a pat. “Changing your mind about him, are you?”

  “He’s hardly moved,” Brydie replied. “He hasn’t eaten hardly anything, either, even though I got him some new food.”

  “Poor guy.”

  “I don’t know how to make him feel better.”

  “Give him some time,” Elliott said. “I’m sure he’ll come around.”

  “He’s slobbery,” Mia said, plopping down onto the floor next to Teddy. She took off her shoes and wiggled her toes.

  “Be careful,” Brydie said with mock seriousness. “Teddy might lick your feet!”

  “Ewww!” the little girl squealed. “That would be funny.”

  Brydie smiled down at Mia. She had all of the best parts of Elliott and Leo. She had Elliott’s wide mouth and laugh and Leo’s dark hair and eyes. “Can you take care of Teddy while I’m gone?” she asked.

  Mia nodded solemnly.

  “We’ll take great care of him,” Elliott said. “Good luck at your interview!”

  Brydie stepped out of the car and into the sunlight. She straightened her black knit pencil skirt. She wasn’t sure where she was supposed to be going—the woman on the phone told her to find customer service, which was easier said than done in this colossal store. When she finally found the service counter, slightly sweaty and out of breath, she said, “I’m Brydie Benson. I’m here to see Bernice.”

  “You here for a position at the bakery?”

  “Yes?” Brydie didn’t mean for it to, but her response came out as more of a question.

  He looked her up and down in that greasy sort of way some men are capable of doing. He said, “Looks like the bakery is movin’ on up in the world.”

  Brydie followed him to the back of the store. ShopCo was huge—one of those big retail chains that sell in bulk. She’d never understood why someone would need a six-hundred-ounce jar of pickles, and she for sure never thought she’d be working at a store that sold them. What would it be like in the bakery?

  The man led her back through heavy, plastic double doors and into what looked like a break room. There a woman sat, her back to them, wearing a purple hairnet that glistened in the fluorescent lighting. “Yo, Bernie, you got a lady here to see you.”

  Bernice turned around and gave the two of them a half smile. “Sit down,” she said to Brydie. “I was just finishin’ up my lunch.”

  Brydie sat down in front of the woman. She pulled her resume out from her bag and handed it over. “Hi, I’m Brydie Benson.”

  “Interesting name,” Bernice grunted, licking Cheetos dust from her fingertips.

  “It’s Gaelic for Bridget.”

  “Well, Bridget, I’m Bernice. But everybody calls me Bernie,” the woman said. “I looked over your resume. Impressive.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You owned your own bakery?”

  “I did.” Brydie shifted in her chair. “With my husband.”

  “And you did well? At this bakery of yours?”

  “We did,” Brydie replied. “For a little while.”

  Bernice made a scratch on the pad of paper in front of her with a dull pencil. “And how long did you own this bakery?”

  “About five years,” Brydie said. “Until . . .” She trailed off.

  “Until what?”

 
“Until we got divorced.”

  Bernice’s straight line of a mouth didn’t change. She looked down at Brydie’s resume. “Here’s what I need, Bridget—I need someone to make sure the damn cakes get done. My overnight manager needs someone reliable.”

  “Overnight?”

  Bernice nodded. “It’s full-time. Benefits after three months, but right now you’ll be seasonal. There is no guarantee of a full-time job after the holidays. The job is eight P.M. to five A.M. Four nights on, three nights off.”

  Brydie sat back in her chair. The ad she’d seen hadn’t said anything about the position being overnight, and neither had the application. “It’s overnight?”

  “It’s the only position we got left. Filled the other holiday jobs yesterday,” Bernice replied. She licked the rest of the Cheetos dust off her fingers. “But I got about ten other people to get to today, so if you ain’t interested, that’s fine by me.”

  “No,” Brydie said, taking her time with the word. “It’s not that I’m not interested, but I just didn’t know the job would be overnight.”

  “Well, now ya do.”

  “When does it start?”

  “As soon as your background check goes through, and we can get ya through orientation.”

  “Okay,” Brydie replied.

  “Good.” Bernice sat back. “Joe will give you a call in a couple of days. Get your schedule set up.”

  “Who’s Joe?”

  “The nighttime bakery manager.”

  Brydie knew she shouldn’t be asking too many questions, especially since she’d only just been hired, but she couldn’t help herself. “Why didn’t Joe interview me?”

  “Joe don’t like to do the interview part,” Bernice said. “And he ain’t up at this ungodly hour.” She stood up, taking her clipboard and the remaining Cheetos dust with her. “He tends to scare people at first. He ain’t much of a conversationalist, that one.”

  Brydie watched her go, not sure if she ought to be excited or terrified. She guessed she was a little bit of both. It felt like an eternity since she’d done any work, any baking, and she was woefully out of practice. She didn’t need any reason to give Joe, the boss she’d never met, any reason to dislike her.