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Saved by the Drake
Dedicated to Alyson Shorthouse
One
Lucia Rodriguez was having a terrible day.
She sighed as she locked up the Paws and Purrs Pet Clinic and trudged to her car. Automatically, she reached for her keys and then remembered the reason she’d gone back into the clinic in the first place—the car was dead. After trying to get it to start for almost ten minutes, she’d gone back inside to call her mom—since her ancient cell phone was also dead—and let her know she would be late getting home because of it.
Of course, most people would have called Triple A or whatever auto club they were a member of to get the car towed to a garage. But Lucia wasn’t a member of any auto clubs—she couldn’t afford it. In fact, as a single mom of three trying to live on a Vet Tech’s salary, she couldn’t afford much of anything—not even a cab or an Uber to get her home.
Sighing again, Luci started walking towards the bus stop. The dead car just capped off her awful day.
Well, at least the tire didn’t have anything to do with cats, she thought and shivered.
Working at a veterinary clinic, Luci saw her fair share of bad things happen to good animals. The Paws and Purrs practice treated all kinds of pets from regular ones like dogs and cats to exotic creatures like sugar gliders and hedgehogs. This being Florida, they also saw their share of snakes and lizards—though Dr. Canody had drawn the line at treating someone’s pet alligator.
But for some reason, today had just been a terrible day for cats.
First thing that morning, a lady had brought in a cat she’d hit with her car. The cat had obviously been a stray with ragged ears and fleas to show for it and the woman had been wearing an expensive business suit—not unusual since the Paws and Purrs Clinic was located in Downtown Tampa where a lot of corporations had their offices.
The cat had been mewing weakly and the woman was crying, her mascara running down her cheeks in black smears. Her suit was stained with blood but she didn’t even seem to notice.
“He ran right out in front of me!” she’d sobbed, holding the injured cat out to Luci, who took him carefully. “I couldn’t miss him! I tried to swerve—Oh God, I’m so sorry!”
From there, the day had only gotten worse. Right after the tragic accident, Luci had had to tell a man his cat had advanced Feline Aids and didn’t have long to live. Right after that, someone brought in a kitten with flea anemia, so weak it had died while Luci was trying to get an IV into its tiny vein. And finally, as though to cap off the terrible day, she’s had to sit with Mrs. Wachowski—a kind, little old lady who had been bringing her cats to the Paws and Purrs practice for years—as the vet euthanized Bootsie, her favorite cat.
Poor Mrs. Wachowski had cried like a baby and Luci had put an arm around her and tried to comfort her as best she could. She knew the pain of losing a pet all too well herself, and she also knew the older woman had recently lost her husband. Mrs. Wachowski had two more cats at home but losing Bootsie was a blow and she had looked twenty years older when she finally left the clinic.
There had been some bright spots in her otherwise dark day, Luci tried to remind herself. Mr. Yoder had come in with Goofus—a Boxer with a heart of gold and a brain of brick—as Dr. Canody liked to say. The big, dumb dog loved everyone and it was always fun to see him wagging and panting in all his goofy glory.
But all in all, it had been a pretty lousy day for her feline patients. And having car trouble to end everything didn’t help her mood any.
How am I going to pay to get it fixed? Luci wondered, as she rode the crowded, smelly bus in the deepening gloom. She lived in a rundown apartment building at the edge of the downtown area, all she could afford since her ex-husband, Tony, never paid child support.
He almost never came to see his kids, either, which was actually just as well. Tony had a hot temper and the antics of the three-year-old twins, Antony and Julio, always got on his nerves. He did better with their older sister, Francesca. But only because Frannie was extremely serious for a five-year-old and she usually got very quiet around her father.
Unfortunately, that was probably because Tony shouted a lot when he was angry—which was most of the time. Frannie had developed the habit of keeping silent and shushing her little brothers whenever he was around to try and keep peace in the house.
