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They reached the edge of the bin and Pete held up a silencing hand. Sure enough, the puppy was whimpering, soft and low, like he was crying only for himself.
“You have to boost me in there to get him out,” Lily said, panic rising, the urge to get to the puppy so strong it tore at her stomach and made her throat burn.
Pete laced his fingers together and nodded, indicating Lily should put her foot there for a boost. That was what Lily loved about Pete—he didn’t say stupid things most older people did, like,You can’t climb into a trash can.You could get hurt. Or,What would your mom say?No, Pete immediately knew the score. One of them had to get that puppy out of the trashnowand it’d be much easier for him to boost Lily inside than the other way around.
Lily footed Pete’s hands and slung one leg over the trash. She tried not to think about all the disgusting things in there, including those rotted blankets, bags of poop, discarded, moldy food and maybe even rats. Instead, she pictured big, hairy rodents the size of the ROUSes inThe Princess Bridegetting to the whimpering puppy before she did, and that was all it took for Lily to drop down. Her landing was surprisingly soft on top of all the bags. If she remembered right, the trash people came tomorrow to collect, which meant that if she hadn’t brought the trash out tonight she wouldn’t have found the puppy before he got dumped into the back of a refuse vehicle tomorrow morning.
Lily shuddered, pushing away the thought. She clicked her phone light on to center herself and spot the puppy so that she wouldn’t step on him. Once she had him located, she stuffed her phone away and followed the sound of the puppy’s low cries, her feet crunching down trash bags and punching through one of them until she got to him. Her own Chuck Taylors—gray, not pink—got slick beneath her and a bad smell wafted up. Lily knew she’d tromped through crap and rotten food but her hands were on the puppy now, his fur cold and covered in ice balls. As soon as Lily touched him, the puppy’s cries got louder, almost frantic, like when a person freaked out once they knew they were going to be okay rather than the other way around.
“It’s okay, baby,” she cooed. Lily scooped the wet puppy—about the size of Lily’s minibackpack—into her arms and held him close. He was slick and stinky. “You’re not trash, are you?” Lily murmured against his ear. “No, you’re not. You’re not trash.” She carefully made her way back to the edge of the dumpster, where Pete was waiting. “Pete!” she called. “Climb up here and get the puppy. I’ll hand him off. Then we can worry about getting me out.”
“Roger that.” Pete banged against the dumpster and his head popped over. He held the edge with one hand and extended the other arm.
Lily pressed the puppy, slick and shaking, into Pete’s embrace. He tucked the puppy tightly against him. “Take him inside, to Sunny. Then come back for me.”
Pete jumped down as carefully as he could, his footsteps and the puppy’s cries getting farther away until they vanished altogether. Lily waited in the dank rot, the smells of poop and decay heavy in her nose. Even though she was soaked with rain and sleet, she felt itchy, like her body crawled with bugs. The acid in her throat was gone but her stomach was turning over in a big way, a thick feeling forming under her tongue like she was going to puke. “Don’t do it,” she muttered to herself. “Don’t puke or you’ll make me puke.”
Humor kept her sane until Pete got back, clambering against the dumpster as he called out, “Hey. Lily. Grab my hand.”
Lily reached up until she felt Pete’s cold, wet hand grab her wrist. She scrambled against the side of the oily dumpster, her sneakers squeaking over the metal as she struggled for purchase. Between the little bit she could climb and Pete’s surprising gorilla strength, he was able to haul her up until Lily fell forward on her stomach, the urge to puke compounded now that her gut hit the edge of the dumpster. She slung a leg over and from there Pete grasped her waist and braced her back against his chest until her feet hit the ground. Lily’s body throbbed all over and she stank like rot. But she was out. And so was the puppy.
“Good work,” Pete said. He had to have noted the putrid smell, but his face held nothing but admiration. “Let’s get you inside.”
As they took cautious steps toward the building, Lily imagined it all going down, the whole sequence of events of some soulless asshole driving out here and actually tossing a puppy into a cold, smelly dumpster. “People suck,” she declared.
“Not all of them,” Pete said softly. He slapped a hand on her back and kept her steady as they tiptoed over the ice to the safety of the shelter.
Clementine pressed the back of her hand to her nose and held her breath. “Somebody actually threw a puppy in the trash?” She regarded her daughter, clothes covered in goo, hair streaked with something dark, which Clementine didn’t even want toknow. Lily’s shoes had come off at the front door. The icy rain might clean them or they just might become garbage themselves, depending.
“They did.” Lily’s voice was a harsh whisper. She had the puppy in a blanket from the shelter. All Clementine could see was his face, peeking out from the old quilt someone had donated. “They put him in the trash.”
Clementine pitied the fool who had thrown away that puppy, if he ever ran into Lily in a dark alley.
“He’s clean,” Lily said. “We gave him a bath at the shelter. But I couldn’t leave him there, Mom. He’s too traumatized. He’s still shaking, even though he’s warm. He was probably in the trash for hours.”
“He’s way cleaner than you,” Clementine agreed. “Here. Let me have him and you can go shower.”
“Soon.” Lily sank into a kitchen chair and tucked the puppy tighter against her middle. “I can’t leave him just yet. It’s not good to pass him off from one person to the next so soon after his rescue. He already feels vulnerable. The people who had him probably breed puppies for a living and throw out any puppy that isn’t perfect.”
Clementine didn’t suggest that this sounded a bit dramatic, because Lily always had a full backstory for every animal she rescued. Most of it was created in her own mind, suppositions that filled in the gaps of what little information the shelter had on the animals people tossed out, turned in and discarded like old clothes at the Salvation Army. This wasn’t a practice Clementine discouraged and she’d got used to it over the years. Lily even had a backstory for her father’s death, built around the few facts they’d been provided from the United States Marine Corps, and Clementine had been assured by the family therapist they used to see that this was healthy and completely normal.
“I can’t believe Pete let you climb into the dumpster.”
“Mom.”
“I mean, why didn’t he climb in? You don’t let a sixteen-year-old climb into the dumpster.”
“Mom.”
“Okay.” Clementine couldn’t take it anymore. “I know you’re used to how you smell by now, but, babe, you’re rank. Go shower.” She held out her arms for the puppy. “And take the quilt with you. It needs washing, too. I’ll get him a new one.”
Lily cautiously handed over the puppy. “His name is Terrence,” she said. “We might work up to calling him Terry eventually, but right now he prefers his full name.”
“I see.” Clementine snuggled Terrence into the crook of her arm, and hell if the puppy didn’t whine when Lily headed for the stairs.
Lily looked back over her shoulder. “I told you it was too soon.”
“Go.” Clementine pointed.
