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“Callyn. Because we might end up with a dog that will be massive when it grows up and completely destroy our entire apartment because it needs a yard to run around in?” Oh, yeah, good point. I hadn’t thought about that.
I put my hand up to stop her. “Okay, okay. You’re right. We’ll agree to look today, and do our research before we commit. So we’ll do the opposite of what we did when we got married.”
I paused for a second. “Did you ever remember anything? About how it happened?” Emma shook her head and then dropped her taco on her plate, where it shattered.
“Nope,” she said, staring down at the sad remains of a once-great taco that had caved to pressure.
“Me neither,” I lied. “Guess we’ll never know whose idea it was. So far, being married has been fine. I mean, I think living together has been more of an adjustment than the marriage stuff.”
“True,” she said, giving up on trying to put the taco back together and going at it with a fork.
We finished our food mostly in silence, and I didn’t like it. There was still something bothering her and I wanted to know what it could be. Maybe seeing cute puppies would perk her up?
Emma and I took a car to the shelter, and I couldn’t help but squeal with excitement as we walked in. Emma took the lead and I followed behind her, hauling the books. Why had I bought so many?
“Yes, we’re considering getting a dog and we’d like to see what you have, as well as know what the process is like?” Emma said to the woman with the curly bleach-blonde in a polo shirt behind the tall counter. Lots of barking came from a room off to the right and I could sense the dogs were just out of reach. So close.
The woman smiled and looked at me, hunched over with two bags of books. I should have gotten one about raising dogs, probably. I tried to give her my most-responsible smile. She glanced back at Emma.
“Okay, well you need to fill out an application, which you can do now, and we’ll take you back and you can see the dogs we currently have for adoption. Were you looking for more of an older dog, or a puppy? Several litters were just dropped off last week, so we’re a little desperate for homes right now.” I wanted to cry when she said that.
“Think of all the poor babies,” I said to Emma, as she started filling out a form on a clipboard and the woman took a phone call.
“Let’s get the form filled out first,” Emma said. “You need to do one too.” I picked up a clipboard and started filling it out. “Oh, it asks if we’re married. We can say yes.” I checked the box and my stomach felt like it was going down a roller coaster. My life was so weird right now.
Emma and I finished the forms and chatted with Deb, the volunteer.
“I think we definitely want a puppy?” I said, and Emma agreed. “We have a pretty decent apartment, but maybe one on the medium or smaller sized. Not too hyper?” Deb nodded and took us down the hallway as the rows of dogs barked or wiggled or tried to hide.
“I’ll show you a few of the puppies we’ve got right now, there’s quite a few to choose from. We’re not totally sure on the breeds since they’re mutts, but we can estimate what size they might be when they’re grown.” That sounded fine and I had the sudden urge to take Emma’s hand. As if we had to play pretend married in front of Deb. Like she wouldn’t give us a puppy if we didn’t show that we were really a couple. What nonsense.
Deb came to the end of the hallway and took us through another door that had smaller cages stacked on top of one another.
“Oh my god, look at them,” I said as we were assaulted by little puppy barks.
“We can’t take them all. We can only takeone,” Emma said in my ear, but she was grinning too.
“I know, but that won’t stop me from wanting to take them all,” I whispered back.
Someone called Deb back to the front so she told us to look around and then she’d come back and we could take out any puppy we were interested in.
Emma and I strolled up and down the rows of cages. I was waiting for a connection to hit me. When I met our dog, I would know.
“Hello precious babies,” I said as they wiggled and cried for attention and tried to lick me through the bars of the cage. There were signs all over the place saying not to put your fingers near the cages and I decided to err on the side of caution.
“Hi sweetheart. Aren’t you adorable?” I heard Emma say and turned to see her making eye contact with a little black shape that was wiggling so hard I couldn’t get a visual handle on how big it was.
I joined her and made eye contact with the black blur, which turned out to have blue eyes almost exactly the same shade as Emma’s. The puppy stopped moving and stared at me and that was it. My moment. Our eyes locked and then the puppy started the wiggling again and Emma put her arm around me.
“What about this one?” she asked.
Deb returned and we both pointed at the black puppy. “That one.”
Deb smiled. “Oh, he is a sweetheart. Such pretty eyes. He’s the runt of the litter, so I think that’s why no one has taken a fancy to him yet. He’s either energetic or sleeping, and he certainly seems to like you.” Deb pulled him out of the cage and set him down on the floor where he was so excited we couldn’t get a hold of him. Emma and I both got down on the floor and he jumped up and licked our faces, going back and forth as if he couldn’t decide who he loved more.
“Yes, you are a good boy,” Emma said.
“The best boy,” I told him. He yipped in happiness and spun in circles.
