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“See that harness?” The woman crouches next to her daughter and points at Henry.
“Yes.”
“Well, that says that this puppy is working and shouldn’t be disturbed.”
The girl tilts her head to the side, her brows meeting as she thinks about it. “Dogs don’t work,” she points out as if we should already know that.
“Some dogs do work,” Penelope says gently, drawing my attention to her. “Henry’s one of them.”
“Why would he need to work?”
“Because I need help.” A small smile plays on her lips. “I can’t see, so Henry is helping me go places, and if somebody touches him, that distracts him and can put me in danger.”
The girl’s lips form a little “o” as she shifts her attention from Penelope to Henry. “Does he like to work?”
“He does. He was picked especially because he enjoyed helping people like me.”
“And when he’s not working, he gets to play like any other dog,” her mom adds. “C’mon, Carly. Let’s say goodbye.”
Carly lifts her hand and waves. “Bye, doggy!”
“Thank you for teaching her,” Penelope tells the woman, who simply smiles. “Of course.”
I wait for them to leave before glancing at Penelope. “Is this common? People wanting to touch Henry?”
Penelope shrugs. “It depends. If people like dogs, they’ll attempt to interact with him. If I can hear them approach, I try to persuade them not to do it. Like I said, distracting the guide dog can be dangerous for the handler, which people generally don’t realize, or they simply don’t think about.”
No, I guess they wouldn’t. I sure as hell didn’t think about it. Not until Penelope pointed it out. But the more I watched her, the more she told me, and the more I started to understand her, the more I realized that I wanted to know everything there was to know about this woman.
She glances down, tapping something on her screen. Which reminds me…
“You still didn’t tell me why you’re filming Henry.”
Letting her hand drop by her side, Penelope turns her head away from me. “Because.”
“That’s not an answer, Birdy. What are you evading?”
“I’m not evading. I wanna have him on video; why is that so hard to understand?”
She wants to have a video of Henry? Who’s she trying to fool? “Because you can’t watch the video?” I point out the obvious.
“I—” She blinks, realizing her mistake. “Fine, if you want to know. I occasionally post videos of Henry online.”
“Online?” I repeat, unsure if I understood her correctly. “As in on social media?”
“Yes, on social media.” She looks away, her teeth sinking into her lower lip as the color spreads through her cheeks.
“Like a dog account? Is that even a thing?”
I wasn’t one for social media. Most of the time, I actively tried to stay away from it. Because no matter how many fans I had, there was almost double the number of haters. These days, I have a whole social media team who posted in my place. Occasionally, they’d tell me to post something myself to make it authentic or some other bullshit like that.
I don’t know why this surprised me, though, maybe because Penelope didn’t seem like the kind of person to seek attention like that.
“Something like that. It’s silly, I shou—”
“Let me see it.”
“What? No—” Instinctively, she pulls her phone to her chest, but I’m faster. “Sebastian!” she hisses quietly, trying to get it back, but I turn my back to her as I unlock her phone since there is no password. “Give that back.”
