License to Shop (4 page)

He picked up one of the
puppies and held it up. “Does it come with a phone? Or just the
phone case?” A half-chewed phone case dangled from the puppy’s
mouth. Pink. With blue flowers.

Kecia shook her head and
wrestled the case out of the puppy’s mouth. “Sorry. It just comes
with a big appetite and an insatiable need to chew.”

“
My wife and I were
thinking of getting a dog for the kids.”

“
Only $25.” Kecia
encouraged.

“
We were thinking of an
older dog. A puppy can be a lot of trouble.” He cradled the puppy
and laughed when it licked his hand.

“
True,” I said, my
marketing instincts on overdrive. I really, really, needed to get
this interview rescheduled and get out of here. “So, would a free
puppy beat a dog from the pound?”

He smiled. “Ladies, you
have a deal.”

Watching him walk away
with the dog, I was afraid to look at Kecia and see whether she
minded that I’d given the puppy away without consulting
her.

She laughed, “Three down,
two left to go. Maybe none of these guys will have to see what a
pound looks like. “Thanks.” The forlorn phone case dangled from her
hand loosely.

“
Do you think the phone
could be in the basket?”

We rummaged around,
finally shaking the blanket out. No phone. “Sounds like one more
angry-father-moment for her.”

Kecia shrugged. “Those
prospective students — they come in packs and mill around. Probably
one of them wanted the latest phone and took advantage of her
inattention. The teachers and chaperones are clueless.”

“
Let’s hope she has a
phone-finder app on it.”

“
Let’s hope she learns how
to hold on to her possessions before Daddy stops paying the
bills.”

She bent her head and
consulted the appointment book, with a frown. “Uh oh. Are you sure
you want to cancel?”

“
What’s wrong?”

She showed me the full
page of appointments for tomorrow’s date. “If you reschedule, it’ll
have to be for day after. Tomorrow is now officially
full.”

“
That’s fine.” I looked at
my competition, smiling and — heaven forbid — making Dr. Henriette
Stubbs smile, too. “I don’t think I have a chance any longer,
anyway.”

Kecia looked at me in
surprise. “This is just the preliminary interview, you know,
right?”

“
Of course,” I
lied.

She continued
reassuringly, “They’re going to pick their top five, and then
you’ll be interviewed by all the magogs. Then you’ll find out if
you got the job.”

“
Right,” I said, as if I
knew that already.

“
If you really want to
make the top five, why don’t you take a puppy?” She held out the
basket to me, with a joking smile. At least, I think she was
joking.

“
I don’t think so. My
house was not built for a dog.” Not that I had anything against
dogs. As long as they didn’t lick me. Or jump on me. Or bark at
me.

The building all clear was
given, and we walked slowly toward Dr. Stubbs and my competition. I
was trying to remember her name. I think I’d met her at the last
PTA meeting, but it was hard to be sure, as then she’d been in
jeans, not a power suit and interview makeup.

Kecia said, “Look, we’re
down to two puppies, Dr. Stubbs.”

Sophie stuck her nose into
the basket and whined. Clearly, she could see the pups were
missing, and she was far from delighted at the fact. Poor mama. I
wouldn’t like anyone taking my kids away, either.

“
I’ll take one,” said my
competition, without hesitation. “I love dogs.” She picked him up
and cuddled him. Speaking directly to Sophie, she said
sympathetically, “Don’t worry mama, I’ll take care of your wittle
puppy.”

“
I guess you can take that
one to the pound today, then, when you take my laundry to the
cleaners,” Dr. Stubbs said, to Kecia.

“
No.” I picked up the
puppy, wondering exactly what I thought I was doing. “I’ll take
it.”

“
Really?” Dr. Stubbs
looked at me assessingly. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a dog
person.”

“
I am,” I assured her,
hoping that would help me when I came back to face her day after
tomorrow.

“
Good.” She turned her
back on me, and said, “Penny, I want to hear more about your
experience in admissions at Cal State. But let’s get inside first,
shall we?”

Kecia gave me a wry smile
as she took the purses and the dry cleaning back from my
possession. I saw the flash of her wrist butterfly again as she
tossed them into the now empty basket. “See you day after
tomorrow,” she said, and hurried after her boss and my
competition.

The puppy whined after
Kecia, Dr. Stubbs, or maybe her mother Sofie. I patted her head. “I
know, sweetie. It doesn’t feel good to be left behind, does it?” I
decided to take the cheerful flash of butterfly tattoo as a sign
that things would turn out well.

Right at that moment, Seth
called me. I tucked the puppy in the crook of my arm and answered
him as I headed to my car. “Hi.”

“
How did it
go?”

“
It was just a preliminary
interview.”

“
So? How did it
go?”

I wondered what I was
going to do with the puppy. “Great. I totally think I have a shot
at the next step in the process.” I certainly deserved one after
taking on the last puppy. But it didn’t bode well that Dr. Stubbs
had completely forgotten that she was interviewing me, not Penny,
when the fire alarm rang.

“
Come over to my building,
and we can grab lunch.”

I tensed and the puppy
gave a sleepy yelp. “I have to do a shop.”

“
I thought you weren’t
going to mystery shop any more.” He sounded cranky.

To avoid making him even
crankier, I didn’t tell him I really had two shops. The second one
was a lunch shop with Celeste, who was treating me to dessert as a
bon voyage of sorts. “I’m giving it up as soon as I have a real
job, Seth. I don’t have one yet.”

“
Yet. I’m sure it will
work out. How could they say no to you?”

How indeed. Let me count
the ways. On second thought, let me not.

CHAPTER THREE

The Puppy
Who Came in From the School

Fate was playing tricks on me, I just couldn’t tell if they
were harmless tricks or not. I tried, unsuccessfully, to strap the
puppy into the passenger seat of the van. She kept squirming out.
At last I managed to get her into Anna’s old car seat, which was
sitting in the back of the SUV, waiting for me to remember to drop
it off at Goodwill. She whined at me, licked my hand, and peed all
over the seat. Goodwill was going to love me.

Once she was safely
strapped in, I headed for the store I needed to shop. A pet store,
of all places. I had done this shop once before, and ended up
buying a toy for my neighbor Norma’s dog because I don’t have a
pet. At least, I hadn’t had one before I accidentally adopted a
puppy in the hopes of getting past a preliminary interview. My kids
were going to be happy. Ryan would promise to walk the dog, of
course. Anna would do an internet search to find out what household
poisons to keep out of the dog’s reach.

Seth. I had no idea how he
would react. His family had always had a dog when he was growing
up. He claimed he would like another one. I was really the only
holdout against dog hair, dog breath, and muddy footprints on the
kitchen floor. Probably because I was likely the only one who’d
have to deal with them. On the plus side, a dog would help with
Anna’s anxieties about windows and doors accidentally left open at
night.

I pulled out my job
instructions, pleased to see I could bring my dog with me on this
shop. Instructions that had never mattered to me before, because
previously I had not had a dog. But I knew I couldn’t leave the
puppy in the car. That was bad. Heat. Chewing. Peeing. I surveyed
the parking lot and took pictures of the entrance so I could report
on signage placement once I got home and found a safe place for the
puppy.

I looked at the puppy.
“Listen, puppy. I don’t know if you’re going to stay with us or
not. But I promise if we can’t keep you, I will find you a nice
home to go to. I will not send you to the pound.”

She licked my finger, as
if she understood. I set my phone to record the shop, because I had
a feeling I would not remember everything that was said with a
squirmy little distraction like a puppy to keep track of. Then I
scooped her up and carried her into the store, glad to know I
wouldn’t have to invent any questions this time. No. I had
plenty.

There was only one person
in the store, a young woman who was on the phone, crying. Uh oh.
That wasn’t going to look good in my report. Then I heard what she
was saying. “But I’m telling you. I’m a student. I work part time
at a pet store. I don’t have any credit cards, never mind one with
a twenty thousand dollar balance.” She snuffled quietly while the
person on the other end spoke loudly. Then she wailed, “Who would
be crazy enough to give me that much credit? This is a
mistake.”

I turned around and went
back outside. I waited for five minutes, letting the puppy eat some
grass, investigate a butterfly, and pee. No way was I reporting
that conversation. Sometimes employees had crises, and that was not
the time to shop them fairly. In my opinion, anyway.

When I went back in, the
young woman had hung up the phone, wiped away her tears, and was
busy marking prices on an aisle of dog bowls.

I sighed inwardly,
relieved I could do my shop without having to report her crisis.
She greeted me politely, with a small smile, but considering her
state five minutes ago, I counted it as a beam. She clearly valued
customer service to scrape up any kind of smile.

She was dressed in the
required clean-and-pressed green logo button-up shirt and black
jeans. She had her tattoos covered, mostly. When I came toward her,
to ask for help, she greeted me with a slightly bigger smile. Or, I
guess technically she greeted the puppy with a smile and a cuddle.
Like with children, when someone paid approving attention, it
counted.

“
I have a new puppy,” I
announced, as if it weren’t obvious.

“
Has she had her
shots?”

“
Yes.” Kecia had mentioned
something about shots as I walked away. I guess I could check to
make sure she said the puppy was taken care of, not in need of,
shots.

“
Was she a pity
adoption?”

“
What?”

“
You know. A friend’s dog
has puppies, and then they need homes and no one wants them to end
up in a shelter.”

I smiled. “Exactly. A pity
adoption.” Except it wasn’t a friend’s dog. And I was hoping to
boost my status as a job candidate. But I didn’t need to explain
that.

“
When I’m a vet,” the girl
said, “I’m going to have a monthly free spaying and neutering day.”
She shook her head. “People would rather pretend they can keep
their animals away from other animals when they are in heat than
pay for the procedure. It’s a shame.”

“
The world needs more vets
like you,” I said approvingly.

A cloud drifted across her
face, “Well, first I have to finish my undergraduate
degree.”

“
What year are
you?”

“
Senior.”

“
One more semester and
then vet school?”

“
If I can swing the
student loans.” Another cloud. “I did something really stupid — I
left my phone in the gym. Apparently, whoever took it got access to
my bank somehow.”

“
I’m so sorry,” I said.
“These smart phones hold so much of our data on them, don’t they?”
I thought of the girl with the pink flip flops. I hoped she didn’t
get more than lectures from her father for stealing her phone. “I
hope they catch the person.”

The girl shrugged. “It
seems like they don’t even try. I’m just glad my dad’s a lawyer.
He’s going to help me untangle the mess. I just hope we get it
resolved before I graduate.” She realized, then, that she had a job
to do, and plastered on a bright smile, “I’m sure we will. Now,
let’s get this puppy set up for a great life with you and your
family.”

The girl upsold like a
champ. By the time I left the store, I had a dog bed, a water bowl,
a food bowl, two leashes too complicated for me to figure out, a
stuffed animal for the puppy to cuddle with, and several chew toys.
Apparently this puppy’s breed were champion chewers. If I wanted
shoes to wear to the job I hoped to get, I needed to keep her well
supplied with chew toys and make sure she had no access to shoes of
any sort.

I also had premium puppy
food, vitamins, and two different kinds of puppy treats.

I also had a brochure for
a puppy trainer.

I piled it all into the
car, put the dog back in the carseat, and got ready to head to meet
Celeste for lunch when my phone rang. “Can we move lunch to
tomorrow,” Celeste begged. “I have a flat tire. Darn construction
site. They should clean up their stray nails.”