The one area she can’t stand is the puppy department. The poor things are so cheerful and hopeful. She avoids that section, as she avoids her co-workers, who are equally friendly, although more bored than hopeful. They order pizzas delivered at lunch and give each other nicknames as if they’re in a fraternity. Juan is called G-man because he’s determined to one day join the feds, a whacked-out dream for someone in charge of lizards who sells weed on the side. Maravelle Diaz is known as Mimi because she sings and has a five-octave range reminiscent of Mariah Carey. Their supervisor, Ellen Grimes, who manages the store as if it’s a small, corrupt country, is called Hellgirl or the Grimester behind her back of course. Shelby was dubbed E.T.—the bald head, the big eyes, the silence—her nickname is a no-brainer. G-man called her that the very first day. Shelby refused to answer at first, but after a while it’s easier not to fight it. Hey, E.T., give me a price on the birdseed! E.T., stack the Science Diet.
Shelby does as she’s asked no matter what they call her; there’s less human contact if you don’t argue or give your opinion. At lunch she goes off on her own. She usually picks up a packet of cheese and crackers at a deli, then goes to Union Square Park. She’s there even on rainy days, and there happens to be rain on the day she becomes a thief. It’s summer and hot, and the sudden shower is a surprise. While the rain pours down, she skitters toward an overhang of the subway, squeezing up against a wall. Union Square smells sweet and green on days like this. Petals and leaves from the Greenmarket are scattered about, and the scent of mint mixes with the hard smell of hot concrete. People dart about, trying to get out of the rain. Everyone is walking so quickly Shelby can’t pick up on anyone’s despair. The truth is, she feels empty without it. Maybe she’s empty if she doesn’t latch on to sorrow. She’s beginning to wonder if perhaps she’s haunting herself.
Shelby’s favorite sweatshirt is red, like Riding Hood’s cape. She finds herself thinking about wolves and how they’ve always been hunted, caught in traps and hung upside down on ropes, blood dripping from their mouths and noses. She often dreams she’s running through the grass in the dark and something is following her. She’s too afraid to turn around in her dreams and see what’s behind her. When she wakes, she’s drenched in sweat. She gets out of bed, then climbs out the window so she can be alone on the fire escape while Ben sleeps. She gazes upward as the sky turns pink. If she’s not careful she may cry thinking about wolves and accidents and ice. She wants to think that Helene is watching the same pink sky through her bedroom window, that she weeps for the beauty of the world, even though she knows that Helene no longer has the ocular ability to shed tears.
On the day when she’s ducking the rainstorm in Union Square, Shelby hears a slight huffing and puffing. She thinks of ogres under a bridge, of the werewolves she and Helene used to imagine were lurking in the woods. Shelby glances beside her to see not a monster but a homeless person. He’s a kid, with a blanket tossed over him to protect him against the rain even though it must be broiling under a woolen blanket. His belongings are stored in garbage bags balanced on a rolling wooden platform. Atop the platform are two dogs. One is asleep; the other is the thing that’s huffing and puffing.
The kid rises out of his stupor. “What are you looking at?” he growls.
The kid seems older when he speaks. He has a cut on his lip that looks infected. Shelby glances away. She’s always on the lookout for ghosts, but this guy is definitely real. Shelby feels guilty eating her cheese and crackers. She puts the package on the sidewalk.
“Are you going to eat that?” the homeless guy says.
Shelby slides the cheese over, and the kid, or whatever he is, eats her lunch.
“What about the dogs?” Shelby asks. “They’re probably hungry.”
The kid throws her a look, and after considering he tosses the huffing and puffing dog half a cracker. “Dogs in America are too fat. Don’t think I’m starving them, because I’m not. Why would I do that? Everyone loves dogs.”
“What are their names?”
The kid shrugs. “Dog,” he says of the filthy, white, huffing and puffing one. “That one’s Puppy,” he says of the sleeping one. The second dog’s eyes don’t even flicker. For a moment he seems dead.
“Is he sick?”
“The secret is Benadryl. Quiets them down. People want to give you more when you’ve got two dogs depending on you.”
“You do that?” Shelby is distressed by this news. She has realized the kid thinks she’s homeless too. Maybe it’s her wardrobe, the holes in her boots, the old sweatshirt. “What are their real names?” she asks. When he doesn’t answer, she presses on. “Seriously.”
The kid glares at her. “I already told you!”
Shelby has broken her own rule. She never speaks to people she knows, let alone strangers. It’s time for her to get back to work, yet she feels she won’t make it through the day. She gets out what’s left of the joint she began that morning. She takes a few hits before passing it to the homeless guy. He smokes greedily, and although he doesn’t say thank you, he does give her a piece of advice. “You can rent them, you know. Twenty bucks for four hours. It’s a good deal.” Shelby looks at him blankly, not understanding his meaning, so he adds, “The dogs.”
“Rent them from you?”
“Are you nuts? If they were my dogs wouldn’t I know their names?”
The animals are so filthy Shelby wonders if she might get fleas merely by being in the same vicinity. The sleeping one is a Lhasa apso–like thing, and the other is a French bulldog. It has a furrowed expression, as if it was considering something of major importance that is far beyond human scope. They both make Shelby feel itchy.