Lollypops, Part 1

German Shepherds were the best dogs ever. Period.

Of all the German Shepherds in existence, none were better than Ophelia. She was smart, brave, loyal, and awesome in every regard.

Except when she conned Leon into giving her unauthorized treats.

My cousin had a pathological need to be liked by everyone. It’s not that Fel didn’t like him. It’s that he had a tendency to barge into my house without warning, usually agitated because some injustice or an exciting event had occurred, and my dog took exception to that. Fel liked things to be calm and orderly. She never attacked him. She just smiled until he calmed down.

Leon had resorted to bribery. His own dog, Gus, a massive boxer, was extremely food-motivated. His real name was Augustus, which meant majestic and venerable, and if you caught Gus at the right moment, for example when he dramatically stared in the direction of a weird noise, he actually embodied the name. Unfortunately for everyone involved, that lasted exactly two and a half seconds, after which Gus reverted to his normal state of being a hyperactive goofball with the attention span of a squirrel on crack.

I didn’t dislike Gus. He was a dog, and I liked all dogs. He was named after a heroic dog owned by a friend of the family, and all things considered, he didn’t embarrass his namesake too badly. But dog personalities were a combination of their natural temperament and the need to please their owners. Oddly, dogs often mirrored us. Catalina’s dog was sweet with the family, wary with strangers, and neurotic, like my sister. Leon’s dog was a clown who did weird crap to make his owner laugh, just like Leon. My dog was like me: trying to impose some order on the chaotic universe.

Leon was an agent of chaos. Sometimes the order prevailed. Sometimes, like today, chaos won.

It was just after 4:00 pm, on a hot summer day. I’d parked in the lot in front of the main house, slipped my purse over my shoulder, and took the curved path that looped around the main house to the back, where my own separate two-story casita waited by the pool.

For a woman in my position, purses did the same thing that shoes did for a man – they telegraphed a certain level of income and taste. I had several and I chose them depending on the situation. However, my everyday work purse was a simple Morgan Laptop Bag from Kate Spade. I loved the gentle pink, and it was large enough for my laptop, my wallet, and my gun.  There were other, more expensive, designer alternatives, but none of them were better. The Wandler Joanna tote was too big. Park 3 Medium was too slouchy. Saint Lauren Sac de Jour was too impractical, because you couldn’t carry it on your shoulder, and the weight of the laptop got old fast. Weight wasn’t a factor when I accessed my metamorph powers, but I only did that in an emergency and only in short bursts.

Currently, my pretty pink purse was the only clean thing about me. I wore a white silk wrap blouse from Another Tomorrow, a black pinstripe pencil skirt from Dolce & Gabbana, and a pair of Naturalizer black pumps, which I had selected for comfort. My entire outfit, including the shoes, was smeared with yellowish slime, which had dried to a crust. It looked like I’d rolled in snot.

It had been a long and trying day, and being splattered with mysterious goo from the arcane realm was the gross cherry on top of it. When I vented to Bern, my oldest cousin, on the phone while driving home, he helpfully informed me that it was the worst thing that happened to me so far and my day could always get worse. Which was logical but did nothing to improve my mood.

I needed to get in, hug my dog, strip, shower, and wash everything. Dry cleaning would not cut it and if the clothes didn’t survive the washing machine, I would throw them away. Then I would open a bottle of cold mineral water, eat my leftover pizza, and write up the report on today’s horrible, awful, no-good adventure.

I was six feet from my front door when a thick nauseating stench floated to me.

No. No, no, no…

I took a step toward the door. The reek got worse.

I dropped my purse on my little porch, braced myself, and punched the code into the lock. The deadbolt disengaged with a click, and I swung the door open.

An enormous puddle of diarrhea greeted me.

The stench smashed my nose like a huge, disgusting hammer. I gagged.

Fel slunk out of the bedroom, cringing.

I gagged again. Oh God. How could anything smell this bad?

Fel sat on her haunches, looking guilty, embarrassed, and so very sorry.

I retched, spat out some sour bile, and pulled my cell out of my purse. I would need to take a pic of the diarrhea for the vet.

“Are you sick, baby?”

Fel let out a low whine.

If we had a security breach and someone came into my house and poisoned my dog, there would be no place they could hide.

“That’s okay. We got this.”

I flicked the phone on. A text from Leon. I’d set the ringer off because two hours ago silence was very important and forgot to turn it back on.

A selfie of Leon, his  boxer, and Fel, everyone with pizza in their mouths filled the screen.

“Fel, Gus, and I ate your pizza. Sorry.”

I would kill him.

I zoomed in. Yep, he’d given her the entire slice, bacon, mushrooms, and all.

Fel didn’t get pizza. She got high-quality, vet-approved German Shepherd dog food, and if I were to give her a treat, it would have been a small piece of meat. If for some reason I did decide to reward her with pizza, I would’ve given her the crust. Not the slice with acidic tomato sauce spiced with damn garlic and topped with greasy cheese. Garlic was toxic to dogs, if eaten in large amounts. Mushrooms weren’t great for dogs either.

And then he didn’t even have the decency to leave the back door open. Poor Fel.

Basic. Common. Sense. Was that too much to ask?

He thought he knew what sorry was. He didn’t. But no worries, I would teach him. Oh yes.

I edged into the house and let Fel out in the back. It took me fifteen minutes to clean the puddle up. I had used all of the appropriate cleaners, a roll of paper towels, and a big garbage bag, and then I mopped. The stench was still there.

Enhanced sense of smell was one of the more useful side effects of metamorphosis. If I actively borrowed it from my monster form, I would rival Fel in tracking, but even without the borrowing, my nose was a lot more sensitive than most people’s.

I turned off the AC and opened all the doors and windows. It didn’t help. Staying in the house wasn’t an option. I would keep retching. I couldn’t just keep the house open indefinitely either. June in Houston was the devil’s sauna: scorching and chokingly humid.

I needed a scented candle. Preferably a box of them. A quick search of my house revealed that I was all out, but I knew just where to get more.

Nevada, our oldest sister, always liked scented oils. In the past couple of years, Catalina also developed a fragrance addiction, but she was obsessed with scented candles. Yankee Candle offered over 600 fragrances, and she was on a mission to buy one of each. It had gotten so bad that Mom banned her from storing candles in the main house. We had to stage an intervention, during which she promised to confine herself to a single closet in the office. It was stuffed full and new candles could be purchased only when old candles were taken out. The rule, which Bern had helpfully growled out during that meeting, was Burn a Candle, Buy a Candle.

I would need at least six. Catalina would be overjoyed.

I picked up my purse and I marched all the way across our compound instead of enjoying a well-deserved mineral water on my balcony like a normal person.

I slipped into the building. Our office had started as a wedding pavilion, and we’d remodeled it into a long hallway with individual rooms branching off on both sides. The door of Catalina’s office stood open, and I heard her voice. It had a measured, slow cadence. My sister was controlling her temper.

“… As I’ve said, Mr. Rivas, your wife is alive and well.”

Hmm. Judging by that tone, she could use some back up.