Page 5 of Artfully Wild
I distract myself by putting on a new pair of latex gloves while she finishes and sanitizes the area. Sophie takes hold of the anesthesia mask to adjust it, making sure the cat’s head is in a comfortable position. Sophie is a full time preschool teacher, but during the summer months she moonlights as a vet assistant and comes in during some weekends during the school year if I need an extra set of hands and she’s not helping my mom at her flower shop,Marygold’s,on Main Street. This was one of those weekends thankfully for me, because I needed to talk about Sky.Overtalkis probably a better term.
“You didn’t see her face. I basically told her I think Avery is attractive. And while she is an attractive woman, I’m not attractedtoher and I think Sky now thinks I am? I don’t know.” I steady my hand and feel around the calico’s neck, looking for the fatty tumor Frank wants me to remove. It’s nothing serious, but Frank brought her in a few times because it kept shrinking and growing back. We came to the conclusion she keeps popping it open with her claws and then cleaning up the mess before Frank can see it, but it grows back shortly after. So instead of continuously worrying about it, Frank decided to have it removed.
“Remove this son of a bitch. I’m tired of stressin’ about it,” were his exact words actually. Poetic, really.
“I wish you two would just stop dancing around each other and get together already,” Sophie says, holding out a scalpel.
I take it and focus on Frank’s cat instead, making a small incision and starting the process of cutting out the lump. The last time he brought Ariel in, the lump wasn’t nearly as big as it is now. It seems with every time she popped it open, the bigger it grew back. At least after this, Frank won’t have to worry anymore.
“I don’t think it’s considered a dance when only one of us has feelings.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I know Sophie is going to laugh.
Sure enough, the high, lilting sound fills the air around us.
“Stop, Soph. If she had feelings for me, I’d think she would have told me. Plus, we have an agreement.”
“That stupid ass agreement needs to be shoved down a drain and left to float out into the ocean to be devoured by sharks.”
“Such a way with words, Soph.”
“And maybe…juuust maybe, she thinks the same thing about you, you idiot.”
Sky isn’t the type of person to sit around waiting for someone to say something. She’s upfront and honest. I would know if she had feelings for me, wouldn’t I?
“Maybe, but that’s my business. Not yours,” I retort.
“Sweetie, it’s been my business for years, since you came to me and told me about how you feel. Don’t act like I’m not allowed to know every single detail all of the sudden now that something might actually happen between you two.”
“Nothing is going to happen,” I mutter. I remove the rest of the lipoma from Ariel and start on the stitches.
“Whatever you say, J.”
We allow the silence to fall between us as I continue working on the stitches—probably one of my favorite parts of surgery. Something about the repetition soothes me, knowing I just fixed something. A problem that’s within my control to fix. Knowing I made an animal’s life a little better, a little easier, is a feeling I will never get used to. They deserve a quality life and it’s my job to make that possible.
Once I finish the last stitch, I snip the line and start cleaning up my tools. Peeling my gloves off, I pull out my phone and ignore all the texts on my screen, most of which look like they’re from Sky. I snap a quick picture of Ariel and send it to Frank to let him know how it all went. He informed me if Ididn’t update him the second the surgery was over, he’d stick me in one of his beer crates and leave me there until I was fermented. I want to open my text thread with Sky, but the light from the screen is already making my head pound a little harder.
Sophie scoops up Ariel and carries her to the recovery room, carefully laying her in one of the kennels. Once the lock is secured, she comes back, snaps her own gloves off, and levels me with a glare I am sure makes her preschoolers run for the hills. And thirty-year-old men apparently, because if I could bolt right now, I would. I must make my pain obvious on my face, because Sophie's glare shifts from intimidating to one of concern as she goes to a nearby cabinet, pulling out a pill bottle, and bringing me two. I nod in thanks and dry swallow the pills, begging for them to work this time. They don’t always.
“Sophie, please don’t,” I say in anticipation of her badgering me further about Sky.
“I wasn’t going to,” she defends. We both walk to the sanitizing station and stand shoulder-to-shoulder as we wash off the evidence of our latest surgery. Unfortunately this doesn’t distract her enough to drop the subject. Grabbing a clean towel, she turns her body fully toward me as I focus on the nonexistent dirt underneath my nails. She reaches around her head and undoes the clip holding up her hair, the black strands falling loose over her shoulders. She rubs the back of her head and continues. “I was just going to ask about the financial situation and what you’re going to do about the animals taking over your house. I’ve been there, I know you don’t have more room.”
“Ah,” is all I can say. Something she’s known for years is that while the clinic does well financially, it still isn’t enough to expand. And I desperately need to expand. My house is starting to become overrun with four-legged creatures. At this point, with the puppies I found last week, my zoo is definitely overrun.
“I really don’t know what to do,” I admit. I’ve been throwing around ideas in my head, but nothing has really stuck with me. Sophie hesitates. “What?”
“I might have an idea, but I have no idea if you’re going to like it.”
“Go on.”
“What if you do some kind of auction at the Winter Festival?”
“An auction? What kind of auction?”
“Weeeeelll,” she draws out, stalling.
“Soph, spit it out.” Massaging my temples, I close my eyes and try to focus on anything other than the splitting pain in my head.
“You could have a certain someone paint portraits of the animals and you could auction them off at the festival. We get a lot of tourists then and most of the time it’s richy-rich people who would totally buy that kind of thing. It would encourage people to adopt and it would draw a lot of attention to the clinic.And,” she emphasizes. “All the proceeds could go straight toward an expansion of the clinic, so you can get your house back.”
