“Yes, they are,” answered a younger girl with braids and a Southeastern Louisiana University sweatshirt. She held her phone up to the woman who’d initially asked the question, then turned it to face Ashanti. It was a screenshot of her and Thad in the playroom at Barkingham Palace.
“My suite mates are going to be so mad they flew out on an earlier flight,” the girl said. “We are all obsessed with Puddin’ and Duchess. Where are they?”
“Um, they’re flying cargo,” Ashanti said. “They’re both too big for the main cabin.”
“It’s so sweet that you two take them on vacation with you,” the first woman said.
“Oh no, we’re not going on va—”
But then Ashanti remembered that they were told to keep their appearance onUp Early with Leah and Luke!hush-hush until it was announced in a teaser this afternoon. She had no idea what time the commercial was supposed to run.
Thankfully, she was saved from having to explain their trip by the gate agent, who announced that the first boarding group was welcome to board.
Thad put her suitcase in the overhead compartment before heading for his seat. Because their flight had been booked so late, they were in different rows; he in 26A and her in 13B. Ashanti hoped this wasn’t an omen of things to come. Not only was she in a center seat but unlucky number thirteen.
After buckling her seat belt, she stuffed her mouth with a handful of Swedish Fish and leaned her head back. Exhaustion took care of the rest. She was sleeping before they reached 10,000 feet and didn’t awaken until the plane landed at JFK.
She insisted they go to the holding area where the dogs would be brought out the moment they were allowed to deplane. It was probably best that she’d slept through the flight because otherwise she would have spent all her time worrying about Duchess in the cargo area.
“Hey, baby.” She stuck her finger through the grate andwiggled it. Duchess licked at her, then settled back down, seeming no worse for wear.
“We have the podcast first, right?” Thad asked.
Ashanti nodded, fighting back the anxiety that threatened to claw its way into her psyche. She had been nervous enough talking to the reporter from their local TV station. That was small potatoes compared to what she was about to embark upon. Much of this media campaign would be seen by a nationwide audience.
What was she thinking?Everythinghad a national audience these days—a worldwide audience, in fact. Her segment from that noon broadcast had been viewed over 500,000 times on YouTube.
She had way too much riding on these next few days to allow nerves to take her down. She would employ Dom’s media tips and face those interviewers with the same confidence she displayed when she stood before a mirror and pretended to accept a Grammy, or an Oscar, or a Tony Award back when she was a kid. Couldn’t no one tell her that she couldn’t sing, dance, or act.
While they were in the air, Dom had sent a message saying that their appearance onUp Early with Leah and Luke!had been moved up to the next morning instead of Friday, but that Ashanti and Thad shouldn’t panic because she had already rescheduled their other meetings.
She had also sent over a file with the addresses of every stop on their whirlwind media tour. All Ashanti had to do was plug the address into her Uber app.
“Okay, so Dom really is the best at her job,” she said. “I don’t know what she charges, but I have a feeling it’ll be worth it.”
“I’ll wait until after I see her invoice before I decide that,” Thad said.
Because their flight had landed early and traffic was, in their Uber driver’s words “mad light, yo” on their ride into Manhattan, they had time to drop off their bags and the dog crates at their hotel in midtown. Puddin’ and Duchess were both recognized the moment they walked into the lobby.
For a town known to treat movie stars as regular people, it seemed those unwritten rules went away when it came to celebrities of the canine variety. Ashanti took a step back as multiple guests who had been in line to check-in converged on them. People were either snapping pictures, recording video, or going live on their social media accounts. It was wild.
“Please, stand back,” the concierge said as he escorted them out of the lobby to their waiting cab.
“Did that really just happen?” Ashanti asked as she settled in the car.
“You mean these two dogs getting treated like Meghan and Harry?”
She pointed at him. “I knew you secretly loved the royals! I can tell a fellow royal watcher.”
“I only know their names because you have it under their picture at the daycare,” Thad said. He patted Puddin’s topknot. “Don’t let this go to your head. Be humble.”
“I know you won’t admit it, but he’s growing on you,” Ashanti said.
“Like a rash on my ass.”
She threw her head against the seatback and laughed. “You really should stop hating on Puddin’.”
“But I won’t.”
