Eli stood a few feet away, watching the women trade soft jabs. “My pleasure.” He turned to Cora. “The entire eleventh floor thanks you in advance. And I’m glad that you weren’t lobbied.” He bowed, turned on his heel, and walked toward the door.
Cora followed Beth Ann to the elevator, trying to focus on her new client’s disjointed monologue while digesting her thoughts about Eli.
“So what should I do about that?” Beth Ann asked.
Cora hadn’t heard a word Beth Ann had said. She defaulted to her standard answer. “I think we have our work cut out for us!” The elevator opened, and Cora heard Chanel’s keening barks and yowls the moment she stepped into the hallway.
Beth Ann turned to her and shrugged. “My baby doesn’t like it when I leave.”
The intensity of Chanel’s barking put Cora on edge. She was overly sensitive to dogs going through trauma, and she could tell that what she was hearing wasn’t just separation discomfort. The barks intensified as they got closer to Beth Ann’s door and reached operatic heights when the key hit the lock.
Beth Ann opened the door to her small, dark apartment. “There’s my baby! Momma’s home now! Yes, here I am!” Chanel panted and leaped at the pair as they walked in.
Cora had seen her fair share of unkempt dogs in her day, but Chanel was something to behold. The tiny yellow-white dog had dark tear stains that spread from the corners of her blackberry eyes to the tip of her nose. Her fur was matted tightly in some spots and patchy in others. The dog’s nails were so long that some of them had started to curl under. Beth Ann had told her that Chanel was a purebred toy poodle with champion lines from a local pet store, which didn’t seem possible, given the dog’s unmissable underbite and wonky ears. She also knew that the store in question was known for passing off puppy mill puppies as dogs of distinction with “papers.” People were so proud to say their dog was “AKC-registered,” but Cora knew that high-volume for-profit breeders who kept their dogs in squalor could easily get papers, and that having a “registered” dog was no guarantee of anything other than a steep price tag.
Cora knelt down to pet Chanel, and the trembling dog urinated a small puddle.
“Oh wow, she really had to go,” Cora said, looking up at Beth Ann. “Let’s get her outside quickly before we start.”
“I’ll just take her to the balcony to save time,” Beth Ann answered as she scooped up Chanel. Cora watched Beth Ann wind her way through stacks of boxes around the apartment, plop the dog on the balcony and shut the door.
“So she’s ... balcony trained? She knows to potty out there?”
“Sort of. She kinda pees wherever she wants!” Beth Ann gestured to the floor, which was dotted with dark stains.
“Okay, so I guess I should add potty training to the list of things we need to cover.”
“Sure, we can do that! That would be great!” Beth Ann radiated a maniacal energy.
Cora nodded toward the boxes and stacks of clothing strewn around the apartment. “When did you move in? Unpacking is the worst part, right?”
Beth Ann giggled self-consciously. “I’ve been here for two years! I just can’t get my shit together!”
Cora looked around the apartment again with a critical eye. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink and strewn on nearly every surface. She spotted bags of clothing from Nordstrom, Saks, and J.Crew stacked on top of the moving boxes, but from what she could see spilling from them, everything appeared to be tags-on brand-new and untouched. The couch was piled with dresses on hangers, and the one on top was a stunning frothy pink ballerina-style dress from Neiman Marcus. A small pile of petrified poop was next to it on the couch cushion.
The reality of what Cora was facing hit her.
Beth Ann was a budding hoarder.
Chanel hopped on her back legs and scratched at the glass door, barking a machine-gun riff-riff-riff-riff until Beth Ann let her in. Chanel immediately ran to investigate Cora.
“She’s a cutie,” Cora said, ignoring the fact that the dog looked like a “before” photo from an animal shelter. “She could use a nail trim, though.” Down on her knees to get a closer look at the dog’s ravaged body, she started with the most pressing need first because she didn’t want to dump the laundry list of Chanel’s ailments on Beth Ann right out of the gate. She held the dog’s tiny paw in her hand. “I bet it’s uncomfortable for her to walk with nails this long.”
“Oh my gawd, there’sno wayI could cut her nails! She’s insane! She goes into beast mode when I try to do any grooming!”
Cora masked her disapproval. “Hm. Well, she seems fine with me touching her paws. Let’s add grooming to the to-do list as well, and in the meantime maybe you can take her to your vet for a trim?” The list was growing longer and more complicated by the minute.
Just then Cora realized that her knees felt wet. She leaped up, and sure enough her jeans had blotchy circles on them. “I think I knelt in a pee spot,” she said, gesturing to the evidence.
“Probably. It happens all the time. Don’t worry, I’ll clean it up later!”
Cora was beginning to feel claustrophobic. The disarray in the apartment, the dog in need, and the owner who seemed very lost were almost too much for Cora to take. She hoped that she’d be able to break through Beth Ann’s veneer of forced cheerfulness and help her understand how to take care of her dog.
“Beth Ann, look at how Chanel is sniffing around. That’s an obvious clue that she needs to go to the bathroom. I didn’t see her do anything when she was out on the balcony, so let’s get her outside before she has another accident. But I want to take her on a real walk, so get her leash, please.”
Beth Ann nodded and chanted to herself, “Leash, leash, leash, where is her leash?” as she dug through various stacks. She clearly had no idea where it was, which led Cora to conclude that Beth Ann probably didn’t walk her dog on a regular basis.
Chanel was sniffing and spinning more urgently, which meant that they needed to move quickly. “It’s okay, don’t worry about it, I have a leash in my bag. Just pick her up so she doesn’t go.”
