Leo
Answer: it’s very hard. Extremely fucking hard.
I have to reschedule my client meetings from daytime to evening, so I can attend to my dog-walking duties. Luckily, my virtual PA Tara is incredibly efficient, but I don’t tell her why she has to reschedule my meetings.
I also spend an awkward thirty minutes in TK Maxx, trying to work out what a dog walker would wear. In the end, out of desperation, I grab sweatpants, a gray hoodie, and sneakers that squeak when I walk. I catch a glimpse of myself in the dressing room mirror and genuinely don’t recognize the man staring back. He looks like he might own a golden retriever and have opinions about hiking trails.
When I arrive back at the apartment, Archie is in full business mode.
He’s commandeered the sofa with his laptop balanced on his knee, phone charging beside him. His ankle is propped on a cushion, and he’s wearing a faded T-shirt that saysCaptain Giggles Fun Factorywith a cartoon version of himself giving a thumbs-up.
He’s also hand-drawn a map, complete with a color-coded legend of pickup points and timing estimates marked in precise handwriting.
He looks up and grins at me, and I have to blink a few times before I can focus on his briefing.
“Your first pickup is Muffin. She’s a Yorkshire Terrier and is pretty much three kilos of pure rage. She believes she’s the apex predator of North London and will not tolerate disrespect from dogs, humans, or pigeons.”
I look at the photo of the tiny dog on his laptop. She has a pink bow in her white fur and looks like she’s been styled for a magazine shoot.
She also has the cold, dead eyes of a killer.
“Then you’ll collect Douglas and Daisy from the Bedingfields. Douglas is a basset hound, and he moves at the speed of continental drift. Douglas rushes for no man.” He clicks to the next photo. “Daisy is a springer spaniel. She has two settings: asleep and absolute chaos. Unfortunately, walks activate the chaos setting.”
I can feel my eye already beginning to twitch.
“So I’ll have a tiny aggressive dog, a dog who refuses to move, and a dog who can’t stop moving?”
Archie gives me a thumbs-up. “You’re catching on so fast.”
“The logistics of this seem impossible.”
“It’s all about lead management. Muffin goes on your right, where you can keep an eye on her. Douglas in the middle as your anchor. Daisy on the left with a firm grip because she will try to chase literally anything that moves.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. I can feel a headache forming behind my eyes.
“Don’t worry,” Archie says cheerfully. “I’ll set myself up on a bench in Hampstead Heath, and you can call me if you need me.”
“This is insane,” I mutter.
“Probably,” he agrees. “But you did break my ankle.”
I’m still slightly bewildered about how I got steamrolled into moving into Archie’s apartment, taking over his dog-walking duties, and helping him with his children’s entertainer duties. Becoming Captain Giggles’s clown assistant is an idea so ludicrous that I’m currently pushing it out of my mind. That’s Future Leo’s problem. Future Leo can deal with that.
Actually, I do know why I agreed to this whole thing, and it’s not just because of my immense guilt over Archie’s broken ankle.
It’s what he said when he’d been trying to convince me.
“You can’t solve all my problems by throwing money at them.”
His words had stopped me short because they’d echoed something my sister Caitlin accused me of the other month.
“All you ever do is throw money at a problem and expect everything to be magically fixed. Life doesn’t work that way, Leo.”
And okay, the context in which Caitlin had said those words was extremely different, but Archie’s similar words had stirred an uncomfortable question inside me.
Am I turning into one of those people who thinks they can buy their way out of any kind of accountability?
I’ve encountered more than enough of those bastards in my journey through life, and I loathe them. I hate the idea that I’m becoming someone who mistakes a checkbook for a conscience.
