Float Plan. Rob Hiaasen

they kept the Heartgard, dog beef jerky, surplus business cards and second-string leashes with pharmaceutical names.

      “I’ll be with you in a moment,” said a veterinary technician, whose name tag said “Parker.” As in Parker Posey or Mary Louise Parker, Will thought, conjuring his two favorite actresses spliced into one Parkeresque being. He felt guilty for noticing her – guilty and excited, those two adorable first cousins.

      Will picked up a business card then put it back where he found it. On a hook under the counter, the leashes looked artificially red and green. Dean didn’t need a leash anymore. He stopped walking three days ago, and earlier this morning Will dabbed water on Dean’s muzzle, but the dog wouldn’t drink.

      The vet tech finished running a Visa card.

      “I called about Dean. He’s out in my car. Can you help me?”

      Parker Cool got up from her swivel chair and disappeared into one of those mysterious vet hallways and came out the other end through Exam Room 2. Together they walked to the parking lot. Will pointed to the silver Honda and walked back inside the office. Parker peered in the backseat.

      “Hi, baby,” she said. “I’m going to pick you up nice and slow. You can stay right in your blanket.”

      She planted her feet, leaned into the backseat, and lifted the dog out. Inside, Will played with the dog leashes, anything to distract him. Parker came in with the dog and asked Will if he wanted to say his goodbyes.

      “That’s not my dog.”

      “What?”

      “That’s not my dog.”

      “You said the silver Honda,” Parker said.

      “I did say that, but that’s not my dog.”

      They walked to the window, parted the cheap curtain, and counted two, no three silver Hondas in the parking lot. On the other end of the horseshoe-shaped counter, a middle-aged woman with an unnatural tan and chest approached the stunned vet technician holding a dog that was not Will’s.

      “Why are you holding my dog? I came in to buy heartworm medicine. There’s not a thing wrong with my Buddy.” Buddy, another basset hound.

      Parker handed the dog over. A slew of professional apologies appeared to pacify the pet owner. With an escort this time, Parker went to the parking lot and found the correct silver Honda. Dean still hadn’t moved. Will leaned in and kissed his dog on what he always believed was Dean’s forehead, a bony peak book-ended by quilted ears. Still a beautiful coat. Still didn’t look that sick. Parker waited until Will was ready. She carried Dean in his towel into the animal hospital.

      Five minutes later, Parker found Will outside by his car.

      “I’m so sorry about that. That’s never happened to me.”

      “We all get distracted.”

      Parker Cool prided herself on never getting distracted.

      “My theory is the world has too many silver Hondas,” Will said.

      “Do you want to see Dean? There’s time.”

      “What do you mean there’s time?”

      “Didn’t someone…”

      “No. No one has said anything to me. I don’t know anything other than you picked up the wrong dog. What’s wrong with Dean?”

      Parker raced back into the office and returned with Dean’s vet, Dr. Branham. Dean had a sudden blockage of blood flow in his heart, something called caval syndrome that will lead to his heart’s collapse, the vet explained. There is nothing we can do to help him, he told Will. It’s your decision but the sooner the better.

      Parker handed Will the dog collar. Will took off the circular tag and pried it onto his key ring. My name is Dean. I belong to Will & Terri…

      “Are you going to be all right?”

      Will’s eyes were damp.

      “I’ll call you to let you know,” she said.

      Will walked out of the office and sat on the hood of his car, leaned back and felt the windshield wiper jab his back. At the corner of Randall and State streets, Wishing Well Liquors was open. Will could stand in the parking lot and try to stop crying or sprint across the street to Wishing Well Liquors. The sprinting would be a problem, though. He had not sprinted since middle school when his gym teacher required participation in the depraved event known as the 50-yard dash. Will had always been a lousy dasher, could not dash, so he walked (briskly) across the street to buy beer. Back in his car, he twisted open a Yuengling and stared at the bald eagle on the label. He drank two Yuenglings in his car before driving home.

      At home, there was no hound dog bark or tail-thwapping against the back screen porch like the sound of jazz drum brushes. No clickity-clacking, as Dean tacked upstairs to the master bedroom, step by step hacking into gravity’s pull. Dean was only 9. He should be at least 12 or some crazy age like 17. When he was a boy, Will begged his parents for a dog but instead, they bought him a gecko named Andrew, which moved three times during the calendar year. A few years later, Barb and Bill Larkin adopted a cat, but within three months it died of an intestinal ailment. Will forgot the cat’s and ailment’s names.

      He remembered driving to Pennsylvania to pick up Dean. Across the state line, Interstate 83 turned rough and washed out. Will found the farm or maybe it was a ranch – no, probably a farm because there were free-roaming chickens and four, five goats staring at nothing. The dog breeder, a sour man of dubious commerce, sold the basset hound pup for $200. Insisted on cash. Will wanted to get the hell out of there. He put his new dog in the front passenger seat on a blanket, where the basset hound snoozed for most of the ride home...

      “It’s the Annapolis Animal Hospital. I wanted to let you know,” Parker said on the phone.

      Dean, with the bad breath and caval syndrome, had been put down. His foreleg had been shaved, his fur wetted to expose the vein, then the overdose of dark green anesthetic, the involuntary muscle twitching, the stillness.

      “Were you with him?”

      “Yes,” she said.

      Had they disposed of Dean’s body? Was there a special box or bag for him? Maybe a company came around every Tuesday to collect the special boxes or bags out behind the building where pet owners couldn’t see. Some people buried their pets in the back yard, but there must be county ordinances against that. God forbid flooding.

      Will declined to take Dean’s remains. The collar was enough.

      “Hello?”

      “I’m still here.”

      “Are you all right?”

      “No.”

      He thanked the vet technician for calling then dragged Dean’s green bed out of his bedroom and into the mud room where he folded the bed like an omelet. Dean’s water dish was emptied, dried, and stowed in a supermarket bag along with Heartgard chewables, dog brush (used twice) and plastic tick remover. The dog’s Christmas-red collar was hung on a peg in the mud room; the collar smelled of grass, dirt, and neck. Copper rabies tags matted together on the leash ring. Dean was finally up to date on his shots.

      That night, Will drank five beers and called his wife.

      • • •

      Seven miles away in Terri’s new apartment, the telltale number announced itself.

      “Will?”

      “It’s me.”

      She hadn’t heard his voice in a year. For a split second, she considered hanging up, but he wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t important. It better be important – her day had been lousy and dispiriting enough.

      Terri discovered her sophomores had never heard of Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist, statesman, author, and native of Maryland’s Eastern Shore.