CHAPTER FOUR
Hazel
“Don’t worry, Meatball, we’re going to find the right fit for you,” I said, scratching my favorite pit bull under his chin, my heart cracking at the trusting innocence in his eyes.
I let Meaty back into his kennel in the shelter’s main housing section. I hated the way his ears drooped and his head sagged. Like he knew his adoption had gotten to the final stages and had fallen through. Again.
I checked in on the other pups, topping off water bowls and giving belly rubs, and then strolled into the office I shared with Penny, my assistant-slash-best friend. She was currently in a battle with Bertha, the copy machine. The phrase “It’s all Greek to me” held a special, very literal place in my friendship with Penny, and based on the Greek words flying out of her mouth, she was losing the fight. Over the years, I’d learned she only ever used her native tongue when she was either incredibly pissed off or incredibly happy.
“Need some help?” I asked, tossing Meatball’s folder onto my desk.
“I swear this pile of junk eats more paper than it prints,” she said, tugging on an adoption form stuck in the bypass tray. Penny stepped away from the machine and blew strands of dark, curly hair out of her eyes in frustration, gesturing for me to give it a shot.
Laughing, I walked over and manually turned the knob to remove the jammed paper. “How many times have I told you that you need to be gentle with old Bertha? She’s the only copier we own, so we gotta make her last.”
“I know you’re against it, but Bertha really needs to be taken out back and run over with a truck.”
“And where do you propose I find the five grand it would cost to replace her?” I arched an eyebrow at Penny.
“Good point.” She upended a large box of goodies I’d ordered online onto a table. “It’s just that I usually prefer the young and fit to the frail and crotchety.”
I snorted. “Says the woman with the toothless elderly greyhound.”
“Hey!” Penny chucked a squeaky toy at me, which I dodged. “Hennessy is a man of few needs and fewer disappointments. And anyway, you know I’ve got a soft spot for misfits.”
“You claim to be the black sheep of your family, but a fresh batch of baklava appears like clockwork every Monday,” I said, moving away from the copy machine to help her organize the items into piles.
She shrugged. “That’s because I’m Greek. And while my relatives may not understand me, they’d die before they saw me go skinny.”
I’d met Penny at a bingo night five years ago. I’d offered to read the balls while my mother participated. Penny had been on Grandma Rhea duty and had been forced to sit front row center while her grandmother spent the next two hours heckling me, attempting to cheat, and flirting with bingo regular old Mr. Franklin. It wasn’t the stuff most friendships were made of, and it might have stayed that way, but on the last card of the evening, right as I’d called O-69, Penny’s grandmother had stood and shouted “Bingo!” at the top of her lungs.
It’d taken me a moment to respond—I’d just called the third ball of the game, making it impossible for her to have already won—and when I approached to examine her card, Penny’s grandmother had said in a stage whisper that my mic had picked up, “Sorry, honey, got a little excited there. But a pretty girl like you knows how it is—O-69 is always bingo in my book, if you understand my meaning.”
I’d struggled not to laugh but totally lost it when old Mr. Franklin leaned forward from the second row, whapped his cane against the tabletop, and yelled, “I’d run your bingo card any day of the week, Rhea!”
Penny and I had locked gazes, then had fallen apart laughing right there in the middle of the room, clutching our stomachs as tears streamed down our cheeks. We’d been thick as thieves from that point on.
“You know, it’d serve my family right if I used that tray of pastries to tempt a bad boy into bed,” she said, placing the leashes, water bowls, bags of food, and toys into clear plastic containers to be delivered to the storage room.
“Got anyone in mind?” I asked, knowing full well who she was picturing before she spoke his name. Ever since Chris had started volunteering, Penny had been spouting commentary that would cause her Grandma Rhea to blush—and take notes.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t share at least a few of her sentiments, or that she hadn’t caught me staring every time the man bent over to sort one of the dog bins. Chris Lalonde might play wide receiver, but Penny and I agreed he was a natural tight end. Still, Chris radiated sex appeal and poor decisions in equal measure, and I’d never been one to be dazzled into reckless behavior.
“Well, I can imagine the glorious disruption Mr. Lalonde would add to Sunday night supper,” Penny said, interrupting my thoughts. “And the kick I’d get out of watching my dirty grandma try to eat him.”
I chuckled. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Since you continue to feign no interest in the man, let me have my fun.” She grinned wickedly. “So, what happened with Meatball?”
“The mother just didn’t feel comfortable with the breed being around her son,” I said, wondering what I could have done differently. “It sucks. Meaty has the perfect temperament for an autistic child. He’s loyal, patient, emotionally intuitive, and dying to provide affection.” There was a reason I’d named him after a fluffy, fork-tender ball of deliciousness. “But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. The woman refused to see past the massive build, sharp teeth, and bad PR.”
“Reminds me of a certain wide receiver.” Penny shot me a pointed look.
Sighing, I collapsed into my swivel chair and propped my feet up on the desk. “Aren’t you always telling me I can’t rescue them all?”
“Yeah, and aren’t you the one who claims there’s always room for one more? It wouldn’t kill you to give Chris a chance,” she said, snapping a lid onto each plastic bin before stacking them on the table. “And besides, don’t pretend that his singing doesn’t turn you on.”
“A guy like Chris has been given plenty of chances,” I said, and it was true. “He comes from a good family, has had access to the best training and education, and yet he uses—and abuses—his charm, celebrity status, and attractiveness to work the system in his favor, consequences never applying to him.”
Penny whistled. “Wow, look at you go, you little cyberstalker. Now, if only I could get you to bend the powers of the Internet to your dating life, we’d be getting somewhere.”
“Hey, that’s not fair. I tried the committed relationship thing. It’s not my fault the guys turned out to be cheaters and liars.” I swiped a paper clip off the desk and flicked it at her. “And you know I research every person who volunteers here. Chris isn’t special.”
“Yeah, well, maybe he’s simply portraying the persona everyone expects of him—the dumb, aggressive, cocky jerk in a sport that idolizes that sort of behavior. Maybe you should take your own advice, look beyond the PR problem, and discover what others won’t,” she retorted, gathering the trash on the table and dumping it into the now-empty shipping box. “Because when I do that, I see someone an awful lot like Meatball. Big and strong with a reputation that fights against him.”
“But not necessarily undeserved.”
Penny dropped the box into the large garbage bin beside the copier and wiped her palms on the back of her jeans. “And yet Chris has tackled your checklist—and not halfheartedly, I might add. He arrives mostly on time and stays until he’s done. Hell, he charmed Olive out from under her bed—a feat you couldn’t even accomplish.”
“Olive has a Disney fetish. Let’s not hold it against her,” I said, only half believing my words. What Chris had done with Olive was remarkable and unexpected. If only he’d show that side of himself more often.
Penny rolled her eyes. “Listen, you’re always saying that what sets Rescue Granted apart is that we look beyond the bad to cultivate the good. You need to apply that principle to the two-legged creatures, too.”
Ugh, I hated it when Penny was right. “If you’re going to be all rational about Chris, then I refuse to argue with you.”
“Fine, I’m clocking out for the day,” she said. “We still on for booze and biscuits?”
I nodded—I’d never miss our weekly ritual of drinking cocktails and baking dog treats.
“How much longer are you going to be?” she asked.
“Just a little bit,” I said. “I’m grabbing dinner with my uncle at some new restaurant, so I figured I’d stick around here until it’s time to leave.”
“Sounds good.” Penny pulled on her Windbreaker and grabbed her purse off a hook on the wall. “Oh, since Meatball’s adoption didn’t work out today, I guess you should know that Jay guy called again asking about Meaty.”
“So tell him no again,” I said, sharper than I’d intended.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “Meatball’s been here six months, Hazel. If I had a Magic 8 Ball, I’d deduce that Meaty’s outcome does not look good . . .”
I dropped my feet off the desk and leaned forward. “I’m sure, okay?” While no major red flags had popped up on Jay’s record, something in my gut told me he wasn’t a suitable match for my favorite pit bull. “Meaty needs a companion owner, and this guy, while well intentioned, has a crazy stressful job as an attorney and works brutally long hours.”
Penny sighed. “People change, Hazel, but you have to give them the chance.”
“I never take chances with my dogs.”
I knew I was in trouble the moment I pulled into the jam-packed parking lot at Quince and realized the restaurant was way fancier than I’d been told. I looked at my slobber-stained navy shirt and my jeans that were so worn they looked acid washed, and silently cursed myself for listening to my uncle when he’d exclaimed that casual attire would be more than appropriate. When would I learn that his definition of casual and mine were vastly different?
And to make matters worse, valet parking was the only option. Fantastic.
The interior of my Chevy Malibu was a disaster zone of collapsible crates from adoption events, empty Starbucks cups, and waste disposal bags. The exterior wasn’t much better. But Barbie performed well—the engine hadn’t so much as hiccupped in the ten years I’d owned her—and considering the constant action my car saw from dogs and kennels, fifty-pound bags of food, and boxes upon boxes of supplies, I couldn’t begrudge the girl a dent here or there.
I circled around to the front of the valet line, and a kid of about sixteen opened my door, handed me a ticket, and said, “Welcome to Quince. Enjoy your dinner.”
With its redbrick façade, black steel-framed doors, and potted citrus trees adorning the entrance, Denver’s newest dining hot spot exuded industrial luxury with an undeniable charm. It was hard to believe that once upon a time this building had belonged to the Colorado Millwork and Woodcraft Company.
I smoothed down my clothes and ran my fingers through my hair in an attempt to look somewhat presentable, then made my way inside. For a moment, I stood in awe at the white, stainless, and copper-accented kitchen that spilled into the dining room, which had a large wood-burning oven at its heart.
“Hello, I’m with the Kent McDougall party,” I said to the hostess. She led me to a large walnut table, where my uncle Kent was autographing a server’s apron, clearly a Colorado Blizzards fan. As he finished, he looked up, smiled, and gestured me over with a flick of his old-fashioned tumbler, scotch threatening to slosh over the sides.
“Hazel!” his voice boomed. It didn’t matter if he was at his mansion in Cherry Creek or in a fancy restaurant, the man only had one setting—loud enough for his players to hear him from the owners’ box. “I’m so glad you made it.”
I ordered a sparkling water from the server, then kissed my uncle on the cheek and slid into the booth that provided a clear view of the chefs hard at work. I peered down at the multicourse tasting menu in front of me and nearly choked on the price, though I had to admit the dishes sounded delicious. “We didn’t have to do something this nice.”
“If you’d put yourself out there a little more, I wouldn’t feel the need to spoil you.”
“I go out,” I said, my tone defensive.
“Honey, you visit the same places with the same people week after week. You take care of the animals, bake dog treats with Penny, and occasionally dust off all the fur for one of my charity events. Your entire existence is about routine. There’s nothing wrong with that, but indulge your uncle once in a while, okay? At least until you find a man of your own,” he said, patting my forearm in a way that was probably intended to be kind but came off as patronizing.
I had a good life—one I’d worked hard to achieve—even if I was alone and thrived on schedules. I wished my uncle could only understand that I preferred things this way. I didn’t need a boyfriend to complete me. I’d already gone down that road twice before, and all it’d gotten me was confirmation that no one was ever really who they appeared to be—sometimes in little, innocuous ways that revealed themselves over time, and sometimes in big, life-altering ways that once revealed could never be unseen. But ultimately, it didn’t matter if someone was hiding a hoarding habit, a tendency toward lying and cheating, or a temper, the truth always came out, and I was always the one disappointed.
“Now, I hope you’re hungry, because we’ve got a feast ahead of us,” my uncle continued.
“Starving,” I said, watching as dishes flowed from the glowing kitchen into the dimmed warmth of the dining area.
Everything looked gorgeous but not intimidating. A petite woman who I assumed was the executive chef stood at an expediting station in the center of the space, meticulously adding finishing touches to the food with tweezers and deftly wiping the rims of plates with a towel, totally in her element. There was something vaguely familiar about her, though I was certain I’d never met her before.
“Blizzards on the road this week?” I asked, returning my attention to my uncle.
He shook his head. “No, we were in Tampa Bay last weekend. We have the Sunday early game against Atlanta at Blizzards stadium. Good thing, too. After another loss, the boys need the home-field advantage,” he said, though given the team’s now 2–6 record, home-field advantage was a drop in the bucket in terms of what the Blizzards needed to turn the season around. “How’s my sister today?”
“Mom’s fine. Bought some floral curtains and a rug for the living room that I’m sure she’ll exchange in a month,” I said, nodding to the waiter in thanks as he poured San Pellegrino into a wineglass.
My uncle chuckled and slid his old-fashioned tumbler out of the way to create room for the food. “That sounds like Evelyn, always shifting things around.”
It wasn’t that my mother didn’t like her home, or that she was a frivolous spender. It was that she spent so much of her life trapped in that house, with the same things and the same view, that she was always trying to find a “new way of looking at it.” As frustrating as the constant change—and change of mind—could be, I also understood that the shopping and staging and redecorating was just one of the myriad symptoms of her anxiety.
A starter of garden vegetables consisting of a roasted carrot with brown butter and hazelnuts, greens with figs and ricotta, and a broth with a flash-fried, lobster-stuffed zucchini blossom appeared on the table. It smelled so good I had to remind myself not to scarf it all down at once.
“She’s been more frazzled this week, that’s for sure,” I said. “The doctor altered her meds after she got lost coming home from her appointment; it’s been a bit of an adjustment. And you know how irritable she gets when I mention her various prescriptions.”
“Don’t be too hard on your mom, honey,” he said, squeezing my hand. “With everything that happened with your dad, you know it’s been tough on her.”
Tough was an understatement. Tough was training for a marathon. Tough was coaxing a terrified dog with new puppies out of a crawl space. But my mother had become ruled by anxiety and the fear of making the wrong decision after the situation with my father.
And I knew that hard experiences affected everyone differently. I witnessed it often at Rescue Granted. Some people rallied, decided to take charge of their future and press forward, stronger and fiercer and more cautious. And others were never really the same again. For my mother, the idea that she wasn’t capable of big decisions or counting on herself had planted roots and grown, first under my father’s rigid control, then later under my uncle’s coddling.
Even I’d become complicit in my mother’s reliance on others. But every time I tried to draw better boundaries, let her figure out things on her own, all I could remember was how she’d shielded me from my father’s wrath, worked hard to make sure my childhood was as easy and calm as possible while her whole world had been falling apart. I could do no less for her now, even if I refused to end up like her. Though perhaps I should challenge my mother more, continue to help her see past her fears and self-imposed limitations.
“Speaking of tough, did you have to send Chris Lalonde to volunteer?” I asked, trying not to sound too much like an ungrateful niece.
He stared at me over the rim of his reading glasses. “Well, you won’t let me cut you a check, and I know you’re always looking for support.”
My uncle had been trying to give me money for years—“Really, Hazel, the contribution is even tax deductible!”—but I’d always turned him down. My mother already depended on him too much, and I didn’t want to go down the same road. I was determined to make it on my own.
“So you figured you’d kill two birds with one stone?” I asked, finishing off the last of the starter trio.
My uncle followed suit, scraping a fork across his plate and pushing the dish off to the side, which a server quickly cleared away. He blotted his mouth with a napkin. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean that between the two of us, Chris has more to gain from this little arrangement. As do you. The Blizzards’ fan base can’t hate a guy who spends his free time with abused animals, right?”
“A fact you should use to your advantage!” he exclaimed, as though he’d already considered this possibility when he assigned Chris to kennel duty. “Just imagine all the visibility he could bring to the shelter.”
I shook my head and said, “Except he’s not exactly the ideal spokesperson for Rescue Granted. If that was your goal, couldn’t you have sent someone wholesome? Logan would’ve been a great fit.”
Yet even as I spoke the words, Imogen’s message about growing the shelter’s community engagement and social media presence raced through my head. Chris wasn’t exactly ideal—he wasn’t low-key or humble, and he didn’t strike me as the poster boy for championing the causes I dealt with daily. But he was loud and in your face and a fan favorite. I’d done more with less, and apparently there was no such thing as bad publicity.
“Stonestreet isn’t on my payroll anymore, and anyway where’s the challenge in that?” he asked, shaking the ice in his tumbler before polishing off the rest of the amber liquid. Immediately another scotch appeared in front of him—the waiters must know him well. “You’ll be good for Chris—rein him in a bit, give him more focus and a sense of priorities. And besides, he knows he has to cooperate if he wants to continue stepping onto the field.”
“So, I rehab Chris’s image, and in return he . . . what?” I asked, spinning the stem of my glass between my thumb and index finger.
“He ruffles your neatly ordered life and forces you to take a few risks.” My uncle laughed, as if this was obvious. “Chris may be disruptive—and has made some piss-poor decisions—but he’s not a bad guy. He’s done right by the franchise; he’s always shown up, put in the time and effort. He’s active with our youth program, and he’s never complained about off-season commitments.”
“All things that have nothing to do with me.”
“You’re missing the point, Hazel,” my uncle said. “Chris knows how to live life out loud, and you need someone to teach you how.”
I smoothed the napkin in my lap and took a sip of sparkling water. “You’re confusing living out loud with living life honestly. Chris is practically a caricature. He doesn’t know who he is, or if he does, he’s hiding it behind a front he believes people will find more palatable.”
While my mother had protected me as best as possible, I’d grown up knowing that people weren’t always who they portrayed themselves to be. To everyone else, my father had been a charismatic, high-powered ad executive on the fast track, but behind closed doors, he’d been a slave to his temper. Even my uncle had bought into my father’s lies until the night nearly twenty years ago when my mother, beaten and broken, quietly slipped me out from under the covers and drove us to my uncle’s home.
“Everyone hides behind personas they’re comfortable with, sweetheart. Even you,” my uncle said, then smiled at the executive chef approaching our table with the first course. “Ah, here’s the lady of the evening. What do you have for us?”
“This is a Breton-inspired buckwheat galette with caramelized cauliflower, pear, and mint,” she said, placing a plate in front of each setting.
My uncle turned to me and said, “Gwen and I pretend like we’re on good terms, but I still haven’t forgiven her for stealing Logan away from me.”
The woman—Gwen—swatted his shoulder with the serving towel. “Kent, for the last time, I didn’t steal him away. Logan retired because of his health.”
“And because he loves you,” my uncle said.
“Okay, maybe our relationship had a little something to do with it.” Gwen winked.
“Chris still bustin’ Logan’s balls for retiring?” my uncle asked, forking off a piece of the crepe and diving right into eating.
“That would be an improvement, though I think he’s less pissed about the fact Logan retired than he is that he did it after the Super Bowl and on national television without giving Chris the chance to talk Logan out of it first.” She rolled her eyes, then glanced at me and stuck out her hand. “Sorry, Gwen Lalonde. You must be Hazel Grant. I hear my twin is volunteering at your rescue shelter.”
That’s why Gwen had seemed so familiar. I should have connected the dots. She and Chris had the same startling brown eyes, the same pointed nose, the same dark hair.
“I’d advise you to keep a rolled-up newspaper handy for when Chris misbehaves, but my brother has always responded better to positive reinforcement and ego stroking,” Gwen continued.
I laughed. Wasn’t that the truth? “Think it’ll stop the singing?” I asked.
“Singing?” Gwen asked, her gaze growing wide. “Oh, there’s a story there—and one I’m desperate to hear.” She sighed. “Rain check? I’ve been away from the kitchen too long as it is.”
“Sure,” I said with an easy smile.
“You two enjoy the rest of your meal.” She turned to leave but stopped, giving me a once-over. “You better watch yourself, Hazel. You’re just Chris’s type.”
“I’m not on the menu, I’m afraid,” I said, mostly meaning it.
Gwen grinned and shook her head. “Like I said, just his type.”