Bettina starts the engine, creeps forward, turns it back off. A vendor comes by with a painting of calla lilies that’s really quite pleasant, but the walls of her apartment are already crowded with pictures and paintings and the California Native baskets she collects. The old vendor stops and holds it closer. His face is dark as a roasted almond and he has even white teeth.
She shakes her head no.
“Almost free,” he says.
“It’s very nice but, no, thank you.”
“How much can you pay?”
“No gracias, señor.”
“Fifty dollars? Okay. We have a deal.” He hoists up the painting to give her a better look. “Forty.”
She shakes her head and looks away and the man moves on.
Then she turns to the dog. She always talked to the family dogs when she was a girl and always answered back for them. Gave them words.
“So, pups, my name is Bettina Blazak.”
When he looks at her, she taps her sternum with a forefinger and repeats her first name three times. The dog watches her but his expression doesn’t change.
“I’m Polish-Irish with dabs of French, German, and English — and way back, some Cahuilla Indian. A mutt, like you. I grew up in a small town in California’s desert. As soon as I could, I moved to Laguna Beach. That’s where we’re headed. You’ll love it. I’m twenty-six years old and plan to stay that age forever. Not everyone gets my jokes. I don’t know how old you are, but Dr. Rodríguez said five to seven years.”
Bettina tells the dog about the weekly Laguna Beach newspaper she works for, Coastal Eddy. She writes and photographs for the paper — both print and digital editions — and makes videos that post to Coastal Eddy subscribers through a web page, email, and social media. Coastal Eddy is not a man, she explains to the dog, but a wind pattern that causes cloudy mornings along the coast. The dog curls up on the seat and looks at her, head on his paws, his button ears relaxed.
Bettina likes it when someone — even a dog — listens without interrupting. With three brothers plus Mom and Dad, Bettina, the baby, could hardly get in a word.
“Readers love dog stories,” she says. “And pictures and video of dogs. You will soon be momentarily famous in a small way. I try to do good reporting about things that matter, even if they don’t all happen in Laguna. A story has to matter. Like this one. Millions of dogs that nobody takes care of? That matters. I also want to get myself onto the Los Angeles Times someday. And win a Pulitzer too.”
She checks her messages, plugs in the phone to charge.
Again, Bettina starts her Jeep and moves into the new gap before her. The dog sits up and looks out, ears erect, tips flapped over. For a while, the line of vehicles creeps along a little faster. She sees the dark clouds to the north.
“Doggen, you listening? I love horses, trapshooting, surfing, cycling, and writing. I’m going to level with you. I like clothes and beauty products and good food too. I’m told my best feature is my hair, which is dark brown, though from what I’ve read, you probably see it as very dark gray. So here I am. Your turn. Tell me about yourself.”
The dog curls into the seat again, muzzle between his front feet, furrows his brow, and closes his eyes.
Bored, Bettina thinks. She wants to talk for him but she can’t. She knows almost nothing about him. No name, no exact age, no breed or parentage, no history, nothing except Tijuana and a bullet.
He’s a mystery, and she loves that about him. She’s a born storyteller, and she wants to tell his story. She’s glad to be part of it now.
Curled up on the front seat, his long saber tail wrapped all the way to his chin, Joe listens to Woman. He understands that she’s talking to him and he likes that. Her voice is pleasant and happy. She sounds excited when she says words he knows — Good, Dog, Water. Other words like Pulitzer and Cahuilla are new to him. Many he’s heard before and doesn’t know, but her emotions register clearly through her voice. Her face is happy but not excited.
He sits up and watches the world go by, and the window goes down but not far. Puts his nose out there, smelling the very different world from his home with his Boy Teddy, and later his home with his Man Aaron, and later his home with his Man Dan.
Different Teams, different places, different smells.
Joe feels sad, but Woman is maybe good like Teddy’s mom was good.
They stop at one of the big pet stores off the interstate, where Bettina is surprised that the dog knows his leash manners perfectly. Limping slightly, he keeps to her left, just a nose length ahead even when cornering the aisles, adjusting to her pace, sitting when she stops. He sits and downs on command. In English! Bettina wonders where a Mexican street dog learned all this. The pet store clerk gives him a treat, which the dog accepts tentatively. Her dog is leery and aloof, not just with strangers — human or canine — but with Bettina too. She doesn’t buy a tag, because she’s not sure what to name him.
Such a funny-looking thing, Bettina thinks as he walks the aisle at her side. A deep street mix, like the doctor said. Curvy, big headed. Slim loins but big thighs. She guesses Lab and whippet in him, Jack Russell, maybe Chihuahua or Xolo. There’s something almost undoglike about him. Wallaby? Jackalope! And those ears, randomly articulating with his senses — one moment they’re button, the next rose, the next gull wing or a combination. She can feel herself falling more in love with him by the minute. It doesn’t really matter what he’s made out of. He’s what he is. She figures a DNA test would be uselessly crowded and inconclusive.
From Laguna Canyon Road, she heads up Stan Oaks Drive, parks in a carport under the Canyon View Apartments. The apartments are affordable on a small-town newspaper reporter’s salary. Pet friendly too. The wood-and-glass building rises from the flank of the canyon on imposing concrete caissons.
Bettina leads the dog up the stairs to her veranda, lugging a collapsible crate in one hand, glad to be home. Looks forward to her windows and good views. Her Canyon View neighbors are sometimes noisy but basically cool, and they look out for each other, observing Canyon Cocktails nightly around the pool and the communal firepit.
Inside, she gets him water, trades out his dirty collar for a new blue one, and tosses him a new chew toy turkey she thinks he’ll like. Then shows the dog her place. Downstairs: the living room, kitchen, breakfast nook, and office/studio where she writes and makes her videos. There’s a beautiful blue six-foot-eight-inch swallowtail surfboard in one corner of the living room. And a sleek white Cannondale road bike she rides with her club, the Biker Chicks, propped against one wall in the office, her helmet dangling from the saddle. Her trap guns are locked in an office gun case that she and her dad made when Bettina was twelve. Upstairs is the bedroom and a bath that has a shower with an eye-level window and an ocean peek, and great views of Laguna Canyon.
Back in the kitchen, Bettina pours a cup of premium salmon kibble into a bowl and sets it on the floor. The dog sniffs it, then goes under the breakfast nook table and lies down, resting his unhappy face on his front paws. Gets his furrowed expression again, eyes looking up at her as if she has taken away everything that ever mattered to him. Offers him the chew toy turkey again and he ignores it again.
That evening she takes him to Canyon Cocktails, introduces him to the neighbors. He’s standoffish and draws mixed reviews. Bettina tells them about his close call on the streets of Tijuana, his recovery, and her falling in love with him pretty much on sight. Of course, they’ve got name ideas: