Dogs and Goddesses Read online

  “Good morning, Daisy!” Vera said, her soft voice too sweet to ignore, so Daisy stopped and turned to face her.

  “Morning, Vera. I’m just on my way to get some coffee, so—”

  “Oh, we’ll go with you! We were just going to get some juice!” Vera stood up and glanced down at her ancient Doberman-beagle mix, Squash, who stared back up at her with big, bored eyes. “Weren’t we, girl?”

  Squash lifted her head, yawned, and said, “You’re the boss.”

  Daisy froze.

  “Daisy?”

  Daisy blinked and focused on Vera, who smiled brightly, her eyes turned to beaming little slits under the pressure from her chipmunk cheeks.

  “Huh?” Daisy said.

  “Want to come to the kitchen with us?”

  “Um.” Daisy clicked her pen, staring at Squash. “Um.” Her heart beat frantically in her chest as she watched the dog, who looked back at her but said nothing.

  “Is something wrong?” Vera asked, her smile dimming a bit. “Are you not feeling well? Because I have some vitamins—”

  “I’m fine.” Daisy struggled to swallow and clicked the pen again, gaining comfort from the gesture. Click. Normal. Click. Safe. Click, click. “I actually need to talk to Lucille about some—”

  The breeze blew through the office again, and Vera sighed. “Oh, dear. Someone must have left the window in the kitchen open again.” She shook her head and started toward the kitchen.

  Daisy leaned against Vera’s desk, watching as Squash ambled on after Vera. Had she really just heard … ? No. That was impossible. She couldn’t still be drunk; it had been twelve hours since …

  But I could be crazy. Crazy doesn’t wear off.

  “Good morning, Daisy!”

  Daisy started as Lucille, the humanities department chair, headed toward her, her sensible gray pumps clunk-clunking on the gray Berber carpeting popular with universities and mental institutions worldwide.

  Mental institutions, Daisy thought, swallowing hard. Oh, god. “Hey, Lucille.” She took a deep breath. “You know what? I think I’m gonna need the day—”

  “No Bailey today, huh?” Lucille said, brushing what looked like cookie crumbs off her signature gray cardigan. “Such a cute dog.”

  Right. Lucille hadn’t thought so when Bailey had tinkled his cuteness all over the ficus. “My landlady’s taking care of him. Speaking of which, I need to duck out early today, personal reasons, so maybe we should prioritize my tasks… .” She grabbed a small yellow pad from Vera’s desk and clicked her pen, feeling slightly comforted by the gesture. Work. Work would save her. No dogs talked to her when she was writing web code. She could work right up until the moment she had to go help Abby, and then she’d run back to the coffeehouse and work there. Everything was going to be just fine. She clicked the pen twice more.

  Lucille frowned at her. “Are you okay? You look a little pale. Is everything—?” Lucille’s eyes caught on something over Daisy’s shoulder, and Daisy turned to look; Frederick St. Thomas, the new adjunct with thick glasses and an unnatural affection for elbow patches, was headed straight for them.

  “Oh, hello, Frederick,” Lucille said, her voice a touch higher than usual. “I didn’t know you were teaching today.”

  “I’m not,” Frederick said. “I’ve lost my lesson plans.”

  “Oh.” Lucille smiled at Frederick, the flush in her cheeks deepening. “I’m sorry, I haven’t seen them.”

  Daisy cleared her throat. “So, Lucille, my priorities? There’s got to be something you need me to do. Something important and, uh, absorbing?” She clicked her pen and wrote a “1” at the top of the sheet, and as she did, the breeze blew again.

  Daisy glanced through the open kitchen door. Squash rested under the table while Vera sipped her juice, both looking as innocuous as ever. Daisy relaxed. What was she so freaked out about? This whole thing was ridiculous. The dog had yawned, not talked. She watched Squash as she tried to convince herself everything was normal. Click, click, click . ..

  “Oh, here it is!” Frederick said, touching Lucille’s shoulder as he reached past her to grab a stapled printout off Vera’s desk. “I must have left it here yesterday.”

  Lucille flushed deeper and traced her fingers over her collarbone, her eyes widening as she watched Frederick. She was acting really strange, but Daisy had her own insanity to deal with.

  “I’m going to get some coffee. I’ll be right back.” As a punctuation on her resolve, Daisy clicked her pen.

  And again the breeze blew.

  Lucille moved closer to Frederick, as if she hadn’t even heard Daisy. “Actually, I’m glad you’re here, Frederick. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about … something. I have some amazing cookies I picked up this morning, too; you should have some. They’re in my office.”

  Daisy stared down at the pen in her hand, then looked up as Lucille led Frederick into her office and closed the door.

  Something weird was—

  No. Nothing weird was going on. It was imagination, lack of sleep, and, in Lucille’s case, possibly a hot flash. Everything could be rationalized and explained, she was sure of it … and she was going to start with the dog. She took a deep breath and headed into the kitchen. Time to put this thing to bed.

  “Hello, Daisy! Are you going to join us after all?” Vera stirred her orange juice with a stir stick and tapped it one, two, three times on the edge of her glass before putting it gently on the table. “I have to tell you, I’ve just started this new powder multivitamin supplement and I feel ten years younger! You should try it.” She smiled up at Daisy. “Happy body, happy mind, happy Daisy, right?”

  “Hmmm.” Daisy took a sip of her coffee and leaned back against the counter, trying to figure out how she might casually prove that Squash hadn’t talked to her. She glanced down at the dog. “So, Squash, how are you doing today?”

  The dog raised her head, but before she could speak, Vera jumped in.

  “Oh, she’s doing fine; thank you so much for asking. She had a little tummy trouble last night, though.” Vera leaned away from the table and angled her head down at Squash, taking on the smoochy tone people get when talking to very small children. “Didn’t you, sweetheart? Diarrhea all gone now, baby?” Vera raised her head and resumed her normal speech for Daisy. “Poor pumpkin, she was just squirting like a water balloon all last night. We even had to miss our obedience class, and I was so looking forward—”

  “Obedience class?” Daisy asked, her shoulder muscles tensing. “You were going to go to that? The one in the creepy step temple?”

  “You mean the history department?” Vera nodded. “How did you know about— Oh, did you take Bailey?”

  “Um. Yeah.” Obedience class. Talking dogs. In Daisy’s mind, loose ends started to weave together, but she couldn’t quite figure out what they were weaving into.

  “You have to tell me all about it.” Vera leaned forward. “Was it wonderful? I bet it was wonderful. The Kammani Gula method, it just sounds fascinating. Tell me, did they give you any dog vitamins there?”

  “They gave us tonic. You would have loved it.” Daisy looked down at the dog again. “So, we’ll see you there next time, Squash?”

  Squash lifted her head, her eyes more intelligent than Vera’s had ever been. Daisy looked back, feeling confident the dog would not speak again, because dogs couldn’t talk. A few moments of solid silence from Squash were all Daisy needed, and then she could get back to—

  “Looks that way,” Squash barked.

  “Oh, come on.” Daisy stamped her foot.

  “Oh, look at those adorable shoes!” Vera said, pointing down at Daisy’s polka-dotted Keds.

  “Huh?” Daisy looked down. “Oh. Yeah, I know they don’t go with my suit, but I’ve been having shoe troubles lately.” She looked back at Squash.

  “Left one’s coming loose,” Squash barked.

  Daisy looked down. The dog was right. Damn it. “Could you stop that, please?”

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