“Okay, well . . .” Beck pulls out his phone.
“What’re you doing?”
“Looking for the nearest hospital.” A few seconds later, he says, “We’re in a town called Sunbury. Looks like there’s a neighborhood clinic just down the road, except . . .”
“What?”
“It’s closed. For—”
“Don’t even say it.”
“—Labor Day weekend.”
I swipe my bangs out of my eyes. “So what, then, people are supposed to hold off on getting sick until after the holiday weekend?” Between us, Walt is moaning, rocking back and forth in his seat. “Well, we have to do something. That fucking buffet probably gave him food poisoning. He probably needs a stomach pump from all that red chicken.”
“The feeding!” moans Walt.
“I think I found a place,” says Beck, staring at his cell.
“Well, let’s go, man.”
Beck stuffs his phone in his jacket and revs up the engine. Walt’s moaning has reached new heights, and suddenly, I realize I don’t know the kid’s last name. How do I not know that? What kind of friend am I? A hospital means paperwork, and paperwork means knowing last names. If this is something serious, we’re in trouble.
A few minutes later, Beck pulls into the parking lot of a strip mall.
“Where’s the hospital?” I ask.
He turns off the ignition and points through the windshield.
SUNBURY VETERINARY
Animal Care Center
(Open Holidays)
“Animal care center?”
“Come on, buddy,” says Beck, ushering Walt out of the truck.
“Animal care center?” I reread the sign, just in case I got it wrong the first time. Nope. Spot-on. “Beck, you can’t seriously be—”
Beck slams the door. I watch through the windshield as he throws Walt’s arm over his shoulder and helps him inside the clinic. (Correction: animal care center. For animals.) Shaking my head, I drop down out of the truck and join them inside.
The front room reminds me of the principal’s office at my school: minimal decor of maroons and browns, cheesy posters, dusty leather chairs, prehistoric magazines.
A youngish girl appears from a back room, and like that, this idea goes from bad to bullshit. Her dark hair is tied back in a bun; she’s wearing a surgical uniform, which appears to have once been blue. But no longer. From head to toe, this girl is covered in blood. Liters of it.
“Hello,” she says, like it’s nothing, like we’re locker partners, like she didn’t just take a blood shower and then come out here all, hello.
“Umm,” Beck starts. He looks to me for help. As if. “Right,” he continues. “Well. Our friend here is sick. We think. I mean, he is, clearly. Look at him.”
The vet—who I choose to believe is in the middle of surgery, and not some ritualistic sacrifice with a host of bloodthirsty minions from the bowels of hell—shifts her focus to Walt. I watch her eyes as the situation dawns on her. Yes, I want to say. We come bearing humans. Please don’t Sweeney-Todd us. The looks on our faces must be obvious—she gazes down at her clothes. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she laughs. “You guys have a seat. Lemme get cleaned up, I’ll be right back.”
The two of us ease Walt into a chair. He’s still moaning, but to his credit, he’s dialed it down a few notches since the truck. I sit next to Beck and stare him down.
“I saw it on an episode of Seinfeld,” he says, avoiding eye contact.
I say nothing.
He shrugs. “Forget it, you’re probably too young.”
“For what, reruns? I’ve seen Seinfeld, man.”
“Well, did you ever see the episode where Kramer found a dog who had a cough that sounded exactly like his?”
I tilt my head, hold back a smile, and for a second, we just look at each other. “So—I think my best course of action here is to just, you know, let the ridiculousness of that sentence marinate.”
Now Beck is holding back a smile. “Ditto.”
Together, we hold back smiles, marinating in the ridiculousness of our sentences.
I cross my arms. “Anyway, I’m still mad at you.”
“For what?”
“For what?” I mimic.
A few minutes later, the vet returns, and if I was scared of her before, I’m terrified now. Her hair is down, a beautiful mocha with just the perfect amount of wave. She’s turned in her surgical garb for a purple fitted blouse, with a giant bow at the neck, a black pleated skirt—not too short, but short enough—and a pair of Tory Burch flats. Her face, free of animal blood, has that natural sort of put-togetherness only another female can see through. The outfit is complete with a dazzling smile—in Beck’s direction.
“Sorry about before,” she says, circling the desk. “I was doing an emergency splenectomy on a seven-year-old lab after a tumor, possibly caused by hemangiosarcoma, ruptured the spleen. Poor thing had a distended belly, pale gums, the works. Anyway, the spleen had to go, obviously, and sometimes, you pull that sucker out, and”—she puts her fists together, then explodes them, complete with sound effects—“blood . . . everywhere.”
I look at Beck and remind myself to work out some secret signal for future predicaments such as this, something that means get me the hell outta here.
Beck stands up, reading my mind. “Well, we don’t wanna interrupt or anything. Sounds like you got your hands full.”