Page 87 of Puck You Both

And then it's July.

They've set up a tin tub, a hose, and a golden retriever who has clearly never had a bad day. Theo steps onto the set, rolls his shoulders like it's warmups, and surveys the light stands.

"Okay. Where's my light coming from?"

The photographer blinks. "Your light?"

"Which direction?" He's completely serious. This man cannot reliably exit a roundabout, but he has prepared blocking.

She points, wordless. He nods like they've agreed on something artistic, and gets to work.

Within five minutes the retriever is soaped, rinsed, and gleaming. Within ten, the situation has redistributed itself. The dog is somehow the dry one, Theo is soaked through, and his shirt comes off mid-flash and lands on a light case. I don't think he decided it. July decided.

"Maybe slightly more clothed?" the photographer says.

Theo looks down at himself, then up at her, betrayed. "It's July."

"It's a charity calendar."

"That hangs in people’s homes. They’ve waited eleven months and you want to deprive them? In July?"

"I want July in a shirt."

The negotiation proceeds. I supervise. That's what I'm doing over here at the edge of the set—supervising, in an official co-chair capacity, consulting my schedule at a frequency that has nothing to do with how the wet situation across the room is developing. The schedule says nothing new. I consult it again anyway.

Hendrix arrives mid-take, lands on the rim of the tub, and screams, "What the puuuuck!"

"Right?" Theo says. "Thank you!"

"The bird is in frame again," the photographer says.

"He's committed. Which is more than I can say for my co-star." The retriever is currently busy drinking from the hose.

She looks at me. I don't know when I became the appeals court, but the clock is the clock. "The bird stays. We're twenty minutes behind."

They reach a consensus two takes later: the shirt goes back on, wet, which as far as I can tell is a compromise that helps no one, and me least of all. It's during the final setup, while Theo is narrating his own highlight reel to a dog, that I glance across the set and catch Wall, water bottle halfway to his mouth, achieving the exact same quality of not-watching I've been producing for ten minutes. He catches me catching him. The bottle completes its journey. I return to my clipboard.

The photographer scrolls her previews and goes quiet. "The wet shirt actually works," she admits, mostly to herself.

We’re almost an hour behind when Becker approaches the set carrying a crate, and the crate is wiggling.

"Twelve puppies," he announces. "Twelve months. I'm the frame narrative."

"No," the photographer says.

"Puppies sell calendars," Wanda says from behind her. "Load him up."

There are moments a man knows he should intervene. I look at the crate, then at my clipboard, and I choose to be a historian.

For one shining second, it works. Becker on one knee, arms full, puppies stacked up his chest in a warm pyramid, one balanced on his shoulder, and the photographer gets off maybe two frames before the pyramid collapses.

They go everywhere. Behind the backdrop, and under the leash table. One disappears into an open camera bag. Kane fields two off the rebound. Ace goes down laughing and is colonized by fur where he falls. The retriever wakes up, assesses the situation, and goes back to sleep.

Something soft hits my ankle at speed. I collect it on instinct—glove hand, clean—and the puppy accepts the save without protest, settles into my palm, and starts chewing my thumb.

"Headcount!" Becker has one under each arm and panic climbing his face. "Count! Everybody count!"

The room counts and arrives at eleven. The panic graduates.