Page 13 of How To Plot a Payback

Covered in a soft tricolored fluff of black, brown, and white, the Bernese Mountain Dog puppy is swallowed up in fur with just a few dots of black on his otherwise pink nose. His paws are enormously oversized. His tail wags tremendously as his big, honey-brown eyes bore into Sonya’s.

He doesn’t like to sleep, as it turns out.

But that is an irrelevant point given he is merely eight weeks old; ergo, hate of sleep is just a characteristic of puppies and not a life trait.

Sonya doesn’t need sleep anyway.

What she needs is a puppy to kick her out of the organizing-to-the-extreme streak she has fallen into, thanks in large part to the influencers she started watching who organize quite literally every single thing in their lives.

I actually watched her finish a book about organization the other day, smile with satisfaction, then throw it in the donation bin according to the rule that one must have no more than two books in one’s house at any time.

She dragged me to her bathroom once to view her latest project: an entire drawer dedicated to neat straight rows of cotton balls.

Cotton balls.

Last month, I watched her get rid of every item in her house that wasn’t cream, white, or tan. All of it. She even tossed out her beloved cans of LaCroix so she could make space for some awful white, fizzy off-brand she doesn’t even drink.

She needed this puppy.

She needed somebody to shake her out of her latest obsession.

And I have the honor of being her benefactor.

“Doesn’t he have the most soulful eyes?” I say, holding him up. “I snatched him up as soon as I saw him. There was this rather manic-looking woman hovering over the crate while talking on her phone, saying something about trading in one of her kids for these dogs, and I told myself, ‘Lavender, if you know it’s right for Sonya, you’ve got to do it right now.’” I pull the puppy’s fluffy little face up to mine. “Now, no pressure, but I’m thinking Bernie. Or Bernard. It’s rather regal for a Bernese, don’t you think?”

“Where did you get these animals?” Sonya is looking down at me like I’ve gone mad.

I don’t like her tone, but then, from the outside looking in, I can see it.

I’m sitting on the concrete floor outside her dressing room in a tangle of leashes. I haven’t slept in roughly thirty hours, thanks to a shocking amount of barking and accidents and a general indifference towards all of my belongings. My hair is a mess thanks to falling asleep on the floor and having a dog paw my head. There are mascara streaks beneath my eyes (nothing Chloe can’t fix). My skirt from yesterday is on inside out (again, nothing Chloe can’t fix). But look at all these pups!

“They were at the charity event I went to Saturday!” I exclaim breathlessly. I reach for a drag of yesterday’s coffee from my tumbler, which I had set down before knocking, but one of the dogs has tipped it over and started chewing on the lid.

No matter.

“They were doing a fundraiser and these little ones needed a home. When I went back at the end of the night after getting your Bernie”—I pause pointedly—“I was floored to discover that for some bizarre reason, there were several left over. The head woman was really disappointed. Said people just went straight for the puppies and overlooked the ones who actually came from the program. Or rather, had been in the program before they’d failed out. Can you believe it?”

Her eyes cut to the dog lapping up my spilled coffee. “Hardly.”

“And when she said that, I realized how dare I point at the splinter in another’s eye, when look at the log in my own! I, too, am part of this broken system. Picking out this sweet pup when all these other perfectly lovely dogs were left on their own. Judging beings by their looks. Casting others aside just because”—the chihuahua makes a grab for my recently bandaged hand, and I pull it away quickly—“they’re a little less easy.”

“So . . . you took them all,” Sonya says slowly. She eyes the one-eyed beagle growling voraciously as it pulls on my leather sandal.

“Lavie.” She uses that voice. That you-can’t-honestly-think-this-is-a-good-idea voice.

“I have a plan,” I reply quickly, just as I’ve repeated the last ten times to the last ten people who’ve approached me with the same concern. “I’m not keeping all of them. I’m just”—I pause, looking for the right word—“fostering them until they find their forever homes. And this,” I choke out, unwrapping a leash that’s been tightening around my neck, “little fella belongs to you!”

I offer Bernie to her. (I mean, honestly, how could he not be Bernie? The name fits perfectly.) She pulls away. “Absolutely not,” she snaps. “I don’t want a dog.”

“Of course you do.”

“They pee everywhere. They stink.”

“So do babies. But they grow on people too.”

“They shed black fur everywhere!”

“Yes, but—” I interrupt myself. I have to take this point seriously. I may have to concede here. No problem. I’ll just . . . I look at the dogs. We can start with baby steps. “How do you feel about white fur, then?” I reach for the cocker spaniel staring at a wall two inches from his face and pick him up. “Now he has a little bit of a depression problem—”