It took nearly two hours to get Caroline’s car out of the impound lot.

“Two hundred dollars?  Are you kidding me?” Caroline exclaimed when the lot supervisor told her what it would cost.  “That’s outrageous.”

He grinned toothlessly at her.   “Well, that’s how much it is.  Cash or check.  No cards.”

“How about American Express?”

“I said no cards.”

I panicked, because I doubted that Caroline had her checkbook with her.  She was so thrifty, I was certain she didn’t have that kind of money in cash.  I caught her arm and pulled her aside.

“I’ve got about fifty bucks on me, and that’s it,” I said in a low voice.

“Relax, I have some checks in my purse,” she said as she held it up.  “That is so not the point.”

“Yes, I know that,” I told her, but she wasn’t listening.  She was already back at the counter with the supervisor, who was using a paperclip to try and pick something out of his teeth.

“How about I give you fifty dollars?” she asked him.  “My last parking ticket was thirty, I’ll throw in another twenty for good measure.”

He took the paperclip out of his mouth and laughed right in her face.  “The amount isn’t negotiable, Red.  It’ll cost you two hundred dollars, cash or check.  No cards.”

She kept arguing with him.  I stood by her side to be supportive, but after a little while I realized haggling wasn’t going to be effective.  Not only that, but the longer her car sat on the lot, the more it would cost to get it out.  I tried to gently talk Caroline into just paying the money so we could cut our losses and get the hell out of there, but my efforts were completely fruitless.  In typical Caroline fashion, she couldn’t accept defeat and kept blasting away at the guy.  He didn’t care.

“I need some fresh air,” I told her after a while.  The shack the supervisor called his office smelled like coffee and stale cheese and I was starting to get lightheaded from the stench.  I leaned against the wall outside and listened to their bickering as car after car was towed into the lot.  I wondered who was getting rich off of all these people with poor parking judgment.  By the state of things inside the office, I began to question if the guy in there was seeing any money at all.  Eventually, Caroline joined me looking particularly sour and we followed the guy as he smugly showed us where her car was parked.  He helped us navigate out of the lot and we had a very quiet car ride home.

The next morning, we dragged ourselves out of bed at around nine to go on our weekly hike at Runyon Canyon.  It was a 160 acre public park nestled right in the middle of the Hollywood Hills.  The previous Sunday had been the first time we had hiked Runyon together, Caroline had started going by herself a few weeks before that.  That first Sunday started with Caroline letting herself into my room and shaking me awake.

“Get up, we’re going hiking!” she exclaimed with way too much enthusiasm for eight a.m. on a Sunday morning.  I groaned and rolled over on my air mattress.  I had been in Los Angeles for less than forty-eight hours and the last thing I wanted to do was go hiking, especially after the late night we’d had the night before.  We went to a bar in West Hollywood with a couple of Caroline’s friends from USC and hadn’t gotten back until after three.

“Why do we have to go now?” I mumbled into my pillow.

“Because, if we go later, we won’t get a good parking space,” she answered simply.

“That doesn’t sound like a good enough reason to me,” I said.

“Quit whining.  I’ll buy you a Jamba Juice on the way home, how’s that?”

This perked me up a little bit.  I did enjoy Jamba Juice.  Caroline left my room, satisfied that her work was done.  I threw on some gym clothes.  When I emerged from my room, Caroline took one look at my attire and shook her head.

“Oh no.  I don’t think so.  Don’t you have anything a little cuter than that?” she asked.

I looked down at my tee shirt and shorts.  The tee was one of my favorites, I got it from Banana Republic when I was in middle school.  It was old and a worn looking, but in a cool vintage kind of way.  The shorts were a pair of Umbros I’d found at T.J. Maxx when I was home last Christmas.

“What is wrong with this outfit?” I asked defensively.  “We’re going hiking and we’ll be sweating.  Who’s going to care what I look like?”

I paused and studied Caroline’s ensemble.  She was wearing a pair of stretchy black Capri pants and a fitted sea green tank top.  The tank had black piping around the hem and collar.  Her sneakers were only slightly worn and her socks were so low you could barely tell she was wearing any.

Caroline sighed.  “Trust me.  In Los Angeles, what you wear when you exercise is just as important as what you wear when you go to work or out to a bar.  Especially if you’re a woman.”

“That’s dumb,” I stated.

“We need to find a better top at least,” she said, ignoring my mood.  She went into my room and started to dig through my suitcases.  I hadn’t unpacked much yet.  I was waiting for the dresser I had ordered the week before to arrive from Ikea.

Caroline didn’t like anything I had.  She rooted around in her own closet and found another tank top similar to the one she was wearing, only it was red and had white piping around the edges.

“This one is a little big for me, so it might fit you,” she said as she handed it to me.  I doubted it.  Caroline was a full head shorter than me and had a more slender figure.  I begrudgingly tried it on.  It was just barely long enough and felt very snug across my chest.

“It’s tight, but you can pull it off,” she said when I stepped out into the living room for her to see.

I tugged on it.  I didn’t have a problem wearing fitted clothing, just not when I was exercising.  It felt too constricting and I got claustrophobic.  But it seemed I didn’t have much of a choice.  Once we got to Runyon I realized that Caroline was right, most of the women there were in well coordinated outfits similar to what she was wearing.

“What did I tell you?” she said on the ride home.

I slurped my Jamba Juice.  “Whatever,” I grumbled.  “I still think my Banana Republic tee shirt would’ve been just fine.”

I reluctantly went over to the mall’s Lady Footlocker during a lunch break that week and bought a few overpriced items to hike in.  Unless you’re an Olympic or professional athlete and sweating many hours a day, spending seventy dollars on a single exercise outfit seemed pretty ridiculous to me.  I didn’t care how “moisture wicking” the fabric was.

This Sunday morning I wore one of my new ensembles, a royal blue tee with basic black knit shorts that had an inseam as long a mini Tootsie Roll.  There was a blue stripe along each outer seam to really bring the outfit together.  When I walked into the kitchen to grab a quick bite before heading out, Caroline smiled her approval as she chewed on a Luna Bar.

“Very nice,” she said.

“For the record, I still think this is dumb,” I told her.

“I don’t care.  You look great,” she said happily.  She stuffed the last of the bar in her mouth.  “We need to get going.  You ready?”

“Yep,” I said and grabbed my own Luna bar from the cabinet.  “I’ll eat on the way.”

We arrived at Runyon at around ten.  There isn’t a parking lot, so we had to find street parking.  We drove around for quite some time before we finally found a space.

“Remember our mission today,” Caroline said to me as she parked.

“How could I forget?” I replied.

Our mission that Sunday was the same as it was every Sunday.  It started a few weeks ago when Caroline read an article in the Los Angeles Times about Runyon’s reputation for being a great place to spot celebrities.  Since the park was so accessible to all the rich and famous people who live in the Hollywood Hills, naturally many of could be seen there.  They interviewed a woman named Sylvie Crane, an independent film producer who lived close to the park.  According to the article, she hiked Runyon quite frequently with her Weimaraners, Dublin and Carlow.  She was quoted as saying that she sees celebrities there on a regular basis and even referred to some of them as friends.  But she wouldn’t say who.  Caroline thought Sylvie would be a great contact for us to have and wanted to “accidentally” run into her at Runyon and use her dogs to break the ice.

“Everyone loves their dogs being fawned over, it’s perfect,” she said to me when she was first describing this plan.

Unfortunately for us, the article didn’t include a photo of Sylvie.  Caroline tried Googling her name and several articles did come up about her, but not a single picture.

“I guess we’ll have to be on the lookout for her dogs,” I suggested.  “Those silvery coats are quite eye catching.”

“Exactly,” Caroline said.  “And how many people have two of those dogs, anyway?  We’ll be fine.”

Once Caroline made absolutely certain she had found a real parking space, we got out of the car armed with the necessary accoutrements – sunglasses, a water bottle and an iPod shuffle.  Caroline put on a visor.  The shuffles were merely for show, we put them in our ears so it looked like we were off in our own worlds and not paying attention to those around us.   According to Caroline, if we did run into any celebrities (or attractive men, for that matter), it would put them at ease knowing we were distracted by our music.  If we did happen to physically bump into them, there was no way we could have done it on purpose.

We walked through the North Fuller Street entrance.  It was a small unassuming door in a fence, one of two ways to access the park from the southern side and brought us right into the valley of Runyon.  From there, we had a few choices of where to go, but all involved steep inclines as each path snaked their own way to the two ridges above us.

Last Sunday, Caroline was eager to dispense all the knowledge she had about the people of Runyon.

“The people who work out here can be divided into various groups,” Caroline informed me as I struggled to keep up with her pace.   “First, there are the actors and various other performers in the field of entertainment.  Most of these people are B-listers or below.  Occasionally you can spot an A-list celebrity under a visor and sunglasses if you are looking hard enough.”

“Have you seen any A-listers?” I panted.

“I think I saw Courteney Cox once.  But she was wearing a hat and sunglasses and it was hard to tell if it was her.”  Caroline finished talking as a very attractive shirtless man jogged by us.  He looked vaguely familiar and I knew I had seen him on TV or in a movie, but I couldn’t place him.  “Men and women alike from this group are not afraid to show off their bodies, since they work so hard to maintain them.  Many go shirtless,” she continued as we both watched him jog away.   “Women wear sports bras, of course.  Still, there’s nice eye candy here for everyone.”

“Indeed,” I said.

We continued up the path.

“This group ahead of us, they’re a good example of those who are in entertainment, but in a capacity other than performing,” she said.  She was pointing to a group of girls about our age that were coming down the hill towards us.  They were all skinny, tan and pretty, but not gorgeous.  “Some are producers, directors, animal trainers, whatever.  But many are like these girls, young aspiring industry people who’ve moved out here with all their hopes, dreams, and their parents’ money to find themselves working at a Starbucks or a Gap store.”

We made brief eye contact with the girl posse as we passed them.

“Not unlike ourselves,” I said.

Caroline stopped walking and shook her head vehemently at me.  “No, there is a big difference.  We are not like them.  Well,” she paused for a moment.  “We aren’t like most of them anyway.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because we are chasing a dream, and we are doing it with integrity,” she declared, waving her fist through the air.  “We aren’t living off of our parents’ money and we aren’t relying on our looks and sexual prowess to get us to our goal.  We have a plan and it will work.  Pretty soon we’ll surpass all those wannabes to the top of this business.  And we’ll have done it without having to sleep anyone.”

I nodded in agreement and Caroline started walking again.  I followed her and pondered what she said.  “Still,” I said after a few minutes, “A little flirting never hurt anybody.”

“Of course not,” she answered.  “We have to play the girl card sometimes, that’s just good strategy.”

“Of course.”

“The third and last group of park-goers consists of those who aren’t in the business at all,” Caroline said later as we were scaling down a very treacherous section of trail.  Most of the paths we had hiked thus far had been flat and fairly wide.  But as we made our way back down into the valley, the path got extremely steep and narrow.  The loose desert earth made a slippery surface over the gnarly rock and I was using my hands to help get me down without scraping myself up.

“Oh yeah?” I managed to say.

“Yep.  Some are exercise fanatics, some aren’t.  But the one thing they all have in common is they take celebrity spotting very seriously.  Sometimes they can be identified by the cameras they wear around their necks.  That’s usually a dead giveaway.”

“I see.  So I shouldn’t take my camera next time?” I asked.

“Not if you’re going to wear it around your neck and look like a tourist,” she replied.  We finally found our way back to even ground.

“There is one universal truth among all those who come here,” Caroline said.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Everyone comes to see people but also be seen.  You may not know it, but you’re being checked out by everyone you pass, just like you’re checking out all of them.  No matter who you are, if you just wanted to exercise, you would’ve found someplace else to go.”

“I did know that, actually.  The being checked out thing,” I said.  “It’s a little hard not to notice.”

As we were exiting the park, Caroline pointed to an older couple that was entering.  Each had a camera around their necks.

“See?  Tourists.  Third group,” she said.

This Sunday, Runyon was a madhouse.  The place was much more crowded than it had been last week, and not just with people.  Since this was one of the very few public places in Los Angeles you could bring your dog and it could go off leash, the park was usually crowded with dogs too.  Today, it was teeming with them.

“Oh my,” Caroline said as we navigated our way up the trail and deeper into the park.  A pack of small dogs bulldozed over a Golden Retriever in their frenzy for some kind of chew toy they were all trying to get a piece of.  They almost took us out in the process.

“It must be one of those toys with food in the middle,” Caroline mused.

“Whatever,” I grumbled.  I looked around for the owners of these dogs, but there were so many people around that it was hard to tell who was responsible for them.

I wasn’t really a dog person, but I did like going to Runyon and watching them all play with each other.  It never ceased to amaze me how many different kinds there were and how diverse they all looked.  Whether they were large or small, had long coats or short, were purebreds or mutts, all of them were at Runyon having the time of their lives.

“All right,” said Caroline as we continued through the throngs of dogs and people, “Let’s keep our eyes and ears open for Sylvie Crane and her silver dogs.”  We put our earphones in and set off up the trail.  As we climbed higher and further into the park, the traffic thinned out a little bit and we could walk at a more aerobic pace.

“We should get a dog,” remarked Caroline as we passed a guy jogging shirtless with his black lab.

I turned away from the man candy and looked at her skeptically.  “Are you serious?”

“Los Angeles is a very dog-friendly city, we could make a lot of friends that way.  They are a great conversation starter.  Could be good for our social and professional lives.”

“We aren’t home all day,” I said.  “Isn’t that kind of cruel to do to an animal?  Keep it locked up alone in an apartment for hours at a time?”

“Maybe Solomon would let us bring it to work,” Caroline said.  “He sometimes brings his dog.”

“That’s because he’s the boss,” I reminded her.  I didn’t like the way this conversation was going.  Caroline and I had only shared one pet, a Salamander we caught in the creek behind my house when we were twelve.  We decided with no real knowledge or research that it was a boy and we named it Sammy, though that was the only thing we managed to agree on.  We fought about everything else – who was going to keep him at her house when, what to feed him, how to decorate his tank.  He eventually died of unknown causes, probably from trying to escape because he couldn’t stand listening to us squabble over him.  Poor Sammy.  May he rest in peace.

“I don’t know if we can afford a dog right now.  Besides, isn’t our building pet-free?”

“Oh yeah,” said Caroline disappointedly.  “I suppose you’re right.”

Several minutes later we reached Inspiration Point, a big elbow in the trail that led up to the eastern ridge.  Caroline and I gulped some water and took in the spectacular view of Los Angeles.  After a few moments, Caroline put down her water bottle and unzipped a little pouch that was velcroed around her arm.  I thought nothing of it when we got out of the car and she initially strapped it to her forearm.  It looked like something you’d carry a small camera, or cash and a credit card in.  But she didn’t pull anything like that out.  Instead, she produced a small pair of binoculars.

“Where did you get those?” I asked.

“Online,” she said simply.

“Yeah, what site?  Stalkers dot com?”

“It was a site that sold surveillance equipment,” she replied.  “I thought they’d come in handy.”

“Yeah, I’m sure they’d be handy for a lot of people,” I said.  “They’re not as cumbersome to have hanging around your neck when you’re sitting in the bushes outside Kim Kardashian’s house.”

Caroline wasn’t listening to me, she was too busy scanning the paths below us.  I leaned over the edge to see if I could spot what Caroline was looking at.  But I started to feel dizzy and quickly stepped back.  I wasn’t too crazy about heights.

“Anything?” I asked after a moment.

“No,” said Caroline.  “Let’s keep going.”

She put her little binoculars back in the pouch and we continued on our way.  The next section of trail led up to the ridge and was incredibly steep.  There were huge rectangular pieces of wood that acted as both giant steps and erosion deterrent.  We climbed up them steadily as joggers whizzed recklessly downhill past us.  When we got to the top of the ridge, we were both drenched in sweat.

“I need a second,” I panted.  “That section kills me every time.”

Caroline pointed to some benches ahead of us.  “Well, let’s go over there and you can sit down for a moment.”  We walked over, I eagerly sat down and swigged my water.  Caroline took a couple of sips of her own water, then brought her binoculars back out and began to scour the trails again.  I looked around.  This was quickly becoming my favorite spot in Los Angeles.  You could see the entire city from where we were and it felt like we were sitting on top of the world.

I took a deep breath, basking in the sun.  The day was hot but dry and the air was the clearest I had experienced since being in LA.  Suddenly out of nowhere, the moment was interrupted by something wet poking me in the ear.  It took me by such surprise that I went into full body spasm and flailed onto the ground.

“Are you having a seizure?” Caroline asked me without taking her eyes away from her binoculars.

“What the hell?” I shouted.  I took a bit of my shirt and wiped out the wetness, looking around for the source of the molestation.   Standing right next to me was a chocolate Labrador wagging its tail. It was staring at me like putting its nose in my ear was reason for praise and maybe even a pat on the head.

“Oh, Henry,” a woman said as she approached us.  “That’s not very nice.”   If that was supposed to be a reprimand, it was not even half-hearted.  I’ve seen children scold their stuffed animals with more bite.  “I’m sorry about that,” she said to me.  But she didn’t sound sorry at all.  She didn’t even wait for me to accept her apology.  “Come on Henry, let’s go,” she called and she slapped her bony thigh.  Henry scampered off while I got up from the ground and tried in vain to brush the dirt off me.

“Can you believe that?” I retorted.

“Mmm,” Caroline answered.  She was still looking through her binoculars, though with particularly keen interest.

“What are you looking at?  You find her?” I asked, suddenly excited about the possibility.

“No, but I think I see one of the cast members from Entourage,” she said.

“Come on then,” I said.  “Let’s keep walking.”

“You’re good?”

“Yes, I’m good.  Let’s go.”

“I can’t believe these people and their dogs,” I said.

“I know, some of them are obnoxious.  At least most of the time they are so excited to be outside running free and in the company of other dogs that they really don’t bother people.”

“At least intentionally.  Do you remember that jogger we saw last week?  That Newfoundland knocked into him by accident and sent him head over heels, right on his ass,” I reminded her.

“Oh yeah.  Well, it’s hard to blame them for things like that,” she said.

“I know,” I answered.

“What’s more detestable is watching the owners take no responsibility whatsoever when their dogs behave badly.  At least the owner of that Newfoundland was legitimately horrified,” she said.

“True,” I responded.  “I just don’t like the mentality of using the fact that your dog isn’t on leash as an excuse to absolve yourself of any responsibility, that’s all.  That really infuriates me.”

“Hey, I’m with you,” said Caroline.  “It does make a great case for needing dogs on leashes.  And children for that matter.  People who keep their kids on leashes get a lot of crap for it.  But you know, maybe there would be less kids running around malls screaming if they were attached to their parent.”

“Definitely harder for them to be ignored by their parents that way,” I said.

We got to a fork in the path.

“Let’s walk towards the Mullholland entrance, I think that if Sylvie lives in the hills, she’d come from that direction,” said Caroline.  I nodded, silently thankful.  The path there was mostly flat and my quads were still shouting at me from the climb we had done, so I was looking forward to walking on flat ground for a little while.  We got to the Mullholland entrance without seeing Sylvie, and were about to turn around at the gate when a four-legged silver-haired bullet rushed past us, blazing into the park.  Both of us stopped dead as we watched our first Weimaraner of the day slow down and sniff the ground, then pick up a short fat stick.  It wrestled with it, rolling around in the dirt.

“Do you think-“ I started.

“Very possible,” answered Caroline.  We looked around, trying to act casual.

“Look,” I said hoarsely as I spotted another one.  I pointed out of the park towards Mullholland.  Dancing around a woman was a second Weimaraner, its coat a little lighter than the first one.  It was trying to get the woman’s attention, but she was on the phone and in no mood.  It eventually grew bored with her and ran past us into the park to join the first one.  The first ditched its stick to play fight with the second for a few moments before it picked up its stick again and pranced around with it.

“That’s her, right?” I asked studying the woman.  “Don’t you think that’s her?”

“Has to be,” replied Caroline.

We stood staring at her like we were on a safari observing an animal in its natural habitat.

“What do we do?” Caroline asked.  I shrugged.  She was on the phone and looked like she was having an intense conversation.  She wasn’t talking loudly enough for us to hear what she was saying, but she was hand gesturing quite profusely and almost whacked a passerby in the head.  He gave her a dirty look.  She was so wrapped up in her phone call that she didn’t even notice.  The dogs scampered over to her looked at her intently, like they wanted her to get off the phone so they could go for their walk.  After a few minutes, they got bored and ran off again.  The first one still had the stick in his mouth.

“I don’t know, Caroline,” I said slowly.  “She’s not going to be in the mood to shoot the breeze with two perfect strangers after this phone call.”

“I know,” she murmured back.  “This doesn’t help us at all.”

After a couple of minutes, the woman we assumed was Sylvie hung up the phone and tucked it into a small backpack she was wearing.

“Carlow!  Dublin!  Come on!” she barked.  The dogs immediately stopped what they were doing, which was gnawing on a clump of dried weeds just outside the park entrance.  They ran over and followed her as she power-walked into the park, passing right by us.

“We should follow her,” Caroline said.  “Come on.”

Sylvie was in really great shape.  She wasn’t running, but she might as well have.  We were practically jogging to keep up with her pace.  The dogs kept up with her without any problems.  She headed towards the western ridge and we followed her from a safe distance.  Every now and then we would stop to “adjust our earphones” or grab a drink of water or something ridiculous like that.

“Just in case, it’s to throw her off,” said Caroline.

“I really don’t think she has any clue.  And now we really have to jog to catch up,” I pointed out.

We followed her until the path widened out into a small sandy lot with a few dry-looking bushes.  The path continued down into the valley, but it was too steep for her dogs and Sylvie was probably planning on turning around eventually.  She took off her backpack and pulled out a collapsible plastic bowl and bottle of water.  With the dogs dancing around her excitedly, she poured a liberal amount of water into the bowl.  The dogs immediately started lapping it up.

“This is it,” Caroline said to me.  “Let’s go.”

She took a step forward and I caught her arm.  “Wait a second,” I said.  I was getting a bad feeling about this whole idea.  “What’s your plan?” I asked.

“Just play along with whatever I say,” she said.

“So, basically what we always do,”

“Exactly.”

“We really have to sell this, Caroline,” I said seriously.

She looked at me, just as serious.  “I know.  That’s why I need you with me.  Are you with me?”

“Of course.”

“Okay, great!  So let’s go.”  We went over.

“Excuse me,” Caroline said sweetly to Sylvie.  “Are these your dogs?”

Sylvie was in the middle of taking a sip of water.  She studied us both with her sharp brown eyes as she brought the bottle away from her face.   She was a petite woman, just a bit shorter than Caroline and looked like she was in her early fifties.

“Yes,” she said finally.

“They’re beautiful,” said Caroline, admiring them like she was looking at fine pieces of jewelry.

“Thank you,” said Sylvie, letting her guard down a fraction of an inch.

“They remind me of my dog Shadow,” Caroline said with touch of nostalgia.  “May we pet them?”

“Sure,” said Sylvie.

Caroline knelt down to pet the dogs.  I followed her lead.  The dogs abandoned their water and jumped around, basking in the attention we were giving them.  One of them tried to lick my ear, but because of my experience with the lab earlier, I was more alert and managed to dodge it just in time.  I gave Sylvie a quick glance to see if she had seen it happen.  She made no indication that she had.

“You had a Weimaraner?” Sylvie asked Caroline.

“Oh yeah,” she said.  “Shadow was a great dog.  He went with me everywhere.  Even saved my life once.”

“Really?” asked Sylvie.

“Yep,” said Caroline.  “My brother and I were playing on the railroad tracks behind our house and Shadow sat with us and barked and barked until my mother came to see what was going on.  Naturally, we weren’t supposed to be there.  Who knows what would’ve happened if Shadow hadn’t voiced his concerns.”

Caroline was completely making this story up.  She did have a pet named Shadow, but it was a black guinea pig and she eventually died from old age.  Caroline had never owned a dog because her father was allergic and her mother thought caring for one would be too much work that ultimately would fall on her.  I looked at Sylvie’s face and could tell she was eating this story right out of Caroline’s hand.

“I’m not surprised Shadow acted that way,” Sylvie said.  “Weimaraners are very protective.”

“Very true.  They really are misunderstood dogs, I think,” answered Caroline.  She sat cross-legged right in the dirt.  The dogs lay down next to her and Caroline started giving the lighter colored one a belly rub.

“They are, aren’t they?” Sylvie said like she had found a possible kindred spirit in Caroline.  “Most people think they are too high strung.”

“They are a little bit, let’s be honest.  But they can make great pets if you are will to have a little patience with them,” Caroline said.

“The best pets.  How about you?” Sylvie asked as she turned to me.

“I-I didn’t have dogs growing up,” I replied, caught off guard but her sudden attention.  “My dad is allergic.”

Since Caroline was clearly not using her own story, I decided to borrow it.

“That’s too bad,” said Sylvie.

“But Caroline and I have known each other for a long time, Shadow was like my dog too,” I added.  I stole a glance at Caroline and she gave me a very subtle thumbs up.

“If you ever need dog sitters or walkers, we’d be happy to do it for you,” offered Caroline.  “We’d even do the first job for free.”

Sylvie was putting her water bottle away, and this got her attention.  “Really?” she asked.

“Absolutely.”

“It’s funny you should offer because I’m going out of town this Thursday and I just got a call from my dogsitter.  He has to work on Thursday and won’t be able to come to the house until late.”

“Bummer,” said Caroline.

“Yes, huge bummer.  My neighbor can walk the dogs in the morning, but I really need someone in the afternoon to take them on their long walk of the day.  I don’t normally ask perfect strangers to do things like this, but would you two be interested?”

Caroline stood up so fast she startled the dogs.

“Yes!” she said enthusiastically.  “We would love to.”

“Great,” she said.  “And by the way, my name is Sylvie Crane.  These are my boys, Carlow and Dublin.”  She gestured to the dogs.  We introduced ourselves and Sylvie and Caroline exchanged phone numbers.

“I’ll be in touch with you tomorrow and we can go over the details,” she told us.  She dumped the water out her plastic dog bowl and shoved it back in her bag.  “Dublin, Carlow!”  The dogs jumped to attention at the sound of their names and followed Sylvie as she power walked back the way she’d come.

“That story was genius,” I said to Caroline as we watched her go.

“Thanks.  Whatever is needed to shoplift the pootie,” she mused.

I turned to her, confused.  “What’s that mean?”

“You saw Jerry Maguire.  Cuba Gooding Jr. asks Tom Cruise if he shoplifted the pootie.” She looked at me, expecting this to ring some bells.  It didn’t.

“And what does it mean?” I asked again.

She sighed, exasperated.

“It means being nice to the child of a single parent for the purposes of getting into the single parent’s pants.  In a nutshell.  Of course in our case, we aren’t literally trying to get into her pants.  But the term still applies.”

“I see,” I said as I pondered this expression.  “Then in this case, wouldn’t it be shoplift the poochie?”

Caroline looked at me and started to laugh.  “I like that,” she said.

On the way home I treated Caroline to a celebratory Jamba Juice smoothie.  She had earned it.

Lola and Gigi came in the next morning to collect their first of what we knew was going to be several free coffee beverages.

“I trust Saturday night went smoothly?” Gigi asked Caroline as I made their drinks.

“Yep,” she answered immediately before I could open my mouth to interject.  “Without a hitch.”

“Good,” she said.  “Glad to hear it.  So what else did you two do this weekend?”

“Not much,” Caroline replied casually.  “We went for a hike at Runyon yesterday.”

“Runyon, good for you,” Lola said.  “That’s a great workout.”

“Yes, we go every Sunday,” I said as I handed them their drinks.  “As a matter of fact, we ran into a film producer there, you girls know a Sylvie Crane?”

Lola and Gigi shook their heads.

“We struck up a conversation with her, and she needed a dog walker this Thursday, so we’re going to help her out,” Caroline said.

“Oh,” said Lola.  “That sounds fun.”  There was something amiss in her tone.

“What’s wrong with that?” I asked.

“Do you have experience walking dogs?” she asked.

I shrugged.  “Sure.  How hard is it to walk a dog?  What’s the big deal?”

“Just be careful about doing a job like that.  People here are obsessed with their dogs, and if anything happens to them, you’re dead meat,” said Lola.

“No pressure or anything,” Gigi said.  The two girls smiled and left us alone to think about what we had gotten ourselves into.

Caroline turned to me.  “What if she’s right?  What if something happens to them?” she asked.

“Oh my God.  She is not right, are you really taking those two seriously?” I said.  “We just need to be careful and not do anything stupid.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry for doubting us.  We can do this,” said Caroline.

“You’re damn right we can,” I said.

That afternoon, Sylvie called Caroline while we were at work. Caroline put her on speakerphone so I could listen too.

“Listen girls, before I get into specifics with the dogs, I need your full names and birthdates.”

“Uh.  Okay,” said Caroline.  “What for?”

“The background checks.”  Sylvie said like it wasn’t a big deal.

“B-background checks?” Caroline stammered.

“Yeah, I mean I like you girls, but I really don’t know you.  I just want to make sure everything is okay and I’ll feel better if I vet you a little bit first.”

I immediately thought of what Lola and Gigi had said.

“Well sure, Sylvie.  If it’ll make you feel more comfortable, we will give you any information you want,” said Caroline.

We gave her everything she wanted, including Solomon’s name and phone number as our reference.  By the time we were hung up with her, I was starting to feel some pressure about the job.

“It’s going to be fine,” said Caroline.  “She just wants to do it to ease her mind, we have to look at it from her point of view.”

“Right,” I said.

The next afternoon, Sylvie called again.

“Good news, you ladies are as clean as a whistle!” she said delightedly through Caroline’s speakerphone.  “And I talked to your boss, Solomon.  He likes you girls, but it sounds like he could use some joy in his life, you know?”

“Oh Sylvie, we know too well,” Caroline replied.

“You should tell him to get a Weimaraner,” she suggested.

“Well, he has a yappy little Pomeranian,” Caroline told her.

“Oh.  Well that’s his first problem,” she said.  “Anyway, I thought we’d go over the dog walking routine,” she continued, getting down to business.

“Yes, of course,” said Caroline as she grabbed a pen and scrap of paper.

“The dogs are usually walked between four and four-thirty,” Sylvie said.  “I’m going to leave a map of their usual route for you.  When you are done, the dogs can have two treats each, but no more than that.”

“Okay, sure,” said Caroline.  “Is there anything tricky about your neighborhood we should know?  Certain houses to stay away from, anything like that?”

Sylvie thought about this for a moment.  “No,” she said finally.  “But there is a German Shepherd who lives in my neighborhood, I’ll indicate her house on the map.  Dublin and Carlow go a little nuts when she’s outside, but there is a pretty high wall so they can’t actually get to her.  They can only see her through the driveway gate.  Just be sure to hold their leashes tight.”

“No problem,” said Caroline.  They talked for a few more minutes, Sylvie gave Caroline her address and told her how to get into the house.  As soon as Sylvie said her address, I went on the computer in the back room to look it up.  Once Caroline was done with Sylvie, we both studied her neighborhood.

On Thursday we arranged for Millie, a relatively new employee of Coffee Bean, to cover for us while we went on our dog walk.  We were technically working until closing, which was at nine, but didn’t see any harm in leaving for a couple of hours.  We didn’t even tell Solomon.

“Millie, we will be back in time to close, definitely,” I assured her.  “It shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.”

Millie smiled, exposing her metal braces.  “No problem,” she said.  I’ll be here.”

We found Sylvie’s house without any issues.  Like almost every other house in the hills, you couldn’t see very much of hers from the street.  There was a high wall with some kind of flowering vine spread all over it that obstructed the view.  The driveway was gated, so Caroline punched in the code that Sylvie had given her and we pulled in.  As soon as the gate groaned open, we could hear the dogs inside going beserk.

“Let’s check this place out,” said Caroline as we got out of the car.

The house was constructed out of the same stucco as the wall out front.  Its pinkish hue soaked up the sun and glowed in the late afternoon light.  It was fairly modest in size compared to what you’d imagine the other houses in this neighborhood were like, but was very well maintained.

“This yard looks like it’s cut with shears, it’s so pristine,” I said as I admired it.  “I almost don’t want to walk on it.”

The lawn was small and encircled the house only about three quarters of the way around.  Birds of Paradise and Rhododendrons blossomed through the mulch that bordered the house.  The far edge of the yard was lined with a low, thick hedge, presumably to help deter the dogs from getting out.

“Forget the lawn.  Look at this view!” Caroline exclaimed as she gestured to it.  We stood at the edge of her yard and looked out over the city in front of us.  We could even see Runyon from where we were standing.

“This is awesome,” said Caroline.  She closed her eyes and soaked in the sun.

“Yeah.  I could live here,” I said.

Our peaceful moment was interrupted by the incessant barking coming from behind us.  We turned towards the house.  Almost the entire back of it was wall to ceiling windows and we could easily see the two dogs jumping like maniacs all over furniture and each other.  Their noses were leaving huge streaks on the glass.

“All right, calm down!” Caroline shouted as she went around to the other side of the house.

The spare key was in one of those fake rocks in the mulch by the front door.  The dogs had followed us and were still barking like lunatics when Caroline finally turned the key and opened the door.  They got even more excited when we let ourselves in. One of them lunged towards me, so I instinctively put up my hands and got a handful of wet nose.  Fantastic.

“We better hurry,” I said as I wiped my hand on a jacket that was hanging by the door, “Don’t dogs pee when they get too excited?”

“Yeah, sometimes.  Let’s get them on the leashes, I don’t want to have to clean anything up,” said Caroline.

Sylvie had told Caroline the leashes would be with the walking route map in the kitchen.  We walked through the foyer.  The first floor was almost completely open – the kitchen, living room and dining room areas were essentially one big space.  Though it wasn’t huge, it was impeccably furnished.

“Looks like something out of a Pottery Barn catalogue,” I said.  The kitchen had granite counter tops, new-looking appliances and two sinks, which I thought was pretty cool.

“Aha, here we go,” said Caroline.  She pointed to the kitchen island.  Lying there on the counter were the leashes on top of a piece of paper.

“Okay.  Let’s see,” said Caroline.  The dogs had calmed down some and had followed us over to the island, staring at us as we inspected the map.

“Wow, this is some map,” I said.  I was expecting a printout from Google Maps or Mapquest, but this was actually hand drawn.  Sylvie had labeled all the streets and notated the houses Dublin and Carlow had doggie friends in.  She had included the German Shepherd’s house, whose name was Mandy.  She drew trees and hydrants where the dogs often did their business as well as one particular tree whose bark they like the taste of.  According to the note on the map, we were to make sure they didn’t eat too much of it.

“How much bark is too much?” Caroline wondered aloud.

“I’m not sure.  I don’t think we should let them have any,” I said.

“Good idea.”

Sylvie had notated the route with a red dotted line and it meandered down these streets to create a big loop.

“This isn’t drawn to scale, but this looks like a long walk,” I said.

Caroline nodded in agreement.  “A little over two miles, I’d bet,” she said.  “We better get going then.”

We each grabbed a leash off the table.

“Which dog do you want?” Caroline asked.

I shrugged.  “It doesn’t matter to me.”

“Well, I’m going to walk this one,” said Caroline, gesturing to the lighter colored dog.  She checked the tag on the collar.  “I’ve got Carlow.  That means you have Dublin.”

“Great.”  We clipped the leashes to their collars and walked out the door.

The dogs acted like they hadn’t been out of the house in months. They jumped and pulled on their leashes as we went out the front gate and down the street. I didn’t know how Sylvie did this walk by herself.  Even with us each taking one dog, it was still difficult.  They crisscrossed their leashes several times and we hadn’t gone more than three houses down before we needed to stop and untangle them.

“What do you think about the German Shepherd house?” I asked when we were on our way again.  “I think it would be better not to go anywhere near it and omit her street entirely.”

“Agreed,” said Caroline.

By skipping Mandy’s street, we were cutting the loop by about a half mile.

“We can just do the last little loop twice,” I said as I studied the map.

“That’s fine,” said Caroline.  “Seriously, I think we could just cut the walk short and no one would be the wiser.  Let’s just see how it goes.”

The dogs calmed down as we got to the end of Sylvie’s street.  Per the map, we turned and went further uphill, following the street along the ridge then peeling off to the streets below on the other side of the hill.  The dogs peed and pooped at all their favorite spots.  They said hello to some of their doggie friends through gates and over fences. And we did pass the tree they liked the taste of, but they didn’t so much as get a lick of its bark before we pulled sharply on their collars.  Reluctantly they moved on.

The two dogs looked only slightly different, but their personalities were worlds apart.  This became more and more evident as we walked.  Carlow was very eager to sniff at things and check out people, but he rarely took it beyond that.  Dublin was the adventurer.  It was not sufficient to sniff and poke, he wanted to experience everything full force by digging, chewing, rolling around and generally destroying almost everything of interest.  He was always as far ahead as I would let him get on his retractable leash and constantly looked back at us like we were the world’s biggest slowpokes.

While the sun bathed Sylvie’s house in a warm glow on the western side, the eastern side of the hill got very little sunlight at this time of day.  The vegetation was denser and the air was cooler.  Droopy trees hung lazily over the high walls, many of which had compromised structural integrity.

“Is this ghetto Hollywood Hills?” I said.  Many of the houses that we could see were not very well maintained and looked a little shabby.

“I don’t know,” Caroline answered.  “Certainly looks that way.”

The houses on this side had no view at all.  The trees were too tall and thick to see much of anything, which made it difficult to keep our bearings.  Some of the street signs were missing or very difficult to see because the greenery was so overgrown.

“Okay.  If we want to avoid Mandy’s house, we should take a right here and that’ll get us back to the main road that we came down here on,” I said as I looked at the map.  We went down the street, but instead of coming to another street like I thought we were going to, we reached a dead end.

“This isn’t right,” Caroline declared when we got to the cul de sac.

“No,” I agreed as I studied the map again.  The light wasn’t very good and I had to hold it pretty close to my face to see much of anything.

“Where are we?” Caroline said.  She got out her cell phone to access its GPS.  “I don’t have any 3G service here, this sucks,” she said after a moment.  “What does the map say?”

“I can’t even tell where we are,” I replied.  “We should just go back the way we came.”

We turned around.  Once we got to the first cross street, we examined the map again.

“Do you remember this intersection?” I asked Caroline.

“Not really,” she answered vaguely.  We looked at the street sign.

“I don’t think that street is even on the map, do you?” I asked.

“I think we should go right,” Caroline said.  “It looks like it goes uphill, and that is the direction we need to go in to get back to Sylvie’s.”

“All right,” I said.  We turned the corner and went up the hill.  We hadn’t gone more than four or five houses when we heard a bark.

“Probably another doggie friend,” I said.

“I don’t know.  Look at them,” Caroline said, pointing to the dogs.  They were both walking with a purpose and very upright.  The strange dog barked again, and something dawned on me.

“Did that sound like a German Shepherd bark to you?” I asked.

“I don’t know.  How the hell do I know what a German Shepherd’s bark sounds like?” she said snippily.  The disembodied bark erupted a third time.  Dublin and Carlow started to act very strangely.  They yelped and pulled on their leashes, jumping all around like they were hopped up on something.

“Should we go back?” Caroline asked.  She steadied Carlow’s leash by holding it with both hands.

“No, I think we should just go this way,” I said.  Dublin practically jerked my arm out of its socket.  The cul de sac experience had completely deflated my confidence and I just wanted to get back to Sylvie’s.

Mandy’s barking was getting louder and louder, and the behavior of Dublin and Carlow was getting more and more beserk.  It grew even worse as we approached her house.  It was gray, and like Sylvie said there was a high wall that separated it from the sidewalk.

“This is ridiculous,” shouted Caroline over all the barking.  “This dog Mandy better be smoking hot.”

I nodded in agreement.  We were coming up on the gate to Mandy’s driveway.  Suddenly, Dublin leapt ahead and his leash slipped out of my hands.  He tore down the sidewalk.

“Dublin!” I shouted.  “Get back here!”  But Dublin wasn’t listening to me.  As if in slow motion, I watched as he jumped, sailing skillfully over that high wall into Mandy’s yard.  As soon as I saw his stumpy little tail disappear over the wall, my heart plummeted into my stomach and I did the first thing I thought of.  I ran after him.

My jump over the wall wasn’t nearly as graceful as Dublin’s.  I got stuck on the top of it, the surface was very uneven and my khakis caught on a few little nubs of stucco.

“Are you insane?” Caroline shouted.  “What are you doing?”

“I have to get Dublin before he rapes that German Shepherd!” I yelled back at her.  I managed to get free, my khakis ripping in the process and I promptly lost my balance.  I landed on the other side of the wall in a thick bush.

“It sounds to me like she’s asking for it.  I’m just saying,” said Caroline.

“Ohhh,” I groaned as I tried to get up.

“You okay?” Caroline called out.

“Yeah, wonderful,” I answered.  I suddenly felt a hot shooting pain on my forearm and looked down at it.  There was a razor thin line of fresh blood about five inches long.  I looked around and realized I had landed in a rosebush.

“Great,” I mumbled.  As carefully as possible, I extracted myself from the rosebush, scratching myself in several other places in the process.  I freed myself just in time to see Dublin dismounting the biggest German Shepherd I’d ever seen.  Both dogs locked eyes with me.  Mandy bared her teeth and Dublin saw his chance.  He took off.

I started running after Dublin, but Mandy, intent on aiding her lover escape, bounded towards me.  My head was spinning.  I was losing Dublin, bleeding from multiple places and had a German Shepherd about to bite my head off.  I looked around wildly, searching for something I could use to defend myself with and noticed a tennis ball lying in a pile of dead leaves.  I grabbed it.  Right as Mandy was about to strike, I threw the tennis ball towards the house.  She completely fell for it and bolted across the yard to fetch the ball.  I ran over to where I’d seen Dublin disappear through two thick bushes and into the neighboring yard.

“Sucker!” I cried to Mandy over my shoulder.

“Hey!  What’s going on over there?” Caroline yelled.

“Dublin’s gone into the next yard, I’ve almost got him!” I shouted, and ran through the bushes.  A leafy branch smacked me in the eye.  It immediately started to tear uncontrollably.

“Dublin!” I shouted once I got into the next yard.  I looked around with one hand cupping my bad eye.  After a second I spotted him along the top of a stone wall on the other side of the yard.  He looked at me gleefully, then floated over it into yet another yard.

I ran after Dublin for a good ten minutes.  Through bushes, over walls and hedges, around trees and piles of brush and branches we went.  Since one hand was over my injured eye, my ability to register depth of field was subpar and resulted more than once in almost losing my other eye.  The further the chase went on, the more I cursed Dublin for being so devious, Sylvie for raising such poorly behaved dogs, Caroline for thinking this dog walk was a good idea, and myself for going along with the whole thing.

Some of the people who lived in the houses of the yards we were tearing through caught us in the act, though luckily they seemed to understand what I was doing.  Most gave me looks of sympathy, though none gave me any help whatsoever.  Dublin finally eluded me after he squeezed through a fence that had a missing slat.  The opening wasn’t big enough for me to fit through and the fence was too tall and not sturdy enough for me to scale over.  With a panting resignation, I found the quickest back out to the street.

Once I stumbled out on the pavement, I stopped to rest and regroup.  Thankfully my eye had stopped tearing, though it still felt a little inflamed and was sensitive to the touch.  I had no idea where I was and checked my pockets for Sylvie’s map.  Then I vaguely recalled having it in my hand when I decided to jump the wall into Mandy’s yard and was pretty sure I dropped it as I was landing in the rosebush.  I realized I didn’t know where Caroline was and just as I was beginning to panic about that, I heard the jingle of a collar and turned to see her walking down the street with a completely calm Carlow in tow.

“Oh thank God,” I breathed loudly when I saw her.  “That was lucky.  I didn’t know how I was going to find you again.”

Caroline took in my appearance.  My clothes were torn and I had multiple scratches that had drawn blood.  I was very sweaty and dirty, particularly my knees because I had fallen a few times over the course of the chase.

“We do have cell phones,” Caroline said after a moment.  “Besides, it wasn’t luck that led me to you.”

“What was it then?” I asked.

“I just followed the sound of you crashing through the neighborhood and shouting at Dublin.  You sounded like an elephant back there.”

“Oh gee, thanks,” I said sarcastically.

“I take it you didn’t find him,” she said.

“No, I didn’t,” I answered bitterly.  “I tried to keep up with him, I really did.  But he’s a dog.”  I felt utterly helpless about the whole thing, and started to get a knot in the back of my throat.

“Well, we have to find him.”

“I know,” I said in a small voice.

“And we have another problem.”

I looked at her sharply.  “What’s that?”

“Millie called.  The registers have frozen and she can’t figure out how to fix them.”

“Both of them?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes.  One froze, so she started to use the other one, then that one froze too.  She’s freaking out, she can’t do any transactions and I need to go over there to help her.”

“You are leaving now?” I tried to control the volume of my voice, but I was so angry at Millie’s stupidity and panicked that Caroline was about to leave that I sounded quite shrill.

“I know the timing sucks,” she said sympathetically.  “But I have a plan.”

“What?” I demanded.

“I think you should call Sebastian and ask him to help you look for Dublin.”

I laughed at her.  “Yeah.  Right.”

“I’m serious, it’s perfect.  You call him distraught and needing his help.  He’ll go for it, trust me.”

“I’m not appropriately attired,” I protested.  “Look at me.”

“Doesn’t matter, he’ll get over it,” she said dismissively.  “Give him a call.”

“Caroline.  I’m pretty sure I smell like manure.”

“You do smell like manure.”

“I rest my case.”

“I figured out how to get back to the house, we’ll put Carlow away when we get there and I’ll wait with you until Sebastian arrives, okay?  Is that a plan?”

“Fine,” I said after a moment.  I got out my phone and dialed Sebastian’s number as Caroline led the way down the street.

“That’s so weird, I was just thinking about you,” Sebastian said after the second ring.

“You know who this is?” I asked, a little surprised.

“Of course I do.  I put your name in my phone as soon as you left Green.  How are you?” he asked.

I decided to jump right into it.  I told him what was going on, and without even needing to get to the asking part, he offered his help.

“I’ve got a dog, you know.  I could help you look for him if you want.  I don’t live too far from where you are.”

“That would be so great,” I said relieved.

“I’ll be over in twenty minutes,” he said.

Once we got to the house, Caroline put Carlow inside and I wiped off as much of the blood, sweat and dirt as I could.  I looked in the mirror at my eye, which was a little swollen but didn’t look too bad.  Caroline made me an ice pack for it and then waited in the driveway with me for Sebastian to arrive.  She was quite pleased with herself for making this suggestion.  After about ten minutes, a black shiny pick-up truck pulled up outside the gate.  I threw my icepack into the bushes as Caroline let him into the driveway.

“Hey,” he said as he got out of the cab of the truck moments later.

“Hi,” I managed as Caroline slipped into her car and backed out of the driveway.  “You ready?”

“Oh my God, look at your eye,” he said as he pointed to it.

“I’m fine,” I assured him.  “It looks worse than it feels.”

“You sure you don’t want some ice or something?” he said, still staring at it.

“No, that’s okay,” I said quickly.  “I just want to find Dublin.”

“Okay.  I was thinking we’d take the truck.  Probably would be easier,” he said.

“Sure, sounds great,” I said.

It was almost completely dark by the time we started looking.  Sebastian drove slowly down one street after another.  After making his first turn, he reached into a paper bag that was resting on the middle console between the two front seats.

“Doggie treats,” he explained as he broke off a piece of one and tossed it onto the sidewalk.  “My dog goes nuts for these.”

“Oh?  What kind of dog do you have?” I asked.  I was completely sick of even thinking about dogs, but thought it was a good subject to start with.

“German Short Hair Pointer,” he replied.  “His name is Kaiser.  It means emperor in German.”

“Do you have relatives from Germany?”

“No,” he said.  “I spent a semester there while I was at Stanford.  I loved it.  Really rich history, but it gets overlooked by many Americans because of the whole Hitler and Holocaust thing.”

“You seem to know these streets very well,” I said, deciding to change the subject.

“I do, actually,” he answered as he threw another bit of dog treat out the window.  “I grew up in these hills.  There are very few streets up here I don’t know.  What’s the dog’s name again?”

“Dublin,” I replied.

“Dublin!  Here boy!  Want a treat?” he called loudly out the window as he threw another bit.  There was no answer.

“Hopefully no one else’s dog will eat these up, and we can at least lure him back towards the house,” he said.

I hoped so.  As we crept along and continued on our search, I grew less and less hopeful that we were going to find Dublin at all.  The knot that was in my throat earlier had dropped down into the pit of my stomach, and as time wore on it grew bigger and bigger.  A few times Caroline texted me and asked how the search was going.  I texted her back and updated her with our lack of progress.

Sebastian couldn’t have been more wonderful.  He circled through Sylvie’s neighborhood twice, throwing bits of treat out his window until the whole bag was gone.  After an hour and a half of looking, Sebastian pulled over and looked at me matter-of-factly.

“I think it’s time to call it a night,” he said.  “I’m sorry, it’s not that I don’t want to keep searching out here with you.  I just think you’ll have better results in the morning.”

“Okay,” I agreed and heaved a huge sigh.  “Perhaps that is best.”

“We’ll swing back to the house to see if he’s there,” Sebastian suggested as he pulled away from the curb.

I nodded but said nothing.  Suddenly, I had a horrible realization.  Most likely Sylvie’s dogsitter would be at the house by now and wondering why there was only one dog there.  I prayed vigorously that he or she hadn’t called Sylvie to tell her one of the dogs was missing.  I was dreading having to tell the dogsitter the bad news, I didn’t want Caroline to have to deal with getting a call from Sylvie freaking out about it.

When we pulled through the gate and into the driveway a few minutes later, there was another car already parked there.  I heard Carlow barking inside.  We got out of the car and Sebastian looked around for signs of Dublin while I started mentally preparing myself for the conversation with the dogsitter.  As I approached the front door, it opened and a guy with a mop of curly brown hair stepped out into the driveway.  He closed the door behind him.

“You the dogwalker?” he demanded.

“Yes,” I said sheepishly.  “Listen, I feel horrible-“ I looked him in the eye, ready to really grovel.  But I completely lost my train of thought when I realized I knew who this was.

“Josh?” I asked.  It was Josh Beader, from the movie Caroline and I had worked on the week before.

He looked at me too, recognition registering on his face.  “Oh, hi,” he said.  “You’re the dogwalker?”

“Yes, and I feel horrible about-“

“Losing Dublin,” he finished for me.

“He took off,” I said.  “Have you called Sylvie yet to tell her?”

“Are you kidding?” Josh said.  “She would freak out.”

“I will do whatever it takes,” I said eagerly to him.  “I will scour this neighborhood for days if I have to.  I will find Dublin.  Just please don’t tell her yet.”

Sebastian came over and joined us.

“Well, there’s no sign of Dublin in the yard,” he said as my heart sank.  “But unless this lady has more than two dogs, I think he’s in the house.”

I looked at Josh, my eyes wide with anticipation, then I pushed past him and flung open the front door.  Dublin and Carlow bolted out to greet me, licking my hands and wagging their stubby little tails.  Dublin acted like nothing happened, but I was so relieved to see him that I couldn’t even be mad at him.  It was like the weight of the world just lifted off my shoulders.

“Oh, thank God,” I breathed as I hugged him around his neck.

“Yeah Dublin ran off on me once, it took me four hours to find him.  He’s kind of an a-hole,” said Josh.

“So are you, for leading her on like that,” said Sebastian.  “Why didn’t you tell her you had him in there the whole time?”

“It’s fine,” I said quickly

“Sorry,” said Josh.

“It’s fine, really,” I said again.  “I just hope he didn’t impregnate that German Shepherd,” I said.

“No, he’s fixed.  Sylvie knows better than that,” he said.

“How do you even know Sylvie?” I asked.

“She’s my aunt,” Josh replied.  “She started my career in the film business, so the least I can do is watch her dogs for her from time to time.”

“Cool.  Hey, can this incident stay between us?” I asked timidly.

“Absolutely,” he answered.

“Thank you, that’s really nice of you,” I said.

“You’re welcome.”

I turned to Sebastian.  “Would you mind giving me a ride home?”

“Sure,” he answered.

“Bye Josh.  Thanks again,” I said.  We hopped in Sebastian’s truck, Josh held onto the dogs’ collars as the gate opened and we drove off.

“Thank you so much, again.  For everything,” I said to Sebastian when we pulled up in front of my apartment building.

“You’re welcome.  Hey, are you free this Saturday?  I’m having a pool party.”

“Sure, sounds fun,” I said, struggling to keep my voice even and not sound as excited as I felt.

“Great.  You can bring your friend if you want.”  He got out his phone.  “I just texted you my address,” he said after a moment.  “It starts at six and it’ll go all night.  Come by whenever.”