CHAPTER SIX
THE TEST OF WILLS—PRINCE CHARMING
RIDES TO THE RESCUE
(25th installment, Scruggs and Samantha, by Mary de la
Pena)
My contest of will with Precious
Princess One and Precious Princess Two had me to the point of either committing
homicide or dissolving into tears—or both, when my phone rang.
“Hey,” Prince
Charming said. “I see I missed two of
your calls. Is everything all right?”
Hearing his voice
was enough to bring me to tears. “Just a
minute,” I said to the girl behind the counter.
“I need to take this call.”
I stepped outside
and began to cry. “Oh, God, I am so
sorry,” I sobbed. “Twink is gone, but
Scruggs is still here, and they were going to put Samantha to sleep, and if I
don’t take them today they’re going to put them all to sleep, and the girl
behind the desk says I have too many animals, and they can’t let me take
anymore, and I don’t know what to do, and I haven’t been to court yet, and I’m
so sorry I let you down, and I just can’t leave here without Scruggs and
Samantha.”
The phone was so
quiet I thought I had lost the connection.
I hiccupped a few more times and then asked, “Are you still there?”
A quiet sigh was
my answer.
I started to talk
again, but he cut me off.
“I heard you,” he
said. “Do you need me to come?”
How could I answer
that question when everything seemed so far out of control for me? It was not like me to stand in a public place
and blubber like a baby. It was not in
my nature to let others stand in the way of what I wanted. I was a fighter, not a victim. I found solutions to problems, I didn’t give
into them. Yet there I was, drained,
frightened, and feeling desperately alone.
I stood silently, unable to find the answer, knowing I needed him, but
uncertain I could or should ask.
He answered for
me.
“I’ll be right
there,” Prince Charming said. “Give me
twenty minutes, okay? We do have twenty
minutes, don’t we?”
“Yes,” I
whispered.
Twenty-three
minutes later, my Prince Charming appeared, dressed in his best charcoal gray
suit, white shirt, maroon tie, and gleaming white hair. He looked every bit the warrior king ready to
do battle for his fair maiden.
I stifled my tears
but couldn’t help putting my head against his chest. He placed his hands on my shoulders, gave
them a quick squeeze, and then stepped around me.
“Let’s get this
done,” he said in his lawyer voice, which was all the comfort I needed. As a
team, we would “get this done.” Together
we were invincible!
We stepped back
into the office and I pointed to the clerk that held the paperwork for Scruggs
and Samantha.
My husband stepped
up to the Precious Princess One, just as Precious Princess Two was joining her
at her station.
“Is this the woman
you were having trouble with?” she asked Precious Princess One, pointing at me.
“Yes,” she answered. “She’s the
one who wants to adopt these two animals, but she seems to have some licensing
issues as well as too many animals.”
The smirk on the faces of the two young women was enough again make me
want to resort to violence. But my
husband, who knew me only too well, instinctively put out a restraining arm.
In his most
soothing lawyer voice, he said to them, “I think there may be a mistake. All of our animals are current with
vaccinations and licensing. I personally
spoke with Agent Tamara myself.”
I was momentarily
taken aback. Agent Tamara was a senior
enforcement officer with the Humane Society.
She was a goddess at the shelter, and her name was not to be used
lightly. My husband and I had come to
know her when we did an animal cruelty case together. She came to every court appearance and we had
chatted about animals. In fact, she and
my husband had been in court together the Monday after he had euthanized Alice . He had told me how solicitous she had been at
his loss.
Precious Princess
One and Precious Princess Two also were momentarily stunned into silence by the
use of Agent Tamara’s name. But it was
only momentarily.
Precious Princess
Two, the bolder of the two, sniffed at my husband, looked him up and down, then
said, “And when did you speak with Agent Tamara? She is in court today, and then out in the
field. She’s not expected in the office
until much later.”
My husband has the
most charming smile, while mine can be viper-like when riled, his is charming
and sweet.
He smiled at her and answered, “I know Agent Tamara is in court
today. In fact, she was in the same
courtroom with me when I spoke with my wife about the trouble she was having
today. Agent Tamara seemed a little
concerned and told me to tell you to call her if there was a problem.”
The eyes of both girls widened at my husband’s words. But again, Precious Princess Two was the
quicker of the two to recover.
“We don’t make
calls like that, sir,” she said, her voice sliding into disrespect. “She is much too busy for us to bother her
when she is in court.”
My husband
shrugged. “Okay, then can we continue
with this adoption?”
Both girls shook
their heads in the negative.
Precious Princess
One answered, “I’m sorry, sir, but the computer says you have too many dogs at
your address, and we can’t allow a fourth dog to go home with you. Besides, it says here you have two
Rottweilers, and a Rottweiler mix. We
don’t allow dogs to go home with adoptive families unless they bring their dogs
into the shelter to see if the dogs get along.”
“We have no
problem bringing our two dogs here to
do a temperament check,” he answered.
“When can we set that up?”
No comments:
Post a Comment