Free Falling for June: A Novel by Ryan Winfield

Cybill Shepherd.”
    “Those two don’t even look anything alike,” he said.
    “Hey”—she shrugged—“it’s your drawing, buddy.”
    Another weekend, another parachute center, another disappointment. He was quickly running out of hope. Despite causing him frustration, however, David’s obsession was improving his life. He was out meeting new people, even though it was to harass them with his sketch; he was sleeping more, because dreams were the one place he could clearly see her face; and he was becoming more efficient at his work, if only to be able to leave the office early in order to continue his quest. He even saw his name slowly climbing up the office bonus board for the first time. But none of this mattered to David. All he could think about was finding her.
    But not even the strongest of attractions can be maintained in a vacuum, and as the scent faded from her socks, his enthusiasm for the search began to wane. He found himself feeling lonely again, spending long evenings cooped up in his apartment with only the TV for company. He had replayed his rooftop conversation with her in his head a thousand times, recalling the promise she had extracted from him to give himself another chance. And it was this promise that kept the thought of suicide from crossing his mind again. But he was sinking into a depression just the same.
    Then one evening he saw an ad for the local humane society on TV, and he began to cry. He wasn’t quite sure why; maybe he saw himself in the sad puppy’s eyes. The next day, a Saturday in early June, David was driving home from having his first colonoscopy—which had left him feeling more than a little vulnerable, even though the prognosis had been all clear—when he passed by the humane society and recognized its sign from the commercial. He pulled over and went inside. The dozens of sad faces staring out at him from their cages immediately overwhelmed him. No way could he do it, he told himself. No way could he be responsible for another living creature. He could hardly take care of himself and he knew it. But he also knew that his shrinking from anything that resembled responsibilityhad been a recurring theme for him since the day his father had died.
    The woman at the front desk looked defeated when he told her he had changed his mind. So defeated in fact that David asked if there might be some way other than adoption that he could help. He had meant something along the lines of a financial donation, and had even taken out his checkbook, but much to his surprise, she waved the check away and asked him if he had a driver’s license instead. And so he began his days as a doggy driver, taxiing terriers and chauffeuring shih tzus all over the city, logging long hours each weekend on the road, delivering the little yapping companions to new, if sometimes temporary, homes. He hated it, or so he claimed. But in truth it was the best thing to ever happen to him.
    He would address the little faces in his rearview mirror as they looked out through the bars of their carrier doors. “You want to listen to the radio?” he’d ask. “Do you prefer classical or jazz? Neither? Okay, stop barking. I turned it off.” He went as far north as the Canadian border, and as far south as Portland, and even though he was loath to admit it, he began to look forward to these drives, and to his furry companions, finding it more and more difficult each time to say good-bye. Then one day a doggy delivery forever changed his life.
    It was on a Friday, the fourth of July, when he left the office to pick up a cocker spaniel, having no idea that he would not return to his job for several weeks. He picked up his yapping companion and drove it south to Puyallup, fighting traffic to reach his destination before the fireworks began. Arriving at the puppy’s new home, he lingered for just a moment in the foyer, being welcomed by the licks of a half dozen dogs, when he once again laid eyes on the face he had been