Free Connections by Jacqueline Wein Page A

had an architect redesign the building. He moved his living quarters up to the fourth floor. The basement was converted to “guest rooms” for boarding. The first floor had the waiting room and six examination rooms—three for Dr. Pomalee and his other doctors; three for “holding” the next patient. Sometimes it was like musical rooms. The second floor contained operating and X-ray rooms. The third was clerical and storage. The staff had increased to thirteen, with attendants and techs. Laurie Jensen was now a vice president of the corporation, and she ran the office.
    It had become a very large business, as had the whole industry; theirs was only one of the about twenty-two thousand veterinary hospitals in the United States. Laurie Jensen knew this and many more statistics. She had been accumulating them for years.

Chapter 23
    The odors from the open back door of a Hungarian restaurant, mingling with the scent of newspaper ink, the sour stench coming from a dark doorway, and just-baked bagels, were as sweet to Jason as the honeysuckle-jasmine scent floating through a romantic novel.
    As the papers were thrown from the truck onto the sidewalk, he moved closer, with all the other people who had been loitering on the corner, waiting for the Sunday Times . Three teenage boys quickly wrapped the main section around the bulk of the paper, which they had been collating all afternoon. Jason called it the “Saturday night outdoor factory,” which had an assembly line on many street corners in Manhattan. Not as many as there used to be, with so many people getting digital editions of the Times . Jason thought there was something very unsatisfying about swiping the pages on an iPad or turning them with a mouse on a laptop, as well as having a subscription and getting the Book Review and the Arts & Leisure section a day early. Of course, nothing changed from Saturday morning to Sunday morning in literature or on Broadway, but it was always a pleasant surprise to open the sections and relish the contents on the day they were meant to be read.
    He gave the head guy a ten, watched him put the News inside the Times , and then hold out his arm for the wad of papers and his change. He started down Amsterdam Avenue, pulling Sabrina closer to him. No, there was nothing as relaxing as spreading the sections out on the table Sunday morning and reading them one at a time with a second mug of coffee.
    The traffic never eased in New York, and Jason wondered how he could be expected to curb his dog when the cars and busses squeezed their tires so closely against the pavement. A giggle came to his throat, like a little burp, as a perverse thought crossed his mind. One curbed dog to go. Squash! The leash tugged back, and he stopped and watched Sabrina squat on the sidewalk. While she was urinating, Sabrina looked up at him guiltily. He had not given her enough lead to go into the street. He very softly said, “Good girl,” knowing that she would hear his whispered approval and be grateful for it. She knew every inflection of his voice, every gesture of his body, every mood of his soul. For she loved him. If only Chris had one-tenth the sensitivity or cared or expressed one-tenth of the feeling that Sabrina did! There must really be something wrong with him. Even when things were going well, Jason was not satisfied. He should go for help. It wasn’t normal. Chris was right about one thing, though…Jason made himself miserable. Why couldn’t he just take things for what they were? Be satisfied, even glad to have as much as he did? And accept Chris as he was—for what he was.
    He looked dully at the throngs of people strolling along, enjoying the perfect spring night, and he was angry at himself that he couldn’t find pleasure in it too. That he couldn’t enjoy closing up his shop after a busy day. Couldn’t go home and eat his dinner alone, or take a walk for the papers, or put his feet up and watch television, without thinking about