Free Fauna by Alissa York Page B

give him a little snack.”
    Kate nods. “Come on, boy, you can do it. Keep up.” He works a little in response to her tone, his head and shoulders returning to the front third, where they belong. “Good boy, Blue.” Beside her, Joanne reaches into her bag again. Keeping her eyes on the dog, Kate spreads her elbows across the top of the tank. “How about exercise? Are you getting him out for walks?”
    “Mostly.” Joanne presses the bag to her chest. “He has his good days and his bad days.”
    “Right. But most days you get him out.”
    “Sure. Yesterday he was really perky. He took off after this guy on a bike. I let him go for it. I mean, if you ride in the off-leash area, you’re pretty much asking for it, don’t you think?”
    One. Two. Three
. “Okay, but remember, we talked about how he shouldn’t be running yet?”
    “Well, sure, but this guy came out of nowhere.”
    Kate closes her eyes. “It’s just something to keep in mind.”
If you don’t want to cripple him all over again. If you don’t want me to cripple you
. She hops down from the ramp and returns to the bench to check on Blue’s gait. Still close to even, still going strong. “Up another notch,” she says, and watches Blue take the challenge in stride.
    When she glances up, Sandi catches her eye and smiles. It’s the kind of look Kate would have misread only months before. Hard to believe now, the hours she spent fretting over a casual comment, an innocent hug. For a time her nights were haunted—Sandi with a towel-swaddled poodle in her arms, Sandi slipping treats to a shivering Italian greyhound with fractured front legs.
    Kate was no stranger to the hopeless crush; she’d suffered through seven or eight of them by the time Lou-Lou taught her the delights of requited love.
What’s a beauty like you doing wasting herself on straight girls?
The infatuations had rarely lasted more than a few weeks, and thank God, Sandi proved to be no exception. It helped, being invited to her wedding. The official kiss raised hoots and wolf whistles from the crowd, Sandi finally twisting her face free, lips swollen, eyelids heavy with heterosexual love. It was the shock Kate needed. She learned her lesson, once and for all.
    Joanne rattles her bag. She digs for a marrow snack and dangles it, and when her dog trots up like a charger, she lets out a happy little laugh. Blue nips the treat from her fingers, this time lagging only slightly before getting the better of the belt again. He’s making progress, this creature that had to be carried into the centre not so long ago.
    “Attaboy,” Kate murmurs, and feels a swell of something like laughter herself.

    Lily and Billy have made their way north past the library, past the high, blind wall of the Don Jail, the decrepit face ofBridgepoint Health. East Riverdale Park. You can see out over the valley from here: the vast platter of the playing field, then the parkway, then the wild and wandering Don. She’s chosen one of the benches by the statue of Dr. Sun Yat-sen. He’s pretty white-looking for a guy that has to be Chinese, but she likes the bronze swell of his dress.
    It’s a good spot—quiet enough to concentrate, with sufficient foot traffic to keep the pervs away. Billy takes up the other three-quarters of the bench, so she doesn’t have to worry about anyone sitting down. Most people know not to talk to you when you’re reading, but not all. Persistent types get to view Billy’s sunlit canines, his dark lips curling to show glimpses of gum.
    Since he got chopped, Billy shows little interest in his own kind. His chin, stretched across her thighs, lifts only slightly to acknowledge a passing boxer, a pair of grubby-faced Westies on matching leads. For her part, Lily glances up whenever there’s movement, then returns to the novel in her hand.
    Hard to imagine how she would have lasted this long without anything to read. She fretted for days before taking Guy up on his offer, made several