Between Then & Now || Currently Editing for Wattys 2022

13.

I named her Thelma.

I know, I know. I should have maybe tried a little harder to find her owner. But, come on. I found her in a dumpster behind some random, run-down gas station in Arizona. Something tells me that they didn't exactly care.

"Come on, hon'." Thelma stands in the kitchen sink, just barely fitting. From what I researched, she looks like a mix between a miniature Australian shepherd and a border collie. Her brown- and black-spotted white fur lays flat against her, soaking wet as I take the extendable sink sprayer, hosing her down. "Sit." I push on her butt, trying to communicate in whatever language she might understand. Immediately, she sits down, and I laugh, shaking my head. "Why the hell did anyone just leave you there?"

After finding Thelma behind the dumpster, I just walked back to the van and, when I turned around next to the driver's side, she was still there, looking up at me with her adorable, hetero-chromatic puppy eyes. I didn't steal her, per se, because, you see, she was left there. And I didn't make her follow me. She just decided that my passenger seat was much better than a pile of blankets behind a dirty, green-paint peeling dumpster in the deadly Arizona heat.

I can't really say I blame her.

For a few hours after stopping at the gas station, I just drove, wanting to get to my first destination, Austin, Texas, before bothering to clean her up. By the time we got here, the sky was dark, so I parked the van, and brought Thelma into the main cabin to finally give her a much needed soak.

Somehow, it looked like she didn't have any fleas or ticks. She also didn't seem terribly thirsty or hungry, so I don't think she was left out there for too long. As fate would have it, I left that random gas station in the middle-of-nowhere Arizona with some oddly unclear advice from a wise, old lady. And an abandoned puppy.

You really can't make this shit up.

Thelma looks up at me, patiently, as I scrub her fur, having to use my own shampoo for the night. Her blue eye winks, and I softly laugh a bit, massaging the shampoo into her fur as good as I can. As I reach forward for the hose again, she suddenly shakes, bubbles flying everywhere.

"Thelma." The bubbles are splattered across the counter and the wall behind it, the front of my shirt, the stove top. My eyes scan the mess, and when I look back at her, I could swear she looks back up at me with the closest a dog could get to a shit-eating grin.

I grab the spare towel I had packed in the drawer under the sink and pick Thelma up, wrapping her in it. I set her in my lap as I sit on the bed, rubbing her dry with the towel. When I'm done, she looks up at me for a moment again before finally jumping up and licking my cheek. She leaps off my lap, running around on the bed and I laugh.

"Alright, little lady." I pat the bed and swing my legs up onto it. "Time to lay down." She just looks up at me, turning her head slightly to the right, her short little puppy legs making little dents into the duvet. Then she comes up to lay right next to my thigh as I sit with my back pressed against the pillows. Her tiny foot nudges the copy of A Room of One's Own I had set onto the dark green blanket when I had packed the main cabin. For a moment, I just look at it. The green cover has some wear and tear and as Thelma's foot nudges it again, the cover opens ever so slightly, revealing slightly yellowed pages and a clearly newer white sheet with a note on it.

I click the home button on my phone, lifting it up to see the time. When the almost harshly-lit screen tells me that it's only ten, I look back down at the book and pick up the note. Thelma sets her head onto my lap, her warm fur slightly poking into the fabric of my leggings.

Ola,

It is very rare for me to come across a student with a such a light inside them as I did when I began mentoring you. I mean it when I say that I see great things coming from you. Here is a little gift that might guide you to find what you're looking for. 

Good luck on your journey.

Dr. Walker

The note burns in my hand, images flickering across my mental vision like an old school film–the lady from the gas station, Dr. Walker, the book, the ad for the van, the book, Dr. Walker. My back sinks against the pillows behind me and, absentmindedly, my hand reaches forward for the book. Mind wandering, my fingertips slightly flutter the pages. The paper crinkles a bit. The smell of a used book floats into my nose and for a few seconds, I just breathe it in, studying the white, all-caps title on the cover. Then, I crack it open a bit, fingering through for the first page.