Brooke and Peter still didn’t have a name for their new business.
Mel’s idea of “Barking Out Loud” was good, but Brooke wanted to use only the initials. After all, BOL was in every story Peter wrote. Peter’s sense of humor was off a few degrees, so the things he wrote were funny, in the odd way of being Peter. He always took the surprising and made it convincing. “Would a dog really say that?” Later saying, “Sure .. Perhaps.”
“Nope,” Peter said. “The name is fine, but we need to start with more than just the initials. You can’t ‘be in the know until you know what you know’ and people don’t know what BOL means – yet.”
To Brooke’s relief, he continued, “It’s like a PBJ sandwich. You best know each word before you start to make one.”
From then on, Brooke wrote it out, it was easier than arguing with Peter, and perhaps he was right. After all, IBM and AT&T didn’t begin with only initials and who knew what CVS or IKEA stood for. Barking Out Loud it would be.
Brooke’s workdays were longer now than when she worked in real estate or as the dog-walker-lady. People would drop their dog off at the park before breakfast, then gather them up before heading to work. They’d bring their dog while on a break, between meetings, at lunch; some wanted Brooke to do the photo shoot while the owner went to one of the new cafés to meet friends.
The worst, and it only happened once, was the guy who wanted to drop his dog off for a photoshoot and then have Brooke take his sweet little thing to Maggie’s Pet Spa while he went to the airport to catch a flight to Laguardia for a meeting on Wall Street.
She did it, and with a smile, but Maggie’s would never be one of Brooke’s favorite places.
“I’d be glad to, service is what you pay me for,” Brooke said, adding, “You’ll see the extra charges on your statement as ‘Delivery,’ just so you know what it means when you get the bill.” She needed to remember to put that in the notes for Peter. It was all so new.
Peter was busier than he had been in years, his whole life maybe. Often there was only time to grab a package of “Nabs.” Blair introduced Peter to the cellophane wrapped, square-shaped, orange crackers when the young man from Cleveland first came to Charlotte. They were made down the street from The Clover when Blair was about Peter’s age. Blair still remembered the smell in the morning air.
Being careful to keep the crumbs off his keyboard, Peter would set up page after page. He looked for each page to have its own personality, every photo having a unique angle and tone. He would use Brooke’s notes for things to put in the dog’s bio. The hardest part was being creative each time a new FaceBook Page was ready, and its message said, “Write a post…”
If Barking Out Loud had anything, other than merely cute pictures of dogs, of course, it was “attitude,” and that attitude was all Peter and his way of being Peter. He still had a few hours each morning for his regular customers but was starting to think how he might soon turn everything he’d been doing over to Jim.
“Why didn’t I take the full 50%?” Peter felt as he balanced the books at the close of each week. Brooke had wanted the two of them to be equal partners, share and share alike, but Peter didn’t think Brooke had such a keen head for business, what with all it took and how risky a startup could be.
Sure, half the profit sounded great, but half the note at the bank, not so much. He’d asked for 10%, but Brooke made him take at least thirty. Balancing the books each week answered any question Peter had about Brooke and her head for business.
Barking Out Loud was a “home run.”
As hectic as Brooke’s life had become, Blair told “Da Mayor” how he’d never seen her happier. “Not even that day I offered her Katie’s place!” Blair said.
“Brooke wasn’t put on earth to impress people, ya know, or to see how much ‘jack’ she could pile up. Brooke was put here to be something special. You both know that, right?” Mel added from the next table over.
Brooke had finished her nine o’clock shoot and was waiting on her ten. “Late again,” she thought, but the lady was paying for the full hour, so, “just take a few deep breaths, relax, and enjoy the morning.”
Brooke would use the time to make a call. “Hi Dad, got a minute?”
“Sure Brooke, always for you. I’m glad you called. Your mom and I have been wondering what to tell our friends at church and the club. What’s this you’re doing again?”
Brooke spelled it out for him, not for the first time, but slower, trying not to leave anything out. She told him how she had a partner, how they shouldn’t worry, how everything would be fine. Maybe he got it, but she wasn’t sure.
Brooke wondered why he hadn’t asked why she called, maybe he would, but before they could finish the lady pulled up.
“Got to go, Dad. We’ll talk later, okay? Bye!”
Brook still had most of the hour left for shots around the playground, one of her favorite spots to photograph dogs. Maybe there would be time to go down by the creek, but Brooke doubted they could make it to the south end of the lake where she could get the fountain in the background. The small garden with the purple bench overlooking the north end would be good.
When the day finally ended, Brooke gave Peter a flash drive full of photos for seven new canine clients, plus notes with each dog’s name and other details he always wanted so he could write their stories. One set had images of a man’s dog in the band shell. That’s what he wanted, even though Brooke showed him how small it made his dog look.
After about six weeks, Peter handed Brooke a sheet of paper, a spreadsheet really, with some information Peter said was important.
He’d included the name of the dog, “Client,” he called them, saying it was always done with a capital C, like a proper noun, “Because they are.” The human was the Customer, then came the gender and breed (of the Client, not the Customer, he would always chuckle) followed by the level of service the Customer had chosen. There was only one “Basic” on the paper, all the others were higher with most in the Platinum column.
“I had no idea people cared so much about dogs’” Peter said. “We didn’t have dogs when I came along, Brooke. So I’ve just never had the attachment you do. Oh, I had two gerbils – Cupcake and Mr. Cool – do they count?”
“That’s funny Peter. We didn’t have dogs either.” ignoring his two gerbils. “My brothers and our dad wanted one, but mom said they were a bother. She said she’d be the one doing all the work, every time talk of a puppy came up.”
Brooke was waiting at Two O’Clock – Sharp! – Just like the woman said on the phone – as a black-on-black BMW convertible pulled up beside her, two Cavalier King Charles Spaniel heads bobbling in back. The woman assured Brooke of their excellent training, going on about how they would not be a problem. She’d pick them up at three, by the playground, where they’d met.
The woman drove off saying she was going to get her car washed, or something. Brooke had seen other BMW convertibles but none like this one. She wasn’t sure of the numbers but thought they were “M850i.” She’d like that instead of the Range Rover her dad got her. Brooke felt like a soccer mom in her “Landy,” like it should have a sticker with the name of some exclusive prep-school on back. At least it didn’t have 22-inch chrome rims like some she’d seen at the park. But this BMW was different. She would definitely be a cheetah if she were behind the wheel in this thing, moving as Coach taught her, especially with the top was down.
Maybe someday, but now she had to get to work to finish by three.
As Brooke started across the bridge (the one to the lake, not the one to the greenway), it was clear the pair’s training did not include walking together, or with a stranger, or both. Brooke would have clipped them together if she had a little coupler, but as it was, they were both headed in opposite directions, splitting Brooke, so she looked like she was being tortured on some medieval device. This was not going to be the simple shoot the woman described.
When Brooke got to a place she often used; try as she might, she couldn’t get them in the same shot. Maybe she could take different photos and put them together, but she didn’t like doing that.
Out of nowhere, it seemed, he was there. Brooke had seen him before and knew he trained dogs, but that was about all.
“Can I help?” he asked.
“Please. I’m trying to get the two together to take some photographs and not having much luck.”
“I see.” He took the two and stepped away a few yards, kneeled down with the dogs, looking them in the eye, and must have said something Brooke didn’t hear. In a few minutes, he was back.
“What do you want them to do?” he asked. Brooke explained the shot she wanted and without any trouble they were ready.
When Brooke looked at her camera, there it was. The two spaniels, smiling, looking straight into her lens with their mouths open showing their pearly whites, tongues hanging out in excitement with their faces cuddled cheek to cheek — the best photograph she had ever taken.
“Name’s Justice,” the dog trainer said as he started to walk away.
“Thanks, Jason, you’re great. If you have a dog, I’d like to repay you by doing a FaceBook Page for you? It’s the least I can do.”
“No thanks, and it’s ‘Justice,’ not Jason. “You know, like ‘let justice well up as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream,’” singing the words more than saying them.
Brooke wanted to talk more, to understand. “You can’t just leave me there,” she tried to say, but she needed to hurry back. She didn’t want the woman to be waiting at three.
“See, I told you they were perfect,” the woman said, as she pushed the button to lower the window of her shiny black car. “Put them in on the other side, won’t you?”
“Perfect. Yeah, right,” Brooke said with no hint of displeasure, as she loaded up the dogs then explained the next steps in the woman’s Platinum Plan.
When Brooke got back in her Landy, she took the notebook out of her backpack to write down Justice’s words. She had kept a journal with her since the fourth grade when she met Coach. She’d filled many over the years, mostly with things people said, or could have said. It didn’t matter, the notes were only for her.
Her therapist had suggested keeping it by her bed to write down thoughts from each day, theories about not fitting in. “Just a way to get them out of your system, that’s all,” the therapist said.
Brooke liked the habit, it made her more secure, so she wrote, “Let justice well up as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.” She’d look it up when she got home. It was an odd thing for someone to say.
When she opened the door to her apartment, taking off her muddy shoes and leaving them by the door, she thought about meeting the dog-whisperer Justice and the quote he’d shared. Where did it come from, she wondered.
She opened her laptop sitting on the table and did a quick search. There it was, Amos 5:24. But his exact words were in the Jewish version. Was the dog trainer Jewish? She found the text referenced in other verses, it seemed to be a common theme. She hadn’t heard it much at her church, but then she remembered the new minister saying how the congregation’s faith was two miles wide and only one inch deep; how they read The Bible, even a version with His words in red, but didn’t think about what the words meant – in Charlotte – today. She never got to know that one, he wasn’t there long.
From then on Brooke would always speak to Justice when she saw him at the park, even asking for his help a few times. When she told him her name, he said, “Yes, I know.”
Justice said he had seen her often, on her photo shoots recently and back when she walked so many dogs. “It wasn’t hard to find someone who knew your name,” he said, matter-of-factly.
The Xennial was impressed, flattered even, no one had bothered before. Usually, people just knew a friend’s name, or they weren’t friends. People, at least the ones she knew, didn’t go searching for your name.
She had looked, he wasn’t wearing a ring. From then on, if he didn’t have a dog with him, she’d wave him over.
Once she asked him, “How’d you do that with the Cavaliers that day? What’d you say to them?”
“It’s who I am, Brooke. It’s what I do. That’s all that matters.”