Every year without fail, my family went down the shore, or as non-Philadelphians would say, we went to the beach. Wildwood beach. Our week-long trip that year was filled with sunshine and smiles the whole way through. No arguing over who gets to sit on the beach chair and who’s stuck sitting on the towel. No stress of schoolwork or missing assignments. No splinters from the wood on the boardwalk. Only the freeing feeling of living without a schedule, going on adventures just because we could. With two days left of paradise, I saw a red notification bubble on my phone. It was a voicemail. At fifteen years old, I was gunning for a job at a veterinary hospital owned by a long-time family friend with far too many clients for the size of the operation. My sister worked there and I wanted to find some sense of independence while trapped in my suburban hometown. After months, I got the call and I missed it.
A week later I sat in the parking lot of Hopewell Veterinary hospital dressed as professionally as a fifteen-year-old could be. My sister sat in the driver’s seat giving me advice for my first job interview. I heard her say “Be your happy self. Ginny will love you. You have nothing to worry about,” but all I could focus on was the shaking of my entire body. My hands trembled making the papers in my hands ruffle. I walked in and introduced myself before taking a tour of the building. I had been in this building my whole childhood, but it looked different now. Just like that, Ginny grabbed me a few t-shirts and welcomed me to the Hopewell family. Little did I know how accurate that phrase would become.
Lettie was the first dog I can remember at Hopewell. She had short tan fur and deep brown eyes. A Pit Bull of course considering most dogs in shelters are Pit Bulls. She carried around a reputation that she was aggressive, most Pit Bulls are stereotyped as violent. Contrarily, she was a caring mom to her two puppies, but it was clear she wanted all the attention. I would sit on the floor next to their cage playing with the puppies and she would barge onto my lap seeking the maximum level of attention. I fell in love with her on day one and she became my little buddy.
During my lunch breaks, I would take her upstairs. She never tried to eat my food or misbehave in any way. One day, she was laying on the couch in the break room next to me. Her head rested on my foot. I could feel her heart beating and her eyes fluttering while she slept. A few days earlier, she cut open her paw leaving her with a cone of shame around her neck. She lifted her head and nudged me with the cone. I then saw the blood covering the cushion. I jumped up and brought her downstairs to clean and rewrap her paw. It was a Sunday morning. No doctors or technicians were there. I didn’t have time to panic. I found the wrap and improvised, just hoping it was tight enough to be effective but loose enough for Lettie to be comfortable. I then had to scrub out the couch cushion with the random objects I found around the hospital. Later that day, I took Lettie on her walk and she ran through the field digging her cone into the snow and throwing it into the air. I will never forget her, my angel.
Roxy wasn’t what we call a house pet, one of Hopewell’s pets up for adoption like Lettie was. Her owner traveled for work, leaving her in the kennel often. She was a slobbery Cane Corso with black and brown marble-looking fur. The corners of her mouth always dripped slobber. When you went into her cage, you never left without a gallon of dog spit all over you, but she was too sweet of a girl to ever get mad. When you’d close the cage door, she’d stick her head through the crack to keep you from fully closing it. Her droopy, beady eyes looked up in the classic puppy-dog way, making you want to go back into the cage and pet her for hours.
Not all of the animals were this nice. Some would never stop barking, the sound would ring in your ears for hours to the point where your ears blocked out the noise. Some would pee in their cages constantly forcing you to clean their cage five times a shift. Some could kill you. Drew. The infamous Drew. He was a shaggy white Shih Tzu or as we liked to call him a little shit Tzu. For years, kennel workers had to walk him on a rabies pole. Ahead of our time, keeping him six feet away. He despised the rabies pole almost as much as he despised us. About a year ago, we started keeping his leash attached to his collar at all times with the end looped to the cage door. We could never take the leash off unless we wanted to lose a hand. Drew had bit his brother's eye out and was not afraid to test us. Not all “bad dogs'' are as bad as him. Some just have ‘go slow’ or ‘TLC’ warnings.
Eva arrived at the beginning of quarantine. The veterinary hospital remained open, but boarding in the kennel slowed. She was another Pit Bull with brindle fur and white detailing on her face and body. At only a year and a half, Eva’s belly was filled with eight puppies. With only a few animals to take care of, Eva had all the kennel workers’ attention. I would let her roam around the kennel, constantly petting and cuddling her. She gave birth to her eight puppies and got stick-thin after they drained the milk out of her. Eight puppies take quite a toll on a mom. We started feeding her extra food trying to get her to a healthy weight again. Through it all she remained happy and loving. By the time she got adopted, her weight was back up. Some said she had gotten a bit chubby but I would never tell her that.
Ricky. My favorite little boy. His white and gray fur covered his big belly. His fur felt like a combination of velvet and chenille. I never wanted to stop petting him. He was one of the most affectionate cats I’ve ever met at Hopewell, or ever. He would rub against my hand if I stopped petting him for even a moment. He was born at Hopewell a year prior but was given back because of allergies or some other lame excuse that I can’t remember. He returned right before quarantine. No clients were allowed in the building so he would often sit at the desk with the receptionists. He would get into all sorts of trouble, knocking over papers, grabbing at the pens in the receptionist’s hands, laying on top of computer keyboards. I fell in love. I had just lost the end of my senior year of high school and Ricky never failed to make me smile.
It became my mission to give this cat a home, at my home of course. I first got my siblings on board which wasn’t hard especially because my sister had met him and loved him. My brother’s indifference was enough. The next step was convincing my mom. A bit harder but persistence was key to winning her over. The most difficult feat of all, the Everest of convincing, my dad. He claims he hates our cat Zoey despite the fact that she sleeps next to him every night. For a while, he ignored me until I gave him my perfectly crafted plan. Because I am an employee I can adopt animals for no cost and with no paperwork. I texted my boss asking if I could bring Ricky home for a few hours to test how he interacts with my animals. The answer was yes. I took him home. All of the animals were civil yet confused. He ended up staying the night. Then another night. A week later I texted my boss. She told me she already put Ricky in our file. Officially ours.
Ginny, the office manager who managed the kennel directly. Tim, longtime family friend, lead doctor, and owner of Hopewell. Lisa, Tim’s wife, my childhood best friend’s mom, co-owner of Hopewell. Emma, a kennel worker turned receptionist who always told me ghost stories. Olivia, Emma’s younger sister, kennel worker, and who always seemed to be in the hospital. Nick, an art loving kennel worker who always wore gloves before touching anything in the kennel. Sam, another kennel worker who straightened her hair everyday even coming to a crummy kennel. Danielle, Sam’s twin sister and kennel worker who has the kindest soul. Kevin, yet another kennel worker who played mini golf in the hallway of the kennel with me and always made shifts entertaining. And Anthony.
For years, he was just that, a coworker. Someone that made the time pass a little bit faster. Someone that did the job next to me but had a life completely different. Someone that could make me laugh but never outside of the walls of the kennel. Someone that made an impact on my life but never in such an unimaginable way.
I remember the first day we met. I wonder if he does. I walked in at 7 am sharp. He always gets to work early to eat breakfast and set up the kennel before his shift starts. That hasn’t changed. We were both fifteen which meant we had an endless list of child labor rules to follow. That’s why it took me a whole summer to get the job. He got the job before I did since he was Ginny’s neighbor and close family friend. My family friend found out and got Ginny to hire me. I came in that morning with an existing impression of him. I can’t believe he got the job before me. That day, my boss had switched our time cards. We had old-fashioned slips of paper that we stuck in a machine to track our hours at the time. Now we do that electronically. At this point, I had just begun working at Hopewell about two weeks before. So, Ginny forgot to make the newbie's time card. I rummaged around trying to find a blank card for a few minutes until he walked in. I jumped when I saw him. I didn’t expect him to look so charming considering he stole my job, but he caught my eye alright.
I would watch him in the dogs cages, petting them all day. I remember my family always telling me that you can judge people on how they treat animals. Whenever I looked at Anthony giving all of his attention to the animals, I knew how kind of a soul he had. One with compassion, one with empathy, one with intense care. Sometimes he would look up at me and smile, my entire body would fill with butterflies and I felt such an incredible amount of happiness to the point I almost felt sad. No one had ever made me feel this way.
I remember during one of our first shifts together, I scoured the shelves looking for a specific kind of cat food. My eyes scanned that shelf three times over and still I could not seem to find the food. Shamefully, I asked for his help and of course in an instant he found it. He would not let me live that down for a few weeks. As much as I did not want to admit it to him, at least at the time, that tiny, minuscule moment meant a lot to me. In fact, all the minuscule moments over the last three years have meant a lot to me.
We would walk the dogs alongside each other. I always dreamed that one day our hands would just brush against one another’s but instead the dogs would tangle the leashes and we’d be left to frantically untangle them. It was never romantic. We would fight over who had to clean up after the dog who threw up all over the cage or who had to give the kittens a bath, the ones whose piercing nails would scratch up my whole body.
We co-existed as co-workers and nothing more for over two years. I was only left with these snippets of him, never the whole him, but enough to keep me pining. Eventually things changed. Things extended outside of work, something I had dreamed of for years.
We went from walking dogs in the field to slow dancing in the middle of the grass. From staff Christmas parties to spending Christmas Day with each other’s families. From stocking dog food on the shelves to talking about our future house. From sitting in the laundry room to holding each other at our darkest moments. From “I’d rather be anywhere but at work” to “I love you.” The initials AK held a much deeper meaning now. Much more than who I was going to work with that day.
Now we sneak kisses in passing. His smile could never fail to make me smile. I could look into his eyes for decades and never get tired of it. He claims his eyes are green but I see a sea of blue and green speckles. I can’t listen to music without thinking of him anymore. I know that he can’t listen to Taylor Swift without thinking of me. I feel safe with him, the same way I’ve always felt secure working at Hopewell. Always knowing it was a family and a place I could never really leave.
Most teenagers' first jobs make a minor impact on their lives, but this job changed my life. It gave me my person. It gave me someone I can trust through and through. It gave me a foundation for the strongest relationship in my life. It gave me a future. It gave me the love of my life, my forever. Now when I watch him give his attention to the animals, I think about how one day soon that will be our animal, our child, our reality. All because of a silly little job.