Chapter 24: Chapter 24
Stunned, Noelle watched Brady leave, not exactly sure what had happened. Had she said something to offend him? Was it Pooch? Brady’s reaction made no sense to her. She expected him to be happy to see Pooch. While he seemed to be at first, he left so abruptly, she just couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Could it be that he liked the dog and wanted to spend time with Pooch--but not with her? Had she done something wrong?
Noelle couldn’t think of anything that she had done that may have triggered that reaction from him since they’d had dinner the night before. Naturally, she would’ve spent all afternoon dwelling on it if she would’ve been left to her own devices, but she had work to do, and these animals didn’t care if Brady had abruptly decided he didn’t like her or not. They wanted to be fed, watered, cleaned, walked, and loved.
“Do you want me to take Pooch back to his cage before I go?” Rhonda asked, breaking into Noelle’s thoughts. Her eyes were still watching the door where Brady had disappeared. Shaking her head, she turned to look at her friend and saw the concern all over her face.
“Huh?” Noelle said, even though she’d heard her. “Oh, yeah. I… thanks.”
Rhonda gave her a reassuring smile. “He said he had a meeting. Aren’t the two of you working pretty hard to get the Christmas activities off the ground? He probably truly does have someplace he needs to be.”
She nodded. “I’m sure you’re right,” Noelle said, though she wasn’t. The way Brady had told her that he had somewhere to be, it seemed like he was just saying that, just putting a story together so he wouldn’t have to stick around. Still, there was nothing she could do about it at the moment.
Rhonda took Pooch and headed back toward his kennel, and Noelle went to her office, thinking she should try to get some more paperwork done while Rhonda was still there for the next thirty minutes. Not that anyone had come in that day to adopt a pet or drop one off. It had been a fairly uneventful day as far as shelter business was concerned.
She’d just started to get her focus back on the work in front of her when her phone rang. She recognized the area code, though she didn’t know for sure who was calling. Just seeing that the call was from the neighboring town made her hold her breath, though. She was pretty sure she knew what this was about, and she didn't want to talk about it. Not now. Not ever.
“Holiday Hills Animal Shelter,” she said, infusing fake joy into her voice. “This is Noelle. How may I help you.”
“Hello, is this the director? Ms. Snow?”
She knew then that she was right. She drew in a deep breath, let it out and said, “Yes, it is.”
“This is Stephanie from Dr. Driggers’s office. I’m calling concerning the shelter’s outstanding payment for the treatment of a small dog last month--Goldie.”
“Yes, we are aware of the bill,” Noelle began. She could tell by the woman’s voice that she was the sort of person who wouldn’t be sympathetic to her plight.
“With all due respect,” she said in that same snippy tone, “the bill is over thirty days late, Ms. Snow. We need full payment. Immediately.”
“Yes, I know that. I’m not sure if you are aware that the only reason we had to bring the animal to your facility is because our local vet was out of town. We normally get a much better rate from our local veterinarian. We simply were not prepared for such a high cost.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Snow, but your financial problems are not our concern. We require full payment by the end of the month, or else this bill will be sent to collections.”
“Collections?” she repeated. “It’s the city of Holiday Hills that owes the money.”
“And we will sue the city if necessary to collect,” Stephanie said tartly. “I’m sure you don’t want to bring that kind of embarrassment on your entire town.”
Noelle’s mouth fell open. She wasn’t sure how to respond. It seemed like this woman was being ugly just for the sake of being ugly. “Well, of course I don’t want to, ma’am, but my budget is only so big.”
“You can always put it on a personal credit card if you’d like,” Stephanie suggested.
Biting back a laugh, Noelle pulled the most recent invoice up on her laptop. Her card didn’t even have enough available credit to cover the bill. The idea that the woman was suggesting she incur debt from her government job was comical. “I can send you two hundred dollars right away,” Noelle said, “but the rest will have to wait. That’s simply how it is. If you’d like to try your hand with collections, so be it.”
Stephanie seemed at a loss for words for a moment before she said, “Please send whatever remittance you can today, but we will be expecting the remaining balance by December 31.”
“Thank you,” Noelle said, hanging up. She shook her head. What were they going to do? Come and confiscate the dog? Before she forgot about it, she made out the payment to the vet, which left a balance on their account of just over $1200. She had no idea where that money was going to come from, but she’d have to figure it out because the mayor had already refused to give her more money, and if she had to take it from her remaining budget, the other animals would suffer. She didn’t want to see the bill go to collections. It would reflect badly on her management of the shelter, even if there was nothing else she could do about it.
Noelle let out a sigh and did her best to refocus on the other tasks she needed to complete. The realization that she could post Pooch as available for adoption now came to mind, but she decided she was too busy to make that change at the moment, even though it was probably for the best as far as the dog was concerned. While she did want to see him in a new home by Christmas, she had a home in mind. There was just no way to make that happen.
Visions of herself and Brady sitting beneath a Christmas tree in a beautiful home, sipping coffee and leisurely opening gifts with Pooch lying on the carpet between them made her smile.
“That is just a Christmas dream,” she murmured. A Christmas dream she had no reason to think could possibly come true.