The dog laps up the water excitedly. After she is finished, she licks Liz on the leg. "Thanks. Now that I'm thinking about it, I think my two-leggers tried to tell me about the whole toilet thing before.
My man, Billy he was called, was quite conscientious about shutting the lid." Lick lick lick. "Had I known, I certainly would have stopped drinking from toilets a long time ago," she says. "I'm Sadie, by the way. What are you called?"
"Liz."
"Nice to meet you, Liz." Sadie holds out her paw for Liz to shake. "I just died last week. It's weird here."
"How did you die?" Liz asks.
"I was chasing a ball and I got hit by a car," Sadie says.
"I was hit by a car, too," says Liz, "only I was on a bike."
"Did you have a dog?" Sadie wants to know.
"Oh yes, Lucy was my best friend in the whole world."
"You want a new dog?" Sadie cocks her head.
"You mean you, don't you, girl?" Liz asks.
Sadie lowers her head shyly.
"I don't know if my grandmother will let me, but I'll ask tonight, all right?"
Josey enters the bathroom. "Great, Liz, I'm glad to see you met Sadie," Josey says as she scratches the dog between the ears. "Sadie is your first advisee."
Sadie nods her soft yellow head.
"Aldous didn't mention you speak Canine, by the way," Josey says.
"About that," Liz stammers, "I don't."
"What do you mean?" asks Josey. "I just heard you have a whole conversation with Sadie."
And then it dawns on Liz. She was speaking to Sadie.
Liz grins. "I've never spoken it before. Or at least, I never knew I was."
"Well, looks like you're a natural. Remarkable! I've only met a handful of natural Canine speakers in my whole life. You're sure you weren't taught somewhere?"
Liz shakes her head. "I just always seemed to understand dogs, and they always seemed to understand me." She thinks of Lucy. She thinks of that dog in the park. "I never knew it was a language, though. I never knew it was a skill."
"Well, looks like you were destined to work here, Liz," Josey says, patting Liz on the back. "Come on, let's step into my office. If you'll excuse us, Sadie."
Sadie looks at Liz. "You'll remember to ask your grandmother, right?"
"I promise." Liz scratches Sadie between the ears and leaves the bathroom.
"So, as a counselor for the Division of Domestic Animals, your job basically entails explaining to the new dog arrivals everything about life on Elsewhere and then placing them in new homes. For some of the dogs, speaking to you will be the first conversation they've ever had with a human. It can get rather hairy, in both senses of the word." This is obviously not the first time Josey has made this joke.
"Is it very difficult?" Liz asks.
"Not really. Dogs are a lot more flexible than humans, and even though we don't always understand dogs, dogs understand us pretty well," Josey replies. "Since you already speak Canine, you're halfway there, Liz. Everything else you can learn as you go along."
"What about other animals?" Liz asks.
"As a DDA counselor, you'll mainly deal in dogs, of course, but within our division, we also deal with all household pets: cats, some pigs, the occasional snake, guinea pigs, and so on. The fish are the worst; they die so quickly, they spend most of their time just swimming back and forth."
At that moment Sadie pokes her head into Josey's office. "You haven't forgotten, right?"
"No, but I'm sort of busy right now, Sadie," Liz answers. Sadie lowers her head and slinks out the door.
Josey laughs, then whispers, "You know, you can't take all the dogs home with you."
"I heard that!" Sadie calls out from the other room.
"And you'll find they all have excellent hearing," Josey says. "Let's find you an office, Liz."
After Sadie, Liz's next advisee is an insecure little Chihuahua named Paco.
"But where's Pete?" Paco asks, his intense little eyes darting around Liz's new windowless office.
"I'm sorry, but you probably won't see Pete anytime soon. He's still on Earth," Liz says to Paco.
"Do you think Pete's mad at me?" Paco asks. "I sometimes pee in his shoes when he leaves me home alone too long, but I don't think he notices. Maybe he notices? Do you think he notices? I'm a bad, bad, bad dog."
"I'm sure Pete isn't mad at you. You can't see him because you died."
"Oh," says Paco softly.
Finally, Liz thinks to herself. "Do you understand now?" Liz asks.
"I think so," says Paco, "but where's Pete?"
Liz sighs. After a moment, she begins her explanation one more time. "You know, Paco, for the longest time, I wasn't sure where I was either ..."
When Liz leaves work that night, Sadie follows her to Betty's car.
"Who's this?" Betty asks.
"This is Sadie," Liz says. And then she lowers her voice. "Is it all right?"
Sadie looks expectantly at Betty.
Betty smiles. "Seems like Sadie's already made up her mind." Sadie licks Betty's face. "Oy!
Welcome to the family, Sadie. I'm Betty."
"Hi, Betty!" Sadie hops into the backseat. "Did I tell you that I was named for a Beades song? My full name's Sexy Sadie, actually, but you don't have to call me Sexy unless you want to. I mean, it's a little presumptuous, don't you think?"
"What's she saying?" Betty asks Liz.
"Sadie says she's named after some Beades song," Liz translates.
"Oh sure, I know that song." Betty sings, " 'Sexy Sadie, what have you done?' Or something like that, right?"
"That's the song!" Sadie says. "That's exactly it!" She places a paw on Betty's shoulder. "Betty, you're a genius!" Sadie barks a few bars of the song.
Liz laughs again, a pretty, twinkly laugh.
"What a lovely laugh you have, Liz," Betty says. "I'm not sure I've ever heard it before."
The Well
Despite her modest salary at the DDA, Liz quickly pays back all of Betty's eternims. She soon finds she has a great deal of spare ones and nothing really to spend them on. She lives with Betty and pays a small amount for her room and board; she doesn't need health insurance or car insurance (unfortunately) or renter's insurance or any other sort of insurance; she doesn't have to save for a down payment on a house or retirement or college or her children's college or a lavish wedding or a rainy day or anything else. She doesn't go to the OD anymore. She would buy a car, but what would be the point when she can't drive anyway? When you aren't preparing for old age, senility, sickness, death, or children, there is relatively little to spend on, Liz thinks with a sigh.
"Aldous," Liz asks during her monthly progress meeting, "what am I supposed to do with all these eternims?"
"Buy something nice," Aldous suggests.
"Like what?"