saved her,” she said. “Didn’t you see that? He saved my daughter.”
“Good work, Baxter!” I heard from behind me.
I turned to see Vinnie, holding out his cell phone.
“Check this out,” he said. “That truck had no idea.”
“I know,” the mom said.
“The truck?” I said.
Vinnie stopped and looked down at the child and her mom. “She okay?”
The mom nodded vigorously. “Her name is Clara.” She held her kid tighter.
“Check this out.” Vinnie held out his phone—there was a still image of Baxter dashing across the street, his gold-starred collar gleaming and his gold-starred, blue leash blazing behind him.
“He looks like a superdog,” Vinnie said. He fiddled with his phone, then turned it back to us. “Watch this.”
He pushed Play. There was Baxter, dashing, the leash streaming behind him. But at the top of the screen...
“See the truck?” Vinnie said, crouching next to us.
I nodded. A white delivery truck. And it was headed right at Clara, who was taking a wobbly step off the curb. “Oh, my God,” I said.
Just before the truck hit her, Baxter tackled her.
“Your dog saved my daughter,” the mom said. She held out her hand. “I’m Betsy.”
I noticed Vinnie seemed to be videoing again, but I was too relieved to protest.
I shook the mom’s hand. “Jessica.”
“Jessa!” the toddler said in a mumble, mimicking me.
We all laughed.
Betsy, her arms still around Clara, turned to Baxter. “And who is this one?”
“This is Baxter.”
I let go of Baxter’s leash, and he took a few steps toward Betsy and Clara. Betsy kissed him on the top of his head. Baxter licked Clara’s ear.
“Baxter, no,” I said.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Betsy said. “In my book, this dog gets to do whatever he wants.”
I looked up at Vinnie. He was still taping our exchange. “Vinnie,” I said. “Enough.”
“Okay, cool.” He put the phone in his pocket. “But I’m putting this online.”
Words, it would turn out, that would change everything.
The first call came at five o’clock that evening, just eight hours after Sebastian had brought Baxter to my house.
After the incident on the street, Baxter was wiped out. We went home and he slept most of the day. I cleaned the house, returned emails about an Art Institute benefit and read through specs sent by a magazine editor I was working with. It was my first time styling a photo shoot for them. I wanted to do a great job so I could work with her again.
When Baxter finally roused, we took another walk, and I threw a ball in the alley for him.
Really, aside from the scene on the street (which, though scary, had taken only a few minutes), it was like any other day.
The phone—the landline I used for business—was ringing when we walked in the condo. It was Victory, a state senator with a great name, who had retained me for the past six months to outfit her with chic but serious suits and dresses. “Jessica, do you have a dog named Baxter?” she said.
“I do,” I said, a little surprised. Although I’d heard Victory mention a dog named DeeDee in the past, with her four children and the political job and being a consultant on the side, she had little time to chitchat about pets.
“My kids just showed me the video,” she said.
It took a minute to process. “Oh, my dog and the toddler?”
“Yeah, your dog saving the toddler. The video is called ‘Superdog’ and with that leash, he sure looks like it.”
“How did you know it was my dog?”
“There was a link to a follow-up video, and it shows you talking to the mom. I don’t know who put it up.”
“Vinnie,” I said. “He’s a neighborhood kid who shot it.” My laptop was on the counter, and I clicked on a search engine and typed in Superdog. Sure enough, there it was.
“My kids are in love with your dog. They say DeeDee needs a brother or sister. They also say the video has a thousand hits.”
“Seriously?” I peered at the screen. 1374 views, it said under the first shot—Baxter in full run, his starred leash forming a straight line behind him.
I heard kids talking in the background.
“They want to know what kind of dog it is,” Victory said.
“Goldendoodle. A mini.”
She repeated my words to her kids. I heard more children talking.
“We are not getting another dog,” she said away from the phone. Then in a lowered tone, she continued, “Out of curiosity...where did you get that dog?”
And that was the question that also arose in the next call (from a neighbor up the street) and the next (another client) and the next (Sebastian’s buddy). They’d all seen the Superdog video. They all wanted to know the story behind it. And then inevitably, “Where did you get that dog?”
I watched the video about twenty times—Baxter a flash as he bolted across the street, a blue-gold streak that became a yellow blur when he collided with Clara, the white delivery truck speeding by a nanosecond later.
I tried calling Sebastian. Baxter was his kid, too, and all that. But of course his phone was off. I didn’t even get to hear his voice, because he utilized an automated message, required by his job. He was off somewhere in that “small conflict.”
Didn’t matter. I was going to enjoy it all by myself.
The next morning, another call—from my broadcaster client, Pamela Nyman, one of Chicago’s most well-known newscasters. She now had her own morning show, and her producer had hired me to select outfits to wear on set. We’d kept working together since then and I’d shop for events for her.
“Jess,” she said, her voice hurried. “Glad I got you. Do you remember when we were at that store on Halsted? I was bitching about the videos we sometimes have to show?”
“Something about a bear?”
“Yeah. That one was a bear who put his head in a garbage can and got stuck. The beast was stumbling around with the can on its head.”
I laughed.
She groaned. “Fine, it’s funny, but it isn’t noteworthy. Sometimes I just can’t believe I have to act interested in it. Anyway, I may be coming around to these videos. I got to work this morning, and they told me we were running one.” I heard talking in the background. “We’re about to run it now, in fact. And guess whose dog is in it?”
“Oh, geez, is it Baxter?” I got a quickening of excitement.
“You got it. I recognized him from that time we had a dog date.” Pamela had a Yorkie who Baxter had hit it off with immediately. “And the video really is adorable. Remarkable. But I wanted to make sure you were okay with us showing it. I can ask the producer to kill it if you’re not comfortable.”
I thought about it. I should probably ask Sebastian first, but he was unreachable. Anyway, it would be fun.
“Hell, yeah,”