Spin Doctor by Leslie Carroll

got the cold.”
    â€œAhhh…but when it knock you out, you get de rest you need, so you can get bettah!”
    â€œBut enough about me,” I kidded. “Let’s talk about what’s bothering you today.”
    Meriel checked her watch. “Mrs. Amy always wonder why I stay down here with de wash instead of coming upstairs to do de dusting in the meantime. I tell her I worry someone else take her clothes out and leave them on de dirty table if I am not here when de light goes out.” She rose from the couch. “I don’t feel so bahd about sitting down here now and talking wit’ you, now daht dere’s one less machine. I have to watch more closely in case someone else want a machine dis early. She so busy wit’ Isaac she don’t remember de room’s not open for business now.”
    There was some truth to Meriel’s claims about the machines, though. We were now down to five from half a dozen. The washer with Ian’s “boggart” in it had died the following day, but remained in the laundry room with a length of yellow tape stretched across it, as though the defunct unit were part of a crime scene.
    â€œNow you tell me what it is about white people and deyr dogs!”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” I asked, lost in Meriel’s non sequitur.
    â€œDaht stupid Taco Bell dog Mrs. Amy and Mr. Eric have. She treat it like it’s one of de fahmily. Now she have a child and it’s like she still don’t know de difference between a pet and a person. Do you know she dress up daht dog like a doll? Daht dog has a raincoat—Burberry plaid—she don’t even have a designer raincoat for herself—and even a little matching hat. She have a red white and blue Uncle Sam outfit coming up for de Fourt’ of July. And in de winter, she tells me, it has boots so its paws don’t get hurt by de salt on the streets that melt de snow. So now I get to look forward to walking a circus animal when de weather turn cold. Then she have a ballerina tutu for it that she ahsk me to put on to take de dog to a costume pahty at de dog run in Riverside Park. And de animal is a male! It almost bite me when I try to dress it like a girl. I swear to God I get embarrass when I have to walk de stupid ting.”
    I blushed, realizing that while our dog is never dressed like a Barbie doll, Sigmund does wear a bandanna on occasion—and when Molly was about twelve, she once tried to pierce his ears—and he does sleep on a comfy cushioned “bed” from Orvis, rather than on the floor, or outside, which is where Meriel insists dogs belong. Of course we all live in apartments, so outside is outside of the question.
    â€œSo, what I want to know before my time is up for today, so I can get a good night’s sleep tonight, is—tell me what it is you white people have with your dogs?”
    NAOMI AND CLAUDE
    â€œI can’t help it that I’m infertile!” Naomi snapped, at the end of her tether two seconds into the beginning of their session.
    â€œAnd I can’t help it that I’m Chinese!” Claude said, as rational as Naomi was peevish.
    â€œWe just found out from the agency down in Georgia that lesbian couples aren’t allowed to adopt Chinese babies,” Naomi said, “so we have to start the paperwork all over again. And since we can only pick one of us to be the adoptive mother, and very few single women are allowed to adopt from China, Claude thinks she has a better shot at it and she’s cutting me out.”
    The women had tried the in vitro route, but it did in fact turn out that Naomi is infertile. Claude suffers from endomitriosis, so she isn’t going to be a biological mother either. They chose to adopt a little girl from China even though the process takes two to three times longer than adoption from Latin America, Haiti, Russia, or the Balkans, because Claude feels very strongly about the ill treatment of