Trudy had an unusual job. To her, it was commonplace, it was after all her job, what she did everyday. Without fail she worked from 9-5 Monday through Friday, with breaks on the holidays. Much like the rest of the working world, she occasionally got frustrated and threatened to quit, although she only voiced this in her most private inner ravings. Other weeks, she liked her boss, especially those weeks where her boss brought in cookies, or gave them company merchandise.

Trudy’s job itself to anyone else would have seemed terribly new and innovative. Trudy did not look like someone with a new and innovative job. She shopped at Marshals and TJ Max, and preferred browns and dark blues to pastels. She was slightly overweight, but only enough for her to really notice. As a result she wore baggy clothes to hide her frame, although also because she preferred comfort to style. She always wore a small gold chain around her neck from which hung a tiny Star of David that she’d gotten for her bat mitzvah. She went to her synagogue on a weekly basis, which was the only time that she wore something a little dressier.

She was single, approaching 35, and didn’t like working out. She drove an antiquated blue Subaru, slightly dented on the left rear side from when some young punk had come barreling down on her in a rotary. Other than that, it looked well lived in, two little doggy bobble-heads staring out of the back window, a year-old pine air-freshener hanging from the review mirror and little dog hairs all over the back seat. You had to jiggle the clutch and turn on the windshield wipers before the car would start, but start it usually did.

Every work day, she got into her car and drove through downtown Kansas City and parked behind the old brick building in which she worked. She always took the farthest parking spot. A joke seemed to continuously revolve around the office about how she parked there because walking to and from the car was her only source of exercise. Which, in retrospect, was probably true. Occasionally, people would put up signs in the spot reserving it for Trudy. She always took the ribbing good-naturedly, smiling and laughing along with them.

Then, she would pull on her surgical gloves before going to see her first patient. She would talk with the owner before ‘talking’ with the patient. The dogs she saw all had some complaint or other. She would get to work remedying them. Trudy was a dog masseuse. It was mostly show dogs that came in to see her. Like the cocker spaniel who had sprained his ankle in the ring, or the pit-bull who had constant back pain.

She usually told new acquaintances that she was in pet services when they asked, instead of trying to explain what she did. Once people found out, they usually spent the rest of the conversation discretely trying to figure out how much money she earned. Trudy liked her job well enough and got paid enough to live off of. That’s all she would say. Trudy liked her job because she didn’t have to talk to people that much. She wasn’t a people person. She was a dog person. The dogs understood her, they liked her. She could tell because her patients liked to sniff her. Although that was partially due to Lucky.

Lucky, her little rescue pooch liked to come into work with her some days. Lucky’s little black hairs were always dotting her clothing. He would sit calmly in a corner of the room when she worked. He got a little jealous when she began a rub-down of some strange dog, finding all the places where the show dog was tense, kneading out kinks. She would slowly rub circles into the dog’s pelt, stroking them to deliver utmost pleasure. Her patients were always very receptive and appreciative, licking her hands in thanks.

She worked at the Pet Palace. Besides Trudy, there was also a pet psychiatrist, a pet manicurist and a pet architect. Clearly, dogs needed massages more than head shrinking, manicures or designer beds, so Trudy’s job was the most important. Not everyone seemed agree with her on that point, in fact the other employees consistently dismissed Trudy’s expert advice.

For example, the manicurist allowed her small Yorkshire Terrier’s toenails to grow out, despite Trudy’s well placed advice that this would cause paw deformation and ankle distress. Trudy pitied the little Yorkie, who was always forced to wear small bows that matched her owner’s outfits, usually brilliant pinks and greens.

Then there was the poor Irish setter, the architect’s dog. Trudy knew that the beast would have herniated disks and spinal misalignment by the time it turned three. The architect favored low doors in his designer igloos because he said they were more ‘aesthetically appealing.’ Trudy wasn’t so sure she agreed, but she knew that the beautiful dog was in for serious back pains soon. Just wait until the architect had to come and beg her to fix his poor back.

Then there was the psychiatrist’s dog. Trudy wasn’t sure that it was actually a dog at all. It certainly was the least dog-like dog she had ever seen. In fact, it seemed more like a parakeet than a dog. It would sit on its hind legs on a perch all day and try to speak to its owner. Even Lucky wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Trudy was pretty sure that its legs were going to be going to become arthritic soon enough and then it wouldn’t be able to perch anymore.

But whatever she thought of her co-workers and their dogs, this was where she belonged. What would her poor patients do without her? But that all changed the day that Roma walked into her little room, pulling behind her the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.