Cat In An Alien X-Ray

“He’s not, but I’ve just been talking to his owner, who’s pretty distraught.”

“I don’t know … everybody’s been wanting to claim him.”

Temple didn’t have time or energy left to trek back and forth in this mob. She set her heels, opened her arms like someone about to burst into song, and called, “Rens!”

The little dog bounded into her chest like a furry bullet. Temple swayed on her feet, but got heel traction fast and closed her arms around one happy fluffball.

The burly man looked about to cry. “I guess this little guy knows his name, and you do too. I was thinking we’d make a good team, Big Mike and Shorty. My customers were eating him up.”

Temple hoped he wasn’t speaking literally.

“Visit the local shelter,” she suggested over her shoulder as she toted the lightweight dog away. “I bet they have more in need of homes.”

Shelters were overflowing with Chihuahuas and Chihuahua mixes, she knew, because of the “purse pooch” fad. Rens was sure a lot lighter than Louie.

She spotted a down-faced Penny gazing back and forth like a scanning camera as she returned to where she’d discovered Rens was missing. Then she saw her dog being toted along at shoulder level.

“That’s my dog!”

“Yes, I know.”

“Did you take him?”

Temple was stunned, and people around them were suddenly paying attention. “No. I found him for you.”

“How did you even know he was missing? How do I know that you didn’t take him?”

They were now the center of a circle of animal lovers. Holy jalapeño! Penny was even more suspicious than the hot dog vendor.

“We—we talked,” Temple said, Temple who never stuttered, who always had even the worst public relations disaster firmly in hand.

“I don’t know you.”

Temple felt the crowd pressing closer. Rens whimpered.

“Do you have any distinguishing characteristics?” Penny demanded.

“Uh, a few freckles, but I usually use a cover-up.”

“Besides your face.”

Temple thought. She looked down, where Rens’s tiny harness still hung empty at the end of the short leash. “My red high heels?”

“Oh. You’re that lady. Okay. Thanks so much!” She reached to take Rens into full custody as people turned away and moved on.

“My little Rens, where have you been?” She rubbed noses with the alert mini husky face.

“He got as far as the hot dog stand. Say, um, Penny, why were you treating me like a petnapper?”

“Oh, that.” Penny shrugged. “You should have told me you had red hair under that hat you just put on, not that you had freckles.”

“I guess my red hair is more memorable than my freckles, but I’m more self-conscious of my freckles.” Then Temple had a wild hope. Were her freckles really that minor and she didn’t know it? Could she throw out the vanishing cream?

“Your freckles don’t register with me.” Penny smiled. “To me your face is a blank space on a map. I have a learning disability that affects only two and a half percent of the population. It’s called prosopagnosia. My brain doesn’t process faces. And it’s hell. The condition has been covered by TV shows like Sixty Minutes.”

Temple nodded. She’d heard of that problem. She’d also heard that one facility humans had that animals didn’t was … the ability to recognize faces.

“I’m sorry. That must be … surreal for you,” she told Penny.

“I’ve learned to focus on pieces of a person. Like hair color, clothing, mannerisms, posture. Freckles! No go. Can’t see ’em. You’re freckle-free with me, kiddo! Just remind me about the red hair and high heels next time we cross paths.”

Temple doubted their paths would cross again.

“Do you know what the worst things about this condition are?” Penny asked.

Temple shook her head. She was almost afraid to hear.

“One, it makes me brutally honest, so I have a hard time keeping friends. I can’t lie, because I won’t recognize the person I lied to. So I tell the truth at all times. That can get to be a real pain.”

“So you genuinely forgot Crawford Buchanan,” Temple mused aloud, remembering his confusion.

“Yes, at first. But then I remembered his oily hair—way too much product, dude! So I played dumb just to tick him off because he was a stuck-up, phony sort of person. I got to snub someone for a change. Everyone always thinks I’m snubbing them in public, like you did here, when they see me in passing on the street and I don’t recognize them.”

Temple couldn’t begin to contemplate the adjustments such a condition would demand of her and her job, but she had a suggestion for one issue: “Just be a smiley person and nod at anyone you pass who makes eye contact. Strangers will think you’re a bubbly personality, and people who know you will probably stop to chat and you can use your ID system, or get a clue from their conversation.”

“Hmm. I’m not a bubbly person. I told you, I have to be brutally honest.”

That was a problem. No wonder Penny was so attached to Rens. His love was unconditional. He’d leap for the sound of his name and know her voice.

“Can you recognize Rens’s face?”

“It’s the same, except dogness is easier to isolate.”

“One other thing I’m curious about,” Temple said.