Kylie Cantrall's Arc

Chapter 33 of 78

Arianna was ready for the reporters. But that night, Kylie lay awake with a different fear. The puppy. He had never heard a crowd. Tomorrow, cameras would flash and hundreds of voices would shout at once. If he panicked at the dock, he could bolt off the ramp. Or worse, he could spook Arianna right as she said her line. All their practice would break in one second of noise. Kylie sat up. She had one day left to fix this. At dawn she found Arianna in their cabin, brushing the puppy. "We have a problem," Kylie said. "He's never been in a loud crowd. If he panics tomorrow, he ruins everything you practiced." Arianna held the puppy close. "So what do we do?" "We make the noise ourselves. Here. Where it's safe." Kylie had learned this training at home. Start small. Reward calm. Build up. They took the puppy to the busiest deck on the ship. The pool bar was packed. Music played. People laughed and shouted over each other. The puppy's ears flattened. He pressed against Arianna's leg. Kylie knelt and fed him a treat the second he stayed still. "Good boy. See? Loud is okay." They walked him through the crowd, slow. Every few steps, Kylie dropped a treat. When a waiter dropped a tray, the puppy flinched, but he did not run. Arianna kept her voice steady, the way she had for the mock interview. The puppy watched her face and calmed. By noon they moved to the top deck. Kylie clapped hard near his ears. She snapped her fingers like camera shutters, fast and sharp. The puppy jumped at the first snap. She fed him. She snapped again. By the tenth time, he only looked up for his treat. Then Kylie tried the real test. She had Arianna stand at the front rail and say her line while Kylie made every sound at once. She clapped. She stomped. She shouted questions in the mean way. "Are you using her? Look here! Over here!" The puppy sat at Arianna's feet. His ears twitched. But he did not bolt. He stayed pressed to her shoe, calm. Arianna kept her eyes forward. "I wrote her letters for a year," she said. "I'm not going anywhere." The puppy did not move. Kylie stopped. Her hands dropped. "He held," she said. "He held through all of it." Arianna picked him up. He licked her chin. "He's braver than me." Kylie laughed, then went quiet. Below them, the dark shape of the port grew on the horizon. Tomorrow it would be real. But now the puppy would not spook, and Arianna would not freeze. She had her line. He had his calm. They would walk off together, all three of them, and no crowd could break them apart.