trish

They say you should never be in business with family—too close, too much history, too much potential for bloodshed. “They” never met Layla. True, we’ve had our shouting matches, but invariably it ends with me crying and apologizing, admitting I was wrong. It takes a very special person to get Trish Foster to admit she’s wrong—let alone to admit she’s ever cried.

Layla’s my sister-in-law. And my business partner. She came into our lives through Brett, but ask most Fosters and they’ll tell you that if she hadn’t, we’d have gone out and tracked her down. She’s that much a part of our tapestry.

For as long as I’ve known Layla, she’s always had a camera with her, sometimes to my annoyance. But that kind of tenacity pays off. She’s a phenomenal photographer, which anyone can see from her pictures. So my decision to join forces with her was a no-brainer. Her love of capturing memories through eternal images is matched only by her love of animals. She’s great with them—much better than I am. Not that I’m not a total animal lover, because I am (I’m the overly proud mother of a two-year-old dachshund), but she’s the one who wanted to be a vet, spent six years volunteering at the ASPCA, and went through a bit of formal training. Okay, apparently it was just one night, and she’s no Cesar Millan, but she knows her way around a mutt. Just don’t let the mutt get hurt. She tends to be a little too empathetic.

Funny, then, that I’m the one playing with the dogs. I’m what you’d call a dog wrangler—or an animal wrangler, really. I’m the one making funny faces and strange noises, and often dangling a piece of meat over Layla’s head to get the beast’s attention. She never knows what I’m doing, because her face is attached to the camera, but I’m sure she can feel me moving all around her (and smell the piece of Swiss cheese perched beside her left ear) and one of these days I’m going to get someone to photograph us while we’re photographing the pets, because I have a feeling it’s quite a sight.

Speaking of sights, Layla’s on the phone right now, and she’s got this crazed expression that I’m not sure how to read exactly. The only other times I’ve seen it is when she’s telling a joke and waiting for the right moment to deliver the punch line, or when she’s messing with a telemarketer. She does that last thing quite a bit, actually. She likes to ask them to wait and then puts the phone in a drawer and walks away. Or if it’s a woman, she’ll make her voice all husky and ask, “So, what are you wearing?” When they get all bent out of shape and tell her she’s being inappropriate, she’ll say, “You called me. The only people who call me want to talk dirty.”

I love that girl.