by Rex Bolt
“Actually,” Pike said, “would you mind sticking Mark in the back yard? I wouldn’t mind meeting him.”
It was obvious Hailey thought he was acting crazy, but at the same time she had a little gleam in her eye, and she gave him a long look and told him she’d be right back.
It was more of a side yard than a back one. There was a low cyclone fence with some ivy crawling up it and a tasteful wooden gate that looked handmade. Everything was nice and tidy on the property, there weren’t many blades of grass out of place.
A couple minutes later Pike heard Hailey in the yard, talking to the dog. He was medium-sized and probably a mutt, and Pike could see he was energetic and friendly.
Pike had been carrying that cheap, skinny leash around all day that he’d picked up at Rite-Aid, jammed in his rear pocket.
It appeared you could open the gate from the outside, from the lawn where he was standing, that there wasn’t any special lock on the inside.
Meanwhile, the garage door was open and Pike returned the bicycle and hung it back in its spot. Might as well get that out of the way.
Now back to the yard . . . and the dog.
Pike casually pulled out the leash and unraveled it. Hailey was brushing Mark with some kind of metal dog implement. “You want to pet him?” she said to Pike over the little fence.
“I’d love to,” he said.
“Well hello dear,” came another voice from the yard now.
“Mom, this is Pike,” Hailey said. “You know, the Gillettes?”
This definitely wasn’t who Pike wanted to be running into at this moment, but it was hard ignore the irony of Hailey innocently asking her mom (at least he thought it was innocent) if she remembered the Gillette family.
“Of course,” Mrs. Milburn said, “How’ve you been, Pike?” She came to the fence and reached over and gave him a hug. She was an attractive woman . . . her hair, earrings, lipstick, blouse . . . it all fit together nicely. When she pulled away from Pike the scent of a subtle but classy perfume lingered.
“I’ve been good, thank you,” Pike said. “Time flies, I guess.”
“It certainly does,” Mrs. Milburn said. “Doesn’t seem that long ago, honestly, the you and Audie were up on stage in that school play . . . Was that perhaps 4th grade?”
Pike didn’t remember it at all but said yes, it must have been.
“Well can I get you kids something?” she said. “How about some iced tea?”
Hailey had had enough now and was getting embarrassed. “Mom, we’re fine. We had lunch.”
Pike said, “Actually that would be beautiful, if you don’t mind. Watching Hailey play all that tennis got me thirsty.”
Mrs. Milburn was amused by that, and said she’d be right back.
It had to be close to five, if not after. No more messing around here.
Pike reached over and tried the gate and it opened easily. He didn’t need to call Mark, the dog came bounding toward him, all excited to meet a stranger.
Pike said hello to him, scratched him sufficiently on the cheeks to let him know everything was going to be okay, and clipped the leash onto his collar.
“Tell your mom don’t worry about anything,” he said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hailey said.
Pike said, “I’m gonna run him for a while. I’ll drop him back in the yard.” And he and Mark crossed the lawn, turned up the block--toward Elm, the other direction from Birch, where it happened, just in case-- and with Hailey watching in slight amazement and her mom coming back out of the house with the iced tea, they disappeared from sight.
Now to occupy two hours, in fact better make it two-and-a-half.
For the rest of her life Mrs. Milburn, and Hailey probably too, wouldn’t categorize Pike as the most stable, not to mention reliable dude around, but at least she’d be alive.
This was his thinking anyhow. Trying to get them not to walk Mark wasn’t going to play out right. That was another thing . . . despite Hailey assuring him more than once that it was fine, that she didn’t need to walk the dog and they’d take him to the park, Pike had the sense that what Hailey said . . . or even wanted to do . . . might not matter enough . . . That things--events--may be organized a certain way, and that there was a kind of underlying pull in that direction, kind of like when you’re in the ocean and the wave breaks, and then everything recedes and you feel the enormous and undeniable power of the water as it goes back out.
Whether or not his gut feeling was correct, this would take care of it. The clean elimination of any dog to walk period. Wouldn’t it? . . .
. . . Or was there a chance Mrs. Milburn would still walk down to the corner at the exact wrong time, dogless, for instance because she needed some privacy to call or text someone?
Jeez-Louise. May-bee . . . If the laws of the universe really did work like that, with things being set a certain way.
Unbelievable, Pike was thinking.
He stopped walking. The dilemma now . . . go back and try to control Mrs. Milburn directly? . . . or control her indirectly by dog-knapping Mark?
Pike made his decision and went with it and kept walking. There were too many times in his life (the real one) where he kicked himself for over-thinking something. More than once, after something went wrong, he’d blurted out to whoever was listening, “God dang it. I should have trusted my instincts.”
It was kind of like those standard tests they stuck you with at school with the multiple-choice questions. The word was, the first answer that pops into your head is usually your best bet. Not always, but screwing around trying to pick another one is often just as bad if not worse.
So there you had it. Mark seemed to be enjoying himself fine, checking out most every bush and saying a big hello to the occasional other dog being walked in the neighborhood. The thing now was making sure you could sustain the walk for a couple hours. And also hope the Milburns didn’t decide to start driving around looking for you.
Pike pulled out his phone. Something he’d never gotten to the bottom of on these trips--did the darn thing work like normal, like you’d never gone anywhere--or did it actually adjust to being here, meaning if you called or texted someone would the same person answer on October 1st . . . or November 30th?
How would you test it, without possibly alarming the person on the other end? Not Audrey, that could be bizarre. Dani, forget it . . . Mitch maybe? . . . That seemed harmless enough.
But when he dialed Mitch the call didn’t go through. So he tried Audrey, what the heck, and then his mom, and then Marty Clarke.
Same result . . . it didn’t work. You apparently couldn’t make any calls. Either way.
He tried Facebook. That was even more confusing, because that did work, you could connect, but the postings seemed to be a strange mishmash of old and new . . . Like there was one that Pike remembered from several weeks ago, someone putting up a bunch photos after one of the games, but Facebook listed the post as being from 2 years ago.
He went to ESPN.com where he liked to pick up sports news. But there you had old and new articles all jumbled together, no rhyme or reason. Videos too . . . And not just stuff that went back to October 1st, but spanning several more months. But presented like the current articles where the stuff just happened.
You had a headline story about the Cubs beating the Indians to win the World Series, which did happen in October, but right with it you also had a story about Steve Young and the 49ers winning the Super Bowl. Which happened in 1995.
So bottom line (at least this trip, and probably any others as well) forget the phone. That nonsense was all out of whack.
Except for what time it was, currently. That part seemed accurate for now.
At the moment, it read 5:37.
Pike and Mark walked a few more blocks, heading south, in the direction of the Chevron station from this morning, though they were a long way from it.
Pike vaguely remembered, from that day, there was something going on at Janie Stev
enson’s house. Kind of an early party, maybe a barbeque type thing. In fact he was thinking it was someone’s birthday, maybe Janie’s, or it might have been that she was hosting it for someone else.
Whatever. The point was Pike hadn’t even thought about it back then, because of course Cathy had dumped him the night before and the last thing he felt like was socializing with the usual crowd. Which is part of why he decided to drive to Mitch’s .
But now it might not be the worst thing to make an appearance. It would definitely help pass the time. Probably there was a fenced-in situation where he could leave Mark, otherwise just bring him inside.
He didn’t know Janie’s exact house, but he knew she lived on Sheffield Circle, because his friend Matt used to live on the same block and mentioned it more than once, because he had a thing for Janie.
Sheffield wasn’t too far, it was about a third of a mile if you turned left on Waverly, so that’s what Pike did. Mark happily pranced along for the adventure.
The house was easy to spot because it was the only one that had cars overflowing the driveway. There was a yard area, but Pike didn’t trust it because people were coming in and out of the gate and not necessarily bothering to close it, so he kept Mark on the leash and went inside.
It was crowded and music was going and there was a big main table with a cake that hadn’t been cut into yet. There was no sign of any adult supervision, which was typical with these things. The adults were embarrassed to show their face, and Pike figured they just hoped for the best.
Pike noticed the back of Hannamaker’s head in the other room. One thing he didn’t expect, though he should have, was running into Audrey here. And there she was, not far from Jack, turning slightly to listen to someone, and then spotting Pike.
She finished with the person, and then looked back over and gave Pike a small wave, which is how it should have logically played out, nothing more between them at this point than casual friendship in school over the years.
Then Audrey noticed Mark. She said something to Jack, which was probably ‘excuse me for a moment’, and she approached Pike and Mark with big, wide eyes and a confused expression.
Pike led Mark back outside and Audrey followed. “How’ve you been?” he said. “I haven’t caught up with you in a while.”
They were on the front lawn and Audrey was petting the dog.
“If I may ask,” she said, “how did this come about?”
“Who . . . Mark?”
“Yes . . . I was scared for a moment, when you walked in together . . . That there was some emergency, and you were bringing Markie to me . . . I know that’s not rational, and I’m okay now, I think.”
“Good. No, nothing’s wrong, don’t even think about it.” Pike wondering if this is where someone really did tell her, an hour or two later, that there was an emergency.
“To answer your question,” she said, “I’ve been fine, thank you . . . Is Cathy coming, by the way?” So maybe word hadn’t gotten all over the place yet, Pike thought. Or . . . I have an inflated image of myself. Why should they care?
“Nah,” he said. “What happened, I sort of ended up playing tennis with Hailey. Then I came over to your house. I volunteered to take Mark for a walk.”
“Wait a minute, that’s why you were at my house? . . . Please don’t tell me you’re interested in my sister.”
“Why? What would be the problem?” Despite the seriousness of the main situation, it was fun going along with this.
“Pike, isn’t Hailey a little young for you? I mean I know it’s none of my business, but still . . . Secondly, aren’t you accounted for?”
“You mean Cathy?” he said. “Hot and cold, I guess . . . and what’s the big deal with Hailey being a sophomore? She said you both date the same type guys.”
“She said that? Unbelieveable . . . The little bitch.” Wow, this was interesting, he’d never heard something like that out of Audrey’s mouth before.
It was tough to conceive, but . . . was it possible people were slightly altered when you went back? Jeez, that would be one more thing to have to wrestle with.
But Pike was thinking let’s don’t jump the gun. More likely, there was some kind of weird rivalry between the sisters, which would be ridiculous to try to understand, and this had hit a nerve.
“What time would you have?” Pike said, checking her time against his phone to make sure the thing continued to be accurate.
“It is . . . 6:22,” she said. “Do you have to be somewhere?”
Pike was thinking this was when it happened, within the next half hour. Mr. Foxe barrelling down the street and the horrible perfect storm of Audrey’s mom being in the wrong spot. Maybe a couple feet would have made a difference.
“Not yet,” Pike said. “Anyhow . . . you better get back to Jack. He’s liable to get mad at me for talking to you too much.”
“Oh don’t be silly, he’s not like that,” she said. “But okay . . . did you want to leave Mark with me then? Is that the idea? I never got that part straight.”
Not the worst idea. Pike said, “I wasn’t planning it, but sure, that’d be great.” He gave her the leash. “You’re gonna be here for a while though . . . right?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “The birthday part hasn’t even started yet.”
Then a very strange thing happened. Foxe, the kid, shows up at the party. Pike and Audrey are still on the front lawn and here he comes hustling up the brick path from the sidewalk to the house, a small wrapped gift under his arm.
He goes inside, and a minute later is back, on his way out. Audrey asked him what was going on and he said he couldn’t stay, he had something he had to do with his dad unfortunately but that he left a present and said hi to Janie.
In the middle of saying all this Foxe notices Pike and tries to stare him down, and Pike tries to avoid eye contact. There had of course been that altercation in Gina’s backyard when Foxe had a couple beers in him after Pike had replaced him at quarterback.
Audrey says too bad you can’t stay, and Foxe hurries back down to the street . . . and gets in a car where Pike now recognizes Mr. Foxe in the front passenger seat, and a woman driving.
As soon as Foxe jumps in the back and closes the door, the car starts driving fast, way too fast, out of Sheffield Circle.
Pike said to Audrey, “Could you give me your phone for a minute, real quick? Then just go back inside, I’ll find you.”
“Gosh, you seem concerned about something,” she said, but handed over the phone and headed back inside with Mark.
Pike called Hailey. “I saw the number,” Hailey said. “Would you mind telling me what you’re doing on my sister’s phone?”
“Okay this is extremely important,” Pike said. “Where’s you mom? Right at this moment?”
“How should I know,” Hailey said. “I told you, I’m babysitting tonight.”
“Fuck,” Pike said.
“Excuse me? . . .”
Pike thought about it for half a second and then broke into a sprint. He kept it under control until he was down the block out of view of the partygoers and then he amped it up, similar to when he tore across the beach and into the ocean that time with Mitch when he thought someone was drowning.
This was the time of year the days were the shortest, which was a good thing because at least it was dark. Pike made a quick calculation and it was about fifteen blocks total, and by the time he came to Flemming, roughly the half way point, he really had it in gear.
He hoped no one noticed him, or worse, pulled out their phone and filmed him or something, but the streets were pretty quiet and either way you couldn’t worry about it.
With three blocks to go his feet started getting real hot. He looked down and it was ridiculous but there was a bit of smoke coming up and he thought he smelled burning rubber.
He likely would have been horrified by this, except that Dani had told him the story of how she unknowingly smoked the spin bike in the exercise class in Idaho.
&
nbsp; Pike passed the Milburns’ house like a blur and got to the corner of Birch and Ortega. Where it had all happened.
There was no one standing there or walking nearby, that he could see. The first thing he did, he couldn’t help himself, was look around on the sidewalk and in the low bushes to make sure no one was lying there.
A car came by, fast, swerving slightly and then stabilizing. Pike couldn’t tell who was inside, but it wasn’t the Foxes’ car, at least not the one from Janie’s party.
Pike walked back to the Milburns’ and he was sweating through his clothes and breathing pretty darn hard when he rang the bell.
Mr. Milburn answered. This time he was wobbly on his feet, reminiscent of the other night in real life where they had all that trouble with him.
Pike said, “Sorry to bother you once more, sir . . . but is Mrs. Milburn home?”
“No she’s not,” he said, the words coming out sloppy. “She plays bridge Saturday nights.”
It occurred to Pike she was looking darn good to go out and play cards, and probably poor Mr. Milburn was thinking the same thing.
But at least she was out, and okay. And not about to walk down to the corner anytime soon. And the time frame, even if you estimated it generously and extended it, would have just about expired by now.
Pike said goodnight to Mr. Milburn and went back down to the corner one more time for the heck of it. He gave it fifteen minutes, everything was clear, and he remembered he still had Audrey’s phone, and he called Hailey.
“Again?” she said, amused, and, he was pretty sure, interested.
“What’s up?” he said.
“Well . . .” she said. “Would you like to stop by?”
“Gee, aren’t you dealing with the little girls, and stuff?”
“They’re happy, they have a video . . . You could just, you know, say hi?”
It seemed a little awkward but then again he did have her sister’s phone, and he supposed this would take care of returning it. “Give me the address,” he said.
It wasn’t far, just a few blocks down as she’d mentioned earlier, and he got his bearings and realized he passed the place on his sprint from Janie’s party to the Milburns’.
