Lingering

by Melissa Simonson

  “You don’t look like too big a headache,” I told her, sticking my hand in her cage, where she promptly started chewing my fingers. “Ouch. Shit. God, her teeth, they’re like needles.”

  “How are we doing over here?”

  Joe and I looked up at the smiling, middle-aged woman who’d greeted us upon our arrival. “Goldie and Autumn. They get along pretty well, but sometimes Goldie gets irritated at Autumn’s…surplus of energy.”

  Joe stood, gesturing at Goldie. “Would it be all right to take Goldie out in the yard for a bit? See if she likes me enough?”

  “Of course. And she likes everyone enough.” She jangled her keys and looked over at me. “What about you? You have your eye on Autumn?”

  “She sounds like trouble,” I said, my voice tinged with doubt.

  “She can be,” she said cheerfully. “But that’s half of her charm.”

  “Don’t make me regret this,” I warned Autumn, who rose unsteadily and threw her head back to whine.

  I really regretted it later, when I brought her home and she chewed up the kitchen baseboards and sent Dexter skating into the bathroom and behind the toilet for cover.

  July

  T he Bell in Hand wasn’t as busy as I’d have liked. Lots of noise and jostling bodies would have been preferable, may have blocked out the sound of my own running commentary, so I had nothing to do but sit there with my Old Fashioned and think about all the things I’d just told Carissa’s headstone.

  Dexter still loathes Autumn, but they’ve fallen into a kind of resigned siblinghood. You’d love Autumn and tell Dex to get off his high horse, I’m sure of it. She’s a bitch to walk because she tears after every leaf that blows down the sidewalk, and she’s got a ton of horsepower that would probably have torn your spindly little arm from the socket, but she makes me laugh. She’s such a talker, especially in the morning, when I never feel talkative. Bitching at my back while I’m starting the coffeemaker. She’s getting stronger and prettier every day. I read that they’re not full-grown until they’re eighteen months, and she was only about six when I brought her home.

  Jason and Jackson set the date, November 5th. I still don’t know what the hell to plan for Jason’s bachelor party. I’m sure you’d have a ton of good ideas on that front.

  Joe’s doing well, he picked up a few more contracts at work, so he’s pretty busy, but I think he likes having a full plate. Sometimes he asks me to take Goldie on a walk for him, and I’m sure the sight of me being yanked down the road by two giant dogs would make you piss yourself laughing.

  Kylie’s opened her third open when letter. She always reads them aloud to me on the phone, or brings them over when she visits. She used to do this little smiling, crying thing when she’d read them, which tore me up inside, but lately, not so much. Which I guess is a good thing.

  Kim called me a few days ago to say that the DA told her they’d be ready for trial in October. She said something about wanting to start on the fourth, so the fact that it would be your birthday would be a pretty big shock for the jury. I guess this means they’ll start prepping me for the witness stand soon. You think I’d be nervous or not want to have to look at Steven Klein, but I’m not. I just want to get on with it, get him sentenced, finally.

  “You want another one?”

  I blinked up at the bartender. “Uh. Sure.”

  “You don’t sound very sure.”

  “I am.” I pushed the glass over. “Thank you.”

  For a moment, it looked like she wanted to say something more, but she didn’t. Just gave me a tight little smile and turned to mix the drink.

  The door opened when she handed me the new glass. As she turned to greet the new customer, I got a good look at the woman who slid into that seat across the bar where I’d first seen Carissa. Apart from the same dark hair, they didn’t really look similar, but there was something familiar in her face. The same type of standoffish smile. This woman had a sleeve of color inked onto both slender arms, a nose piercing, and a choppy haircut that fell into a blunt black line at her collarbone, but her expression…there was something in it.

  Like Carissa, her eyes were light, and like Carissa, she caught me looking at her and raised her eyebrow ever so slightly.

  I could talk to her if I wanted. Ask her about her tattoos, tell her about Autumn, buy her a drink. But I didn’t know if I could trust myself not to superimpose the image of Carissa over her through the duration of the conversation.

  Maybe we had a lot in common. I wouldn’t know unless I made a move. It had been so hard to finally get up, walk over, that first time I’d seen Carissa. But I had, and I used to think it was the best decision I’d ever made. I could do it all over again, but with someone else this time. Right?

  “Wow, you powered through that one quick,” the bartender said, wiping out the inside of a clean glass, tilting her head at my empty one. “Another?”

  “Thanks. I’m all set.”

  So I handed her a ten after she removed the glass and left the bar.

  I felt more stable than I had in a while—moody, but stable nonetheless. I supposed it was only natural to feel moody on the anniversary of Carissa’s death.

  Autumn, wild with excitement from the second she heard my car crunch into the driveway, met me at the side door. I patted her enormous head, pulling my cell phone from my pocket and dropping it on the kitchen table while Dexter gave me a sleepy, meowing greeting from atop the fridge.

  “I missed you too,” I told her as she reared onto her hind legs and pressed her paws against my chest.

  When my cell phone chimed, she cocked her head, dropping back down to the floor. Her hairy brow furrowed as it dinged a second time. She looked downright confused when it chimed a third time.

  Yanking out a kitchen chair, I inputted my password and saw the little blue Twitter app had a red number three at the corner. I didn’t even know why I kept the app installed, I never Twittered. Tweeted. I was unsure of the nomenclature.

  Autumn rested her chin on my thigh, her huge amber eyes staring up at me as I loaded the app. Three new messages awaited me. It wasn’t the spam I’d been expecting, and I closed my eyes as the messages loaded, wondering what fresh hell would break loose now.

  Kim had been right about the cloud.

  Happy Death Day to me, one blue bubble proclaimed. I’m still here, the bubble below it said. You know, if you ever want to talk, said the third.

  “Is that supposed to be some kind of threat?” I kneaded Autumn’s ear, my pulse much calmer than I would have anticipated, my heart thumping in a resigned sort of way, a here we go again type pounding.

  Autumn didn’t answer me, just snorted impatiently, her tail thumping the tile floor.

  “All right,” I said, standing up. “I’ll get the leash.” I hit the block user icon beside Carissa’s profile and dropped the phone on the table again before clipping the lead to Autumn’s collar.

  In another of his ninja moves, Dexter leapt from the fridge to the stove and streaked through the side door in an orange blur as I held it open for Autumn. Autumn, not one to be outdone, lunged after him, nearly tearing my arm from its socket. All the breath whooshed out of her throat when I jerked the leash back.

  “We’ll catch up with him, he’ll just be sitting in the tree,” I told her.

  Through the side door, which had always been slow to shut, I heard the disjointed dinging of more notifications coming from my cell phone.