Checked Out

by Hazel James

  I tossed my cape in the vicinity of my bed and made a beeline for my bathroom, stripping out of my costume in record time. I wasn’t a betting man—my grandpa had instilled too much common sense into me for that—but I’d put twenty on the fact that I was going to touch, and maybe even see, some boobs tonight.

  My dick was hopeful he’d see some action too, but I reminded him that me getting to second base didn’t mean he was getting anywhere near home plate, no matter how many times he shouted, I’m ready, Coach! Put me in! He sulked the rest of the time it took me to wash the Dracula paint off my face and finally calmed down after I threatened him with a cold shower, which was good because I didn’t have time for a shower, cold or otherwise.

  I stepped into the small walk-in closet and threw on a pair of faded blue jeans and the first shirt I could reach. I stuffed my feet into my sneakers and retraced my steps back to the bathroom for deodorant and cologne. Grabbing my jacket, I re-locked my front door five minutes after Tuesday’s first text.

  When it was my turn to take the Playboy magazine home, I’d buried it in my gym bag under my cleats and kept expression as neutral as possible. No running, no smiling, no hints that my bag contained the greatest invention since the printing press. I was the teenage equivalent of an adult driving under the influence.

  Tonight, I was a grinning idiot as I strode to Tuesday’s apartment at mall-walking speed, slowing only to dodge the older trick-or-treaters who were still out searching for loot. She sent another text when I rounded the corner of her building.

  Tuesday: Mrs. Fairchild is here.

  Me: Damn, her radar is strong. What does she need to borrow this time?

  Tuesday: My eyes.

  Me: Your what?

  I glanced at my keyboard. What word could be autocorrected into eyes? I still hadn’t figured it out by the time I reached her door, which was propped open by The World’s Nosiest Neighbor.

  She was dressed in a black witch’s gown with a pointy hat, and she was crying.

  Well, shit.

  “Mrs. Fairchild? What’s wrong?” I asked from the doormat.

  “My Trixie. I can’t find her.” When she shook her head, a fresh round of tears rolled down her face and disappeared into the folds of her costume.

  “I told you to come inside, Mrs. Fairchild,” Tuesday said in a soothing tone as she ushered us both into the living room. She was in a pair of yoga pants and a pink t-shirt, her hair still done up like Belle. After guiding Mrs. Fairchild to the sofa, she nestled a steaming mug of what looked like tea into the old woman’s hands. She wrapped a fuzzy blanket around her shoulders and sat on the coffee table facing her. “What happened?”

  “I was passing out candy. The trick-or-treaters had been steady all night and finally started tapering off about an hour ago.” She paused for a slow sip of tea, studying the liquid like it held the secrets of her dog’s whereabouts. “Trixie loves kids, but she’s afraid of their costumes, so she usually hides for the night. She’d just come out from my room when the doorbell rang. I opened it and I guess one of the kids scared her. She bolted out the door. I’ve been looking for her since then.”

  “With no jacket on,” Tuesday gently chided.

  “Trixie’s an old lady like me. What if we don’t find her? What if she doesn’t make it through the night outside?”

  That brought on more tears. Tuesday slid over to the spot beside Mrs. Fairchild and wrapped an arm around her. “Don’t you worry. Jack and I will go look for her, and I’m sure we’ll have her back to you in no time.”

  Tuesday’s eyes found mine over Mrs. Fairchild’s slumped shoulders. They said I’m sorry and I hope you’re not mad and I couldn’t tell her no.

  Mine said Don’t worry, I understand. She was infinitely compassionate—something I’d already been on the receiving end of—so this came as no surprise. What we needed now was a plan.

  “What kind of dog is she?” I asked.

  “A cocker spaniel.”

  “Is she wearing a collar?”

  “No.” Her chin quivered. “Trixie doesn’t like wearing one in the house, so I put it on her before we go on our walks.”

  I debated whether we should relocate Mrs. Fairchild back to her own living room before we left, but she looked like she’d spill into a puddle of sadness if we moved her. A missing dog was already enough of a mess. “I’m gonna grab some supplies. Tuesday, why don’t you turn on the television to keep Mrs. Fairchild company while we’re out?”

  “Good idea.”

  While she did that, I searched her pantry for a sandwich bag and raided her fridge for anything that might lure Trixie out of hiding. I skipped over the bottles in the door and the dairy food group, which left me with an astonishing selection of produce sorted by color.

  “Looking for a drink before we go?” Tuesday asked over the fridge door.

  “Looking for dog bait, but I don’t know how Trixie feels about orange cauliflower and purple carrots. You think Mrs. Fairchild would settle for a rabbit? I’m pretty sure we could round up a few of those.”

  She chuckled and slid her arms into her jacket. “I’m doing an ‘eat the rainbow’ challenge for my video blog. Not just salads, but easy entrees and healthy desserts that people can make on school nights. But luckily for us, I have dog bait too.” She pulled a package of ham from behind the purple produce.

  Her hand brushed against mine as she dropped a few slices into the sandwich bag and although it wasn’t a terribly appropriate time to be thinking of our raincheck, it was the first thing that popped in my head… and my jeans if I was being honest.

  Tuesday must’ve felt the spark too. She cleared her throat as she returned the meat to the fridge, except she bumped the eggplant, sending it off the bottom shelf and onto the floor where it wobble-rolled halfway to my sneaker. Her shoulders shook with laughter and she buried her face in her palm. “Of all the vegetables, it had to be that one.”

  I scooped it off the floor and placed it in Tuesday’s free hand. “And I, for one, will never let you live it down.”

  With red cheeks and a wide grin, she plunked the eggplant back on the shelf and shut the door. “Let’s get out of here before the peaches get any ideas.”

  On the way out of the kitchen, I swiped a box of tissues off the counter and set it on the coffee table for Mrs. Fairchild.

  “Do you need anything else before we go?” Tuesday asked.

  The old woman sighed and shook her head. “No dear. I’m fine.”

  I gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll be back soon with Trixie.”

  The trick-or-treaters had thinned out even more, and most of the porch lights in Tuesday’s building were off. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and clicked the flashlight button. “If you were a scared dog, where would you be?”

  “Considering I know nothing about dogs, I have no idea. Taylor usually hangs out in my bedroom or my studio unless she’s hungry.”

  Tuesday turned on her phone’s flashlight and together we swept the sidewalk, bushes, and adjacent parking lot, stopping to ask every group we passed if they’d seen a cocker spaniel on the loose. None of them had, though one kid in a Batman costume told us about the great dane he’d seen take a poop by the mailboxes. (It was so big and smelly! The poop, not the dog.)

  We expanded our search to the buildings on either side of hers, then my building, the fitness center, and the laundry facility. Aside from finding stray candy wrappers, a set of keys, and a crumpled sweatshirt, we were still empty-handed.

  Tuesday stopped and turned toward me. “Can I ask you something sort of random?”

  “Sure.”

  “Can deaf people whistle?”

  “I’m sure some can, depending on when they became deaf and how profound their hearing loss is. Diego can’t though. I tried to teach him one summer and failed miserably.”

  “So what would he do if Brutus got out and you or Erin weren’t there to help?”

  Huh. That was a good question. “I d
on’t know. Why, what made you think about that?”

  She shrugged. “I guess I’m realizing how much I take my ability to communicate for granted, even when it comes to little stuff like looking for a dog. Diego can’t whistle or call for Brutus at all, and if this was ten years ago, you wouldn’t be able to call for Brutus or Trixie without stuttering.”

  “That’s pretty deep,” I said with a soft laugh.

  “I’m serious,” she said, nudging my arm with her elbow as she resumed our path down the sidewalk beside the gym. “After hanging out with you three, I feel like I’ve gotten a very small dose of what your speech barrier must’ve been like and what he experiences every day.”

  “How so?”

  “I was the only one who couldn’t fully participate in the conversation tonight at the library and last Friday night at your house. Even though I knew what I wanted to say, I couldn’t say it in a way that he could understand. My dream job deals with communicating and there’s an entire population I can’t talk to even though they speak English. Well, maybe ‘speak’ was a poor word choice, but you know what I mean.”

  The line forming between her brows underscored her frustration and damn if that didn’t do some crazy shit to my heart. Shoving my phone inside the pocket of my jacket, I snagged her by the elbow and pulled her to me, capturing her surprised squeak with a kiss.

  “What was that for?” she asked with a smile when we pulled apart a few seconds later.

  “You’re quite possibly the most incredible person I’ve ever met.” I stopped there because I didn’t know how to verbalize everything else I was feeling, and even if I did, this wasn’t the time or place.

  I pressed another quick kiss to the side of Tuesday’s head before getting back to business, each of us shining our lights under and around the bench beside the gym. “You think she would’ve gone to the buildings on the other side of the complex?” Tuesday asked.

  I shrugged. “Anything’s possible, but I’m leaning toward her hiding somewhere closer to home.” At least that’s what I did the few times Ricky’s minions ganged up on me after school. He was smart enough to have other kids do his bidding for him, and I was smart enough not to go home where Mom would’ve invited them in for chocolate chip cookies and asked if they wanted to stay for dinner.

  Instead, I went to the library because it was only a short walk from my house and kids who wanted to kick another kid’s ass wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like that. It was ironic, seeing him there tonight. Part of me wished he knew what my raincheck was about, but bragging was always his thing, not mine.

  “What do we do if we can’t find her?” Tuesday’s question brought me back to our current predicament.

  “We will, don’t worry.”

  She nodded, but her frown deepened. “What’s Mrs. Fairchild going to do when Trixie dies? If she’s this upset now…” She paused, letting the rest of her statement go unspoken as she swept her light underneath a row of bushes. “Aunt Alma used to tell me not to put all my eggs in one basket unless I was darn sure about the basket. She was mostly talking about my career, but I think it applies to stuff like this, too. Maybe I could help Mrs. Fairchild find someone so she’s not alone.”

  First it was the communication stuff and now Tuesday was troubleshooting problems for her neighbor. She had the heart—and mouth, apparently—of a saint. “Before we get into Mrs. Fairchild’s love life, can I ask you a random question?”

  “Okay.”

  “Is there a particular reason you don’t curse? Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” I quickly added. “It’s just rare. And cute.”

  “Do you ever watch news blooper reels?”

  “I can’t say I have.”

  “There are millions of them, thanks to the internet, and a large majority of them involve f-bombs, s-bombs, and everything in between. Aunt Alma taught me that you can’t get caught saying something on camera if you never develop a habit of saying it in the first place.”

  “Makes sense. She seems like a really cool woman.”

  “She’s the best. Almost all of my important life lessons have come from her.”

  “Like what?”

  “For starters, to never underestimate the power of pink.”

  “Is that code for something?”

  Tuesday smiled and shook her head. “When I was younger, my favorite color was pink. Tag used to tell me I wore it too much and said I was going to turn into the girl from the Pinkalicious books. Which, side note, I love not having to explain what those are to you. But anyway, she asked me why I liked wearing pink so much. I remember telling her it was because it made me feel like a flower that had the sun shining on it. She said no matter what I did in life, people were always going to judge me, so I might as well enjoy myself while they were doing it. If pink made me happy and confident, then I should wear it every single day if I wanted to.”

  “And you do… except for last Friday when you were in your ninja work clothes.”

  She smirked. “Just because you didn’t see me wearing pink doesn’t mean I didn’t have it on.”

  And just because she couldn’t see the massive boner sprouting in my boxer briefs didn’t mean… well, you get the point. I stifled a groan and continued our path along the sidewalk, lunch meat in one hand, phone in the other.

  “You okay? You look like you’re in pain.”

  She wasn’t entirely wrong. “Just having some physical responses to some ungentlemanly thoughts.”

  “About…?” she asked, her eyes darting over to mine.

  “What you’d look like in pink lingerie. Or any color, really.” Her mouth took the shape of an O, and then she was smiling and biting her bottom lip and dammit, we really needed to find this fucking dog. I unzipped my jacket to let in some much-needed cool air. It was too bad I couldn’t unzip my pants too.

  “Sorry again about our raincheck… or lack thereof,” she finally said.

  “It’s not your fault. And besides, only an asshole wouldn’t help out an old lady.”

  “True, but do you think Trixie even went outside? Mrs. Fairchild said she was afraid of kids in costumes. Escaping means she would’ve had to run right past them instead of away from them.”

  That was a good point. We were back in front of Tuesday’s apartment and there was still no sign of Trixie after a half hour of searching. “Let’s do one more sweep around here. If we still don’t see her, we can check Mrs. Fairchild’s place.”

  Tuesday puffed out her cheeks on a long exhale as she glanced around. “Want to split up? We can cover more ground that way.”

  Fully supporting anything that would get this evening’s plan back on track, I nodded and told her I’d take the parking lot. “Trixie! Here girl! I’ve got some nice lunch meat for you.” I opened the bag and waved it in front of me, but based on my string of shit luck tonight, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was deaf, had no sense of smell, and hated men. “Trixie!” I aimed my light under a large pickup truck, a minivan with a stick figure family on the rear windshield, a gray sedan, and a red sportscar that screamed, I want everyone to know about my midlife crisis. I whistled and even tried making the same kissy noises Tuesday used.

  “Where the hell are you?” I muttered, tipping my head up to the sky in frustration.

  As I contemplated where to look next, I heard a dog yelping followed by a hearty, “Jesus Christ!” from a woman getting into a car that was double-parked in front of the building next to Tuesday’s.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, scanning the area as I jogged toward her. “And did you see which way the dog went?”

  “I’m fine, and no, I was too busy trying not to shit myself to see where Satan’s dog went.” She tucked the Luigi’s Pizza delivery bag under her arm and bent down to retrieve the keys she’d dropped, still huffing to herself about how this “fucking figures after the shit-tastic day” she had. She didn’t strike me as a dog person, or a nice person, really, which made it easy to ignore her and text Tuesday.
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br />   Me: I think Trixie’s by Building C.

  Tuesday: On my way.

  We met up in the open area between the buildings. Assuming Trixie came this way—which was the most logical path—she could be hiding by the sheds behind each apartment or in the landscaping along the sidewalk leading to the fitness center, mailboxes, and laundry facility. I hoped it was the latter. The last thing I wanted was for someone to see us poking around the sheds and call the police.

  “Are you sure it was her? We already checked over here.”

  “Pretty sure. She scared the shit out of a delivery lady and took off again.”

  “Trixie!” Tuesday patted her thigh and made more kissy noises before stopping and abruptly turning toward me. “Listen,” she whispered.

  I angled my head, hearing a faint rustling coming from the right. “She’s in the bushes! You take the back side and I’ll come in from the front.”

  I stowed my phone, took the lunch meat out of the bag, and waited for Tuesday to cross behind the row of shrubs. Once she was in position, I crouched and crept forward, holding the ham in front of me. “Here, Trixie. Want a treat?” I laughed to myself when I realized how close that sounded to “trick or treat.” The poor girl was probably confused on top of being terrified.

  Not surprisingly, she didn’t budge from her hiding place, and I didn’t want to reach in and grab her because I preferred my hands without scratches and puncture wounds. I took another few steps and wiggled the ham. “Come on Trixie, it’s time to go home.”

  She cautiously poked her head out and sniffed the air. Her long curly ears framed the most pathetic set of puppy dog eyes I’d ever seen. She reminded me of the Precious Moments dolls my mom collected when I was a kid. “That’s it,” I said, shaking the lunch meat again. If she’d come out a little bit more, I could—

  Boom! Boom!

  Fireworks erupted in the sky, sending Trixie into a panic. She darted out from the shrubs and skittered toward the gym, so I dropped the ham and chased after her all while cursing the assholes who were celebrating Halloween illegally. Trixie reached the building at the same time a pair of bottle rockets screeched through the air. The loud crack that followed made her yelp and run even faster down the length of the building, her ears waving behind her like two furry capes.