by Kyra Davis
“No, you didn’t,” Dena said, definitively. “You were kind to an irrational man without encouraging his insanity. You did everything right…except for the girlfriend part.”
I groaned again and made my hand a fist around the ring. “I can fix that much.”
“How?” Mary Ann asked.
I opened my hand to reveal the ring. “If this fell off his finger, and that’s got to be what happened, that probably means he had been losing weight. His clothes were too big and everything. And his weight loss, his family would have noticed that, right?”
“I would think so,” Dena agreed.
I put the ring back in my purse and jumped to my feet, waving my arms in the air to get the waitress’ attention.
“What are you doing?” Dena asked.
“I’m getting the check. We have to go to Aaron London’s place.”
Mary Ann and Dena looked at one another. “Um,” Mary Ann said, running her fingers nervously back and forth along the edge of the table. “I don’t think he’s home.”
“Of course he’s not home,” I replied. “But I’ve got to make it look like his ring fell off somewhere around his place! Or better yet, in his home!”
“I’m sorry, what?” Dena asked, flatly.
“I might have his house keys. I could just—”
“Yeah, no!” Dena said, cutting me off immediately. “You are not breaking into his house to return a ring!”
“Why not?” I demanded.
“For one thing, his wife and daughter are probably already there,” Dena pointed out.
“But what if they’re not? They could easily have gone to a family member’s home while they process this. That’s what my mom did when my dad died.”
“Sophie.” Dena said my name like it was a condemnation but I simply ignored her as I continued to make my case.
“It would be the opposite of a burglary! I would be like Santa Claus…if Santa gave you stuff that already belonged to you…and if he had a key instead of having to mess around with chimneys.”
“Um,” Mary Ann said again, “Dena may be right…about you being a little bit drunk.”
“Of course I’m drunk! You think I want to deal with any of this while sober?” I retorted. “And look!” Again, I searched through my handbag until I found London’s car insurance failed-payment notice, his name and address clearly printed in the corner. “See!” I slammed the paper down in front of my friends. “I have his address!”
The waitress came over with our check and I triumphantly put my credit card on top of it before she could even leave it on the table. “Drinks are on me,” I declared. “Mary Ann, you’ll have to drive us over there.”
“Listen to me,” Dena rapped her knuckles against the table, “this isn’t Christmas and nobody wants you busting into their living room no matter how jolly you are. We are not doing this!”
“But--”
“Do you even remember what happened the last time we tried to sneak around someone else’s home?” Dena pressed. “That was at that guy Alex Kinsky’s house in Vegas. The night ended when he held us at gunpoint and set the whole building on fire.”
“That’s really not fair,” I countered. “The fire was a total accident.”
“Sophie!”
“Fine!” I threw up my hands in mock surrender. “Then I’ll…I’ll just drop the ring by his doorstep.”
“That’s stupid!” Dena insisted.
“It’s a free country! I can be stupid if I want to be!” Mary Ann and Dena looked up at me doubtfully. Frustrated, I put my hands on my hips. “I swear to God you two, I will go on a full sobriety boycott until you agree to help me handle this! Right now, the only important thing is the ring!”
“Oh make up your mind, are you Santa or Golem?” Dena muttered.
I stared her down, letting her know I was not going to let this go.
She sighed and shook her head. “Let me just ask you this, if we drop Precious by his front door, like, by the mat or something, will you let this go?”
“Yes,” I said, without really thinking about it. “Sure.”
Dena and Mary Ann exchanged looks. As the waitress came back with a receipt for me to sign, Dena gave a little shrug. “Okay. Looks like it’s time for us hobbits to go on an adventure.”
“The willingness to take great risks can lead to great accomplishments and an air of youthful vitality. Or it can lead to great failure and serious wrinkles.”
–Dying To Laugh
London’s place turned out to be a four-plex two blocks from the beach in the outer sunset district. As we pulled into a parallel spot across the street, we noted there were lights on in three out of the four apartments.
“It doesn’t mean the dark one’s his,” Dena noted. She was sitting in the backseat. Mary Ann was sitting behind the wheel tapping her fingers to Kelly Clarkson which, according to the deal she struck with Dena, she was allowed to play after every two Kendrick Lamar songs. “His wife and daughter really could be home. Or maybe they’re in the dark apartment but went to sleep.”
“It’s not that late,” I said, uncertainly.
“It’s not that early either,” Dena reminded me. “Besides, they’re in mourning. They have reason to just crawl under the covers and black out the world. Just drop the ring off by the front door and let’s go.”
“But…what if the wrong person finds it,” I asked. “What if they take it?”
“Sophie, this is your plan,” Dena reminded me. “If someone steals the wedding ring he’ll have bad juju for the rest of his life. Let’s do this and move on.”
I nodded. Sobriety was making a very gradual and unwelcome comeback. Time was of the essence.
“Okay, you guys stay here for a minute. I’m going to look around to see if there’s a good spot for it, if not...” my voice trailed off.
“If not?” Mary Ann repeated, urging me to finish my thought.
But I didn’t have a finish for that thought. I shook my head, uncertain and then opened the car door. “Just five minutes you guys.”
“Wait, you went from a minute to five minutes in less than three sentences,” Dena protested. “Five minutes is not--”
I jumped out of the car and closed the door before she could continue. As I walked up to London’s building I could hear the muffled sound of a dog barking from somewhere inside. The various buzzers listed the apartment numbers. Living so close to the beach in San Francisco meant living in a fog bank for approximately three hundred sixty days of every year. But then London didn’t seem like a man who longed for the sun and perhaps his daughter enjoyed holding beach bonfires with friends like I did when I was her age. As for Anita…I didn’t have much of a read on her at all.
I ran my fingers lightly over the buzzers. Were Anita and Cathy home? At a friend’s? A loving family member’s? I lowered my gaze to study the steps leading up to the building, then the walkway…surely there was some place to plant this stupid thing. But of course, there wasn’t.
But if they weren’t home, and the key really was to their apartment...
I gave my head an energetic shake to clear it. Dena was right, breaking into the apartment wasn’t a good idea.
But what if I just broke into the apartment building? Like maybe the ring could have slipped off his finger while he was clinging to the banister, or fiddling with his mail after collecting it? I could go in and just drop it in a plausible location.
My little voice, which was apparently a lot more sober than I was, told me that was a ridiculous and reckless idea.
I glanced over my shoulder at Mary Ann’s car, still parked serenely across the street. I gave them a little wave, letting them know I was fine. Not that they couldn’t see that for themselves. The only thing they could be worried about was that I might be thinking about doing exactly what I was thinking about doing.
I reached into my bag, as subtlety as possible, and fished out the keys. I sort of strolled up to the front door, keeping my head bent toward the
ground as if looking for a place to drop the ring. Keeping my body angled so Dena and Mary Ann couldn’t see exactly what I was up to, I tried one of the keys. It fit into the lock but didn’t turn.
By that point, there was no way Dena and Mary Ann hadn’t caught on to what was up. Quickly my fingers closed around the other key, just as Dena was opening the car door and started crossing the street toward me. I fumbled with it as I tried, then succeeded to get it into the lock. It turned. This was the key! I was about to triumphantly push open the door when it swung open on its own, pulling away from me.
I squealed and jumped back into Dena who had caught up with me and she fell back into Mary Ann who let out an even louder squeal. We all stood there, regaining our balance as a man wearing sweats, a T-shirt, Vans and spiky black hair, gelled to an inch of its life, stared down at us from the now open doorway.
“Can I help you?” he asked, irritably.
I blinked, a little stunned.
“I’m really sorry,” Dena began. “We have the wrong--”
“We’re friends of Aaron London in unit 4,” I interrupted, straightening my spine and pulling out a smile. “We’re expected. His wife gave me the key.” I held up the keys as evidence.
The man barely even looked at them. “Bullshit.”
My smile disappeared. I hadn’t expected to be called out that fast. Behind me, I heard Mary Ann squeak out an uh-oh.
“No, really,” I said, trying to maintain at least the façade of confidence. “She gave it to me this afternoon. I don’t think she’s home yet…or, she may be sleeping...”
“Look, I don’t know who you are, but you didn’t get those keys from his wife,” he retorted.
I took a sharp breath, tasting the salt in the air. “What makes you say that?”
“Unit 4 guy? Aaron London? He’s in the apartment right next to mine and he doesn’t have a wife.”
For a few seconds, I just stared at him, unsure if I had heard him correctly. When I finally glanced back at my friends they looked every bit as stunned as I felt. My hand went to my purse where the ring was. It was a wedding ring. I mean, it looked like a wedding ring. Anita was London’s wife. That’s what made sense. “He…doesn’t have a wife,” I repeated, slowly.
“No, that dude lives alone…except for the dog. Is he married to the dog? Is that the bitch you’re talking about? Because if it is, I wish you could get her to shut the hell up.”
It was everything I could do not to pull the wedding ring out of my purse and shove it in Gel-Head’s face. He had to be wrong. And Anita must have been listed as an emergency contact in London’s wallet or something otherwise how would the hospital know to call her?
Mary Ann raised her hand as if she was a student in a classroom. “Um, sorry, I’m a little lost. Is the bitch that won’t shut up, like, a dog-dog? Or are you just being really mean about a woman you don’t find attractive?”
“What?” the guy shook his head. “I’m talking about a dog. I think it’s a Lab or something…maybe part pit. I don’t know, but it’s got a pink collar so I’m guessing she’s a girl, and do not tell me I’m gender stereotyping. People have been trying to lay that shit on me ever since I moved to San Francisco.”
My eyes moved past him to the apartment building. I could see the lobby painted a utilitarian beige, metal mailboxes lined up neatly on the wall, the frayed carpet on the steps that led tenants up to their apartments. I tried to imagine the angry woman I met at the hospital latching on her pearls before descending those steps. But it was like trying to picture Audrey Hepburn in an Adam Sandler film.
“Um, how long have you lived here?” I asked. Maybe he had just moved in a few days ago. Maybe Anita and Catherine had been away visiting potential colleges or ailing grandparents.
“I moved in four months ago. And…look, I don’t know what your relationship is with Unit 4 but there’s something wrong with that dog. She’s been barking since I got back from work. I have to be on the Google bus at six-thirty tomorrow morning and now I gotta go out and buy earplugs just so I can sleep!”
But it was like the quiet roar of the ocean was pulling his words away from me. I could barely hear anything other than my own screaming thoughts. Had the hospital called Anita? Or had she just shown up, because maybe, just maybe, she knew he was going to end up in the hospital.
Or maybe she had been following him. In a Zipcar.
But that was crazy…wasn’t it? Of course it was. It had to be crazy.
Gel-Head was still talking. It took effort to drag my attention back to him.
“Barking, whining, then barking again,” he was saying. “There is no sound insulation in this place. Maybe she’s in distress or something, I dunno. I haven’t heard her do this before.” He sucked in his lower lip, revealing a wisp of a soul patch. “Look, if you think you can get it to shut up and you really have a key, just give me some plausible story about how you got it. Something so when the cops ask me why I didn’t report a bunch of suspicious looking women entering my neighbor’s apartment I’ll have an out. Seriously, I don’t care. I just need that thing to be quiet.”
“You really shouldn’t call living creatures things,” Mary Ann scolded.
Gel-Head’s mouth curled down into a cartoonishly frustrated glare. “I really hate this city.”
“Aaron London was admitted into Mercy Hospital today,” I said, choosing my words with obvious deliberation. The wind picked up, brushing wet air against my face. “He gave us his keys so we could get some stuff for him and take care of the dog.”
Gel-Head studied me as a new force of wind tried and failed to tousle his hair. “That’s your plausible story?”
“Pretty much.”
He considered it, then shrugged. “It’ll do. Just keep in mind, if the dog doesn’t shut up in the next fifteen minutes I really am calling the police.”
“Fair,” I agreed. Gel-Head stood back and held open the door for us. I went in right away but Dena and Mary Ann hung back.
“Guys,” I said, impatiently, gesturing for them to follow.
“Sophie, we don’t know what we’re walking into,” Dena pointed out.
“She’s right,” Mary Ann agreed. “I do want to help the dog but…what if it’s a scary dog?”
“Yeah,” Dena agreed then narrowed her eyes and faced Gel-Head. “Is the barking bitch Lassie or Cujo?”
“I don’t know,” he said, clearly exacerbated. “Neither? Maybe more like that dog in Marley and Me?”
“Oh, I loved that movie!” Mary Ann cooed. “I cried so much at the end.”
“Are you guys going to do this or what?” Gel-Head snapped.
I gave my friends an imploring look. “Please?” I asked. “If not for me, then for Marley.”
Mary Ann gave me a firm nod and marched past Dena into the building. “For Marley.”
Dena exhaled loudly and followed. “This is so fucking crazy.”
In the minute that it took us to get to the apartment, the dog had gone from barking to whimpering and scratching at the door. Mary Ann placed her flat palm next to the peephole. “That poor thing! Do you think she’s psychic?”
Both Dena and I looked at her as Gel-Head, who had been trailing behind us, let himself into the apartment on the other end of the hall and slammed his door closed.
“Maybe that’s why she’s so upset,” Mary Ann explained, ignoring our enabler’s dramatic exit. “She knows her human died. Animals are different than us. They understand things we don’t.”
“We’re all animals, but I’m completely sure that dog understands things you don’t,” Dena grumbled.
“London was in bad shape when I saw him.” I chewed on my lower lip, shifting my weight from foot to foot. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he hadn’t been home the night before.”
“Oh, that poor thing!” Mary Ann said again. “Open the door, Sophie.”
“Wait a minute, what’s the plan here,” Dena interjected. “Are we just going to take the dog out for a short
walk, feed her and then leave her for someone who actually knows London to take care of her?”
“Maybe?” I said, uncertainly.
“Because you know we can’t just take the dog, right?” Dena asked. “We don’t have enough information about what’s going on here to do that.”
She was right, we had no idea what we were about to walk into. I still couldn’t get my head around Anita and Catherine being frauds…in fact I didn’t really believe it. It’s not like Gel-Head looked like the kind of guy who was particularly observant. And yet, not to notice the existence of two people who theoretically lived down the hall from you…
“Hold on a second.” I pulled out my phone and went through my recent call log. “His teenage daughter…or the person who might be his daughter, is the one who called me with the news.” I found the number and pressed call. I put it on speaker so we could all hear.
It went to voicemail after one ring. “Hi, I can’t get to the phone right now. You can leave a message which I probably won’t listen to or you could just be normal and text.”
“I don’t know if she’s his daughter or not, but she’s definitely a teenager,” Dena muttered. I shushed her right as the phone beeped.
I opened my mouth, then shut it and then promptly hung up. “I don’t know what to say or how to say it,” I admitted.
Dena let out a short laugh and took my phone from me. After a few seconds of tapping, she showed me the text message she had come up with:
I’m so sorry about your dad. Will you be taking care of his dog or do you need help with that?
“That’ll work, yes?” Dena asked and then pressed send before I could weigh in.
