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But then she looks away, unbuckles, opens the door. I shove my truck into park, turn the engine off.
“Don’t you dare walk me to my car,” June says, already hopping out. “It’s four feet away.”
I’m already pulling the keys out, unbuckling.
“I can’t be—”
“No!” she shouts, laughing, as she slams my door shut and opens hers, already in her own driver’s seat before I can get out of my truck.
I sigh, and she grins and waves from behind the wheel.
Then I look at her for one more moment, and I drive away.When I get home, my house feels empty. Even though the dog runs up and greets me, tail wagging, it feels empty.
It’s never felt empty before.
I’ve lived here alone for years now, and it’s felt quiet and still, peaceful, filled with perfect solitude, but never empty.
I turn on the lights, hang my messenger bag on a hook, walk to the back door, let the dog out. I stand on the back porch and watch her barely visible form as she runs through the back yard, stopping and sniffing and snuffing.
It’s been nearly a month and I haven’t heard a peep from anyone else about her, even though I’ve put up probably hundreds of flyers. I can’t bring myself to believe that no one misses this very good dog.
After a while, she comes back, excited and slightly damp from the dew in the grass. I pet her, scratch her ears, and she licks my hand.
“All right, girl,” I say, crouching down. “What’s your name gonna be?”Chapter SixteenJunePlease write a few paragraphs about your relevant work experience.
I put my laptop down on the comforter in front of me, then reach forward over my crossed legs, stretching. I should probably stand up at some point tonight, but I think by now my butt might actually be part of my mattress, so why ruin a good thing?
I rock briefly from side to side. I take a deep breath, then yawn, my face pressed into my blankets. It’s twelve-thirty in the morning and I should have gone to sleep a few hours ago, but I… didn’t. At this rate I’ll be fully nocturnal in a few more weeks, and then maybe I can start applying for jobs at Vampire Daily and the Goth Telegraph.
Okay, if I’m having those thoughts I definitely need to go to sleep.
After I finish this job application, to be the Metro Editor at the Bluff City Herald-Trumpet, which is a big name for a fairly small paper.
Bluff City is in South Dakota. It has a population of 25,000 and is most famous for allegedly being the last place that Wild Bill Hickok slept before he traveled on to Deadwood, South Dakota, where he was shot over a poker game several weeks later.
I open the relevant file on my computer and copy and paste the few paragraphs in. I don’t know why job applications love to make you fill out all the parts of your resume before simply uploading your resume, but at this point I’ve done so many of the things that it’s pretty much second nature.
I copy. I paste. I make sure that I didn’t misspell anything. I click next.
But when I get to the last screen, where I’m supposed to double-check my work before submitting it, I hesitate because I’m not at all sure I want to work for the Bluff City Herald-Trumpet. I’m not sure I want to move to Bluff City, to leave Virginia again, to start over in another town where I don’t know anything or anyone.
I’m not sure the job is worth it.
My finger’s still hovering over the button when something hits my window with a loud click and I jump.
For a moment, I stare at my curtain-covered window. The only light in my room right now is my bedside lamp, and it suddenly feels kind of spooky.
It’s just the tree branches hitting the glass, I tell myself, and hit Submit before I can worry any further about moving to South Dakota.
Then I think: There hasn’t been a tree outside this window since I was seventeen.
There’s another clink, and this time my pulse shoots upward. I close my laptop, push it away. The window is just beyond the foot of my (twin) bed and I stare at it.
It’s a serial killer, I think, because I’ve read way too many true crime stories where this exact scenario happened. Or it’s robbers who think the house is empty, or it’s someone trying to murder his ex-wife who’s got the wrong house, or…
Another clink. I take a deep breath, turn my light out, and scoot toward the window even as I wonder if I should call the cops instead.
I scootch closer. Closer. I can see a sliver of window behind the curtain if I press my face against the glass, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone out there.
