“Another one bites the dust,” I muttered, pulling off the top and taking it straight to the laundry room where I sprayed it with stain fighter and dropped it into the washing machine. When I was back on the couch I picked up my laptop to start my usual coffee and word game routine.
But my eyes kept wandering to Jessa’s new book perched on the corner of the coffee table, reminding me of my encounter with Graham Forrester the night before.
Graham. Forrester.
Graham-Let-My-Dog-Poo-All-Over-the-Park Forrester
What were the odds? And how had I never seen him as such a pompous ass that he couldn’t be deigned to pick up after his sweet dog? I wonder if he even normally walked the dog like he sometimes claimed in his articles. Around the neighborhood my ass. Probably half the mentions in the column hadn’t even happened.
I had been mildly horrified by my shouting in the park that morning while he’d just stood there staring at me with his old dog by his side, forlornly looking up at me with those big brown eyes. I didn’t love making a spectacle of myself and, until I’d read his article, hadn’t remembered a word I’d said. I’d barely been keeping it together in that moment, having just gotten the news about Addie’s accident. The incident hadn’t even registered in my brain seconds after it had happened. I’d just turned and – as appetizer-hog Graham had so kindly noted in his article – stomp/scuffed away. Until I’d found myself suddenly running, tears streaming down my face. I’d had to stop, breathless and blinded at the corner to wipe my eyes. Someone had asked if I was okay. It wasn’t until I was on the plane to Seattle a few hours later that pieces of the morning came back to me. Words like, “irresponsible dolt” and “elitist canine snob”. “You don’t even deserve that beautiful dog!” I’d shouted.
To read how I’d behaved was humiliating. I felt ashamed. But also pissed. How convenient for him to take my misery and fear and splash it in the local paper for others to laugh at. I could imagine the responses he’d gotten. Probably even from some of my own neighbors, laughing and making fun of the “girl with the pearl colored…”
“Dammit,” I said, realization dawning as I looked across the room to where my now easily recognizable headphones were lying on the kitchen island. “Now I have to get new headphones.”
Goddamn his cleverness with words. It was why I’d always loved his writing. Had devoured each and every one of his books, dissecting phrases, reading the books he’d used for references. It was why I had savored his Sunday articles. He had a way of seeing things and stating them that made you think of them in a whole new way.
“It’s like he can see into my soul,” I’d said to Addie over the phone last year after waxing poetic about an intricate paragraph in his last book.
I stared up at my bookshelves and found the line-up of his novels where they sat beside other long-loved favorites, a framed picture of Addie and me, and a small metal Space Needle I’d bought and taken with me before moving to New York. Peering at his name lined up on my shelf, I gave him a one finger salute.
An hour later I was dressed in my usual baggy sweats ensemble, a baseball hat on my head, one of the numerous pairs of expensive headphones (in black) I’d been gifted from brands wanting me to be seen wearing their product. Unable to wear my favorite beat-up sneakers, the one still marred with poo and sitting on my front porch, I grimaced as I slid my feet into one of the many pairs Nike had sent me over the years. They were perfectly comfortable and incredibly cute with their seventy’s orange and powder blue color scheme; they just weren’t the beloved worn-in pair I’d had since leaving Seattle at nineteen.
I glared down at the pretty blue shoes, opened the door, and walked down the front steps. At the sidewalk I stopped, an image of Graham at the book launch party appearing in my mind. The way his blue eyes had flashed fire when he’d recognized me. The way the short sleeves of his shirt that had stretched over biceps that clearly had weekly sessions with weights. The slightly mussed hair… the Clark Kent glasses…
I clenched my fists, infuriated with my brain for having tracked anything attractive about the man. Taking in an angry breath, for the first time in the nine years I’d lived here, instead of taking a right and heading toward the park, I took a left.
Chapter 7
Graham
I woke as usual at six a.m. the morning after the book party and, as had become habit in the past month, peeked over the side of the bed to make sure Brontë hadn’t tried going downstairs without me. Her gait on the descent had become precarious – her old legs wobbling under her weight – and I’d taken to going down backwards in front of her, in case she slipped and I could catch her.
But she was in her bed, as usual – one of the many I’d placed strategically around the house for whenever she was tired.
“Hey girl,” I said, smiling sleepily.
She replied with two tail thwacks.
Together we walked blearily down to the kitchen and I turned on the espresso machine before heading to the back door and the garden where Brontë could relieve herself.
“Come on, B,” I encouraged as we both stood in the doorway looking outside. The cool morning air caused me to shiver and she looked up at me, her big brown eyes asking, “Do I have to, Dad?”
“I know,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to go out there to do my business either, but since you wouldn’t take me up on my offer to learn how to use the toilet when you were a puppy… here we are.”
She exhaled, a small huff of disappointed acceptance, and made her way outside. When she returned a few minutes later, I received substantial side-eye before she laid heavily in her kitchen bed, the equivalent of a teenager throwing themself onto furniture in a petulant display of irritation.
I grinned. She was an old lady on the outside, but she still had the spirit of the puppy she’d been on the inside.
Espresso brewing, I went to the fridge for Brontë’s fancy new dog food, my latest attempt to get calories in her. Fifteen minutes later I was sitting on the world’s most uncomfortable couch, my laptop in front of me, along with a trusty dog – who had ignored her food and instead ate a handful of peanut butter flavored treats – at my feet in yet another bed.
I stared at the screen for a moment. The document for my new book was open and waiting for me to continue writing it. But rather than creating a new sentence, my finger accidentally slid to open a new tab.
The next thing I knew, I was typing Lior Flynn’s name into the search bar.
Of course, I’d known who she was as soon as Jessa had introduced us. Her image was everywhere. Every newsstand, billboard, and side of bus. I’d seen her on the screens in Times Square, and she’d even had a tiny but memorable part in a movie I’d loved a couple years ago. I’d read articles in magazines she’d given, and had seen her interviewed on TV, where she came off as witty, intelligent, and a bit of a dork - which I’d found endearing.
But the woman I’d met at the book launch, with her ponytail, glasses, and unassuming jeans and sweater, looked so different from the glamorous images I’d seen of her over the years. And compare those two versions to the woman yelling at me in the park, her messy hair piled on top of her head, wearing a stained Chanel sweatshirt, an old pair of sneakers and staring at me with those eyes…
