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“Mudi.”

“Okay, yeah, I see that now. And she was with you that day.”

“Ahead of me, actually. She saw it first.”

“She’s lucky to be alive, too.”

“Yes.” Lloyd stroked her. Laurie looked up at him with her amber eyes. He wondered, as he almost always did, just what it was she saw in the face looking down into hers. Like the stars he saw when he took her out at night, it was a mystery. And that was good. A little mystery was good, especially when the years closed down.

Gibson thanked him for the iced tea and left. Lloyd sat where he was for awhile, stroking his hand through that cloudy gray fur. Then he put his dog down to go about her business.

RATTLESNAKES

July–August 2020

I wasn’t surprised when I saw the elderly woman pushing the double stroller with the empty seats; I had been forewarned. This was on Rattlesnake Road, which winds the four-mile length of Rattlesnake Key on the Florida Gulf Coast. Houses and condos to the south; a few McMansions at the north end.

There’s a blind curve half a mile from Greg Ackerman’s McMansion, where I was staying that summer, bouncing around like the last pea in an oversized can. Tangled undergrowth higher than my head (and I’m six-four) flanked the road, seeming to press in and make what was narrow to begin with even narrower. The curve was marked on either side by fluorescent green plastic kids, each bearing the warning SLOW! CHILDREN AT PLAY. I was walking, and at the age of seventy-two, in the simmering heat of a July morning, I was going plenty slow. My plan was to walk to the swing gate which divides the private part of the road from the part the county maintains, then go back to Greg’s house. I was already wondering if I’d bitten off more than I could chew.

I hadn’t been entirely sure Greg wasn’t putting me on about Mrs. Bell, but here she was, and pushing her oversized stroller toward me. One of the wheels had a squeak and could have used some oil. She was wearing baggy shorts, sandals with knee-length socks, and a big blue sunhat. She stopped, and I remembered Greg asking me if her problem—that’s what he called it—would give me a problem. I said it wouldn’t, but now I wondered.

“Hello. I think you must be Mrs. Bell. My name is Vic Trenton. I’m staying at Greg’s house for awhile.”

“A friend of Greg’s? How nice! An old friend?”

“We worked in the same Boston ad agency. I was a copywriter and he—”

“Pictures and layout, I know. Before he made the big bucks.” She pushed the double pram closer, but not too close. “Any friend of Greg’s, so on and so forth. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Since we’re going to be neighbors for as long as you’ll be here, please call me Alita. Or Allie, if you like. Are you okay? No sign of this new flu?”

“I’m okay. No cough, no fever. I assume you are, too.”

“I am. Which is good, as old as I am, and with a few of the usual old-person medical issues. One of the few nice things about being here in the summer is how most people clear out. I saw on the news this morning that Dr. Fauci is saying there could be a hundred thousand new cases every day. Can you believe that?”

I told her I had seen the same thing.

“Did you come here to get away from it?”

“No. I needed some time off and the place was offered to me, so I took it.” That was far from the whole story.

“I think you’re a little crazy to be vacationing in this part of the world during the summer, Mr. Trenton.”

According to Greg, you’re the one who’s crazy, I thought. And judging by the stroller you’re wheeling around, he wasn’t wrong.

“Vic, please,” I said. “Since we’re neighbors.”

“Would you like to say hello to the twins?” She gestured to the pram. On the seat of one was a pair of blue shorts, on the other a pair of green ones. Draped over the backs of the seats were joke shirts. One said BAD, the other BADDER. “This one is Jacob,” indicating the blue shorts, “and this one is Joseph.” She touched the shirt that said BADDER. It was a brief touch, but gentle and loving. Her look was calm but cautious, waiting to see how I’d respond.

Nutty? Yes indeed, but I wasn’t terribly uncomfortable. There were two reasons for that. One, Greg had clued me in, saying that Mrs. Bell was otherwise perfectly sane and in touch with reality. Two, when you spend your working life in the advertising business, you meet a lot of crazy people. If they’re not that way when they come onboard, they get that way.

Just be pleasant, Greg told me. She’s harmless, and she makes the best oatmeal raisin cookies I’ve ever tasted. I wasn’t sure I believed him about the cookies—admen are prone to superlatives, even those who have left the job—but I was perfectly willing to be pleasant.

“Hello, boys,” I said. “Very nice to meet you.”

Not being there, Jacob and Joseph made no reply. And not being there, the heat didn’t bother them and they would never have to worry about Covid or skin cancer.

“They’ve just turned four,” Allie Bell said. This woman having four-year-old twin boys would be a good trick, I thought, since she looked to be in her mid-sixties. “Old enough to walk, really, but the lazy things would rather ride. I dress them in different colored shorts because sometimes even I get confused about which is which.” She laughed. “I’ll let you get on with your walk, Mr. Trenton—”

“Vic. Please.”