by Susie Gayle
Of course, you know what they say about best laid plans.
“Gang’s all here,” Sarah murmurs as we enter. On the far side, at a small table against the ocean-facing wall, sit Sammy and Karen. At the bar, seated on a stool in front of the taps, Dennis sips from a pint glass.
“Well, so much for being just us.” I shrug as we head over to greet our friends.
“Hey, Will,” Sammy greets us, as he glances up. “How’s it going?”
“Good. What, uh, what’s going on here?” I ask, glancing from him to Karen.
Sammy looks down at the table and smiles sheepishly. “Just having a drink.”
“Oh?” I’ve never known Sammy and Karen to hang out together, just the two of them.
Karen rolls her eyes. “Grow up, Will,” she chides me, as if reading my mind. “We can be friends without you around, you know.”
“I know,” I say somewhat defensively. “We’ll just grab a table over here…”
“Don’t be silly, join us,” Sammy insists. “Pull up a couple chairs.”
“Sure, alright.” We steal two chairs from a neighboring empty table. Sarah sits and starts chatting with Karen about the mortgage application, but I hesitate.
“Hey, I’ll be right back,” I tell them, and I head over to the bar. I nod to Holly, the proprietor and bartender of the Runside, as she slides a Whale of an Ale across to me.
“Thanks, Holly.” I perch myself on a stool beside Dennis. “Hey.”
“Hey, yourself.”
“Why so glum, chum?”
Dennis shakes his head. “I still can’t believe that guy got away.”
I know what he’s talking about without asking; for the last couple of weeks, Dennis hasn’t been able to let go of Ponytail Guy running off on us.
Patty ran the photo that we took of the white van’s license plate, and it turned out to be a rental. When she followed that lead, she found out that the guy had rented it with a fake ID. He’s still out there somewhere—could be halfway across the country by now, or maybe hiding out right here in town. All I know is that I’m keeping an eye out for guys with ponytails.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I say. If I’m being honest, it kind of was—but I’m not about to tell him that.
To change the subject, I add, “By the way, I finally read your web comic. Bill Mulligan, Pet Shop Detective?”
His cheeks turn pink and he stares into his pint glass. “Yeah. You know, it’s just a silly thing…”
“No, I liked it.”
He looks up at me. “Yeah?”
I nod. Just last night, I remembered my promise to read Dennis’s comic, and I ended up staying awake well past midnight reading the adventures of Bill Mulligan (sound vaguely familiar?), a mild-mannered pet shop owner by day, and a hardboiled, rough-and-tumble detective by night.
“I have to say, he ends up chasing people on rooftops an awful lot.” I take a long sip and then ask, “Is that why you wanted to come along on the dog-napping case? To see what it was really like?”
Dennis shrugs. “Something like that. I mean, I know the reality isn’t quite that exciting.”
“No, but you know what they say: the truth can be stranger than fiction. You know, I have a couple of story ideas, if you wanted to hear them sometime…”
He brightens. “Yeah? Cool. We’ll sit down together soon.”
“In the meantime, why don’t you come join us?” I gesture toward our table.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, you’re part of the crew now.” I stand from my stool. “Come on… Robin.”
He grins and stands, too. “Alright.”
We head back to the table just as Sammy finishes telling some joke and everyone laughs. I pull up another empty chair for Dennis and I take my seat between him and Sarah. Yeah, our little table is kind of crowded, but that’s okay. And yeah, things change, and that’s okay, too.
You just have to recognize the opportunities.
THE END