Good Karma

by Christina Kelly

“I played a lot back in Short Hills. Even won a few club championships if you can believe it. But I haven’t hit lately.” Catherine rolled her shoulders back and started pumping her arms to match their steps. “I haven’t really looked for a team yet, but maybe I’ve found my new sport.” She smiled at Amity.

  “There’s a blurb in The Oak Log about a tennis meeting next week. Maybe you could go.”

  “Would you come with me?”

  “Remember, I don’t even live here.”

  “And how many people have noticed?”

  Amity let the question go unanswered. Maybe Catherine was right. After all, sometimes Amity did feel like a cultural anthropologist who’d never quite assimilated into a protected island nation. Maybe she should try to change things up—there’d been a time when she had a spectacular drop shot—but she couldn’t quite get out of her own way lately. Then she remembered the thread of their previous conversation. “So here’s the thing. You know where most keys are hidden? Under front mats. Unbelievable. Makes me think all humans are idiots.”

  “Unbelievable,” Catherine echoed. “But maybe that’d help Ralph. He has trouble remembering our garage door code.” Then she added sadly, “Even though it’s just our wedding anniversary.”

  “Anniversaries are always problematic,” Amity said, thinking of her own.

  “Still, July 8, 1978. Seven-eight-seven-eight. How hard could that be to remember?”

  “You know, I saw you and your husband as you stood outside the front door that day you surprised me. I thought you looked happy.”

  “At one time, we were . . .” Catherine trailed off. “But getting back to this”—she wiggled her finger between them—“you said you don’t steal anything.”

  “Right.” Amity waved her hand across her blue Lycra leggings and matching top. “Do I look like a criminal? Half the time I’m doing owners a favor and try to clean up. It’s not so bad with houses on the market, but the rotting fruit, the dead flowers, you have no idea the things people leave or forget when they go away. The carelessness.”

  Catherine drew to a stop as they passed a blooming bougainvillea. “Just look at this!”

  Amity watched as Catherine brought her nose toward the bush, then wiped away a stream of sweat that had run down her forehead, underneath her sunglasses, and onto her cheek. She realized she’d set a breakneck pace in her excitement and told herself to calm down. Peace and light, peace and light. Generally Amity didn’t notice fragrant plants along sidewalks—she wasn’t interested in perfume or scented candles or milled soap—but today felt different. Seeing her world through someone else’s viewfinder, she found everything a little more interesting.

  “So where are we going?” Catherine asked, as if they were window-shopping on Broughton Street.

  “Not far. Fletcher Lane. Quiet street. No intersecting golf cart paths. Flyers piling up in the mailbox. A few of the nearby houses are vacant so there shouldn’t be any traffic.”

  “Okay. Quiet, flyers, vacancy.”

  “And this one isn’t on the market. I learned my lesson.” Amity saw Catherine’s face brighten and so she added, “You taught me my lesson.”

  “And what lesson was that?”

  “You are never safe.” Amity pulled a leash out of her fanny pack. “Sometimes I use this as a prop. People are empathetic to the plight of a missing dog.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “You know, you see some random woman who’s looking for her dog and you feel bad for her but won’t question her. Missing dogs give people permission to go places they wouldn’t normally.”

  “Why haven’t you ever gotten a real one?”

  “A real dog?” The thought had never occurred to her. “My husband was allergic to them.” At least he said he was, but he said a lot of things. “And he hated them besides.”

  “Who hates dogs? That’s like hating Santa Claus. But if you ever want to borrow one . . .”

  “A husband?” Amity asked.

  “No, a dog.”

  Amity couldn’t imagine bringing a dog creeping. A dog couldn’t be controlled or might start barking or leave a mess in someone’s yard. And dogs needed constant attention, didn’t they? They had to be monitored lest they get into trouble, just like husbands. There were a hundred reasons not to have a dog.

  Catherine continued, “I mean, you’re the expert, but a dog lets you stand in front of someone’s house for hours. Particularly at night. Observe neighbors load the dishwasher. See what they enjoy on TV or cook for dinner or what time they go to bed.”

  “Oh?”

  “There was this one couple in Short Hills. She’d do the dishes, he’d watch TV. Every night it was the same. Sometimes she’d fold laundry and watch him watching the TV. Once in a while she’d talk on the phone. You could tell she was talking about him because she always moved to another room. It was the saddest thing I ever saw. Such unhappiness. Every single night.”

  “You used to watch them?”

  “We all have our habits, I guess. But you’re young. If you want to get a dog, you still have time.”

  “That’s what my husband told me when we tried to start a family.”

  “Like your uterus is a jar of mayonnaise with an expiration date, right?”

  “Well—”

  “But it’s true. You do have time to get a dog or start a family. Or whatever. You know, you get to be my age and your options dwindle. It’s hard to start again. Or fall in love. Or even just pack up and go somewhere.” Catherine said it like she’d been stuck in the same room all her life.

  “But you just moved here. You have gone somewhere.”

  “Yes,” Catherine answered. “I suppose I have.”

  “Didn’t you just relocate a thousand miles with everything you own?”

  “Except for my toboggan. Ralph made me get rid of that. I ordered it online. Of course we didn’t really need it. Ralph was out of town and we had this little hill in the backyard. It sloped from the patio to a wide meadow. I had this idea that one day my Boston terrier and I would ride it down the hill and just keep going.”

  Amity liked the visual, the idea that someone could just will themselves away when the time was right. She’d had that desire herself lately.

  At the next road they took a sharp right onto a dead-end street. The houses were quiet. No one cutting a lawn or sweeping a front walk. At the end of the cul-de-sac, slightly off to one side, they came to a long tabby driveway leading to a house with a full magnolia tree by the front door.

  Catherine whispered, “This is it?”

  “This is our baby.”

  They strode forward, past a pile of grass clippings and over several fallen palm fronds. After following the brick path to the front door they stood rather awkwardly side by side, as if at the end of a blind date.

  Catherine cracked her knuckles. “Aren’t you going to knock?”

  “No, never knock. Dogs half a mile away will start barking. And besides, nobody’s here. Look at this place.” She pointed to a leafless Easter lily by the front door, a plastic pink rabbit head hanging on the dried stalk. “This is what you came for, so go ahead and give it a whirl.”

  Catherine moved her sunglasses to the top of her head, and Amity saw her fear and excitement. The edges of her lips curled into a smile. “You’re sure?” Catherine’s voice wavered as if she were standing on a fixed wing and about to skydive.

  “They say your first time is always the best.”

  Catherine looked under the mat and two planters, then around the adjacent palm to see if there were any fake rocks. Within a few minutes she found a key attached to a nail behind a shutter. Proudly, she held it up. “Ta-da!”

  “You are going to make a fine creeper.”

  “Now what?”

  Amity tilted her head toward the front door. “Have at it.”

  Catherine put the key in the cylinder, and with just a light twist the door opened. They stood transfixed, peering into the entryway, a full-size mirror on
one wall and an upholstered bench on the other, but after stepping forward they suddenly both stood still again—paralyzed, confused.

  It was Catherine who moved first, bringing her cupped hands up to cover her nose and mouth. “Oh my god,” she whispered, as they took in the smell of rotting flesh.

  chapter 16

  Jesus, let’s get out of here.” Catherine stumbled back onto the brick steps.

  Amity grabbed her elbow. “Oh no you don’t. You can’t just leave.”

  “What if someone died?”

  “Nobody died. It’d smell a hundred times worse.” She pulled Catherine forward, hard. “And get in here. Someone could see you.”

  Catherine hadn’t considered that possibility. Her fear of being booked for trespassing in a crime scene suddenly surpassed her aversion to the stench, something close to weeks-old fish. “Okay, okay.” She stepped inside and closed the door.

  “Hello? Anyone home?” Amity called out. Silence.

  Catherine looked around the room and felt sadness for whoever lived there. Several slats from half-drawn venetian blinds hung like flat, broken bird wings, and a dozen Beanie Babies sat along the couch.

  “You start over there.” Amity pointed Catherine to the left, to a room that appeared to be a den. “I’ll take this side.”

  “I can’t believe we are doing this,” Catherine muttered, but then heard the pathetic sound of her own voice. She was the one who had begged Amity to take her creeping. She was the one who had wondered about this for months. She’d fantasized about creeping the way she’d once thought about Ralph’s retirement, back when she’d naively imagined moving to a gated community could be a project that they undertook as a team, in the same way other retiring couples rode cruise ships or took trips that involved friendly African elephants or Indian ashrams. She imagined creeping would be easy.

  “Catherine, you’ve got to stay focused,” Amity said, suddenly appearing before her. “I’ll check out the kitchen, but get going.”

  Time to jump into the deep end.

  Pinching her nose, Catherine stepped carefully toward the Barcalounger and big-screen TV. She tiptoed forward, making her way through a minefield of doll catalogs that had somehow found their way to the carpet. The odor didn’t seem as strong in the den, so whatever smelled was on the other side of the house. Eleven-by-fourteen photos on the bookshelves displayed images of babies and families and weddings. Mother of the bride. Mother of the groom. Grandmother with baby in a sky-blue carriage. Generations with the same crescent nose and landscape smile.

  When Catherine had been in her late twenties, after she and Ralph had settled in New Jersey, friends started presenting their babies at early dinners like plush toys they’d won in crane vending machines. At the time, Catherine and Ralph had both felt the same, that infants were like piglets—cute in theory but a general nuisance to the neighborhood. In her early thirties she remained open minded about whether she and Ralph would have a family. She didn’t encourage him one way or the other, hadn’t had the need to replicate herself like other women her age. But as she reached thirty-five and beyond, something inside her softened. She even stopped taking birth control pills to see if fate had anything to say in the matter. She should have pushed harder when her clock was still ticking. Amity still had time. Audrey Cunningham probably still did, too. Her own clock had timed out.

  “Catherine!” The urgency in Amity’s voice suggested it wasn’t the first time she’d yelled for her. Ralph sounded like that too whenever he was about to lose his patience.

  Catherine rushed down a hall to a guest bedroom, where she found Amity standing over a furry, bloated corpse about the size of Karma. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Raccoon. Smart enough to find an open window. Not smart enough to get back out. Looks like he sure tried, though.”

  “Poor thing.” If it hadn’t been for the extended belly and terrible smell, Catherine might have imagined that the raccoon was just napping, his little paws outstretched and slender pink tongue partway out of his mouth. It reminded her of the way Karma slept. On the far side of the bed she saw a shredded pillow and several shattered picture frames. Crosshatched scratches ran along the length of the baseboard. Then she had a clear vision of what would happen to Karma if she were gone and Ralph were in charge. If he left for a weekend getaway with Audrey, he might forget to hire a dogsitter, and her Boston terrier would surely perish in their laundry room.

  Amity grabbed a wooden hanger from the closet and touched it to a front paw. The raccoon didn’t move. She pushed it, harder this time, and its whole arm lifted up. “Stiff. Probably been dead a day or two.”

  Catherine, slightly nauseated, wondered if this was what morning sickness felt like. “Since the mystery is solved, now can we get out of here?”

  “Leave? It’d rot here all spring.” Amity shook her head. “And with the summer heat, god knows what it would become by fall. With creeping comes responsibility. This isn’t just trick-or-treating.”

  Catherine imagined finding a shovel and digging a shallow grave. Who knows what they’d smell like by the end of the day, and how she’d explain it to Ralph? But Ralph probably wouldn’t be home before her, so she’d have time to wash up. And even if he were, seeing how little interest he’d taken in her lately, she wasn’t sure if he’d even notice. But then Catherine had a brainstorm. “Look, I know how to take care of this without either of us getting caught.”

  “You do?” Amity seemed genuinely relieved and surprised by Catherine’s initiative.

  “One phone call does it all.”

  chapter 17

  Men. Can’t live with ’em, can’t castrate ’em, Audrey Cunningham thought.

  She had just returned to her desk from her weekly sales meeting. The office manager, Dick Moran, had spent a good part of the last hour leering at her breasts as if they were the Doublemint Twins and he had to decide between them.

  Audrey watched Leona, her shih tzu, run back and forth on the grass outside her window. In general, Audrey didn’t fawn over dogs, but hers was especially adorable and served her purposes. When Audrey brought Leona downtown, to stroll the wide sidewalks of Forsyth Park or just sit at a sidewalk table at the Pink House, passersby invariably struck up conversations. What’s her name? How old is she? Where’d you find her? Tourists mostly. Out-of-towners who were quietly wondering how they could sell their house in Podunk, Indiana, and move to picturesque Savannah. She’d made more than a half-dozen sales that way. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

  Yet Leona wasn’t the smartest dog in the show. The poor dear had recently taken an interest in Mr. Peabody. She’d had a solid two weeks of electric shock treatment before she understood that it was not a good idea to get too close to the white flags of the newly installed underground fence that bordered the lagoon. After receiving a warning beep that should have alerted her to stand down, she’d been zapped a number of times, her white fur ears flying up and little body leaping skyward in pain. Although Audrey felt sorry for the fur ball, and a little guilty she hadn’t had time to train her properly, it was more entertaining to watch than she wanted to admit.

  Audrey wanted an electronic collar for coworkers, to zap them every time they suggested some half-baked marketing idea or whatever moronic thought drifted into their heads. At today’s meeting, someone suggested ditching the usual chocolate chip cookies and bringing smoked sausage from Sandfly Bar-B-Q to open houses. As if the whiff of hickory sauce and sight of frilled toothpicks would compel potential buyers to fling open their checkbooks.

  The intercom buzzed. “Audrey. Call on line two.”

  It took her a moment to come to life. She’d been intent on watching Mr. Peabody sun himself on the island, his long spiked tail half in the water. It was horrible, but she’d been wondering if Leona would taste like chicken. She pressed the button to reply to the front desk. “Who is it?”

  “Nelson Rockefeller,” came the deadpan answer. “How the fuck should I know?”

/>   Bitch. Audrey closed her eyes and cleared her throat. Game time. She punched a button and spoke into the receiver. “Hello, Audrey Cunningham speaking. May I help you?”

  “Yes, good afternoon,” said a raspy voice. “I saw your photograph in the paper.”

  The new marketing had paid off. Simply from her ads showing her standing in front of a sign that read SOLD! instead of FOR SALE, her phone inquiries had increased 200 percent.

  “Saleswoman of the month,” Audrey answered and turned to make sure her six trophies were still in one piece on the bookshelf behind her. When she was out of the office, the other salespeople sometimes sneaked in and arranged them in compromising positions on top of one another. Once someone had unscrewed all the gold figurines from their marble bases and scattered them across her desk like a scene from Jonestown.

  “I have a house in Seven Oaks and am aware of your fine rep-u-ta-tion.” The caller enunciated each syllable, which struck Audrey as odd.

  “Oh?”

  “It’s time to sell.”

  “Excellent idea. First, I’ll need to know where you’re located.”

  The caller hesitated. “West Coast.”

  “Pardon?” Although the caller’s voice was strong like a man’s, it was high enough that Audrey imagined it could belong to a woman with a two-pack-a-day habit.

  “Cal-i-for-nya.”

  “No, no, your house. Where is your house?!”

  “Twelve Fletcher Lane.”

  She knew just where it was. Off Seven Oaks Way. Near the community playground. She plugged the address into the MLS system, and only one homeowner popped up. “So you are Mr. Edouard Kaminski?”

  “Yes, that’s me. Call me Eddie.”

  Kaminski. Was that German? Austrian? Austro-Hungarian? Were they different countries? She didn’t know geography or languages. She knew tax benefits, mortgage rates, and property lines. She knew that tourists sipping Savannah Breezes at the genteel Brice Hotel were better prospects than those chugging foamy drafts at World of Beer. And she knew body language, so she reminded herself to straighten up. A confident posture would translate into a confident voice. “I’ll need to review comparables in the neighborhood. Perhaps find equivalent properties in town, too.”