Good Karma

by Christina Kelly

  Fred didn’t think the odds were good that the dogs would just emerge from the trail, magically appearing like two rabbits from a hat, but he got out too, if only to be helpful. If only for the sake of his new friend. He shouted into the air, into the universe, “Sequoia!” and then “Karma!” but saw no movement. For a moment they stood side by side and stared into the woods.

  Once they returned to the car he opened the trunk and grabbed a fresh beach towel that he kept in the back for just this reason, the very real possibility of a sudden spring shower. “Here you go.”

  Catherine pulled out the elastic in her ponytail, took the towel, and bent down, her head hanging low, her hair still damp from the rain. She rubbed the towel slowly along the pale nape of her neck and through her wet hair. When she flipped back up, Fred imagined they might have been on a European vacation together and she’d just emerged from a dip in the Aegean.

  He stepped toward her to grab the wet towel but took her hand as he did.

  He had meant to comfort her but suddenly felt hungry, as if he hadn’t eaten in months. Without conscious thought he gently pulled her and the wet towel toward him. She looked up and smiled, then started to say something. Fred thought perhaps she was going to ask a question or suggest an alternate route or say it was time to go, so he didn’t wait. He leaned over to her. His lips hovered in front of hers for just a moment to give her time to pull away and stop a foolish old man. But she just blinked, a curious expression appearing on her face. She looked at his eyes, then at his lips. He thought he’d detect fear or perhaps embarrassment for him, but what he saw was longing.

  The kiss was brief. Not lingering or dramatic. Not the type of kiss that might happen to a time traveler in The Fantastic Voyage. It was the soft kiss of two high school students. It was a kiss given on a front porch after a prom date. It was a kiss that suggested a fresh start in the world. He stepped back and took a deep breath. What had he done?

  Reluctantly, he opened the door for her and she climbed in, neither of them saying a word. As he walked around the back of the car he noticed that brilliant shafts of sunlight had broken through the clouds, bathing the wet street in bright starbursts. Once settled in the driver’s seat he felt the change of atmospheric pressure, as if mission control had pumped pure oxygen into the car while they’d been standing outside. They remained silent for almost a minute. Each facing forward. Fred put his hands on the steering wheel, gripping it tightly.

  “So?” he asked. “Shall we check back at the dog park? Do you want me to drop you at your car?”

  “No,” she said quickly. “Let’s just keep driving.”

  chapter 23

  Ida Blue stood in her garage and looked down at the sleeping dogs. She’d watched enough Animal Planet to know the smaller one was either a French bulldog or a Boston terrier. The smushed-in nose and small head reminded her of a monkey, while the compact body resembled a baby hedgehog. The animal didn’t look threatening, just tired, with its paws curled under its head, and its breath like that of an asthmatic who has forgotten his inhaler. Though she didn’t know much about the breed, or dogs in general if she was being completely honest, this one didn’t interest her. It was the Great Dane that caught her attention.

  There was no doubting it—the huge black-and-white form lying on the old comforters was the same dog that belonged to her neighbor, Fred Wolfe, and the mysterious old woman who had hovered outside her window. This animal, with its mustached smear of saliva, was her connection to another dimension.

  Ida Blue stepped slowly toward the pair so as not to startle them, but neither stirred. She sat down beside the dogs on a pile of towels that had fallen from sagging plastic shelves. She’d meant to clean the garage for years, ever since she’d moved into the patio home, but had never found the time. Never made the time. Maybe this was what she needed to kick-start the organized life that Dr. Phil said would bring happiness and success. Maybe this was magic working in her general direction. Two dogs don’t appear out of a storm coincidentally. Don’t arrive in a stranger’s garage without a little push from fate.

  She grabbed a towel and blotted her hair and dress, both still damp from her unfortunate swan dive into Fred Wolfe’s azaleas. She was sorry she’d worn the rather chic outfit to find Fred in the first place and felt mortified that she’d ended up upside down in a bush with a security guard asking her a hundred questions. She could just imagine the conversation going on back at the gatehouse.

  If the Dog Whisperer were here, he’d tell her to be the pack leader, to offer the sleeping creatures water and food. So she went up the back stairs from her garage to her kitchen freezer. A few years ago, she’d bought a package of deluxe pigs in a blanket. At the time, she had a vision of hosting a few new friends at a neighborhood cocktail party, offering appetizers stuck with frilled toothpicks and drinks with unfurled paper umbrellas. Of course, no party or friends ever materialized, so now she plopped some frozen mini hot dogs on a paper plate, zapped them in the microwave, and brought them along with a large Tupperware bowl of water back to the dogs.

  When she lifted the water bowl to them they both opened their eyes and stared at her as if they’d been drinking all afternoon. Then she did the same with a hot dog. Again neither moved, so Ida Blue brought the first mini dog to her mouth and made a dramatic show of how delicious it was. “Mmmm,” she said, chewing it slowly, really tasting the meaty innards and letting juice squirt over her tongue. She realized she never took the time to chew her food, so she made a promise to do that from now on. “They’re magically delicious!” She tore the next pig in two and offered each dog a half. Almost simultaneously they opened their mouths and she dropped the meat inside as if feeding trained seals.

  The Great Dane came to life and licked her hand, the large pink tongue moving rhythmically up and down her skin. Ida Blue felt her heart swell. She’d heard that a dog could smell a drop of blood in a swimming pool and wondered if Sequoia could tell that Ida Blue had just returned from her owner’s house, could smell Fred somewhere on her clothes or sense she’d been upside down in the same bushes Sequoia had probably peed in since she was a puppy. Ida Blue considered keeping the dogs. Not as hostages—she wasn’t some sort of crazed dognapper—but as quietly borrowed confidants. She could give them a good home and a lot of attention. She could spend every day with them curled on her couch, and together they could all watch Animal Cops or Pit Bulls and Parolees.

  She sat with the thought for several minutes, but then considered the old man. Fred Wolfe. He must be very lonely without his dog, and, honestly, she couldn’t afford the extra dog food and treats and toys and whatever else dogs needed for a happy life. So she reached her hand out to the smaller dog, lightly patted his head, and touched his collar. Engraved on a silvery bone-shaped tag was KARMA and a telephone number.

  “Good Karma,” Ida Blue whispered. She felt an invisible connection to whoever owned this dog.

  So ignoring the part of herself that wanted to keep them, she used the pigs in a blanket as bait and led the exhausted dogs up the stairs and to her living room. Once there, she stroked the wide back of the Great Dane. She felt stronger, not even realizing she’d been weak, like the last time she recovered from the flu, when her body ached for weeks but she barely knew it until she started to feel better. She didn’t see the ghostly woman but had a general feeling she wasn’t alone anymore.

  chapter 24

  Fred and Catherine spent a few hours driving through the neighborhoods of Seven Oaks, over cross streets, by the community softball field, down dead-end roads near the outlet to the nature trail. As they passed certain houses, Fred told Catherine stories of people who had once lived there. Anecdotes about couples, now mostly gone, who had populated their community during its development. Catherine understood that he was trying to distract her from her distress about the missing dogs. Though she found it hard to stay focused, she appreciated his effort.

  She considered alerting Ralph to what had happened. At one time i
n their marriage he would have dropped everything to help her, but already she knew what he’d say: You’re overreacting. You worry too much. That dog can take care of himself. If Karma still hadn’t turned up by breakfast, Ralph might offer to rearrange a tee time to help look. She had a vague recollection that he had a poker game anyway, so she let him fade from her consciousness.

  By the time they arrived back at the dog park it was after eight o’clock. The parking lot was empty except for her car. Just where she had left it almost five hours earlier. As if nothing at all had happened and the world were exactly the same. Inky puddles reflected the light from a single weak streetlamp.

  Fred pulled in next to Catherine’s car and they sat quietly for a few minutes, both staring straight ahead. Then she asked, “What next?”

  “I’ll keep checking with security and let you know as soon as I hear anything.”

  She nodded slowly, exhausted from the long evening. She pulled her fingertips along her lower lashes, imagining that the little mascara she wore had run down her face with her tears. For the first time she felt self-conscious. She hadn’t thought ahead to the end of the evening, to saying good-bye. “Fred”—she said his name out loud, unsure if she’d spoken it before—“I don’t know what I would have done without you.” She was going to ask if he felt it too—the sense that they’d known each other longer than a few hours. The feeling they’d met somewhere before, not just at the Village Café when Sequoia had licked her face, but during a trip somewhere. Maybe they’d struck up an easy conversation years ago when Catherine had taken a train to Manhattan to meet Ralph for a client dinner. Perhaps she’d been spinning under a crush of Fifth Avenue business suits and had asked Fred, a kind-looking stranger, the way to a steak house. Instead she said, “But you promise they’ll be okay?”

  She didn’t know why an acquaintance’s assurance would calm her, but she was relieved when he answered, “I promise.”

  He turned to her, and for a moment she thought he might take her hand. He didn’t. Perhaps she’d made up the intensity of the kiss they’d shared. Mistook it for something else. For a concerned man attempting to comfort a not-quite-hysterical woman.

  “Listen,” he offered. “I know things can and do go wrong, but you never know. This might have happened for a reason.” Just as he said that, the overhead light in the parking lot brightened as if someone had eased up a dimmer switch.

  “Yes.” Then she imagined Karma. Wet fur. Wet nose. They both watched the glow intensify as if watching a sunrise.

  “I’ve got your contact info”—he patted a slip of paper in his shirt’s front pocket where he’d written her telephone number, street address, even her email—“so I’ll call you when I hear something.” He spoke confidently, as if he made a living out of making promises that he kept. She’d never met a man like that.

  “I believe you . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “But are you okay to drive, Catherine?” His tone suggested they’d been sipping champagne at a wedding reception all night.

  “I’m not usually like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Ridiculous. I mean, do you think I’m being ridiculous?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Okay, needy. Ridiculously needy.”

  “I don’t think you are ridiculous and I certainly don’t think you are needy.” Fred’s soothing voice calmed her. A man who said what he meant and meant what he said. Karma was out in the island darkness but not alone. He was with Sequoia. A dog literally four times his own size. A dog who knew the area, like a tour guide, who could escort him to safety. “In fact, you are a wonderfully concerned mother to Karma.” He touched her hand.

  “Am I too much for you?” The question emerged from her mouth before it had even formed in her consciousness.

  He shook his head and laughed.

  Catherine considered moving toward him and letting the night bring them together. She wanted to be stroked, his hand to caress her neck and back, the way she petted Karma. She wanted to be curled in his lap and reassured. She was being ridiculous.

  “All right then,” Fred said, interrupting her thoughts. “Drive safely.”

  Catherine got out of Fred’s car, shut the door, and went to her own vehicle. When she buckled in she saw an old grocery list: broccoli, ham, rice, butter. It felt like years ago that she’d written it. As if she’d been a different person. Before something deep inside her, like vast tectonic plates, had shifted inches.

  After pulling away she drove around the Palmetto Pines neighborhood again. She followed the same route that she and Fred had. Her headlights remained on high so she could see a motion in the bushes, anything that would tell her the dogs were all right. And as she peered into the darkness, she considered her exchange with Seven Oaks security as if the dogs had been missing children:

  Question: Where was the last place you saw them?

  Answer: By the back gate in the dog park.

  Question: What were they wearing?

  Answer: Sequoia had a hand-stitched needlepoint collar. Karma wore one with blue polka dots.

  Question: Did they carry ID?

  Answer: Yes, metal tags with names and numbers.

  Question: Was there anyone else present when they went missing?

  And then Catherine recalled the redheaded woman by the distant edge of the park. By the open gate. Catherine had seen her only briefly but remembered her golf outfit. If Catherine could find her, maybe they could locate the dogs. She’d been too disordered to think of this earlier. Everything had seemed splintered in her mind, like chipped china from an old wedding registry that she’d never be able to put back together.

  chapter 25

  Amity had hoped to arrive at the house earlier in the day so that she might relax a bit, not feel rushed, but she’d been called in to substitute at a morning study hall, and the afternoon storm had taken her by surprise. Then the rain had stopped as suddenly as it had started. Significantly, she thought, it lasted about the length of a curtain call in a dramatic play. Despite the urgent tweets she’d seen from Chatham County (Severe T’storm warning til 6PM, Flooding@Victory, #TurnAroundDontDrown), the drive from Tattnall had been uneventful, with only a few detours to avoid the orange-and-white-striped sawhorses set in truck-size puddles.

  After sliding under the Seven Oaks security gate as effortlessly as a salmon being swept downstream, she drove directly to the Sunset Point lot. Empty, of course. After parking, Amity exited her car and adjusted her fanny pack. She carried her dog leash out of habit, even though Buddy, her invisible dog, remained in his invisible doghouse behind his invisible fence. As she looked out to the gray marsh, she took a moment to appreciate the musky smells the rains had unearthed. The air itself held weight. For a moment she imagined herself scuba diving with a fogged face mask and two air tanks pressing on her shoulders, encouraging her to go deeper. She felt sluggish, as if she’d then ascended from the sea too quickly, forgetting the rules of decompression.

  As she followed the street to the driveway she felt a rush of excitement, a nice contrast to the flatness that had overwhelmed her of late. Since the owner was away and the house wasn’t for sale, she knew there was only a slim chance of being discovered by a nosy neighbor or confused housekeeper. On reaching the front walk she continued around the garage toward a side fence. Just as it had been the previous month, the gate was unlocked. And why wouldn’t it be? This was a safe community.

  After taking the few steps up to the deck and back door, she crouched down, reached into her fanny pack, and pulled out a tension wrench, a flathead screwdriver, a rake pick, and a pair of needle-nose pliers. From the blue doggie waste bag she grabbed a pair of latex gloves out of habit. She set the leash down, settled on one knee, closed her eyes, and took a breath. While placing the wrench in the keyhole, she applied the pick. The first order of business was torque. She raked the pick along the cylinders, caressing them, imagining she were tuning a grand piano. The point was to apply steady pr
essure—strong enough to release the chamber, light enough not to jam the sensitive teeth. By holding steady with her arm but using the tips of her fingers to manipulate the tool, she could feel the lock moving, opening up to her.

  This is what it must feel like to be free, she thought.

  Once inside the house, Amity noticed the rococo grand piano in one corner and the grandfather’s clock in the other. She took a few minutes to admire the impressive collection of early Hudson River School paintings lining the wall. The furnishings, oiled landscapes, and soft pillows could have been props from her own home if she and her husband had stayed married and continued to build a life, something that might last. In the kitchen, she saw what had caught her eye on her previous visit: OFF TO NANTUCKET! printed in indelible marker across a year-at-a-glance wall calendar. It was clear the owner vacated the premises before the Savannah heat crept around door edges and window casings.

  A sad potted plant sat on a porcelain dish on a windowsill. She guessed it was a verbena or violet but really had no idea. Its dull purple leaves lay in rotting clumps, and a single bare stalk reached toward nothing. In the haste of spring travel the owner had forgotten it. Or perhaps abandoned it on purpose to see if it would be strong enough to make it alone. So Amity strode directly to the wet bar and retrieved a large silver wine goblet. She filled it with water and placed the plant on the living room coffee table. Taking great care, she poured half the water into the dry soil, hoping to save it at least temporarily.

  Once in the master bedroom she noted the wedding-ring quilt and wide-screen TV. In the master bath she smelled a vague swish of lavender and the sea. She imagined the woman who lived here drinking cocktails by the craggy Nantucket shore and perhaps enjoying a soft-shelled lobster for dinner. It was early in the season, but shedders—sweeter lobsters that had abandoned their hard shells—weren’t unheard of this time of year. A white claw-foot tub rested like a polar bear in the corner.