Don't Order Dog_ 1(5)

“I knew it!” Allie said with an accusing tone as she bolted upright in her chair. “I knew it! You actually like this guy!”

Jeri laughed reflexively. “Come on, Allie – can we be reasonable here? We’re a long way past high school. I just said that his letters are funny. What the hell does that have to do with anything romantic?”

“It has everything to do with being romantic,” Allie said as she jabbed at Jeri with her wine glass, swirling the Pinot Gris dangerously close to the rim. “Don’t you see that? Every guy out there knows the best way to get a girl’s attention is to make her laugh, because then we become intrigued.” Allie drew out the last word slowly, like a teacher speaking to a first grade class. “And god knows, once we become intrigued, we want to learn more, which means now we’re interested in the guy, whether we want to admit it or not.” She paused and leaned in closer. “And once were interested… well, then we’re fucked.”

Jeri stared at her friend, trying desperately to maintain a straight face. As ridiculous as it seemed, she knew that this was Allie’s best effort at heartfelt advice. “Fucked, huh? Do you mean that literally, or figuratively?”

Allie sat back and threw her hands in the air.

“Does it matter?”

Jeri shrugged and took a long sip of her wine. She was beginning to question why she’d even shown the letters to Allie in the first place.

“He’s doing everything right, Jeri,” Allie continued with a tone. “He’s setting the intrigue trap that every woman falls into.” She reached over and picked up the Polaroid from the second letter, studying it for a moment. “Even these damn photos; do you honestly think they aren’t meant to make you want to know more?” She tossed it onto Jeri’s lap.

Unlike the lush tropical location of the first photo, the scene in the Polaroid from the second letter was eerily empty. A midday shot of white desert sand and flawless blue sky filled the background. As in the first photo, her mysterious writer stood in the foreground, but this time his back was to the camera. In his right hand he held a small sign over his shoulder. A one-word message was written with heavy marker in the same precise handwriting as the letters – “Hell.” Next to the sign, the man’s dark, short-cropped hair looked disheveled and chaotic, exposing just a hint of his unshaven face. Jeri was sure she could see the edge of a wide smile in that thin, seductively hidden profile, but she was not about to mention this to Allie.

“Maybe,” Jeri replied.

“Maybe what?”

She handed the Polaroid back to Allie. “Maybe he wants me to be intrigued. Or maybe he just can’t find anyone to take a good photo.”

Allie shook her head and quickly shoved the letters and Polaroids back into their battered envelopes. “Fine, whatever. Just do me a favor and hold on to these. I’m sure the authorities will want to examine them when you go missing.”

“Can we drop this subject?” Jeri asked as she refilled Allie’s wine glasses.

“Consider it dropped,” Allie retorted curtly.

“Thank you. And for the record, if I ever go missing, I’ll make sure you’re the first to know.”

“That’s not funny… at all.”

Jeri hooked her feet onto the railing and leaned back into her chair, her long legs stretched in front of her. She took a sip of wine and closed her eyes, letting the cool sweet flavors of fruit slowly slide across her tongue. The autumn sun found a window in the clouds and drenched them both in radiant golden warmth. “Maybe so,” she said as a smile stretched across her face. “But I can think of far worse things than disappearing for a while.”





5.




The large black Mercedes rolled to a stop.

“So… what now?” he asked from the back seat.

A pair of small petulant eyes glanced back at him through the rearview mirror. His driver was a dark, corpulent man with thinning hair and a severe expression. Despite the air conditioning that blasted through the front console, his wide head and thick, hairy neck were covered in beads of sweat that trickled down to the white cotton thobe that covered his rotund body. And he farted; a condition that he seemed completely unashamed of since the beginning of their short drive together. “Wait,” he replied tersely. “They’ll signal.”

“Sounds good,” he replied to the driver, nodding his head. He gazed out through the Mercedes’ heavily tinted windows at the stark landscape outside. The long, two-story buildings that lined both sides of the street were nearly mirror copies of each other. Bleach-white and stripped of anything ornate or memorable, they appeared intentionally designed to be forgettable. Four white doors punctured the first floor façade in regular intervals on each side, a tiny window next to each. It was clear the windows were not designed for aesthetics, but as a functional means of surveillance. The windows along the second floor were slightly larger versions of those on the first, as if teasing the idea of normalcy. Viewed under the raw, harsh light of the late-morning sun, he realized the buildings – if not the entire area in general – gave off a serious ‘fuck-you’ vibe. It was the kind of flagrant aura of bad energy normally reserved for morgues, strip joints and most of downtown Philadelphia.