After closing the door behind Nora the day she visited, I couldn’t help but giggle. I could just imagine how frustrating it must be for her to know she knows me but not how or where. It would drive me crazy. I wasn’t sure if I wanted her to figure it out or not. Since she had no hold over me, I assumed that if she did, she would simply no longer have anything to do with me.
Over the next few days, no one came to the door but Brennan and I exchanged waves with her husband when he pulled out one time. He had yet to introduce himself to us and I wondered if he ever would.
I spotted Nora once or twice from the bedroom window as she walked her annoying dog. Damn thing liked to bark every time it was let out to do its business.
Gaslighting Nora may be funny but it didn’t change the past. I wasn’t as angry as I used to be when remembering what had transpired, although she certainly made my life hard for a while. It wasn’t just that she was strict. Yes, she was strict and a stickler for rules, but it went beyond that and into something I never could understand. It was almost as if she had something personal against me, yet had this strange obsession with me at the same time.
As heartbreaking as it was, I got why she ordered me to get rid of the cat. That was a blatant rule-breaker. I just couldn’t understand why she would have me and my gay friend come down to the office so she could meet with us separately. The meetings were bizarre. It almost felt like an interrogation. It was as if she was condemning me for inviting people to my studio and “depressing” phone numbers from people. People who wouldn’t understand my “friendship,” she said. She must have assumed that I was as gay as my gay friend. I identified as bisexual, but no one was ever forced to visit me. Or to divulge their phone numbers, for that matter. I hadn’t even been in a relationship while I lived there. I’d been single for quite a while and didn’t meet my husband until after leaving the apartment complex. The only two ladies I might have considered a relationship with were already in relationships.
Nora had made references to keeping an eye on me and knowing what I was up to, and my friends and I had to wonder if she was spying on me for some reason. We even combed my little place for cameras. Our theories about her fixation on me ranged from her not liking Jewish people to perhaps being a closet lesbian and having trouble dealing with it. I didn’t believe that she liked me and was jealous of those who paid attention to me, but I knew something was going on in that mind of hers. I just never knew what it was.
Something warm and fuzzy brushed up against my leg. I looked down at the small dog by my feet. She looked up at me with a bit of a forlorn expression on her face. “Yeah, I know,” I told her. “I don’t like this either. Brennan and I just aren’t dog people but don’t you worry. We’ll find you a good home. I promise you.”
Someone had abandoned the dog at the police station a few days ago, and a fellow coworker convinced me to take it home with me. The dog seemed healthy, but was oddly quiet, not that I was complaining. I hated incessant barking.
The less-than-cute pug walked off and into the other room just as I spotted Nora walking her own dog once again. Ironically enough, it too was a pug, only it was the opposite of this one. It never shut up. A thought then occurred to me. A funny one. A more than funny one. A hilarious one. The dogs looked to be the exact same size and had the same coloring and markings. What if I somehow managed to swap the dogs when Nora let hers out for fresh air?
I actually found myself laughing out loud. The question was how to pull it off. Brennan was home all the time. Worse was the fact that everybody had cameras these days.
The following weekend, Brennan was napping in his comfortable recliner in the living room when I heard Nora’s dog barking in the backyard. I was in the kitchen at the time. Grateful that Brennan could sleep through anything as his loud snoring indicated, I quickly removed the flea collar of the unnamed pug I had “rescued,” scooped her up and let myself out the back door.
Block walls surrounded the backyards of the homes. There was a loose block of cement on the side that faced Nora’s outer garage wall. The realtor had pointed it out to us, but we didn’t see any urgency in fixing it. In fact, I hope Brennan forgets about it because it makes a great spy hole. Whenever I happened to be out back and heard something going on in the neighboring yard, I’d wiggle it just enough so I could see past the back corner of the garage and into part of the yard. I couldn’t see much of it but whenever they came into view, I could see them while they couldn’t see me. Not as long as I didn’t move the block too much, so that it stood out.
I removed the block so I could see the dog. At first, I didn’t think it was going to come into view, but eventually, it did. It started barking once it spotted me. I should have figured it would, too. I waited until it approached the wall before I quickly jumped over, grabbed the dog, and then hopped back over to our side. I tried my best to muffle its yelps as I quickly fumbled to swap the collars, praying and hoping that no one would wonder why the dog was taking a hell of a fit all of a sudden and come out to investigate. I had no story prepared. If I were to be caught that instant, I wouldn’t have any plausible explanation to give as to why I had Nora’s dog in our yard. I couldn’t say it jumped over the six-foot wall to say hello.
With the collar now on the surrendered pug, I quickly hoisted it up and over the wall. I braced myself, hoping as I’d never hoped for anything before in my life that no one would rush to the wall screaming at me, yet all remained silent.
Except for Nora’s mutt.
I grabbed the dog and pressed its face against my chest to muffle its whining and ran around to the back and into the kitchen as fast as I could. I could still hear Brennan snoring, so I grabbed my purse, phone, and keys and headed out to my car. Relief washed over me like a tidal wave when still no one came running. I pulled the car with the dog barking hysterically out of the driveway. Fortunately, I didn’t have to pass Nora’s place. However, I cranked my head back and looked toward her house but didn’t see anyone. I then quickly drove down the street and pulled over to the side. From there, I texted Brennan to let him know that someone was interested in the dog. Then I placed the collar on it that the abandoned dog had worn.
A quick glance at the time on the dash told me the shelters would still be open. I didn’t want to go to the nearest one. Instead, I drove for nearly an hour. This way, I wouldn’t be dealing with anyone who may know me. I wasn’t going to go inside because I didn’t want to have to fill out a form. I didn’t want to have to list a fake name, and I definitely didn’t want to give my real one. It costs money to surrender a dog too, so I figured I would save a little this way and simply attach the lead to the door handle when no one was around.
The front windows were tinted, so I really hoped no one saw me approaching the door. After I dropped the yipping dog off, I raced for my car and hightailed it out of the parking lot, hoping no one got a read on my plate. I knew there were likely cameras around, but would they bother to try to track down someone who had dropped off a dog without paying or filling out forms?
It turned out that they never sought me out. I just wish I’d thought of the possibility that Nora’s dog might be microchipped before going through all I’d gone through to kidnap the damn thing!
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