“There you are.” He gestured at the table. “The wine is here. Let’s toast to success in Frisco, yeah?” Noticing that she was wearing the locket, he smiled approvingly. “It looks great on you. But then, everything does.”

  Her glass was half full (no, she told herself…half empty). Picking it up, she raised it towards him. “To success!”, she declared. To herself she added, so softly he could not hear, “Business mode.”

  It was hardly a shock that since the evening had not gone as she had hoped, it did not end as she had planned. Nor did she bother to inquire as to whatever else Arthur might have had in mind. Fortunately for him, he was so wrapped up in and overcome by his promotion that he could talk of little else. Fortunately, because if he had suggested even the slightest little cuddle she would have, she would have….

  The wine she was drinking now in the quiet of her bedroom was of a far more modest vintage than what they had sipped at Pompeo’s. Disdaining a glass and fully intending to finish the whole thing anyway, she clutched it by its neck as she strode back and forth across her bedroom. Occasionally she paused to put the bottle to her lips and take a most unlady-like swig.

  Sitting alertly on the edge of the bed, Stuart tracked her every move. As she stomped to and fro his head followed her as if he were watching a player at Wimbledon. Meanwhile Jen continued to vent continuously. Well, not continuously. Her ranting was periodically interrupted by the need to imbibe more wine. Her tone flipped back and forth between mocking and bitter.

  “More responsibility. Voting control. I’m going to run the company.” She executed her fifth impressive guzzle. “Oh, and by the way, I’m going to Frisco. Except that I’m so dumb I don’t realize that ninety percent of the people there hate having it called ‘Frisco’. But I’m going to run the company, so I can call it Frisco, instead of ‘the City’. So anyway, I got you this stupid locket to keep my stupid face close to your stupid, stupid, stupid…!

  Realizing that she was breathing too hard, too fast, and that even someone her age could have a heart attack and that it certainly would be a waste of a good heart attack to have one because of a certain Arthur Daly, she got control of herself.

  “Seven years,” she mumbled. “After seven years, all I get is a locket with his picture in it. Seven years of emotional support, of cheering him on as he rose up the corporate ladder, of being there for him when he needed someone. Seven years of often putting aside my own interests to help him out. Seven years of…of….”

  Her voice trailed away as her gaze shifted to the mirror above her dresser. There were a lot of pictures there. Herself with Stuart, herself with Arthur. Many pictures of just Arthur. Many more of just Stuart. She staggered toward the dresser, the bottle hanging loose from one hand. Consumed subsequent to the finer wine she had somehow managed to down at Pompeo’s, she was now according to the laws of the state of California (not to mention her knowledge of her own capacity) thoroughly and officially drunk.

  One by one she removed the photos of Arthur from the dresser top and took them out of their frames. She then committed them mentally if not physically to that particular hell that is reserved for such ignoble male representatives of the species, and one by one, ripped them up. She was careful to drop the resultant fragments in the trash can that was snugged up against the dresser. To have simply dropped them, even soused as she was, would have been to sully the carpet.

  “It has to be the Pet Friendly Realtor thing. It has to be.” That’s it, she thought weakly. Blame something else. Blame yourself. Not dear, sweet, affectionate Arthur. Come to think of it, her mother could be dear, sweet, and affectionate. She shook her head, finding the comparison invidious.

  “Seven years.” Clutching the locket that still hung around her neck, she addressed the reflective panel before her. “Mirror, mirror, see this locket? Tomorrow morning I will hock it!”

  It was enough to make her laugh. The laughter quickly spilled into sobbing. Then laugh-sobbing, which threatened to make her choke, so she went quiet. Pouring some remaining wine into a glass, she sat down on the floor next to Stuart and took a more modest sip. If she were lucky, she would pass out before she finished the bottle. If not, there was another bottle in the fridge. She craved unconsciousness, and it was only a matter of time.

  The face looking up at her was winsome and plainly distressed. There was no judgment in it: only concern. It was almost human.

  “Looks like it’s just the two of us, Stuart. As always.”

  It took her three tries to get the locket open. At the sight of Arthur’s picture, the terrier growled. Putting his front paws up on her thigh he began to lick her face. It was an indication of how far gone she was that she could not tell the difference between the dog drool and the wine that was dripping off her chin.

  “You know, Stu, I just realized I don’t even know if I really love Arthur. I’m sure I did at one time, but it’s been so long I can’t really remember. I mean, he’s nice and all, and good-looking, and has a good job—one that’s apparently getting better. Something he never fails to remind me of. We’re comfortable with each other, and it sure saves a lot of time that might be wasted dating guys I don’t know anything about.” She shook her head slowly.

  “I’m just so used to him. There’s a certain reassurance in familiarity, y’know?” Stuart’s head cocked to one side. He was a great listener, Stuart was, even if he didn’t entirely grasp what she was saying. Or even if he didn’t grasp any of it. Right then, that was what she needed. Someone to listen.

  “I’m holding on regardless whether there’s any chemistry or not,” she continued. She was now slurring her words to the point where the terrier understood them as well as most humans would have. Her voice rose.

  “Your picture should be in this thing, not his!”

  Arriving at a small epiphany, she abruptly rose, sat down again, found her footing, rose again more slowly, and wobbled over to the dresser. Hunting through the contents of the top drawer uncovered many of the same items likely to be found in a purse. The only difference was that there were more of them.

  The scissors she finally seized upon were not large, but they did not have to be. Not for the task that had suddenly washed over her mind. It did take her several missed attempts before she finally managed to get her fingers around the edges of one of the pictures of Stuart that was taped to the mirror. Working very carefully and occasionally snipping nothing but air, she finally managed to trim the photo from a full-size image down to a portrait. Wetting the tip of her free index finger, she used it to slide the grinning image of Arthur out of the locket. She had to put her face a few inches from the open locket in order to slip the terrier’s portrait inside, but when she was done and it was secured in place she was more than a little pleased with the result.

  Refilled glass in hand, she staggered back to the bed and flopped down beside her ever empathetic pooch. Holding out the open locket, she showed it to him. He did his best to track it because she was having trouble holding her hand in one place.

  “Look, Stuie. This is how it should be. Now you are the one even closer to my heart.” She let out a most unladylike, booming belch, giggled, frowned at the glass of wine, started to set it aside, shrugged diffidently, and downed the remainder of the bright liquid in one long swallow.

  “Mom was right. She’s always right. That’s the problem. That’s what’s so hard to deal with. I’d feel better if all that rightness weren’t—wasn’t—coming from her.” As she leaned toward Stuart her face broke out in a wide, sloppy grin. The sort of expression you’d expect from a circus clown, if there were any such thing as a circus anymore. Damn technology.

  Stuart’s response was instinctively canine. He licked at the edge of her wine glass, sampling.

  Sleepy. Why was she so sleepy? It couldn’t have anything to do with the lateness of the hour, the stress induced by the overwhelming disappointment of the evening, or the fact that she had consumed enough wine to set the average French street mime to babbling stupidly. Perhaps all three. She fiddled with the locket, twisting and twirling it between her fingers.

  “You want to know something, Stuart? I wish one day I would meet a guy just like you. Someone who wants to be next to me as much as you do. Someone who cares more about me than about his job, his prospects, his car, sports—anything and everything. Don’t mean he has to ignore any of that. Just puts me first. Unconditional love, you know. I resnooze—I refuse to believe that’s just a line from a book, or the movies. Has to be a guy somewhere who believes in it, too.” She went to take another slug of the wine, made a face at the empty glass, and resumed blathering.

  “It can’t be that hard. He has to be out there somewhere, a guy like that. They can’t all be married. Guy like that.” Her expression hardened. “The anti-Arthur. Four-leaf clovers exist. He’s got to, also. I mean, I’m a good person. I make a decent living. Arthur’s not the only good catch floating around. He’s not the only attractive one. I’m attractive, too, right?”

  Stuart had been staring at her throughout the entire tirade. At that moment he chose to move to one side. This allowed Jen to see herself in another mirror, the full-length one attached to the closet door. Staring back at her was a young woman who was indeed attractive. Unfortunately, that attractiveness was presently hidden behind a face drawn by sobbing and masked by a Niagara of runny makeup, compounded by hair that would have won first prize at many a Halloween contest. Her mouth opened wide in an “O” of horror.

  “Oh—my—god!”

  She dropped her glass. Having only a short distance to fall and carpet to land on, it did not break. This was fortunate as, trying to catch it before it landed, a reaching Jen overextended her already compromised self and followed it to the floor. Lifting her head, she was greeted by the less communicative end of Stuart. The other end was engaged in licking the last dregs of wine that had spilled from the glass. Wrinkling up his nose, he let out a (for his size) prodigious sneeze, which scared him, and he promptly fled under the bed. Normally, Jen would have followed up with an inquiry as to his well-being. Her present well-being being anything but well, she did not. She was out cold, the locket clutched in one hand. Catching the light from overhead, the curved and inscribed golden surface glowed.

  Or maybe it was something else.

  Her alarm didn’t sound right. What she was hearing was more akin to a song, a proper melody. It almost sounded like Verdi’s Dies Irae. Except Jen didn’t know the music from the Verdi Requiem. She’d heard it as part of the score for Mad Max—Fury Road. It certainly got the attention of strangers, especially if she let it play out. It did not emanate from her bedside clock, which when it went off did so with a very much more workmanlike clank.

  Phone. Light in room. She realized she must have slept through the clock alarm. On—the floor.

  Oh god.

  She sat up fast: the first bad idea of the day. But she did not fall over. Or throw up. Moving much more cautiously, she rose to what she took to be a vertical position before commencing to search for the source of the Mad Maxed-out Verdi. Helpfully, the phone was right where it belonged; on her bedside end table. Right next to the overlooked clock, which read an unhelpful quarter to nine.

  If she had been more awake, she would certainly have muted Facetime.

  It was bright and busy in the Townsend Real Estate Agency. No office was brighter and busier than that of Sylvia Jensen, who sat behind her desk in full business mode as the phone in front of her rang and rang, calling insistently for someone to replace the musical sound with a voice.

  “She better be on her way,” she growled to no one in particular.

  Someone on the other end of the call finally answered. It took Sylvia an instant to realize it was her own brood. Her eyes widened as she stared at the phone.

  “Geezus! What the hell happened to you? Did you get hit by a bus?” Though the background behind Jen was distant and fuzzy, that was enough for Sylvia to identify her daughter’s surroundings. “And when did your bedroom become a war zone?”

  “Please—not so loud.” Either Jen was presently unable to hold her own phone steady, or else the phone was stable and it was the rest of her that was unstable. Wincing, she mumbled something barely intelligible. “Not today, Satan. Not today.”

  “What did you say?” Unable to grab and shake her daughter through the phone, Sylvia had to settle for aural outrage. “You have a five million dollar potential listing in ten minutes. You need me to break down the math for you? Huh? Then clean yourself up and get out the door.” She took a deep breath, added. “Now!”

  She didn’t bother to wait for a response and hung up. Either her daughter would make the appointment in time to salvage it or she would not. If the first, then the conversation (if such it could be called) would be quickly forgotten. If she failed to appear to meet with the prospective customer, Sylvia would throw the listing to somebody who could get there. Maternal love ended where seven figures were involved.

  Jen did not so much slide out of bed as shuffle off the metal coils. That she landed on her feet instead of her ass was a sign that all might not be lost. The address of the listing, the big listing—it actually wasn’t all that far from her own. Like anywhere in Southern California, the price for real estate went up exponentially the closer one got to the ocean. That someplace like Jen’s modest domicile could exist only a few miles from a multi-million dollar home was the norm, not the exception. She might be a few minutes late to the appointment, but not enough to kill a possible deal. The potential seller could wile away a few minutes on the internet, or whatever their choice of time-killer happened to be.

  Though she would have preferred to replace the face that stared groggily back at her from the mirror, that was not an option. A quick wash and rinse resulted in a better visage than she had any right to expect. Minimal makeup, no jewelry, arranged hair so that it didn’t look like you spent the morning standing behind the engine cowling of a 737 waiting to take off, throw on some clothes—no, not sweatpants and shirt—shoes next, and where was Stuart? After last night she wouldn’t have blamed him if he had decamped to the farthest reaches of the small backyard. Sometimes it seemed like everyone in SoCal needed therapy, including their dogs. Not cats, though. Cats do not go through stages. They are either entirely sane or homicidal. With felines there is no in-between.

  “Stuart!” No sign of him. Last she remembered, he had squeezed under the bed. Most likely he was still there, sleeping off her drunk. Someone should, she told herself. She ought to look for him, she knew, but she was already in the kitchen and there was no time, no time.

  It would have to be dry food: there wasn’t a spare moment to so much as open a can. Usually when she dumped dry food into his bowl he would come running, but not this morning. Dare she pause long enough to make coffee? She could live without blood. She was less sure about caffeine.

  The fridge supplied cold salvation in the form of a chilled can of double-strength iced coffee. She didn’t even bother to look at the brand; just grabbed at it, slammed the fridge door shut, and bolted, shouting as she ran.

  “Stuart! Where are you, buddy? Breakfast is in your bowl. Sorry, dry, no time to open a can. Double rations tonight, and treats.” Racing to the front door at a run, proud of herself for making it without taking a header. Jen Jensen, Olympic house runner.

  “I gotta get to work, Stu, but I promise I’ll be right back to take you to the park. Business mode first, then dog mode. Treats—if you don’t pee on my bed!”

  Outside then, a necessary pause to make sure the door was shut and locked behind her, and then to her car. She would make the appointment in time—depending on whether or not she encountered any cops along the way. As she slid behind the wheel she tried not to think about being stopped. Because being stopped would mean missing the appointment for sure, and missing the appointment would mean having to deal with her mom’s reaction, and….

  There was no time for fear, she told herself firmly. You have nothing to fear but mother herself. Mom fear is the mind killer.

  She put the car in gear and shot out onto the street. Fortunately, it was as empty as the wine bottle she had left behind on the floor in her bedroom. Or the hole in her heart that an unthinking Arthur Daly had put there.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  In her absence, the house that Jen had fled in Business Mode was dead quiet. Nothing moved within. Not a mouse, not a louse, and since she had left, not a souse. The TV was silent and so was the plumbing. There was a slight humming, but it came from the refrigerator and was not in any way sentient.

  Within the master bedroom a limb slowly emerged from beneath the bed. It was dark beneath the box springs, but not as dark as the dog that had wriggled under there the previous evening. The limb terminated in a hand. A perfectly normal human hand. Hand and arm were followed by the rest of a perfectly normal human body. Male, its head featured long black hair and a matching beard. The body was also quite naked. Letting out a wide yawn, the unclothed figure ambled on hands and knees toward the stairs. These it descended in decidedly clumsy fashion; half crawling, half stumbling.

  No matter. Reaching the kitchen, the figure spotted dry dog food in a nearby dog bowl. The usual food in the usual place. Crawling over and only momentarily inconvenienced by the presence of his beard, the male figure dipped his head and took in a mouthful of the colorful shapes—and promptly spit them out.

  Odd. The dry food had never before tasted quite so much like cardboard. And how did he know what cardboard tasted like? Maybe Jen had left something else out for him to eat. He was very fond of leftovers. It didn’t even matter leftover what. It was all edible. Except, apparently, the multi-hued gravel that presently filled the dog bowl.

  Crawling past the kitchen’s full-length mirror, he could not miss the reflection of a strange naked man. Whirling, he started barking. It was a peculiar bark, off-key and much deeper than his usual warning. Confused, he went quiet. A downward glance revealing that his paws were now hands confused him a good deal more.