Billy Summers

While they eat, he asks if she knows what Stockholm Syndrome is. She doesn’t, so he explains. ‘If I get spotted by the police and picked up, they’ll come here. Tell them you were afraid to leave.’

‘I am,’ Alice says, ‘but not because I’m afraid of you. I don’t want people to see me like this. I don’t want people to see me at all, at least for awhile. Besides, you won’t get picked up. With that stuff on you look a lot different.’ She raises an admonitory finger. ‘But.’

‘But what?’

‘You need an umbrella, because a wig always looks like a wig in the rain. Water beads up on it. Real hair just gets wet and kind of tamps down.’

‘I don’t have an umbrella.’

‘There’s one in the Jensens’ closet. By the door as you go in.’

‘When did you look in their closet?’

‘While you were making the popcorn. Women like to see what other people have.’ She looks at him across the kitchen table, her with her Cheerios, him with his egg. ‘Did you really not know that?’

5

The umbrella does more than keep the rain off his blond wig; it shields his face and makes him feel a little bit less like a bug on a microscope slide as he leaves the house and starts walking toward the nearest bus stop. He can completely relate to how Alice feels, because he feels the same. Going to the drugstore was nerve-racking, but this is worse because he’s going farther. He could walk to Pine Plaza, it’s fairly close and the rain has slacked off again, but he can’t walk all the way across town. And something else – the closer he gets to leaving this city, the more he dreads being captured before he can do it.

Never mind the cops and Nick’s men, what if he meets someone from his David Lockridge life? He imagines rounding a corner in Harps with his little shopping basket over his arm and coming face to face with Paul Ragland or Pete Fazio. They might not recognize him, but a woman would. Never mind what Alice said about him looking different with his wig and fake belly, Phil would. Corinne Ackerman would. Even tipsy Jane Kellogg would, even if she was drunk. He’s sure of it. He understands such a meeting is statistically unlikely, but such things happen all the time. Journeys end in lovers meeting, every wise man’s son doth know.

He examined the online bus schedule before leaving, and waits for the Number 3 at Rampart Street, standing under the bus shelter with three others, collapsing the umbrella because leaving it open would look weird. None of the others look at him. They are all looking at their phones.

He has a bad moment in the parking garage when the Fusion won’t start, then remembers he has to have his foot on the brake pedal. Duh, he thinks.

He drives to Pine Plaza, both enjoying the feeling of being behind the wheel again and paranoid about getting in a fender-bender or attracting the attention of the police (two cruisers pass him on the three-mile trip) in some other way. At Harps he buys meat, milk, eggs, bread, crackers, bag salad, dressing, and some canned goods. He doesn’t meet anyone he knows, and really, why would he? Evergreen Street is in Midwood, and people who live in Midwood shop at Save Mart.

He pays for his groceries with his Dalton Smith Mastercard and drives back to Pearson Street. He parks in the crumbling driveway beside the house and goes downstairs with his groceries. The apartment is empty. Alice is gone.

6

He purchased a couple of cloth shopping bags to put his groceries in – HARPS and HOMETOWN FRESH printed on them – and they sag almost to the floor as he looks at the empty living room and kitchen. The bedroom door is open and he can see that’s empty too, but he calls her name anyway, thinking she might be in the bathroom. Except that door is also open and if she was in there she’d close it, even with him gone. He knows this.

He isn’t scared, exactly. It’s more like … what? Is he hurt? Disappointed?

I guess I am, he thinks. Stupid, but there it is. She reconsidered her options, that’s all. You knew it could happen. Or you should have.

He goes into the kitchen, puts the bags on the counter, sees their breakfast dishes in the drainer. He sits down to think about what he should do next and sees a paper towel anchored by the sugar bowl. On it she’s written two words: OUT BACK.

Okay, he thinks, and lets out a long breath. Just out back.

Billy puts away the stuff that needs to go in the fridge, then goes out the front door and around the house, once more using the umbrella. Alice has moved the barbecue out of the puddle. She’s scrubbing away at the grill, her back to him. She must have raided the Jensens’ front closet again, because the green raincoat she’s wearing has to belong to Don. It goes all the way down to her calves.

‘Alice?’

She yells and jumps and almost knocks the grill over. He reaches out to steady her.

‘Scare a person, why don’t you?’ she says, then whoops in a big breath.

‘I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to creep up on you.’

‘Well …’ Whoop! ‘… you did.’

‘Give me the first line of “Teddy Bears’ Picnic.”’ Only half-joking.