Ron Holbrooke was strangling her. He held Devin a full foot above the deck, a half-empty beer can cradled in the crook of his arm and spilling out on his t-shirt. “I told you,” he hissed through faintly-yellowed teeth. “I warned you.”
Devin gasped—somehow she could breathe again. She sat up in bed, eyes flying open. Only a dream, it was only a dream. Then why did her neck still feel the heat of his grasp?
It was all over her, actually, this heat. She peeled the sheets off her skin, untangled her feet from the blanket, and stood. It was barely seven in the morning but already the day was sweltering.
Relief flooded her. She crossed the bedroom and flipped on the ceiling fan, eager for the cool trace of air on her skin, but it was slow to come. Finally she trod the darkened hall to the thermostat and dialed the temperature down, waiting to hear the comforting hum. Nothing. The house remained quiet. She checked the display, expecting the worse, and sighed. 86°, and the sun hadn’t even risen.
Devin groaned. It looked like her AC was broken.
She called a repairman, who told her it would be two days at the earliest to have it fixed. Then she called Lamar.
“I dreamed about Ron Holbrooke,” she said when he answered.
“Okaaaay…”
“Nothing like that! It was a nightmare… I feel like I’m forgetting something, something important—something I needed to do. Oh, and my AC is out. I’m dying over here.”
“Come over my way,” he said. “I got something to show you.”
Two coffees and a cool shower later, and she was on the road. Her chest had felt heavy when she left home, legs and arms wired with a strange dread. But the morning was clear and bright, and something in her softened, lightened, as she drove. By the time she arrived at Lamar’s apartment a new calm had settled in. She hummed as she knocked on his door.
“All right!” he crowed, letting her in. “I can’t wait for you to see!” He rubbed his hands eagerly.
She followed him into his studio; the clutter seemed even greater than before, if that were possible. Brushes clustered in plastic cups and coffee mugs, bristles bursting like sprays of palmetto.
“Um…” Lamar swallowed, momentarily quiet. He waved his hand at a new canvas, still mounted on an easel. The paint was dry but clearly fresh. He turned it, letting it catch the full light of morning, and stepped back to let her look square on.
It was an ocean wave, painted in hues of blue and green, endless facets of light on water. Seafoam rode its buoyant crest, ecstatic and free, not held back or pulled down by anything, expressive and serene.
Devin swallowed, an odd taste in her throat. What had she expected? Not this, certainly. A dense, tangled, sinister forest maybe, dreary and gothic. But not this.
“This isn’t…”
“You. It’s you,” Lamar found his voice, beaming at her with pride. “I told you I’d paint you when the time was right. I just needed the right glimpse.”
But she shook her head. “It’s not me. That’s not me. I’m not that.”
He tried not to look hurt. “Okay,” he said, voice lowering. “Well, it’s fine if you don’t like it. I can—”
He fell silent. She wanted to sigh but didn’t dare. Who was she more disappointed in, she wondered. In herself, for making him feel bad? Or in him, for utterly failing to see who she was? She’d said it herself, hadn’t she? No one could reveal another person’s true essence. This was what she got for expecting something special, something good.
She felt it again: the crushing need for space. It had been a long while since she had needed it, especially from him. Or so it felt. She let the feeling ride over her in waves, determined not to leave now.
Instead it was he who left. He passed out of the studio wordlessly, vanished down the darkened hall. She stared at the painting for a long moment, then out at the empty corridor, and finally followed. When she found him he was in the kitchen pouring a glass of sweet tea. Iced, with single slice of lemon, the way he knew she liked it. He offered it to her.
“No, thanks,” she said.
He nodded and set it on the counter, then trudged out to the living room sofa, collapsing backward into it. “Whew,” he said more than breathed, his eyes far off, forlorn.
She stared at the tea. Took a drink, and carried it with her to sit beside him. “Whew,” she said.
Lamar looked at her and gave a soft smile.
* * *
Only a day later the repairman came, just before she had meant to leave for work. She’d been holding down a part-time gig at the record store the past year to supplement the meager income from her photography, which still had failed to quite take off. Any day, though. She thought of Lamar’s friends, Sasha and Drew, who still hadn’t called her about their wedding.
“They will,” Lamar had assured her the last time she’d mentioned it. “Trust me. Drew’s a procrastinator, but Sasha will hold his feet to the fire.”
So she waited for their call. And now she was waiting again, rather than working, for the repairman to finish up on the unit outside. She lay on her bedroom floor, her turntable spinning out the final song of a Muddy Waters LP. The cool of the fan, a fleeting pleasure. Heat still hovered over her, a felt weight. Lush and rich, all but oppressive.
Not for another hour did the door open and the workman’s boots trample the foyer’s wood floor, announcing he was finished. He wiped his brow with a khaki sleeve as Devin strode back out to meet him.
“You’ll never guess what it was killed it,” he snickered. The corners of his mouth yawed wide.
“What was it?”
“Palmetto bug.”
She blinked.
“Got into the unit, short-circuited the thing. Lucky it didn’t cause a fire—I’ve seen that before.” His smile stretched wider. “Might want to get the place sprayed.”
“I’ll do that,” she said, cringing inwardly. “So…it’s working now?”
“See for yourself.” He gestured at the floor register beneath the window and she crouched down, holding her hand over it: cool air. Faint and slow, approaching frigid.
When he had left she stepped outside to look at the unit. It seemed no different to her eyes, and yet there had been something toxic inside until mere minutes ago. Interesting how peril could slip inside of something so easily, infecting things, without your knowing.
She checked the messages on her phone, glancing over the weather update: heat index of over a hundred. she went inside again, pacing the living room. What now? Drive to work? But no, it was too late, she’d already called in. There were recent photos on her laptop that needed editing, but she had too much energy in her veins for that. She felt anything but calm.
Instead she texted Lamar. What are you doing?
* * *
Rather than replying, he called her back. “What’s good?” he answered. “You need anything?”
“I was just thinking,” she said. “About—about Taurus.”
“Taurus?” he laughed. “What about him?”
“Well, that dream I had about Ron Holbrooke? Right before my AC broke? What if it was really about him?”
“Was it? Was he even in it?”
She shook her head, impatient. “Listen, the point is he’s out in that kennel on the porch all day, right?”
“Right.”
“And Ron never brings him in?”
“Not that I ever noticed when I was over there. Casey used to take him for walks every once in a while, but… Taurus was really her brother’s dog, and her mother’s. And both of them are gone.”
“Gone?”
“Sam Holbrooke died in Iraq. The mother got cancer year after.”
Devin fell silent. She thought.
“What about Casey?”
“Uh…well, Casey ain’t ever been a dog person, feel me? And she don’t live there anymore.”
“Then we have to do it.”
Lamar chuckled. “Hold up, hold up…slow down. Have to do what?”
“We have to steal Taurus.”
Her heart beat. She heard a sound like something shuffling over the phone, and the line fell silent. “Hello?” she murmured.
“I’m here. Listen—don’t do anything. Don’t go anywhere. I’m coming over.”
He arrived at half past five, good timing considering the hour and the traffic. He looked agitated but not angry, his cool, dark skin mirrored by the calm hue of his blue shirt. Now that he was here, ironically, she felt relaxed. She offered a bowl of popcorn and he finally sat down on the sofa beside her and took a few pieces.
“I’mma tell you straight up, because I know you’re serious,” his eyes bored into hers. “This is not a good idea. This is not going to end well.”
“You don’t know that,” she returned his gaze.
“Listen, I know you’re feeling some kind of way about Taurus. I get that. It’s admirable, you know? But you’re talking about stealing someone’s dog. Breaking the law. Do you know what you’re asking me?”
“Do you know what you’re asking Taurus if you say no? He’s got no one—no one but us. We’re the only ones willing to help. What if he dies in the heat? What if he’s got fleas and heartworms?”
“What about Dr. Holbrooke? You don’t think he’ll come looking for his dog?”
“What if he does? He won’t know it was us. Anyway, you said yourself he neglects him. He might even be grateful we took him off his hands.”
Lamar leaned straight ahead, elbows on knees, brow furrowed.
“Nothing bad is going to happen,” Devin insisted. “I promise you.”
He shook his head. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”