We’ve been on the phone for 41 minutes. My cheek is hot from my cell. Repositioning the phone to my other ear, I stand. Pilot stands, too.
I’ve changed my energy. I owe him a walk.
“How is that not a sign?” Chloe asks.
I picture her frowning, worry scrunching her face. I picture her blonde hair pulled up in a ponytail, a headband smoothing the strays.
“I don’t know.”
Chloe sighs. I think she’s dropped something in the sink. The water turns on.
“There’s just—like I believe in signs, you know? Whisper moments—that’s what Oprah called it. Moments when your gut is telling you something. And you can’t tell me it’s a coincidence that the topic of her pod today was signs your partner is cheating.”
I say nothing, just shift the phone back to my other ear. I’ve had to use the bathroom for twenty minutes, but Chloe is so worked up, I haven’t wanted to risk being on mute at a pivotal moment in the conversation.
“I’m sorry, Chloe,” I say. “I’m worried I’m no help.”
“I just—I don’t know what to do. I’m freaking out.”
I feel a sigh, but hold it in.
“Will you come over?” she asks suddenly.
“Now?”
She might have asked me over an hour ago. Now, I’m in yoga pants—the pair I wear so often they never see the inside of my dresser. It’s Tuesday. I’ve already planned the evening in my head: leftover lasagna, another glass of wine (or two), reality dating shows, a hot shower before bed.
Give all that up?
“Yes,” Chloe says. “Maybe we can look.”
“Look?”
“Yes,” she repeats. “Please come over. I have wine.”
I hesitate. Chloe’s call has disrupted the routine, and no one is more aware of that than Pilot, who likes his walk before dinner.
“Please?”
“Okay,” I say. “For a bit. I have an early day tomorrow—meeting first thing with the management team. I can’t stay too late—or drink too much.”
“Oh, thank you. Thank God. Yes, come over.”
“Two things,” I say. “One, I’m bringing Pilot, and two, you have to tell me what we’re looking for.”
“Proof.”
* * *
Pilot’s tail is a spirited metronome as I return from the bathroom and take his leash off the peg. I throw on my navy duster and shove my cell and keys into its generous pockets. My place is only four blocks from the rental she and Jake have shared for the past six months, and Pilot and I begin to walk toward it.
In my head, Chloe still lives across town, as she did when I met her. We’d worked for the same software consultancy for a few years—me as a designer, Chloe as a social media manager—until she landed a position at a bigger firm for more money.
“Come on,” I say, urging him away from a tree. Pilot’s head comes up just above my knee. I figure he’s mostly hound—a tricolor with brown speckles on his white legs. He glues his nose to the sidewalk when we walk. However, he also has a penchant for sneaking food from the table; there must be some beagle lurking in his genes, too.
The animal shelter had described him as an “independent boy.”
Pilot had not disappointed.
As we make our way to Chloe’s, a slight breeze blows at my sweater, the last hour of sunlight warms my face. Chloe’s distress aside, it’s a perfect October evening.
I try to remember when this started—the suspicion that Jake was cheating.
Chloe opened up to me one night when we’d gone out for drinks with some friends—my current co-workers, her former. I’d been ready to call it a night when she’d put her hand on my arm and asked if I had time for one more. Then, the conversation became long strings of I know this sounds crazy, I just have a feeling, you’re such a good listener.
Jake often worked late on Friday nights. Or he sometimes came home an hour late. He’d claim he hit the gym, showered already, but Chloe would find his gym bag hanging on a hook in the laundry room.
“And I don’t want to confront him, you know, because what if he’s like, hey crazy, I have an extra gym bag. And what if he does?! And I’m just crazy?”
I became a confidante that night, and after, Chloe texted me things that happened.
She noticed he was always locking his phone. He got defensive one night when she used his laptop—only because she had left hers at the office and had wanted to write an email without laboring over her cell.
Pilot, oblivious, catches sight right then of a squirrel running up a tree a few feet away. The yank he gives nearly pulls my arm out of its socket. He runs to the tree, puts his two front paws on its thick bark, and bays. The squirrel is angry, chattering at us from a low branch.
“There,” I say, “you treed him. Happy now?”
* * *
“So, what are we looking for, Nancy Drew?” I ask as Chloe opens the door. She’s wearing leggings and an oversized sweatshirt, and from the look on her face, she’s been crying. I soften.
“First, wine,” she says. I apologize in advance for Pilot. I take off his leash. He looks at me, mildly confused, then wags his tail and heads to the kitchen.
“If you have any food on your floor, he’ll find it.”
Chloe follows and pours me a glass of red, then refills her own. The bottle is nothing special—a dark bottle with a burgundy top, adorned with a beige label. A cabernet sauvignon. The first sip bowls me over in my chair. It’s wonderful.
“I’m sure I’m being stupid,” she says. “I just—I can’t shake this.”
I take another big sip of wine, catching the taste of berries on my tongue. I do regret not grabbing something to eat before I left my place. I’m starving.
“Where’s Jake now?”
“He’s visiting his mom and staying the night.”
“Where does she live?”
“Like an hour away—west of Lansing. He said he’d text me.”
“Why is he staying with his mom?” I can’t think of anything I know about Jake’s mom, if she’s ever come up before.
She nods, takes another sip of wine. “Oh God—I didn’t even tell you. I can’t believe I didn’t tell you. His mom called him today and said someone had broken into her house.”
My eyebrows raise. “Whoa. What? That sounds scary. Was she home when it happened?”
Chloe shakes her head. “No, she was at work. And she said she can’t find anything missing. But she was freaked out, you know? She lives alone. Her stuff was rearranged.”
I nod. Of course I know how scary it is to live alone. I’ve been on my own for a long time, although Pilot helps.
“Oh, God,” Chloe says. “I didn’t mean—”
I chuckle. “I’m not offended, Chloe. I’m in between relationships,” I say, raising my glass to hers and clinking it. She smiles.
“I just don’t know what you’re hoping to find tonight,” I say gently. “What kind of smoking gun? I mean, if he is cheating, then… What are we going to uncover here?” I look around her kitchen for theatrical effect. “Are we shaking down his sock drawer? Read his diary?”
She shakes her head. I realize she’s considering. “I can’t find a diary.”
I pause. “Do you go through his things often?”
She shakes her head again. “I mean—honestly? On nights like tonight, I do. That’s why I called you. I feel like I’m crawling out of my skin.”
Pilot has finished his search of the perimeter and, apparently satisfied, sits at my feet. He’s pouting because he wanted a longer walk than he got.
“Do you think he made up that story about his mom?”
Chloe looks like she’s about to cry again. “I don’t know,” she says. “I feel something.”
“Well,” I say after a moment. “Can you talk to him?”
She shakes her head. “What if I’m wrong? I’ll lose him.”
I take a deep breath and another sip of the wine. It’s really good. I take a mental picture of the label and wonder how expensive it is. Probably, it costs more than I pay for wine, but I would splurge for this. My guess is Jake bought this one.
Jake works in finance at a bank—I know that. He’s also really attractive—I know that from Chloe’s Instagram. He has dark hair and brown eyes, olive skin. Tall, athletic. Bright smile.
I don’t say what I’m thinking: if your relationship is so fragile you can’t talk about what’s bothering you, the relationship is in trouble regardless of infidelity.
I don’t say that. Who wants advice from a woman who hasn’t had a relationship in years? Chloe must think I’m some kind of spinster, that I spend too much time alone. Every time I go out with her, she compliments my clothes, but tells me I would look better in something more revealing. She tells me I play down my cheekbones, my long eyelashes.
“You shouldn’t feel this way in a relationship. You shouldn’t have to feel this way.”
“I know,” Chloe says. She closes her eyes, but a second later, jumps when her phone vibrates on the counter. She grabs it. “Ugh,” she says. “Just my mom.”
She sets her cell back down. “I wish he’d text me.”
“Hey,” I say suddenly. “I have an idea.”
“What?”
“Walk with me—with Pilot,” I say. “Let’s take a walk. Exercise clears your head. Have you had any today?”
She shakes her head, her ponytail swinging. “No. I’ve just had wine.”
“It’ll take your mind off Jake,” I say. “I’m sure everything is fine.”
I’m not actually sure that everything is fine, but the longer I sit in her kitchen, hungry and restless, a little worn out from the day, the less I think I’ll be able to help her.
If we’re not going through his pockets for receipts or checking the collars of his white dress shirts for lipstick stains, I’m not sure what Chloe thinks we can accomplish. I start to realize she just didn’t feel like being alone.
I know that feeling well.
Chloe finishes her glass. “You’re right,” she says. “Let’s walk.”
Pilot raises his head at the word walk and comes over to Chloe, sniffing her hands as she stands up. “Well,” I chuckle. “You’re pot-committed now.”
Chloe asks if she can hold Pilot’s leash, since the only dog she gets to walk is her parents’ cocker spaniel, and she doesn’t visit them often. We talk about work. She likes her new company, but she’s struggling to communicate about projects with her supervisor and gets along better with her supervisor’s supervisor. I catch her up on the latest news, too, but I’m not much for gossip—which Chloe knows. She’s just being polite or trying her best to follow my suggestion that she push Jake out of her mind.
“Have you ever been in this kind of situation?” Chloe asks me, and I realize we’re no longer talking about the juice cleanse she wants to try.
I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”
“You’re lucky,” she says. “It’s—the worst feeling.”
I say nothing, just gesture we should turn at the next block.
“I just wish I could get a sign.”
“I thought Oprah was your sign,” I tease.
She laughs. “Oh yeah. I forgot that. I mean, like—okay, that means something, but I want a sign sign.”
“What would that look like?” I ask. “If you don’t want to confront him… Are you waiting for him to say something?”
Chloe looks horrified. Immediately, I regret it and start to open my mouth to apologize, to blame it on the wine, on being hungry.
“He’d—I mean, he’d only do that if he were breaking up with me, right?”
I start to answer, to say in all likelihood, maybe, when Pilot’s leash whips out of her hands. He’s taken off at a full sprint.
“Oh my God!” Chloe yells, her hands flying up to her face.
“Pilot!” I yell.
But I know it’s no use.
Once a hound sees something he wants to chase, it’s over. He’s gotten loose before—twice—and both times were terrifying.
“I’m so sorry,” Chloe says. I tell myself not to panic. We’ll find him. And above all, I tell myself not to make her feel worse.
However, I am wearing Tom’s—no socks—and I do not feel like running, particularly after the wine.
I suck in a breath and start off anyway.
I hear Chloe running behind me, to my right. Pilot is a good fifty yards ahead of us—half a football field away. I think I see a rabbit, a flash of its white tail. I tell myself this won’t be like the last time, the time my heart swam in my stomach with worry.
There is no feeling worse than thinking if I’ll never see him again—the forty-five-pound hound who shares my queen-size bed, cuddled up with me at night.
“Pilot!” I am screaming. My duster is annoying to run in, all the extra fabric catching around my knees and calves. “Pilot!”
He can’t hear me—or he won’t. He’s on the hunt, and everything in his body is telling him to pursue. Why did his instinct have to be so strong? The gap between us widens. I ask my legs to move faster, and the adrenaline gives me a burst as I run by a man on the sidewalk walking a corgi. They move aside, realizing what’s wrong.
“Pilot!” I yell again, as loud as I can. I’m not sure if Chloe is close behind me or not. I feel my heart beating hard in my chest when I hear a noise that makes it sink to my feet: the definitive sound of tires screeching, and the dull clunk of a car crashing into something.
I’m not able to speak, just to run as fast as I can to the black SUV.
From what I can tell, it was turning right onto the road that Pilot was crossing.
Please, please, please, I beg inside.
I slow down when a man gets out of the black SUV. He walks to the passenger side bumper, to where the damage occurred. He’s crashed directly into a parked minivan, also black.
He crashed because he had to swerve.
He swerved to avoid hitting Pilot, whose tail is sticking out of a green hedge in front of the house on the corner. It’s wagging—his tail.
Thank God, I think.
Judging by that tail, he’s got the rabbit cornered.
I read once that a beagle’s tail is white at the end because it signals like a flag; it stands out in tall grass to alert a hunter. Here’s the duck you shot, it says. Right here!
“Pilot!” I yell, partly to alert the man. He gives no indication he sees me examine his SUV. I watch him glance at the house, perhaps wondering if the minivan’s owner is coming out.
“Are you okay, sir?”
He nods his head.
Then my throat goes dry.
He doesn’t recognize me.
Why would he? He’s never met me.
“That’s my dog,” I say, a little apologetically as I walk toward the hedge.
But as I approach Pilot, ready to grab the leash and hold it tighter than I ever have before, I look behind me to see if Chloe has recognized the driver.
* * *
With some effort, I pull Pilot from the hedge. He looks proud of himself. He has no idea how much he’s scared me. I squat and rub his ears, stealing a glance at Chloe.
She has her arms folded. Jake has his crossed, too, then his hands in his hair, then he pulls a phone from his pocket.
No one has emerged from the house we are standing in front of, and I’m thankful.
When Chloe starts walking toward us, her face is a tight knot. Tears are on her cheeks.
“That asshole,” she says. She can barely get the words out. I hug her, and she is shaking. I look over at Jake, who is behind the wheel of his SUV, slowly moving it in reverse. He does not look at us as he drives off.
No note for the minivan’s owner, I think. No problem. We’ll leave one. Chloe can write down his number.
“I can’t believe this.”
I say, “It’s going to be okay.”
By the jut of her chin on my shoulder, I think she is nodding.
She pulls away, and chuckles awkwardly, wiping at her tears. Pilot is giving her his full attention, so she ruffles his ears and kisses him on the head.
“Thanks, Pilot,” she says. “I can’t believe…”
I squat too, petting Pilot on the head. He’s in heaven.
“I mean, you did say you wanted a sign,” I offer. “More than a whisper moment.”
Chloe chuckles and begins to cry again, so I say we should stand and walk home. I know we’ll talk about what Jake said, and what she said—about what his excuses were, his lines. His lies. Where he had really been.
“Come on. We have an expensive bottle of wine to finish,” I say, “although Pilot, we’ll have to find some other reward for you.”
*****
Colleen Alles is an award-winning writer living in West Michigan. The author of two novels and a collection of poetry, she is also a contributing editor for short fiction at Barren Magazine. Her debut short story collection is forthcoming (May 2024) from the University of Wisconsin. She loves distance running, good beer, traveling, her family, and her dog, Charlie. Please find her online at www.colleenalles.com, on Twitter @ColleenAlles, and on Instagram @ColleenAlles_author.
