The Thief

Dyson finds Cherish the dog walker to be pure spirit and bounce, a dependable five-foot wonder to his wife’s exhausting six. With Lorraine away on her retreat, Cherish’s presence in the apartment feels illicit, even though she’s only giving the dog her usual post-walk Friday bath.

“California sounds better than it really is,” Cherish says, working her fingers into the dog’s foam-scalloped fur. “All that annoying sunshine. Those endless beaches and redwood forests.”

“I’m sure Lorraine’s miserable,” Dyson says.

“Sounds like you’re hoping.”

Dyson wanders out to the living room so as not to comment. He listens to her rinse the dog. Then the hair dryer comes on, muffled as Cherish considerately rolls closed the bathroom door. He tries to think of anything but Lorraine out in California. Per their agreement, she doesn’t text or email or call when she’s out on her retreats. It leaves his imagination free to serve up a horror show.

He turns his attention back to the bathroom and peeks through the gap to see how it’s going. He sees the dryer roaring in the sink. Cherish is holding one of Lorraine’s necklaces against her throat and examining her reflection. She pockets the jewelry, then does the same with a pair of earrings. Her brazenness arouses him. He steps away and noisily fixes himself a drink in the kitchen. The dog runs out to him a few minutes later smelling of his wife’s conditioner. Cherish follows and picks up his drink on the counter as though it’s hers. She takes a generous swallow and keeps the glass in her hand. Knowing what’s in her pockets, Dyson is in awe of the daring behind her casual dawdling. How long has this pilfering been going on, and has she stolen from him, too? Or could it be that Lorraine told Cherish she’s free to borrow anything she’d like? Unlikely. The necklace cost over a grand.

“What are your Friday night plans?” Cherish asks.

“You’re looking at them,” he says.

“I see no point in retiring early if you’re not going to enjoy your freedom.” Her phone buzzes and she types a message. “Your wife just paid me. I’m flush. Hungry?”

She leads him to a narrow hot dog place he’s never noticed before, its windows dripping with bright beads of condensation. Dyson sees moths fluttering in the dark, but then sees that it’s snow, an ugly thing to spy at the end of March. His order is simple. She adds chili, cheese, onions, and bacon bits to hers. She doesn’t care what she looks like when she chews, doesn’t care about the daubs of yellow mustard on her dirty-gray knitted gloves. Her disregard evokes a longing in him.

“What do you do when you’re not dog walking?” he asks, pulling on the leash to Lorraine’s dog, who tries to sniff passersby. He imagines Cherish spends time unloading items at pawn shops.

She tips her head from side to side as she chews her last bite. “I hang with the bored husbands of beautiful women.” She pulls back his sleeve to read his watch, then nods across the street at the convenience store. “C’mon. You’re out of conditioner.”

Although she promised to upgrade his Friday night, Dyson doubts she can deliver as she leads him through the store’s bleached light to a pharmacy in the back. She blows a kiss to the man at the window. “Hello, my awfully wedded husband.”

Dyson is surprised a free spirit like Cherish is married, and to someone like this man: thin with a thinner mustache, and older than Cherish by at least twenty years. His name tag reads FILIP.

“Seriously?” Dyson says, quietly.

“We can’t all marry tens,” she mutters back at him.

Forearms on the counter, Filip leans toward them. “What’s that?”

“What do you recommend for midlife boredom?” Cherish says.

“He have a prescription?”

“I figure we help him out, he helps us out.”

Dyson feels Filip’s eyes diagnosing his ailments of malaise and spinelessness, jealousy and fear. “I’ll bring something back. I’m off in ten.”

Cherish smiles at Dyson. “Conditioner. Aisle F.”

His bagged purchase in one hand, leash in the other, Dyson follows Cherish to her place, a dimly lit apartment thick with the scent of patchouli. A stamped tin ceiling sags above a worn sofa with a scratchy-looking brown throw. Cherish rips open a large envelope from the pile of mail and pulls out a softcover photo book. She riffles through it quickly, then hands it to him. Our Honeymoon: Filip and Cherish Do Montreal. “Filip loves everything Canadian.”

“Too bad you’re not Canadian,” Dyson says, testing the sofa.

“I am! Don’t we look the loving couple?” She points at the book where she’s posing beside statues and whimsical mailboxes, and in selfies with Filip who wears cheap shades and a cheaper grin.

Dyson nods and turns the pages. He wonders what Filip is bringing home. A drug to stop him imagining what may be happening to Lorraine in Big Sur would be just the thing. My Big Sur Retreat: Lorraine Does…

Filip enters the apartment, breaking Dyson’s thoughts. He kicks off his shoes and hangs up his coat, then removes a small white paper bag from an inside pocket. The dog follows him into the kitchenette and returns with an enormous bone-shaped biscuit in her mouth, her tail wagging. She hops onto the sofa and makes herself comfortable. Dyson feels betrayed. He never suspected the dog of having a second life, though it shouldn’t surprise him; she’s more Lorraine’s dog than his.

“Give us a hand, Dyson,” Cherish calls from the other room a few minutes later. The dog looks up but returns to its bone.

Dyson finds Cherish and Filip sitting side by side at the edge of a bed, a video camera on a tripod in front of them.

Filip removes his work shirt. He looks sinister without the name tag and corporate logo. He could be anyone. “Cherish explain everything?”

“Sort of?” Dyson says.

As Cherish begins to undress, Dyson realizes drugs are only foreplay; they must think he’s a swinger. Filip reaches forward and starts the video camera, then leans over to Cherish and gives her a long, passionate kiss. Dyson looks away, his eyes falling down Cherish’s sturdy, tattooed legs to the glint of an ankle bracelet, a toe ring.

Cherish turns toward him abruptly, Filip’s lips grazed by her ear. “Did you get that?”

Filip throws up his hands. “You can’t ask if he got it. It has to be natural. Let’s try again.” He stops the video camera and rewinds the tape.

“Is this an internet thing?” Dyson says.

Filip stares at him, then breaks into a laugh and pushes Cherish’s shoulder. “You didn’t explain a thing, did you?”

“What’s to explain?” Cherish says.

“Sham marriage,” Filip says, his index finger wagging between his face and Cherish’s. “You think I can get a woman like this, boss?”

“You hardly have an accent,” Dyson says.

Filip shakes his head. “I don’t need residency. I was born at St. Vincent’s.”

“I’m the Canadian, remember?” Cherish says.

Filip has his finger over the video camera’s record button. “Make sure you get the mushy bits,” he says. “The immigration judge needs to see our passionate side. But also make sure my dick is in focus when it’s going into her. They won’t believe it unless there’s penetration.”

“Isn’t he romantic?” Cherish says.

Dyson puts his hands into a T. “You can’t influence an immigration judge with a sex tape.”

“Wrong, boss,” Filip says. “I’ve done the research.”

Dyson can’t help but laugh, though it comes out as a bark. He walks out of the bedroom and away from the stupidest situation he’s ever been in. What simpletons. Of all the men to choose for a green card marriage, why Filip? He grabs his coat, leashes the dog, and unlocks the door as Cherish trots down the hallway wearing only her top.

“I thought you wanted some fun on a Friday night,” she says. “We’ll get this done, then I’ll send Filip on a long walk and thank you properly.” She takes his hand and pulls it into the room. “He brought home the good stuff.”

“I’ve gotta go.”

“You so don’t. Your wife is in California, remember? Land of beaches and open marriages. I’ve heard all about it. It’s way past your turn. It’d make Lorraine happy.”

Dyson opens the door and pulls the dog after him into the hallway, away from the sound of Filip’s distant throat-clearing and the disappointed way Cherish calls his name, once, twice, maybe more times, but he’s outside again and out of earshot. What does Cherish know of Lorraine or what makes Lorraine happy? Nothing. No one knows. It’s one of life’s great mysteries.

Reaching the park, he and the dog begin jogging along the curved hump where trains ran ages ago, where the light posts stand at odd angles like something huge and destructive just blew through ahead of him: a missed opportunity, a calamitous mistake, both. Snow falls, but hardly anything, just winter’s crumbs. He wonders if the immigration story is a cover; Cherish and Filip seem too familiar with one another. They can’t be that thick. And why would he need to be there? The bedroom probably has hidden cameras, the one on the tripod merely a decoy, all for some internet prank show. Or maybe it’s some new form of sex work. They were going to drug him and then…he’s not sure. But it won’t be happening now. God Almighty, no it will not. He unclips the leash from the dog’s collar and they jog from one pool of light to the next, the dog staying beside him, not once straying for a tangential sniff. He pretends its loyalty. One thing he knows: there’ll be no more dog walkers in her future. He’ll take over those duties.

As he arrives home, Dyson remembers that he forgot the bottle of conditioner, and that Cherish still has his wife’s jewelry. Keys out, he finds the door to the apartment slightly ajar. Inside, a desk drawer is open, as is the safe that’s hidden in a kitchen cupboard. There are bundles of clothes strewn outside the bedroom, where the dog enters, sniffing at new scents. The realization that he’s been burgled hits him, followed by a second shock that fills him with shame: he’s the simpleton, the sucker, the rube. From getting the hot dogs to visiting the pharmacy and the apartment, Cherish kept him occupied while an accomplice was here, free to work without anyone at home—not even the dog. Cherish even has a spare key. He turns his shame into relief: at least things make sense again. There are steps to take. Authorities to call.

Dyson hears a noise in the bedroom and realizes he’s returned home sooner than expected. The thief is still here, rummaging. Dyson moves toward the butcher block of kitchen knives just as Lorraine struts out from the bedroom, tall as forever, obscenely beautiful, holding their dog in her arms.

“Miss me?” she says, though he’s not sure whom she’s addressing.

“Honey,” he says, his heart still galloping.

She sets the dog down on the floor, then gives Dyson a guileless smile and a quick towering hug, then begins narrating her getaway: the yurt on the bluff above the crashing surf, the exercises, the food, the other guests, the rhythm of the days, all while he stares at her bare neck, her naked lobes, marveling at how lucky and unlucky one person can make another feel.