Page 26 of Nobody's Fool

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s boring,” I say. “It’s hot. It’s dusty or muddy. And then it’s all ‘Oh, look honey, there’s a tree! Oh, and there’s another tree! And another! Oh, I wonder what’s around that bend… Oh wow, looks like a tree!’ I get thirsty and hungry and, I mean, if you want to take a long walk in the city, yes, sure, I’m with you. You see people’s faces. You can window-shop. You can gaze upon architectural wonders or meander through a bookstore or head up to that flea market on Columbus Avenue. That’s stimulation. That’s interesting.”

Debbie smiles and sits back in her seat. “I like you, Kierce.”

“I like you too.”

“I still want to try hiking someday,” she says. “Get some fresh air.”

“Fresh air is overrated. Your lungs are strong from a lifetime of street fights.”

She laughs at that. “So what’s our plan?”

I shrug. “I’m open to ideas if you have any.”

We circle the streets and hope something comes to mind. Nothing does right away, but I’ve learned that there is something to literally and figuratively spinning your wheels. Patience is a virtue and all that. Wait enough and sometimes something happens.

Or this is what I tell myself to excuse the fact that I’m a shit planner.

We drive around like this for about twenty minutes when I see a car, a Mercedes-Benz CLE convertible with its top down, pull out of the driveway down the road from Maybe Anna’s. There are four young women in the car. They wear sunglasses and wide smiles and give off major “not a care in the world” vibes.

“Speaking of smelling like money,” Debbie says.

“How old do you think they are?” I ask.

“Like, I don’t know—high school seniors, college maybe? Why, you interested?”

I make a face at her and swing the wheel so that I’m following the Mercedes.

“You got a plan?” she asks.

“I do.”

“Care to share it?”

“They live across the street from our target house.”

“So?”

“So they probably know who lives there.”

“You think they’ll tell you?”

We follow the car to the outskirts of town. The Mercedes pulls up to some fancy converted barn, the kind of place you’d find an overpriced pottery store or those upscale wine-n-paint party joints. Molly went to one of the wine-n-paint parties last year. She brought back a painting of what might be a nature scene and gave it to me. It couldn’t be uglier and I think Molly knows that, which is why I hung it in our bedroom and I’ll be damned if I ever take it down.

A valet takes the convertible and the four—can I call them girls? teens? women?—head inside. I look for a sign telling me where I am. There is none. Debbie is on her smartphone trying to look the place up.

“It’s called the Ivy,” she says.

“What is it, a restaurant?”

She shakes her head. “A rejuvenation center.”

“Does that mean spa?”

Debbie shrugs. I pull my Ford Taurus up to the valet. The valet crinkles his nose and looks at my car as though it just plopped out of a dog’s backside. We get out and I toss him the keys.

---