Separation Anxiety - Laura Zigman Page 0,48

decor of the late seventies. Despite the vestiges of the glorious fall now fading—pumpkins shrinking on the steps to the house; the last of the unraked leaves, red and orange and dry and noisy, blowing against the side of the house and into the scrubby bare bushes—there are no signs of life: no lights on inside; no car in the driveway. When Gary calls her from his cell phone, we both hear the house phone ringing and ringing inside the house.

“You’re sure you told her we were coming today?” Gary says.

“Of course I’m sure. I said Friday the twenty-sixth.”

He rolls his eyes. “Today’s the nineteenth, Judy. The twenty-sixth is next week.”

“Oh shit.”

“And now I really have to pee.” He starts looking around at trees and bushes, but I shake my finger at him.

“No way. Remember what happened last time?” Who knew that public urination in the woods off a dog park trail was considered indecent exposure in New Hampshire and carried with it the fine of $1,000. (We didn’t.) “Can’t you wait?”

“Do I look like I can wait?” He is hopping now, his voice an octave higher.

“Do you have a key?”

“No, but sometimes she leaves the back door open. Maybe she just went to the supermarket.”

We walk around to the side of the house, and while Gary makes another call I try the mudroom door, but it’s locked. Gary’s hopping gets even more frantic and I tell him to just go in the bushes already.

“No! I’m not taking any chances this time.”

I drop my bag on the ground and eye the mudroom window, then struggle to push the storm window up, then the window itself. Just as I get them both open and wave at Gary in triumph, I hear the distant sound of a police siren and Gary shouting at his mother.

“You’re staying where? I can’t hear you! For how long?” He covers the phone and turns to me. “Her house is being sprayed tomorrow for termites!” The sirens are getting louder. But as I get closer to Gary I can hear his mother telling him she can’t talk now—the alarm company just called to tell her that somebody is trying to break into her house and the police are on their way.

* * *

“It won’t be much longer,” the officer says from the front seat, eyeing us in the backseat, in the rearview mirror instead of turning around. He has the heavy-voweled accent of a native New Englander, but he doesn’t drop his rs with the savage disregard of a Bostonian. Unfortunately. “As soon as we reach the alarm company, you’ll be on your way.”

“Great.” Gary rolls his eyes just at me.

“Sorry,” I whisper out of the side of my mouth, then shrug, as if it’s not really my fault that I messed up the date of our visit. Before Gary can complain about my shitty nonapology-apology, another officer approaches the car, holding my shoulder bag—the one I’d dropped outside the mudroom window.

“This must be yours,” he says, opening the bag and peering inside before he hands it over to me through the open backseat window. I open it up and Gary sees what’s inside.

Gary’s eyes widen. He’s panicked. “You brought the book?” he whispers.

The cop points at the bag, then at me. “Just make sure everything’s in there.”

I reach into the bag, take each thing out to confirm its existence: “Wallet, keys, phone charger, Emily Dickinson.”

Gary grabs the book out of my hands, holds it against his chest inside his jacket.

“I think the officer has been through enough already with our false alarm! Let’s not assault him with poetry!”

I look at him like he’s insane until sounds of static and then an “all clear” come from the police officer’s radio. They tell us we’re all set and to have a good trip.

“But no more breaking and entering, Thelma and Louise!”

Out of their car and on our way to our own, we smile warmly at the officers, then quickly drop the act. Gary continues to hug the book until we’re back in our own front seat.

I swat at him. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Why’d you bring that book?”

“For old times’ sake!”

Gary tries to shove the book under the front seat, but I wrestle it from him and hug it to my chest with both arms like a flotation device.

“Why were you trying to hide this?”

“Because it’s got my shit in it!” he whisper-hisses.

“But it’s medical marijuana! It’s legal!”

“Not this shit—it’s Nick’s! A special road-trip blend!”

I glare at him. “Really,