“What’s going on?” a guy came to stand next to her, smiling when he saw us and raising a hand in a wave. He was African-American and looked around the woman’s age. He was dressed almost identically, except that his T-shirt read ZANKOU CHICKEN.
“We, um,” I said, taking a step forward, looking at them closely, still trying to make sense of the argument I’d heard. They didn’t look like spies. But really good spies probably didn’t. “Had a question. But if this isn’t a good time…” They just stared at me, looking blank. “It sounded like you might have been in the middle of something,” I tried to clarify. “I didn’t want to disturb.” They still were just staring, so I prompted, “Minsk?”
“Oh!” The woman burst out laughing. “I hope you didn’t think that was real. We were just working.”
“Working?” Gelsey asked, finding her voice and taking a tiny step forward. “Are you actors?”
“Even worse,” the guy said, shaking his head. “Screenwriters. I’m Jeff Gardner, by the way.”
“Kim,” the woman said, waving, a ring on her left hand flashing at me in the sun.
“Hi,” I said, incredibly relived that there was not international espionage going on next door. “I’m Taylor, and this is my sister Gelsey. We live right there,” I said, pointing through their tree hedge to our house.
“Neighbors!” Jeff said with a big smile. “So nice to meet you, Taylor, and…” He paused, looking at my sister. “Did you say Kelsey?”
This happened a lot with her name, and when it did, it was the one time I was grateful to have a name everyone knew and had no problems spelling. My mother hadn’t thought it would be a problem—when she’d named my sister for a famous ballerina, she obviously thought a lot more people would be familiar with it. “Gelsey,” I repeated, louder. “With a g.”
“It’s great to meet you both,” Kim said. Her eyes lingered on my sister for a moment, and she smiled before she turned her head and called into the house, “Nora!”
A second later, the screen door banged open and the girl I’d seen a few days before stepped out onto the porch. She had black curly hair and skin the color of my coffee after I’d added enough milk to make it drinkable. She was also glowering, which was in direct opposition to her parents, who both seemed thrilled to have met us. “This is our daughter, Nora,” Kim said, nudging her until Nora was standing by her side. “These are two of our neighbors,” she said. “Taylor and Gelsey.”
In succession, Nora frowned at me, at Gelsey, and at Murphy. “What’s wrong with your dog?” she asked.
Gelsey frowned right back at her, pulling the ribbon, and the dog, a little closer to her. “Nothing,” she said. “What do you mean?”
Nora just nodded at him, wrinkling her nose as though it should be obvious. “It’s all matted,” she said.
“That’s actually why we’re here,” I said quickly, trying to head off Gelsey, who had just taken a breath as though to launch into an argument about the merits of the dog’s grooming habits. “We’ve noticed this dog wandering around recently. There’s no address on the tag, so we didn’t know if he might be yours.”
Jeff shook his head. “Not us,” he said. “Have you tried the house on the other side?”
Also known as Henry’s house. “Not yet,” I said brightly. “I guess we’ll ask them next.” We all just stood around for a moment, nobody really quite sure what to say. I saw Kim glance back into the house and realized that she probably wanted to get back to work. “So,” I said, as the silence was starting to edge toward uncomfortable, “screenwriting, huh? That’s cool.” I didn’t know much about screenwriting except for what I’d seen in, ironically, the movies, where writers seemed to be either going out to power lunches or throwing balled-up pieces of paper against the wall.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Jeff said, laughing. “But it pays the bills. We’re in Los Angeles most of the year. It’s our first summer up here.”
I nodded, but was really looking at Gelsey, who was looking down at Murphy, who was scratching his ear again. I no longer knew anything about how twelve-year-olds made friends, and I frankly had never seen Gelsey make a friend, but I figured that in terms of trying to help her, I had done my best. “Okay,” I said, raising my eyebrows at my sister, “we should probably get—”
“Microchipped!” Kim said, snapping her fingers, as she looked down at the dog. “Maybe he’s microchipped. Have you checked it out?”
“No,” I said. I hadn’t even thought about it. “Do you know where they can find that out?”
“Animal shelters, vets’ offices,” Jeff said. “And they do it at the pet store in town. Doggone something or other.”
Kim turned to him, eyebrows raised. “How do you know that?”
“I went in the other day while I was picking up the pizza for dinner,” he said. “I was talking to the girl who works there.”