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  “So, that guy in accounting that came and talked to me today, guess what he wanted.” Piper shouted over the wind as they slid a little closer together to take a curve.

  “I dunno until you tell me, girlie.” Ardra yelled back to her.

  “Well, he started out with talking to me about the assignment, but you know that no guy comes up to girls like us to talk about school work. So, after letting him go on for a bit about the assignment, I finally told him to cut to the chase. I hate how guys think that we never know when they have ulterior motives. I mean, we’re the ones that are supposed to be mysterious. Isn’t it always the guys saying that they don’t understand women? Women don’t claim to not understand guys, I mean, how hard can it be? If they’re not thinking about sex, they’re thinking about sports. That’s just the way it is. Always has been, and I don’t see it changing any time soon.”

  “Hey, Piper!” They cut into another curve, pushing them closer together. “Can you take your own advice here and get to the point? It’s hard enough to hear you over the wind as it is. Even harder when I’m trying to hear you over the wind and my snoring!” She sent her best friend a wink.

  “My bad. Didn’t realize you had places to be! Anyhow, after I finally told him to get to the point, he asked me to a hockey game with him! I was all braced for an invite to a football game! You know how well that goes over with me! So imagine my surprise when he asked me out to hockey! And his surprise when I said yes! It was pretty classic! I wish I would have had a camera so I could capture the look on his face! It was priceless! It always makes me smile on the inside when a guy who is obviously fishing outside of his league gets what he wants. It’s the only reason I end up saying yes to most of the guys that ask me out!”

  They laughed over her story before focusing on the task at hand. After the third turn, the trail took on a more vertical appearance, and with slope, came speed.

  They pointed their boards and powered down the last leg of the run.

  Once again, they sent snow flying when they reached the bottom. This time, other people joined in their gushing over their run, commenting on their form and skill.

  Six runs later, both girls had their jackets tied around their waists and they were sunburned and exhausted. They unstrapped and headed for the parking lot. With their boards laid out in the back seat and seat belts fastened up, they headed back down the canyon.

  Ardra hit the play button on her iPod and they jammed out to the playlist that they both had on their players. They emailed each other new songs to add to it almost every week. What had started out as a few songs had become a monstrosity in a matter of weeks. Every now and then, they’d get sick of a song and vote it out, but not often. More songs were definitely going onto the list than were coming off of it.

  They agreed that The Belgain Waffle sounded like a good idea for food. It would be a great carb load and it had been a staple throughout their teenage years.

  Ardra took a left nine blocks east of the main highway that ran through the valley and pulled into the parking lot of the waffle house a couple of minutes later. They had never been there with less than ten other people in the dining room. It didn’t matter the time, there were always other people there. This time was no different. There were at least two dozen other patrons filling the dining room when they walked through the double glass doors.

  After doing a quick scan of the faces that turned towards them, they came to the conclusion that they didn’t know anyone and asked the hostess for a booth for two.

  Neither of them needed menus and both ordered Diet Cokes when the waitress came around. When their drinks were delivered, they ordered a single order of Garbage Hash and a side of country gravy.

  They stretched out on the vinyl seats, lying with their legs hanging out into the aisle and talked back and forth under the table until the waitress came back. The woman set the giant plate of fried potatoes, onions, peppers, ham, bacon and eggs topped with melted cheese and a bowl of white gravy in front of them without raising an eyebrow in response to their five year old behavior.

  “Thank you!” they chimed in unison before pouring the gravy over the top of the concoction and attacking the dish with gusto.

  The rest of the meal was spent in silence. Both girls shoveled food into their mouths like it was the last meal they would ever eat, chasing the calories down with Diet Coke. At that moment in time, neither could think of a better way to end a day on the slopes.

  When the plate was clean and their drinks had been refilled, they both sat back and exhaled a sigh of relief.

  “Oh my gosh Ardra, I think I might explode.” Piper put her hand on her stomach and groaned. “If I do, make sure you get all of my bits off the floor. I don’t want to get sucked up and spend my afterlife in a vacuum bag. That does not sound like fun. I’ve seen the things that get left on the floor under tables in restaurants and I don’t want to be neighbors with them.”

  Ardra laughed and gave her word that she would make sure all of her best friend’s body parts would end up in a box with her, six feet under the ground.

  They paid their bill and car-danced their way back to the east bench. Piper climbed out of the car and retrieved her board from the back seat before giving a quick wave to Ardra and jogging up the freshly shoveled walk. One more wave over her shoulder and she disappeared inside of the sorority house.

  Ardra drove the couple of blocks back to her house where she replaced her snowboard on the rack in the garage and kicked off her boots inside the door. She hit the red button that closed the garage door and folded her jacket over the back of a chair at the center island in the kitchen before letting the dog in through the back door.

  He ran around her, wagging his tail and obviously fighting the urge to jump up on her and lick her to death. She scratched between his ears and headed up the stairs to wash off the grime that always coated her skin after a day on the mountain.

  Feeling refreshed, she toweled off her hair, pulled a pair of jeans on and tugged a sweater down over her head. Almost without thinking about it, she had her hair pulled up into its usual ponytail before she headed back to the kitchen. The dog sat in front of the fridge waiting for her to find him something to eat.

  “Ugh! Dog food! I knew I was forgetting something! Come on!”

  She grabbed the leash from its spot near the back door and wrapped it around his neck. They went into the garage and she opened the passenger door for him. He jumped right in the car and sat down in the passenger seat like he belonged there.

  She took her place behind the steering wheel and clicked her seat belt into place.

  Out the driveway and down the road they went. Natural as can be. Ardra found herself talking to the dog before they even got out of the neighborhood. It was like having Piper in the seat next to her. Without the interjections, of course.

  “So, they allow dogs in the pet store right? I’d kind of like to have you there so that you could choose your dog food yourself. How am I supposed to know what you like? It’s not like I have spent a whole lot of time sampling dog food. I’ve never even had the chance to have a dog sample dog food for me. I mean, you guys are probably like humans and have different tastes, so that wouldn’t do much good anyway. But you know what I mean, right?”

  She looked over at the big yellow dog who was staring at her attentively, almost smiling. His tongue was hanging out of one side of his mouth and he was panting a little bit. There was a shine in his eyes that seemed to relay the message that he knew exactly what she was talking about and was happy to be along for the ride, so she continued.

  “You know, right before you showed up, my life had kinda gone crazy. I had yelled at my grandma, which I would never do under normal circumstances. I was haunted by nightmares for weeks, and the strangest thing of all is the one I saved for last! My dad bought me this necklace for my birthday! I know, that in and of itself isn’t all that strange, but, oddly enough, it was also the reason that I had yelled at my grandma! Anyway, this necklace
, when I put it on, my body gets all warm and tingly. The tingle starts in my chest and it spreads throughout my whole body until I’m practically vibrating. It’s the freakiest thing I’ve ever felt. Well, one time, I put it on and kinda had this fainting spell. While I was out, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t actually in my body at all. I think I had an out of body experience. Maybe it was astral projection. Either way, it was totally weird! I went to this big garden with a fountain and there was this guy! He was totally the hottest guy I have ever seen in my life by the way. But this guy, he stood up and started coming towards me and I kinda freaked. I mean, who wouldn’t? You find yourself in some weird place with some weird guy, I’m pretty sure standard procedure is to freak out a little bit! Anyway, I closed my eyes and kinda screamed at myself to wake up. I guess I took a swipe at him too because I came to with a chunk of his hair in my hand. I know, insane right?”

  She let her eyes slide over to the dog again and noticed that he was still staring at her with that smile and that knowing look in his eyes. He broke eye contact with her to put his head down and lick her hand.

  “Thanks buddy. I feel a whole lot lighter getting that off my chest. I haven’t even told Piper about it. For a while I thought I was nuts, so I spent a lot of time putting it out of my head. It still keeps coming back and pestering me every now and then.”

  She scratched his ears again and he lie down in the seat.

  “Hey! Buddy! That’s a good name right?”

  The dog let out a huff of breath.

  “Ok, I’ll take that as a no. What about Marcus?”

  Another huff accompanied by a violent shake of his head for emphasis expressed his dislike for the name.

  “What about Kaiser?”

  He lifted his head at that one and thumped his tail against the door.

  “You like that one huh?”

  She parked fairly close to the front door of the pet store and went around to the passenger side of the car to let him out. She opened the door and grabbed the leash as he launched himself through the open door in his excitement.

  Ardra and Kaiser walked into the store and were greeted by the sounds of birds, fish tank pumps, other dogs and cats in cages along one wall. She was in awe. She had never been shopping in a pet store before. Honestly, she hadn’t expected to ever find herself doing so. Yet, there she was. About to buy dog food.

  Kaiser, on the other hand, seemed to be absolutely unimpressed with the place. He lead her through the store to an aisle in the back on the right hand side. He walked up one side and down the other, sniffing each bag and considering each for a moment before moving on.

  After sniffing fifty or more bags of food, he walked halfway back up the aisle and nudged one with his nose. It was a big purple bag and looked heavy. She looked around for an employee to help her with the heavy load and sighed when there wasn’t one in sight.

  “You’re lucky I’m in shape.” She grumbled to the dog as she hefted the bag off the bottom shelf. After about five steps with the fifty pound bag of food, a guy came around the corner pushing a big, empty, flat cart.

  “You want this?” he asked, patting the cart handle with his gloved hand.

  “Sure.” She huffed as she dropped the food down on the cart.

  “All yours.” He turned to walk away, “Oh! Just tell them to page Jake when you check out. I’ll help you get it into your car too.” And he disappeared around the corner.

  She looked to the dog and shrugged her shoulders.

  “Thank you, Jake.” She said to the empty aisle.

  She wheeled the cart back towards the front of the store with Kiser in the lead.

  “Oh hey! Look at this!”

  She had made the mistake of walking down the toy aisle. She knew better than to do that in any human store she went to, but apparently her toy-dar didn’t work in pet stores. The dog sniffed at the disk in her hand and she could have sworn that she saw him roll his eyes. She didn’t care what he thought. Images of playing risbee with the dog were playing through her head and it seemed like fun. She tossed the disc on the cart.

  They repeated the same procedure with a rope, a tennis ball, and a tiny rubber tire. She got all of them. She even got him a thick blue collar.

  When she got to the checkout, she saw that there was a machine that engraved dog tags sitting in the front of the store and informed the cashier that she wanted one of those too.

  “Sure. What shape do you want?”

  She considered getting him one of the big pink hearts but quickly discarded the idea after thinking about what his reaction might be to it.

  “We’ll go with the big blue bone.”

  After paying the cashier and creating the tag, she had the cashier page Jake to help her get the stuff loaded into her trunk. He came jogging to the front of the store a few seconds later and pushed her cart toward the doors for her.

  She pointed him in the direction of her car and popped the trunk using the button on her remote. She watched him load the heavy bag into the trunk with minimal effort and placed the bags of toys on top of it herself. As he started to wheel the cart away, he turned and handed her a piece of paper folded in half and smiled before walking away.

  She unfolded the paper and saw a phone number written under his name. She smiled and decided that she might actually call him if her week kept going as well as it had been so far.

  She grabbed the collar out of one of the bags before closing the trunk and walking over to the passenger side of the car to open the door so the dog climb into his seat.

  She sat in her seat behind the wheel and put the little tag on the ring that was attached to the thick blue collar. She tightened it around his neck and admired her work. After deciding that he looked quite dashing, she flipped down the visor so that he could take a look for himself.

  “What do you think, buddy?”

  The dog turned his head from side to side and studied the collar. He shook his head like he was trying to dry off and glanced in the mirror again before looking over at her and thumping his tail against the door.

  She smiled and flipped up the visor.

  “I thought you’d like it. Now, we just have to get you to give those toys a chance.”

  He huffed and curled up on the passenger seat.

  “You’ll like them if you give them a chance.” She pushed.

  More huffing.

  She decided to let sleeping dogs lie, so to speak, and dropped the subject.

  She hit the power button on the stereo and before long, she was jamming out to the song that came blaring from the speakers.

  After letting Kaiser out of the car, she heaved the macho man bag of dog food into the kitchen and grabbed a bowl from under the island. After she had filled it with kibble she mentally reprimanded herself for forgetting to grab a dog dish. That meant another trip to the pet store. Not that she minded it so much. She had had fun, and decided she would leave Kaiser home the next time she went. It might be easier to have a shopping spree without him there turning up his nose at everything.

  She filled another bowl with water and placed it next to his head, already buried in the bowl full of food.

  Leaving him to gorge himself on the brown kibble, she went down into the den to watch some TV and get her homework done. After hefting her backpack over to the table from its place next to the door to the garage, she sank into her usual spot on the sofa.

  Laptop whirring and clicking at her fingertips, Married With Children playing on the TV and Piper causing her cell phone to vibrate across the table, she blew through her homework. Multitasking was kind of her thing. If she wasn’t watching TV and answering texts, she had a hard time focusing on her anything. Especially homework. The little breaks that the distractions provided kept her from getting bored and she was done with all of her homework, which wasn’t due until Monday at nine o’clock in the morning.

  As she shut down the computer and nudged the dog awake with her foot, she tried to remember the last time that she had finished
all of her homework before Sunday night. Her best guess placed it sometime before high school.

  She was also mostly positive that she had copied Piper’s work.

  She let Kaiser out and groaned when she realized that the moment had finally come. She grabbed the bag off the handle to the door and grudgingly cleaned up his mess with minimal dry heaving. She quickly tossed the dog doo in the garbage bin outside the back door and let him lead the way back into the house. He bolted for the stairs while she locked up and shut the lights off.

  By the time she got up to her room, he was laying in the spot he had claimed for himself on her bed.

  She realized at that moment how glad she was that he was there. She was starting to see how dogs could be called man’s best friend. Already, she was having a hard time seeing herself without him around.

  With him sprawled across her bed, she hung her outfit for church the next day over the back of her chair. After telling Kaiser about her last run in with her birthday present, she hadn’t been able to get it out of her head. She dropped down in front of her dresser and pulled out the bottom drawer.

  She reached in and removed the box from the back of the drawer where it had been left. Her shaking hand slowly lifted the lid and pulled out the lock of almost-downy blond hair. It was still as soft as it had been the first day that it had come into her possession. She placed it off to the side and felt her blood start to hum as she contemplated grabbing the necklace.

  The memory of the last time made her hesitate. What if that guy was still there? What if he tried to grab her again? She knew she could always simply wake herself up, but she had been so shaken last time. She really didn’t want to go through that again.

  She shut her inner voice out and grabbed the necklace. Being afraid of it was more mental than believing it could force her spirit out of her body.

  “It’s just a piece of metal.”

  She sighed as the coolness of the gold met with the warmth of her fingers. The now-familiar warmth that had nearly faded over the last several days returned almost the moment the disk settled on her chest. The tingle began where the heavy metal came in contact with her flesh. It spread quickly throughout her body and she was vibrating in a matter of seconds. She consciously fought to keep it together and not let it over run her. She seemed to be doing pretty well.