12 Bliss Street by Martha Conway

or what’s that come to, maybe four times. But the people I borrowed from, they’re pretty cool. It’s a small business, family-owned. Right now they just need the interest, you know how that works,” Scooter told her. “I have to show my good faith. So I thought, cool, I’ll get like six hundred dollars and that will tide them over a while. I thought of you right away. Only I knew that with you the bank was closed. I knew that. So I thought I’d just…”
    “‘Borrow’ a little something?”
    Scooter stopped swiveling and smiled at her. “Exactly! But I couldn’t actually, you know, do the kidnapping myself. For one, you’d know my voice. Plus I’m too nice.”
    “Hey, we’re nice,” Dave protested.
    “Technically,” said Nicola, “I don’t think that’s true.”
    “I thought we did a pretty good job.”
    Nicola stared at him. “Dave, you failed.”
    “We learned something, though,” he said.
    Scooter caught Nicola’s eye and smiled, and Nicola smiled back, thinking one of the things she always liked about him was how he had absolutely no sense of irony. He was misguided but upfront. He was not cynical, not usually. Once just before she left him Nicola found one of his lists:
    New house with new appliances (alarm systems etc.)
    Flat-screen TV
    More olives, mangoes, avocados, organic fruit (organic OJ)
    Exercise room (hardwood floor)
    Pool? Outdoor/indoor?
    Child’s name: Griffin
    It was a list of things he wanted. Why did she think he was idealistic? He was practical and literal, and in many ways she was the same, although it was his perceived difference that had originally attracted her.
    Nicola sent the Daves out for the pizza, then she went around the room opening the heating vents. The room grew noticeably warmer. Meanwhile Scooter swiveled around in the desk chair and played the backrest back and forth. No doubt cooking up some new plan, Nicola thought.
    Already, it seemed, he was over not getting her money. Well, he had always been good at bouncing past a setback. He was the idea man, the man with a plan. A fast talker, her mother had told her. She was right. The whole time they were married Scooter talked and talked, first about this and then about that, always changing the subject after a few days. He talked and talked and talked and talked. Once when Nicola was in her car stopped at a light she watched Scooter cross the street muttering to himself in the crosswalk and she thought, Look at him, he’s still talking.
    Nicola went to the window. If she stood in the right spot she could see the orange lights from downtown. All she wanted was to eat and then go home and sleep for three days.
    She said, “So how did you find those two anyway?”
    “Who, the Daves? I put a sign up at their school.”
    “Jesus, Scooter! You put up a sign in a high school?”
    “They were really looking for computer work,” he said. “Davette’s pretty good—she got behind Bank of America’s main firewall twice. I’m still trying to work that angle somewhere.”
    Nicola looked outside again. The minivan was just pulling up. “You are headed for serious trouble,” she told him.
    But he had given her an idea.
    Later, while they were eating the pizza, she asked him about his loan shark. Was he in Los Angeles?
    “Yeah,” Scooter said, looping a piece of cheese over his slice. “But I’m meeting his son or his nephew or someone here tomorrow. After that I’m going to check out a race at Golden Gate Fields. Did you know that genetically wolves and dogs are the same species? Every dog is a wolf.”
    “I had a dog once who was an epileptic,” Dave told him. He picked off an anchovy and ate it. “Turns out it was the plastic bowl. Plastic really absorbs the chlorine in water, which is highly toxic to dogs.”
    “I thought it was chocolate that was so bad for dogs,” Davette said.
    “We got a metal bowl and his fits just stopped.”
    Dave pulled up his legs to his chest and Davette stretched, then