Above a display of Brussels sprouts, Vivi struggled to get her wedding ring back on. She’d taken it off because the diamond rolled and bit into her skin during downward dog. Now she risked the ring dropping and disappearing into the vegetables. Next to her, a produce worker rolled his cartful of boxes back and forth as though he’d like to bump her out of the way.
A mellow baritone voice said her name. As Vivi turned, warmth crept up her face. “You’ve escaped the yoga room.”
Dimples edged Winn’s smile. “Yogis have to eat.”
“That’s why I’d better shop.” She made a slight bow.
“Wait a sec.” Winn grazed her arm with the tip of his finger. They’d both come from yoga class where Winn adjusted poses. A palm on the back to straighten a spine. Fingers on ankles to coax heels toward the floor. These things had never caused a spark like this.
She glanced toward her husband Ben, waiting at the meat counter to pick up their turkey.
“Are you considering the retreat?” Winn said lightly. “Mexico. In December.”
“It’s tempting.” Way too tempting. “I’ve gotta go,” she said. “Luna—my cat—has been outside all morning.” She scuttled away.
Ben hefted the boxed turkey into their cart. “Who was that?”
“Yoga teacher.” She plopped a bag of asparagus atop the other items.
“He definitely checked you out.”
Vivi looked over her shoulder, but Winn had disappeared.
“He’s ten years younger than I am.” She didn’t know if that was true. He wound his hair in a man-bun, but gray shot through the dark strands. Vivi reviewed their shopping list. “I think that’s everything.”
They stepped from the store into a brisk California Central Coast day, the sun having chased the morning gloom out to sea. On their way home, Ben outlined his new strategy for roasting the turkey, an ever-evolving process that included setting the bird on fire. In the past, she’d looked forward to their just-the-two-of-them tradition, a welcome respite during a hectic school year. Now that she was retired, it loomed as a lonely event.
She thought about the retreat. Would it be too much? She’d barely finished dealing with the books, papers, and records of her thirty-year teaching career when her mother had died.
A white Lexus pulled out in front of them. Ben hit the brakes. Her body lurched, then slammed back against the seat. The Lexus driver putted along, head down, seemingly oblivious.
“Did you see that guy! He didn’t even look. No obstruction to his sightlines.” A retired traffic engineer, Ben noticed that kind of thing. “He had his head down checking his phone.”
He closed the distance between their SUV and the Lexus. “He’s probably old. They’re the worst at using phones while driving.”
“Let it go,” she said. “It would be ironic to have an accident while obsessing about someone else’s distracted driving.”
Ben blasted the horn.
“Oh, for crying out loud. What’s the purpose of that?”
“I want him to get off his phone.”
The driver raised his head, white hair visible. The Lexus picked up speed. It wasn’t fair that Ben was right when he was so wrong.
Breathe in, breathe out. Practice yoga. As Winn would say, “The real work begins when you leave the mat.” Then he’d smile with those damn dimples.
Ben turned onto their street, the last outpost of a residential neighborhood, three houses on one side and Oak Tree Elementary sprawling along the other side—long, low concrete-block buildings with brightly painted doors. Down the street, the school had arranged for a gate that blocked through traffic on Beverly Lane, dividing the street into two cul-de-sacs, one of the things he liked about their home’s location.
He halted in their driveway—the SUV rocking to a stop. While lifting the boxed turkey from the back, he covertly watched Vivi with the bag of groceries, buttoned-up lips conveying her annoyance just because he’d given the old guy in the Lexus the horn. It had made him wake up and drive right. It amazed Ben how passive people in Playa Maria were. They’d risk a rear-end collision before honking a driver parked at a green light.
Calling for Luna, he hurried up the walkway, Vivi behind him. At least with Vivi, he understood. She’d grown up in a town without stoplights, where passing drivers greeted each other with the lift of a finger from the steering wheel and only used the horn to blast cows off the road. In Philly, where he’d grown up, people used their finger in a different way.
A clump came from inside their house. Too heavy to be Luna. And, they’d left her outside. He dropped the turkey on the porch, unlocked the door, and flung it open.
A backpack flying behind a dark jacket flashed toward the rear door. Ben sprinted across the entryway and through the kitchen. Pea gravel in the back yard crunched under a fleeing figure.
“Call 9-1-1!” Heart hammering, Ben thumped down the back steps.
The punk jumped on top of their hot tub cover and leapt toward the fence, hands clasping the top ledge. He struggled to chin himself.
Ben circled the tub. “What the fuck were you doing in our house?” Legs spun like helicopter blades, one shoe slamming into Ben’s temple. Dazed by the impact, he pulled back, off balance. An athletic shoe kicked toward his face again. Ben bobbed down, a blurry sole swinging in front of his eyes.
The thief dropped, landing in a crouch, and sprinted toward the locked backyard gate, much lower than the fence.
Ben scrambled after him. Tendrils of jasmine vine tangled his foot. He stumbled as the burglar heaved himself toward the top of the gate.
Yanking free, Ben rushed through the house, passing Vivi, standing stunned in the kitchen instead of calling 9-1-1. She followed him. He bounded down the front steps, angling across the yard to cut off the thief’s escape route.
Vivi threaded between the planter boxes that filled the front yard. The man’s eyes shifted between them like a trapped animal’s. He rushed toward the sidewalk, so close the air flapped Ben’s flannel shirt. The thief reached the asphalt.
Crows fluttered up and cawed as the two men pounded down the empty street.
In the front yard, when the guy bolted toward Ben, the case for Ben’s drum tuner flew from the blue backpack. That galvanized Vivi. This stranger had been in her home.
“Call 9-1-1!” Ben shouted again.
Where was the cell phone? She ran for the front door.
The thief sprinted down Beverly Lane, and Ben, fit from regular workouts, launched after him.
Inside the house, the air felt wrong, as though it had been put in a blender. Vivi grabbed the kitchen phone.
The dispatcher asked her name. She added her usual, “Two V’s like vivid.” If she didn’t say that, people invariably thought she’d pronounced some name they knew, like Deedee.
“My husband and I found a burglar in our house.” Her voice sounded steady. All those years of teaching had taught her to remain calm, or at least to appear calm, when they had an earthquake, or a lockdown, or a kid fainted. Inside, her stomach flipped like a landed fish.
Carrying the phone, she raced back to the sidewalk. “My husband is chasing him down Beverly Lane toward Sixth Avenue.” Fear gripped her belly. What would Ben do if he caught up to the guy? Would he tackle him? Would they fight? And how would that end?
“Can you describe the suspect?”
Two houses down, a neighbor, cellphone in hand, stood in front of his rental and farther down, past the gate, where the neighborhood gave way to industry, Big Al paced in front of his forge, phone to his ear. A chain of reaction, like breadcrumbs, followed the pursuit, but Ben had disappeared.
“Light-skinned African-American,” she said. “Twenty to twenty-five. Medium build. Dark pants. A jacket? Dark blue backpack.”
“And your husband?”
“Five-eight. Sixty-three. Wearing shorts. Athletic shoes. Flannel shirt.”
“Is he fit?”
“Yes, very. But so is the kid he’s chasing.”
Ben chased the thief down Beverly Lane, their shoes smacking the pavement. With the school closed for the holiday, the neighborhood was deserted. Dumpsters lined up like reinforcements along the gate that bisected the street. The thief’s athletic shoes skidded on the asphalt. He whirled around, holding a gun, arms extended. “Back off. I’ll shoot you.”
Ben stopped and threw his arms in the air, his heart banging in his chest, a whooshing inside his head.
The shithead pivoted and swung around the end of the metal gate. He dashed down the continuation of the street toward a stretch of industrial buildings.
He can’t shoot while running. Ben pursued him. His heart pumped every day to the idea of justice. Now the idea had been doused with adrenaline and lit on fire. He shouted to the neighborhood: “Burglar! Thief!” He wasn’t going to let this punk get away with breaking into his house and threatening him with a gun.
The thief turned off Beverly Lane into a parking lot that cut through to Scenic Drive, a thoroughfare. Ben wasn’t closing the gap, but he wasn’t losing ground, either.
The apprentice from Big Al’s Iron Works pounded the blacktop behind him, the beat a four-on-the-floor like Ben’s kick drum. Bam bam bam bam.
At the end of the long parking lot, the burglar reeled around. The weapon pointed at Ben.
The apprentice shouted, “Whoa. Gun!” as though Ben couldn’t see. Shoes thumped a retreat.
It was just him and the thief. And a gun.
Chest heaving, the burglar trained the weapon on Ben’s heart. In back of the thief, traffic was light on the four-lane Scenic Drive. No one seemed to glance toward them. And if they did, they would only see the guy’s back. They wouldn’t see the weapon.
“I’m warning you, man. Stop chasing me,” the kid panted. “I’ll kill you.” Both hands clutched the grip like he meant business.
Is this it? Would this punk kill him? Ben’s vision tunneled. Was his life about to be sucked down that tiny black hole? Would he die here in a stupid parking lot with Vivi thinking he was a jerk? No farewell. No chance to mend fences with his son? Ben’s heart hammered and ached with loss. He curled protectively around his center.
In front of Dwayne, the man cowered, breathing hard. Sirens shrieked, coming in their direction. Dwayne’s heart pounded like a jackhammer. Options pinballed through his head as he kept the gun trained on the old man. What would be gained? If he shot this crazy mofo and got caught? His hands shook. He needed to ditch the weight and jam.
Jerking the pack from his shoulder, he dumped the contents onto the asphalt. The watch, camera, drum tuner, his screwdriver, and Slim Jim all hit the parking lot, bouncing and rolling. Maybe now the stupid fuck would stop chasing him. The man stayed frozen, bent over, his forearms up in front of his face.
Sirens wailed louder, and a tow truck turned toward them. Dwayne stuffed the gun in his pocket and raced across the empty lot of an auto parts store, closed early for Thanksgiving. Another watch that had caught on the pack’s fabric jounced loose and skittered on the pavement. Cruisers from the Sheriff’s Department would be coming straight down Scenic. He had to get off the thoroughfare.
Next to the parts store, a driveway ran back in front of an auto repair joint. It was still open. Dwayne strolled past the bays. An old Mexican grease monkey in a jumpsuit watched him.
At the back of the narrow lot, Dwayne glided to the fence, planted his hands on top of the wood, and jackknifed up and over. As soon as he dropped onto the other side, he ripped off his jacket. Sweat glazed his forehead. He needed to look different.
There wasn’t much chance of that, walking while black in Playa Maria.
He stuffed the semi-automatic into his pack.
His grammy claimed to pray for him every day; he hoped she was praying for him now.
This back lot was barren, offering only one hiding spot. He stuffed the jacket and pack into it. Cutting through rear parking lots of other businesses, he threaded his way back to Scenic Drive. A sheriff’s vehicle turned off onto a side street. Keeping an eye out for other cruisers, he loped across the thoroughfare toward an undeveloped ravine. Once out of sight of passing cars, he darted down a dirt fire road into the wild.