Dialogue

I’m so glad you got my text. It has been a slogfest at work this week.

No problem. Queenie has been waiting for this playdate since Monday. We are just glad you guys could make it to the dog park.

Had Rhoda not arrived, albeit twenty-five minutes late, the comedy of errors of this otherwise banal Wednesday would have been unbeknownst to Queenie, Mrs. Adler’s prized Lhasa Apso, an annoying but wise dog of advanced years who was simultaneously well-groomed but also wiry despite Mr. Adler’s incessant grooming.

Rhoda, it is unusually quiet for lunchtime on a Wednesday, especially with the weather so nice out. Is today some kind of holiday?

I wish. It is definitely a work day. I forget you don’t teach any classes on Wednesdays.

Yeah, and Mondays and Fridays as well. I am getting close to retirement, so they let me set my schedule. Can’t complain.

Queenie and the Golden Retriever, four times her size but at least half her age, tussle with the unicorn plushie Mrs. Adler threw their way into the grassy knoll. They are both female, so there was no funny business either of the women had to watch out for.

I am working on a new short story about my travels to Tibet. Would you like to hear about it?

Yeah, definitely. Is that the trip you took last year where I watched Queenie for a few weeks?

That’s the one. Tibet was just a stopover, but I wish we had stayed longer.

Thirty minutes had passed since the dogs started playing. Rhoda was not feigning interest, but the topic was so outside her realm of knowledge that she could not appreciate the subtext or the commentary on society that Mrs. Adler was trying to drive at.

Mrs. Adler was interactive, but nose down into her notebook.

Rhoda would occasionally look up and check on the two dogs, seeing the flash of charcoal that is Queenie dashing around, but the dogs were on their own in an empty dog park all their own. It is a safe neighborhood where nothing out of the ordinary happens.

Mrs. Adler drops her notebook when she hears Queenie shriek. There is a man in all black, who at first sight appears to be a tech bro, trying to unbuckle Queenie’s collar.

How dare you?!

Rhoda screams and her Golden Retriever comes running towards her rather than towards the crook trying to steal Queenie.

Mrs. Adler has a bad back and has used a cane for as long as Rhoda has known her. There is no way this crook has not been casing her for weeks before making this poorly orchestrated move to try to snatch Queenie.

He does not seem like he is from around this neighborhood.

I am calling 9-1-1, you brute!

I don’t want any trouble.

He did not realize the two women were friends.

Rhoda leaves her silly Golden Retriever in Mrs. Adler’s care, leashed, and runs toward the dognapper.

Neither woman could get a good look at the petty criminal in the making, perhaps one of America’s Dumbest Criminals or perhaps not. There are too many of those right now.