The F-Word

Traffic is fairly light and I’m in the city in no time. One of the reasons I bought the place in the West Village is that it has a garage big enough for my Harley as well as the ’Vette. No ’Vette this time. The truck tightens things up a little, but I manage.

The other reason I bought the place is that it has a garden. It’s pretty private—high brick walls, a couple of tall sycamores. I like spending time there and so does Walter, my mastiff, who greets me the way he always does, all little woofs of happiness and head-butts and, for a grand finale, he puts those huge paws on my chest and gives me a sloppy kiss.

I let him into the garden. Normally I’d walk him, but I’m in kind of a hurry so I let him do his thing beside one of the sycamores while I wait, plastic baggie in hand.

We go back inside and I give him fresh water and his dinner—dry kibbles that have pictures of chickens and fish on the bag. Only the best for my boy. Last winter, I asked Bailey to do some research and find out which was the most nutritious brand of dog chow and…

And, damn, what else does she know about me?

I have a lot of catching up to do if we’re gonna make this work.

“Woof!”

It’s Walter, standing next to me with his front paws on the counter. Taking him to obedience school was a success because at the beginning of our relationship, he thought the way to do this was to stretch out one of his paws and drag his bowl off the counter’s edge.

Now he simply observes.

“Woof,” he says again, reminding me that I didn’t do takeout last night. I went out to dinner, to one of my favorite places a few blocks away where the staff knows me, knows Walter, and always boxes up my leftovers and a few scraps of sirloin or chicken or whatever’s on the menu for me to…

“Shit!”

Walter cocks his head and gives me an inquiring look.

“Not you, boy,” I say as I get last night’s leftovers from the fridge and take a look. “Looks like prime rib,” I say.

Walter wags his entire body as I mix up the kibble and the beef and put the bowl down in front of him.

Last night’s dinner.

With last night’s date.

We’d gone out for the first time—I met her at a party a couple of weeks ago—and last night was fine. In fact, I’m supposed to be seeing her this Friday evening. And, if things went well, Saturday morning…

But I’ll be in Schenectady. Or Troy. Or wherever it is that Cousin Violet and Elevator Boy with the box of laundry detergent lurk.

I take out my phone. Check my contacts. Make the call.

“Hey,” I say brightly, “it’s Matt. Yeah. Yes. I’m glad. I had a great time too. Uh, listen. About Friday…”

She’s not happy. I can tell. But I don’t lie. I tell her the Boy-Scout-Three-Fingers-Raised-in-Salute truth.

I tell her something’s come up, a family thing, and I have to cancel our date.

I just don’t tell her that the family thing has nothing to do with my family.

* * *

I Google Bailey.

I don’t find her.

The good news is that it’s not safe for a woman’s address to be public.

The bad is that now I have no idea how to locate her. I know she lives in Manhattan. It’s where singles seem to gather. I don’t want to phone her and admit that I just flunked the first test about how much knowledge I have of her.

Wait.

I own O’Malley Design and Construction. I am its CEO. We have a website, sure, but we also have data stored in the Cloud. I log in, type in my password, hunt through files…