Page 13 (1/2)

I stepped down the sidewalk, Chanel skittering ahead, her enthusias now that she was out in the fresh air "Easy," I said, holding her leash tightly On the street, a black hearse passed, the ru her attention for a brief ns, so

20 Stepping in Shit

One block over and back froed at Chanel’s leash She was distracted by a discarded Starbucks cup, growling fiercely at it when I glanced down the street and caainst a streetlight Not an odd sight in this city, but it was the woman in his ar to her and his voice floated innocently through the air, like he had no worries, certainly not little ol’ h to see Nicole’s breath frost in the air as she leaned in and sh that, when his hand reached down and palmed her ass, I could see the crease in her leather pants Close enough that I noticed her grip on the top of his jeans, the top of her fingers slipping in between ed a little in my mouth, that they heard me

I’d known Nicole wasn’t perfect The sweet bubble of kindness that I h maintenance ways The insecurity that she tried desperately to hide The wo but wanted more I knew that, but still … she was MARRIED Not that I knew anything about being a wife, but amy seemed to be the nu down on hers, her hand digging into his hair It wasn’t a first kiss; it was natural, like they’d done it a hundred times before I wanted to pluck off one of Chanel’s booties and throw it at her, followed by that dirty Starbucks cup She was married to Clarke, the beautiful ot up an extra hour early to cook her breakfast The ht her flowers, opened her car door, and looked gorgeous doing it all She had all that--yet was in this stranger’s aran (yuck) and had a beard, one of those flinified a late attempt to jump on the trend He looked s spread in black jeans, the hint of a light gray T-shirt peeking out frolanced in ly It wasn’t beautiful It was norazes ment must have shown on otten how to function In the world of fight or flight, I froze in place and got eaten

Chanel stopped her interrogation of the e slack, her leopard print body trotting forward I pulled on the leash, tried to turn but she saw Nicole and lunged forward, yipping loudly

Oh shit I pulled harder,to Nicole and watched, in almost slow motion, as her head snappedback fro her strain toward the pair, her yaps loud and harsh in the quiet cold Shushing her, I turned away and blocked her vieithby the time I climbed the steps to their house, out of breath, Chanel’s body wiggling to be free, our fall through the front doors done with a fair amount of drama, despite my best attempt to be quiet Nancy, one of thewhen she saas justsnow in Get those stupid shoes off the dog before she ruins the floors" She snapped out the words, oblivious to ht the doggie shoes were stupid I wanted to tell her that I just saw Nicole kissing a stranger and--Chanel darted out ofdots of water I scra to Nancy She shouted at me to remove my shoes and I chucked the a large crystal dancer that sat on the entrance table, everyone but Chanel freezing as atched it fall to the floor

At any other time, it would have been a beautiful sound, a thousand tiny splinters of glass on asp

"Fuck," I whispered Between catching Nicole in the act and destroying this, I wasat unemployment in that pile of crystal

What could I have done? What could I have said? I still didn’t knohat the right action was to take on that Manhattan side street

Should I have confronted her? Pointed a judger at Nicole and asked what in the hell she was doing?

Should I have looked away, pretended I didn’t see anything?

Waved cheerily as if cheating was an everyday activity?