Mrs. Wilson came rushing in, holding a dishtowel in one hand. "That sounded like a gunshot!"
"Probably just a backfire," he said, smiling. He had been smiling a lot since his adventure at Durkin Grove Village. He thought it wasn't the same sort of smile as the one he had worn during the Betsy Era, but any smile was better than none. Surely that was true?
Mrs. Wilson was looking at him doubtfully. "Well...I guess." She turned to go.
"Mrs. Wilson?"
She turned back.
"Would you quit me if I got another dog? A puppy?"
"Me, quit over a puppy? It'd take more than a pup to drive me out."
"They tend to chew, you know. And they don't always-" He broke off for a moment, seeing the dark and nasty landscape of the holding tank. The underworld.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Wilson was looking at him curiously.
"They don't always use the bathroom," he finished.
"Once you teach them, they usually go where they're supposed to," she said. "Especially in a warm climate like this one. And you need some companionship, Mr. Johnson. I've been...to tell the truth, I've been a little worried about you."
He nodded. "Yes, I've kind of been in the shit." He laughed, saw her looking at him strangely, and made himself stop. "Excuse me."
She flapped her dishtowel at him to show he was excused.
"Not a purebred, this time. I was thinking maybe the Venice Animal Shelter. Someone's little castoff. What they call a rescue dog."
"That would be very nice," she said. "I look forward to the patter of little feet."
"Good."
"Do you really think that was a backfire?"
Curtis sat back in his chair and pretended to consider. "Probably...but you know, Mr. Grunwald next door has been pretty sick." He lowered his voice to a sympathetic whisper. "Cancer."
"Oh, dear," Mrs. Wilson said.
Curtis nodded.
"You don't think he'd...?"
The marching numbers on his computer screen melted into the screen saver: aerial photos and beach scenes, all featuring Turtle Island. Curtis stood up, walked to Mrs. Wilson, and took the dishtowel from her hand. "No, not really, but we could go next door and check. After all, what are neighbors for?"
Sunset Notes
According to one school of thought, notes such as these are unnecessary at best, and suspect at worst. The argument against is that stories which need explanation are probably not very good stories. I have some sympathy with the idea, which is one reason to put this little addendum at the back of the book (putting it here also avoids those tiresome cries of "spoiler," which are most commonly uttered by spoiled people). The reason to include them is simply that many readers like them. They want to know what caused a story to be written, or what the author was thinking when he wrote it. This author doesn't necessarily know either of those things, but he can offer some random thoughts that may or may not be of interest.