It Started with a Dog, page 2
Amal and Grandma kept up their argument about climate change as they crawled toward the bus depot. Harper glanced at her watch again. Was this worth it? The long hours? The completion of project after project with the hope that something would happen? Was Soren really going to promote her like he’d hinted, or was she a chump for believing him? She could almost hear the voice of her best friend, Olivia, in her head. “You’re such a chump, Harper.”
They were only three blocks from the bus depot now. Dammit, she was going to have to hoof it to make the bus and her boots were already squishy and her suitcase was heavy. The light turned green, and Amal turned onto the depot street. And stopped. Just up ahead were the red brake lights of many more cars. “This isn’t good,” he opined.
“Dude—turn around and come in from the east,” Guitar Guy said.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” Amal said uncertainly. “The app says this way.”
“I’m telling you, there is another way,” Guitar Guy said, and pulled out his phone.
Harper silently agreed—there had to be another way. She reached into her tote and pulled out her phone, too. The guy in the middle dug his elbow into her side as he fished his phone out of his pocket. “Sorry,” he muttered.
The three of them pulled up Google Maps and began searching for an alternative route.
“I’m turning around before the cops block off the whole street!” Amal suddenly shouted, and like a general taking charge, he gunned it, veering into the next lane. The two men smashed into Harper with the force of the car swinging left. And then Amal slammed on the brakes and they all lurched forward and phones went flying into the inky black of that van’s interior.
“If you kill us, that’s going to seriously fuck your five-star rating, man,” Guitar Guy snapped. He shoved his guitar into the face of the guy in the middle so he could lean over and search for his phone.
The guy in the middle and Harper both reached down, groping around for phones on the floorboard, their elbows knocking into each other, their hands colliding more than once. Amal gassed the car again, tossing them backward, then sped up and tore around a corner. Beanie barked frantically for all of them.
“That’s how you do it,” Amal announced triumphantly over the dog.
“That is not how you do it,” Grandma shouted. “We’re all lucky to be alive right now!”
Harper’s fingers touched something hard and square. She held it up—it was white. Her phone. The man next to her had found one, too, and was handing another one to Guitar Guy.
“Hey, Megabus, can you walk from here?” Amal asked, looking at Harper in his rearview. She quickly weighed her options: a block of unrelenting rain, or a block in Amal’s van. “Yes.”
He braked hard again, and the door panel slid open.
“Need help?” the man sitting next to her asked.
“Don’t offer!” Guitar Guy said frantically. “We don’t have time for chivalry.”
“I’ve got it,” Harper said into the dark. She emerged from the van like popcorn from a hot pan, grabbed her tote, and left her useless umbrella. She ran to the back and yanked her bag free of its wedge, hit the close button, and sprinted down the street, her tote bag and suitcase banging hard against her leg, rain slipping in her collar.
She reached the depot just as the Megabus was preparing to pull out. She threw herself into the opening before the driver could close the door. “I’m here!” she shouted triumphantly and handed over a soggy paper ticket. He scanned the bar code. “Your seat is on top.”
Which had seemed like a great idea when she’d booked it. She’d imagined a leisurely drive high above the highway. Harper hauled herself up the stairs, dragging her bags, her ankle booties squishing with each step, her coat dripping. People grimaced and shot her dark looks as she tried to fit down the narrow aisle. “Sorry,” she muttered more than once. “So sorry.”
Her seat was near the back, because she had also thought that would be more relaxing. And she’d booked a window seat and now had the problem of a large woman as a seat mate who did not appear to want to stand to let her pass.
“Excuse me.” Harper wiped a rivulet of rain from the side of her face. “That’s my seat.”
The woman looked at the seat, then at Harper. She tried to scooch her knees to one side. “Just climb over.”
Was she kidding? Harper hadn’t been on a jungle gym in close to thirty years. “I don’t think I can.” She winced apologetically and, with her head, indicated her bags.
This irritated the woman. She sighed loudly, grabbed onto the seat in front of her, and hauled herself up. She stepped into the aisle, knocking into Harper when she did.
Harper moved quickly. She shoved both bags onto the floorboard and fell into her seat. She managed to partially wedge one bag underneath her, feet propped on top of it. But the tote wouldn’t fit, so she had to haul it up and hold it in her lap. The lady cast a look of disapproval over her, then climbed back into her seat, buckled herself in, and took the middle armrest.
Dammit. Now Harper had to pee. But she leaned back, resting against the headrest, and closed her eyes.
She should have waited until tomorrow. It wasn’t as if her parents were eagerly anticipating her arrival. In fact, when Harper had texted her dad to tell him she’d been held up and couldn’t come until tonight, he’d responded with one word. Great! When she texted them earlier and gave a time to expect her, her mother replied, We’ve gone out to dinner. You know where the key is.
Or maybe she should have left when she’d planned. Olivia thought Soren was amazingly good at always finding a last-minute emergency only Harper could handle.
“Why do you let him do you like that?” Olivia had asked her, annoyed that Harper was arriving a full day later than she’d promised. Olivia didn’t understand how busy Harper’s life had become since moving to Austin four years ago. She’d known when she accepted the position that it would be crazy and sacrifices would need to be made. Not that she minded—she had a goal and she was willing to work for it, which she’d tried to explain to Olivia.
“A goal shouldn’t consume your life,” Olivia had said, pouting.
Maybe. But it was her life to consume, and setting goals and achieving them made her happy. It blocked out all the other noise in life—every day was focused. Harper had ambition. She’d worked her way up at StreetSweets, Inc., and she planned on going the distance—chief executive officer. All she had to do was convince Soren he could leave the running of the company to her. She was miles from that, but she was gaining ground.
StreetSweets franchised food trucks specializing in coffee and pastries, like a Starbucks on wheels. But in the past couple of years, Soren had ventured into the fixed restaurant side of the ledger and had built three upscale coffeehouses in Austin.
Harper had started with the company six years ago. After graduating from Rice University with a degree in social sciences and business administration, she’d held a series of assistant management jobs, then had lucked into the position of district manager overseeing the StreetSweets food trucks in Houston. Her job had been to place the trailers for commerce, move them as necessary, and most important, turn a profit. She’d done more than turn a profit—the demand for StreetSweets food trucks was so good that Soren eventually added two more to the Houston fleet.
And then he’d offered her a job as vice president of development in Austin, a totally manufactured title to entice her to move. It had worked.
They’d opened two Deja Brew Coffeehouses in Austin, but the flagship Deja Brew was slated to open after the holidays. It was on South Congress, near a stretch of the avenue that saw heavy tourist traffic. With the successful opening and launch of this store, the plan was to expand nationwide. Harper wanted in on that expansion. She wanted to run this company. Her first step was to make herself indispensable. She was always the first one to volunteer, always the one who went above and beyond what was expected. Which was why she’d volunteered to plan the grand opening of their flagship store. Soren had wanted to hire an event planner, but Harper convinced him they didn’t need to spend that money.
“But why?” Olivia had asked once. “Why is it such a big deal to be in upper management?”
“I don’t know,” Harper said. “More money. More responsibility. More opportunities to create new things.”
“Less free time. Less opportunity to date. Less time with your friends,” Olivia had countered. “Don’t you want a life? Don’t you want to get married or have kids or travel?”
Olivia was still mad that Harper had bailed on the girls’ trip to Cabo San Lucas last fall. Olivia was a journalist for the Houston Chronicle, so it wasn’t like she didn’t work long hours, too. But what she did not have was the drive to climb like Harper did. Olivia’s philosophy was to work to live, not the other way around.
Harper would concede that her goals were always ambitious and sometimes she worked so hard to meet them that she did miss out on life. She wanted a dog but had no time for one, so she’d settled for walking rescue dogs on the weekends at the Austin Canine Coalition. That’s where she’d met Bob, the crankiest bulldog in America. She wouldn’t mind a boyfriend, but with her hours, finding someone to date was not going well. And she was tired all the time. Like now. And with the gentle rocking of the bus as it pulled out of Austin, she dozed off.
She was awakened when the woman next to her pushed Harper’s tote bag off the armrest. “Sorry,” Harper said groggily, and righted herself and the bag. She dragged her fingers through hair that was still damp from the rain, then shifted her gaze out the window. She’d more than dozed off—they were close to an hour out of town, and the rain had turned to mist.
Harper yawned, then dug into her tote for a snack. She pulled out a small bag of nuts and her phone. She righted the thing, and when she did, the phone came to life. But her phone’s lock screen confused her—she didn’t know the photo that appeared. She couldn’t remember even taking it. Staring up at her was a big white dog with a coal black nose. It looked like a golden retriever or a husky or some cross between dog and polar bear. It was dressed in a red bandanna with green Christmas trees and wore a headband with reindeer antlers. It looked like it was smiling, its long pink tongue hanging out of one side of its mouth.
Where had this dog come from? She racked her memory. It was entirely possible she had taken the photo. For one, the dog was adorable, and she often took snaps of adorable dogs. For two, she was often at the ACC, where many adorable dogs passed through. But it also felt impossible that she would not remember meeting this beautiful hunk of dog. And anyway, even if she had taken it, how had it become her wallpaper?
A black banner across the dog’s chest proclaimed she had new texts.
She switched on the little light overhead and turned the phone over, examining it, and as she did, a slight bit of nausea waved through her. There was a crack on the back that hadn’t been there before. Maybe she’d cracked it when Amal had slammed on the brakes and their phones had gone flying. Or maybe—and this was far more likely—she’d picked up the wrong phone. Holy shit. She had the wrong damn phone.
The phone suddenly vibrated, startling her, and she dropped it into her tote. She quickly dug it out again to see a new text message notification. She slid her finger across the screen, and miraculously, it was not locked.
You have my phone, the text message read.
She gasped loudly and craned her neck to see around her. Was this person nearby? Had she fallen asleep and this person had switched phones? How did anyone know she had the wrong phone?
She looked at the texts before the last one and read several more that said pretty much the same thing: You have my phone. We got our phones mixed up. HELLO? She scrolled through them, counting fourteen texts in all announcing that she was in possession of the wrong phone. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?” she muttered.
The woman next to her shot Harper a disapproving look.
Come on, I need my phone. You can text me—I’m an idiot, I don’t have any security set up. Are you the (he inserted an emoji of a dancing girl) or the (he inserted an emoji of a guitar).
This could not be happening. Harper suddenly thought of all the texts Soren would send her this week. Of the terribly inappropriate texts Olivia would send her. “Nonononono.”
She texted back the emoji of the woman.
The text bubble instantly popped up. I have to be honest, I was hoping it was you and not the guitar guy. BTW, lucky you, getting out of that damn van when you did—you missed the debate about the upcoming election. If I could have figured out how to open that door, I would have thrown myself out.
She smiled, surprised by the friendly nature of his text. So you’re . . . She inserted the emoji of a man in a bowler hat because it was the first man emoji she ran across.
?? I’m not a detective. I’m more like (he inserted a picture of a man shrugging).
Harper’s smile widened.
Where are you, he texted. Is it possible to get my phone back?
Was he kidding? I’m on a bus, remember? Where are you?
Waiting for a plane to take off . . .
“For heaven’s sake,” she muttered. What now? She typed, I guess we’re stuck.
Unless you know how to teleport?
She sighed and texted, Alas I do not. She ended it with the crying emoji.
Is that a literal or ironic emoji? I don’t want to say the wrong thing.
She grinned. A little of both.
Totally get that. By the way, thanks for also not having a secure phone. I would have lost my mind.
I guess I’m an idiot, too. But the security thing takes too much time. I want to pick up my phone and go to what I want without swiping or showing my face. It skeeved her out a little that technology could read her face.
Right?
Wait a second. She needed a phone this week. Maybe they could meet up and exchange phones. Where are you headed?
Chicago.
Ugh, Chicago, clear across the country. I’m going to Houston. When will you be back in Austin?
New Year’s Day.
So no meet-up. Wow. I guess we are really stuck.
Looks like.
She considered this a minute. Is it all right if I use your phone to make calls?
Knock yourself out. Mind if I use yours?
Not at all.
Then, she remembered Soren. Her boss was not for everyone. He was . . . different. You might get some weird texts. I have kind of an insane boss.
How insane? Like, on a scale. 1 being just regular insane and 10 being pictures no one should ever have on their phone insane.
A 5-ish. Probably has dicey pics but not so insane as to send them. I don’t think. Am I going to get any weird pics from anyone?
Not unless you ask me. Ha.
She had to appreciate a man with a sense of humor, particularly in the midst of this colossal mix-up. Whereas she was starting to freak out a little. How was she going to manage without her phone? Her entire life was on that thing.
BTW, my family is chatty. They blow up my phone sometimes.
Ah, the ubiquitous family group texts. Olivia got them, too. Thanks for the heads-up. I think I can deal with chatty.
You say that now. He followed that with a row of laughing emojis. I’ll give you a call at the end of the week and we can figure out when to exchange phones. Merry Christmas. Or Happy Holidays. Happy Hannukah. Feliz Navidad.
Merry Christmas, she wrote.
He replied with a thumbs-up.
Harper had almost dropped the phone into her bag when she thought of something and quickly texted once more. Hey, what’s your name?
Jonah. Yours?
Harper.
Hi Harper. Gotta jet (literally). The flight attendant looks like someone’s Russian grandmother and she means business. Happy Holidays.
Harper clicked the phone off, took one last look at the dog, then slipped the phone into her tote bag with a smile.
At least she wouldn’t be getting texts from Soren Wilder, the “original Bohemian” as he liked to introduce himself (whatever that meant).
Two
Jonah Rogers arrived at Chicago’s Midway Airport, and the moment he had cell service, he texted Amy, the manager at the Lucky Star Coffee Shop. He told her he was going to video-call her from a strange number.
He got an immediate reply. New phone, who dis?
“Very funny,” he muttered, and put in the video call.
Amy’s face suddenly appeared on his screen. She’d piled her red hair on top of her head and had tied a colorful scarf around it. She’d changed her nose ring to gold, he noticed, probably in honor of the holiday season, and of course she was wearing glasses that looked like two candy canes had been welded together. “Whose number is this?”
“A stranger’s. That’s why I’m calling. I need you to do me a favor,” Jonah said as he strode in the direction of baggage claim.
“Sure, Joe. I’m already doing you a huge favor and working your shifts over the holidays. What’s one more?”
“Aww, so sorry that you have to make an occasional cup of coffee for double pay this week. Anyway, this is a tiny favor. Just text my parents and my aunt and uncle and tell them I lost my phone and someone else has it, so don’t text me.”
“But who has it?”
“A woman. There was a mix-up in the ride share to the airport.”
Amy frowned with suspicion. “I don’t get it. How do you mix up a phone on a ride share?”
“You just can and I did.” He jogged down the escalator, squeezing past travelers who stood in the middle of the stairs with their bags.
“But how are you going to get it back? What about your contacts? And your photos?” She suddenly gasped. “What about your banking app?”
