Fiction by Margaret Kelliher
Sadie opens the door. The dog stretches and his yawn evolves into a whine. Sadie and the dog head towards the dollar store where she works.
Blue and gray clouds bruise the eastern sky purply-pink. The dog walks with his ears up, tail down. Always awaiting the enemy.
Sadie had been that for him once, briefly. One winter night, the steady hum of the interstate beyond the scrub-tangled chain link fence lulled enough for Sadie to discern a melody of low growls and whimpers. She stood still and listened, her trash bag poised over the bin.
There it went again, several yards beyond the halo of her floodlight.
Sadie approached, her phone lighting the way. A medium-sized dog with mottled black, brown, and white fur paced and whimpered inside the fence. Semi-trucks rumbled down the highway just beyond.
Someone dumped you here. You think they’ll come back, Sadie thought. A twig snapped beneath her feet and the dog stiffened, his legs locking and eyes meeting Sadie’s with a growl.
No helping you, is there? Sadie backed away and went to her house. She emerged a moment later with a plastic spoon heaped generously with peanut butter. Sadie crouched low and extended the treat. The dog’s eyes darted from the fence to the spoon, then approached with his tail down.
The first night, he tore up her doormat.
You’re a real twit, she told him. She bought a bag of dog food the next morning anyway. She knew her fair share of twits from working as a cashier at the dollar store, had built up a tolerance for them. Folks who didn’t understand that tax wasn’t included in the price. Folks who couldn’t fathom that some items cost more than a dollar. Folks who didn’t bother paying at all. The manager blamed Sadie for that last bunch. As if she wasn’t already distracted explaining county taxes at the register. All of them, twits, including the manager.
All except one, a beautiful man with dark hair and pale skin who wore a black coat with its collar perpetually turned up. Otherworldly. Secretly, she called the dark-haired man her prince.
The day after she found the dog, she discovered that he knew how to pull open door levers. When Sadie left her shift that evening, the dog emerged from behind the outdoor freezer that housed jumbo bags of ice. After that, Sadie didn’t bother trying to lock the dog in the house.
I should name you, Sadie says to the dog as they walk to the store this morning. But no name comes to mind.
An older gentleman whose flannel smells like the cigarettes and the woods that stretch behind the gas station at the end of town walks up to her register. He plunks down a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, and a bottle of extra-strength painkillers.
Three dollars, the man in the flannel declares. He rotates his lower jaw like he’s nursing a toothache.
Sadie rings up the items and points to the green numbers on the display that read $3.51.
Three items, three dollars, the man barters. Over the man’s shoulder, Sadie can see that the dark-haired man in the black coat has entered the store.
It’s a premium whitening toothpaste, and then there’s tax, Sadie says.
The man pulls out three crumpled bills and a handful of change from his jeans pocket. Sadie smooths the bills and places them in the drawer, then bags the items and hands them to the man. The man leaves, grumbling something about government-sanctioned robbery.
Sadie cranes her neck, looking for her prince, but can’t find him.
Later that night, Sadie sits at her kitchen table, sketching the dark-haired man. She colors him in with pencils she bought with her meager employee discount at the dollar store. In the sketch, he looks over his shoulder, his eyes glinting over the upturned collar. Sadie examines her work. For someone who has only taken a handful of art classes in high school, it’s not bad. Her prince has never come to her register, so she doesn’t know what color eyes he has. She debates between the blue and green before getting up to change into her pajamas.
When she returns, the dog has snatched the blue, green, and black colored pencils and is chewing them to splinters.
You really want to end up back on the other side of that fence, don’t you? Sadie scolds the dog. He drops the pencil in his mouth and looks ashamed. At least the drawing is unharmed, she thinks, as she cleans up the mess of wood shards.
The next morning, the manager informs her that more products have gone unaccounted for. He threatens to let her go if she doesn’t catch the dollar store thief. In the very least, dock her pay. So, Sadie keeps her eyes open. Mostly she watches her prince, who turns and looks dreamily to the corners of the store, who delicately lifts items from the shelves, who angles away from her, those broad shoulders, those perfectly fitting jeans, long fingers pushing an empty shopping cart nearer to her, nearer to the door.
An empty shopping cart.
Sadie shouts. Her prince startles and bolts. The manager hears the commotion too.
The automatic doors whoosh open.
A lightning bolt of fur and claw springs from behind the ice freezer and topples Sadie’s prince to the ground. The dog’s teeth sink into the back pocket of the man’s jeans, who howls at the dog to get off. Deodorant, toothpaste, and a pack of razors all spill on the pavement from the man’s coat pockets.
Sadie calls for the dog to stop. The manager can handle it from here. The dog looks up at Sadie. Sadie looks down at the dog.
Thanks King, Sadie says.
King yawns and scratches his ear.
Margaret Kelliher lives on the south side of Chicago with her family and a cockapoo who thinks she is a big dog. She currently teaches composition and participates in the La Grange Writers Group, whom she would like to thank for helping her grow as a writer.
