Page 48 of How To Plot a Payback

Is he . . . only stepping on the white paint of the crosswalk?

I look down at Bernie, currently chewing through his leash like a rabid chipmunk.

Hmm.

“So who trained your dog?” I say the moment Finn is within earshot.

Finn’s brow twitches slightly as he moves past me without slowing down, and if I didn’t know better, I would take it to mean, So . . . we’re still talking, are we? But of course he’s new, and stressed, and, like I said, a little bit quirky.

“I did.”

“You?” I can’t hide my surprise, partly because the dog trotting by Finn’s side looks like he’s been in dog shows. And won.

Meanwhile I give Bernie a tug to come along, and when he refuses, I pick him up. Again.

“You don’t dabble in dog training by chance?” I say, only half joking.

He stares ahead so long I feel he must not hear me. Who knows? Maybe he doesn’t. I mean, his face is still a little bit puffy from what I understand was an allergy attack yesterday—all the way back to his ears. They’re all red and blotchy. Actually, he looks a bit like a fairy from my secondary school’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

And then I hear myself. An intake of breath so loud and apparently dramatic the trolley across the way stops. I vaguely hear someone ask if I’m okay.

I halt.

Right there in the middle of the road.

As two worlds collide.

“You’re Puck!” I exclaim. I suck in another breath, then point at him as my brain tries to compute the slideshow of the past coming to life. “You’re the fairy Puck from our school play!” The words sound different in my mouth as I repeat his name. “You’re Finn. Masters.”

But he doesn’t stop in the middle of the road as I have.

In fact, he just keeps staring straight ahead, walking his dog as though he hasn’t heard a word.

Blimey.

I jump toward him. A smile overtakes my face as I fall into step beside him.

“Well, look at the two of us,” I say, pride practically exploding from my chest.

At this, he turns. Looks me over. His expression is one of incredulity. “Look at us, how?”

As though it isn’t obvious.

I try to slap him on the chest good-naturedly, but at the same moment Bernie tilts his freakishly large (some would say adorably cartoonlike) face towards me and goes right for my dangling earring. Which, consequently, makes my slap more like a swat at his messenger bag. I feel a concerningly serious tug at my earlobe and drop to the ground, dog still in arms. With my neck crooked toward Bernie and, more importantly, his drooling jaw gripping the gold hoop in his teeth, I carry on talking while I try to pry open Bernie’s mouth. “It’s incredible, isn’t it?! Both of us from Welling School. Both of us coming here and establishing ourselves in this line of work after all these years. Mrs. Harris would be so proud, don’t you think?”

Chapter 9

Finn

Tuesday, Table Read, Writers Room

Don’t.

I.

Think.

This woman, this woman, who is helplessly on the ground, her Muppet of a dog overtaking her as it tries with all its might to rear back and take her ridiculously large hoop earring with him. Small wonder. It’s the size of a glinting Frisbee.