“Well, I spoke with the court today and they said my court date is in two weeks, then I should be able to straighten all of this up and get my car back.”

“Oh, so you won’t have it for this weekend?”

“Nope, it’s going to be another two weeks. Hey, Elena, thank you so much for helping me with Adam. You really don’t know how much of a blessing you’ve been to me.”

Elena humphed. “It’s the least I can do to help.”

“It’s really a prayer answered.”

“Well, just try to get your car back as soon as possible, that’ll be thanks enough for me.”

“Will do, Miss Elena.”

RANDY SMILED about the groceries, and tried not to let on that he’d been thinking about breaking up with her all day.

JILLIAN MADE a shopping list of all the things she needed and then made herself a budget. She needed more toys and, eventually, a dog walker for Crispy and also a crate so she wouldn’t have to keep shutting her in the bathroom, and also a proper bed for her. The total for this was about 400 dollars, which was twice as much as she owed for the fine. Would she have to pay to go to court? Not if she didn’t need a lawyer. So no lawyer. And getting the car out she’d heard would be about 100 dollars. But, Crispy was a priority. She re-arranged her list in order of priorities, toys and the crate came first, then the car business, and then a dog walker.

Maybe she’d be able to get her car back in a month? Ugh. Maybe she could get an extension.

FIVE

The weekend came and Randy thought “we should stay in” but wasn’t entirely comfortable alone with Megan since his understanding that things were not well between them, so he invited their friend David over. This will make her comfortable, he thought. Just two people, where she lives, a low pressure drinking thing.

David came over and Megan drank two beers quickly.

“How’ve you guys been?” David asked.

“Eh, fine, I guess,” said Megan.

“Pretty good,” said Randy. He explained his project for Kelly’s store and said he was getting paid for it, and he and David talked about formats for a while, while Megan smoked cigarettes. She tried to interject, but her comments were flaccid. When she spoke, David glanced at her and raised his eyebrows and nodded and then turned back to Randy.

“Where are you working now?” asked Randy.

“Oh, I’m working for Albert.”

“Cool, man, I know Albert.”

“Yeah, I took a class with him and we really hit it off. It was one of those weird experiences when you have a class and you and the prof both kind of look at each other one day and realize ‘We’re probably going to be friends.’”

“Haha,” said Randy. Randy picked up his beer.

“Yeah, that happened to me all the time,” said Megan.

“Really?” said David.