“Does it always do that?” Clay reached for the rabbit’s head, but before he could touch it, Theodore’s jaw snapped open and the head jerked in place. John startled, and Clay took a quick step back; they both watched, transfixed, as the sound went on, though the head did not move again. The sound it was making became a distorted murmur, louder and softer, at times almost mimicking words, though John could not even begin to make them out. After a few minutes, the head fell silent again.

“I’ve never seen it do that before,” John said. Clay was bent over the dresser, his nose almost touching Theodore’s, as if he could see inside.

“I need to go soon,” John said shortly. “I don’t want to be late, right? For this new open and honest relationship that I’m starting with her.” He made brief, accusing eye contact with Clay and went briskly to the door. “Don’t you need to lock it?” Clay asked as John brushed past him.

“It doesn’t matter.”

*  *  *

It was still light out when John got to St. George, and when he looked at the dashboard clock, John saw that he was over an hour early. He parked in the restaurant lot anyway and got out, glad for the opportunity to walk around and burn some nervous energy. He had avoided St. George, the town where Charlie and Jessica had been in college—Jessica probably still is in college, he thought with a pang of guilt. I should know basic stuff like this.

He walked past a few storefronts, heading semiconsciously for the movie theater he had been to with Charlie the last time he was here. Maybe we can go see a movie. After the dinner-and-interrogation. John stopped short on the sidewalk: The theater was gone. Instead, two gigantic clown faces grinned at him from the windows of a gleaming new restaurant. The faces were almost as large as the wide front door, painted on either side, and above them was a sign, in red and yellow neon letters: CIRCUS BABY’S PIZZA. The neon lights were on, glowing uselessly in the daylight. John stood motionless, feeling like his sneakers had fused to the parking lot. A group of kids rushed past him on their way in, and a teenager bumped into John, breaking him out of his daze.

“Just keep walking, John,” he muttered to himself, turning to move away, but he stopped again after only a few steps. “Just keep walking,” he repeated in a sterner tone, and turned to face the restaurant defiantly. He approached the front door and pushed it. It opened into an empty vestibule, a waiting area, where smaller versions of the clowns out front smiled crazily from the walls, and a second door read WELCOME! in painted cursive letters. There was a familiar smell in the air: some particular combination of rubber, sweat, and cooking pizza.