Flings by Justin Taylor

out to her and she bolts? The dog was found without a collar, and she’s put on a healthy amount of weight since Scott brought her home, so the odds are that she was abandoned or neglected. Nonetheless, he can’t shake the feeling that he has kidnapped Yreka rather than adopted her, and that somewhere in San Francisco is a person or a couple or a family who miss their dog. They probably live in his neighborhood. Almost every day, he walks by the utility pole where he saw the flyer, and he imagines her owners as a couple, approximately his own age, married a year and a half but childless—like his sister and her husband, they’re taking things slow. Before losing her, perhaps they joked that the dog was their trial-run baby. They probably don’t make that joke anymore.
    Scott names the couple Nate and Jennifer. She’s Korean American, born here to immigrant parents, grew up in Foster City. Nate’s from Ohio, near Schmall, the town that shares its name with the private college where Scott and Ellen met. Surely Nate didn’t attend Schmall, but he probably went to the parties. Maybe he and Scott waited in line for a keg together, made eyes at the same wobbling girl. Maybe Nate even hooked up with Ellen. All the college girls went through a townie phase. Sometimes, when Nate is making his regular love to Jennifer, with her smooth skin and soft belly and perfectly black hair, his mind wanders back to the old days, when a random Thursday night might have delivered him a freckled brunette in a scoop-necked shirt to make love to—where? In somebody’s upstairs bathroom or on a back deck, his own childhood bed or Ellen’s dorm bed, the woods behind a tumbledown barn.
    Scott writes a check for three thousand dollars, leaves the “to” line blank, and folds it into his wallet. If he is ever stopped on the street by the dog’s original owners, he will look them in the eye, tell them the plain truth, and offer the check. He will put his palms up and let the leash go free. It will be their choice: the dog or the money. And no matter what happens next, he will at least know Yreka’s true name.
    Scott and Yreka stop by the coffee shop on their way to Dolores Park, where people lay out blankets on the sunward slope of the great green hill. Olivia gives him a free coffee and a quick kiss on the mouth, then kneels down to ruff up Yreka’s fur and kiss her on her cold black nose. She says that she’ll be off in an hour and will meet up with them. She disappears into the employee restroom to wash her hands before she makes another drink.
    At the vet’s office, Scott writes on the form that Yreka is a recent adoptee, that he found her wandering with no collar on Jack Kerouac Alley next to City Lights and brought her home. The vet is happy to report that Yreka is worm free. Also, she’s pregnant. He gives Scott a brochure about what to expect. When Scott gets home, he gives Yreka two extra Beggin’ Strips, fishes the unaddressed check from his wallet, and tears it in half. He halves the halves, then repeats this procedure until tiny pale-blue squares burst from his fingers like confetti.
    When Scott first got to town, and even after he decided to stay, he held off on getting in touch with any of his contacts in the music scene. But now that he’s ready to play shows again it only takes a couple of emails to line up a gig. He’s got his headphones plugged into his laptop and his iTunes on shuffle while Yreka snoozes on the couch beside him. He strokes her blond zeppelin belly with one hand while cruising Facebook with the other. He one-hand-types Ellen’s full name into the search bar, and when her profile pops up he is astonished to see that she never unfriended him.
    Probably she forgot, is all, or else the thought never crossed her mind. Ellen was always an intermittent Facebooker. She isn’t one of those people who feel the need to broadcast all the