Somebody I Used to Know by David Bell

hours a day. I worked from home a little, which always felt like playing hooky to me. I made plans with one of the guys from my basketball team to meet that evening and practice our shooting. When it was time to take Riley for an afternoon walk, I peeked through the closed blinds first. The coast looked clear, and indeed it was. No reporters ambushed me that time, so Riley could take a whiz in peace. On the way back, my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, so I decided to ignore it. Then the exchange registered in my brain. Someone from the Eastland campus was calling, so I answered.
    “Is this Nick Hansen?” a man’s voice asked.
    “It is.”
    “I’m calling from the office of the registrar at Eastland concerning the information you requested,” he said.
    “Information I requested? What information . . . ?” Then it dawned on me. “Oh, right. The information I requested.”
    “Are you available to meet with me this afternoon?” he asked.
    “Strangely, I am.”
    “Do you know where Hammond Park is, just off campus?”
    “Of course,” I said. “I know it well.”
    “I’ll see you there at three,” he said. “I’m wearing a blue Eastland polo shirt.”
    “Okay. Thanks.”
    But he was already off the line.
    *   *   *
    Hammond Park occupied two blocks on the west edge of campus. It wasn’t much of a park. It was some green space with trampled grass and a few benches where students sometimes congregated to protest the government or big business by handing out flyers and chanting while the rest of the world went on with their lives. Most of the time the park sat empty. People passed through. Occasionally an old man stopped and fed birds or a mother with a stroller rested her feet.
    I took Riley with me, and we arrived early. The day was warmer than expected, the high reaching the mid-fifties. Two students, a boy and a girl, sat on one side of the park, their thin legs in their tight jeans intertwined on a bench beneath a bare maple tree. The girl held a book of poetry by Pablo Neruda and appeared to be reading the boy passages and making overly dramatic gestures while she did so. The boy kept laughing. Then they’d stop and make out for a while, then go back to the book. Young love.
    Marissa and I had spent a little time there. One semester we both had classes on that side of campus, and we’d meet in Hammond Park beforehand. We probably didn’t look much different from the kids in the park that day. We were young, thin, naive, and horny. We’d hold hands on a bench and tell each other what we’d been doing with our day, which was usually nothing important. Then we’d part, each going our own way, but not before kissing and kissing some more and then kissing good-bye as though we’d never see each other again. But I never really worried about that possibility back then. I figured we had forever, years and years stretching before us until infinity. Who didn’t think that at such a young age?
    I looked down at Riley. His muzzle and feet were getting grayer by the day. He walked slower. He slept more. Time marched on.
    The man with the Eastland polo shirt showed up five minutes after three. He looked younger than me, maybe thirty-five, and he walked with his hands in the pockets of his khaki pants in a way that made him seem not to have a care in the world. He noticed me and acted like he recognized me, nodding his head and walking over, still as nonchalant as anything. I had no idea who he was.
    “How’re you doing, Mr. Hansen?” he asked.
    “Good. How are you?”
    He sat down next to me on the park bench. “Not bad.”
    Our surreal conversation made me feel like we were in a spy movie, and I wanted to look around for enemy agents. But my new friend seemed unconcerned with such things. He bent down and scratched Riley’s ears. Then he straightened up and crossed his leg, left ankle on right knee.
    “How do you know Gina?” I asked.
    “She and I . . . well, we’re