Wondrous Strange

Kelley sighed. “I don’t see any reason to accept an apology of that kind from a total stranger, under these particular circumstances. I can accept ‘sorry about that’ from the guy who bumps into me on the subway car. That is entirely appropriate.” She shot him another brief glance. “However,” she continued, “‘sorry about that’ from some mysterious guy who gives me a gift, then disappears, then shows up at my place of work, then disappears, then shows up lurking in the alley beside my place of work, then disappears-”

“You ran away that time!”

“Don’t interrupt.”

“Sorr-Er, go on. Please.”

“And then shows up again, as if by magic, when I am running errands in the park-” Kelley stopped abruptly and held a finger up to his chest. “Well, I do not accept a bland, measly, unembellished, unexplained ‘sorry about scaring the hell out of you’ apology from that guy.” She turned away again and continued her swift progress down the path. “As a matter of fact, I’m not even going to accept the shiny, impressive, embellished, explained apology from that guy. Not without knowing who, exactly, that guy is. Your choice.”

After she had gone several more yards, he put a hand on her arm and pulled her to a stop. “Sonny.”

Kelley looked up.

He shook his head, smiling a little, and tapped his chest. “My name is Sonny.” He paused, his expression turning just a bit cautious. “Sonny Flannery.”

“Kelley,” she said slowly. “Kelley Winslow.”

“And you’re an actress.” The tone of his voice made it almost a question, as though she was really something else entirely and he just wasn’t sure what.

“Yes…,” she answered hesitantly. “You saw me at the theater, right?”

“Right.”

“About that,…Sonny.” It felt funny suddenly knowing his name. “Seeing as how you know way more about me than I know about you, how about returning the favor?”

His brow clouded. “There is nothing the least bit interesting about me.”

Kelley laughed. “I’m pretty sure that’s not true!”

Sonny remained silent.

“Okay. So…do you go to school? College? Work? What do you do?”

“I’m a…a guard.” He shrugged, feet scuffing through fallen leaves. “Of sorts.”

“Like, security?” Kelley asked.

Sonny hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “Like security…I suppose.”

“Fine. So you’re a night watchman.”

His mouth quirked. “Yes.”

“Nothing wrong with that.” Kelley turned to continue their stroll again, and Sonny fell into step beside her. She remembered Tyff’s theory that Sonny was some sort of junior PI or something, hired by her crazy aunt to keep an eye on her. It made a certain kind of sense-especially if he worked for a security firm. She tried to picture him wearing an ill-fitting rent-a-cop uniform with scratchy gray polyester pants and decided, just for the sake of her own imagination, that he worked plainclothes.

They took the path that led east around Bethesda Fountain and down through a leafy stone archway, skirting the north side of Conservatory Water. Usually there was a smattering of toy-boat hobbyists, sailing remote- controlled yachts on the shallow pond, but it was deserted so late in the day. Kelley hugged her elbows.

“It’s going to be chilly again tonight,” she said.

Sonny froze in his tracks as if she’d uttered some kind of curse or spell. He turned his face from her, shoulders stiffening. Kelley was startled by his sudden change.

“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath.

She looked around but couldn’t, for the life of her, figure out what was wrong. Everything seemed utterly still and silent in the park.

In the distance, a dog howled.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Sonny said, his voice harsh, as he looked off in the direction from which the sound had come. He seemed a thousand miles distant. Closed off. Hard.

The abruptness of Sonny’s mood shift caught Kelley off guard and swung her sharply back into defensive mode. Had she offended him somehow? How?

Still, she tried to keep her tone light. “You know, the last time I checked, this was a public park. I”-she pointed to herself-“am public.”

The dog howled again, closer this time. Kelley knew it was a dog because she was standing in the middle of one of the largest cities in North America. If she’d been back at home in the Catskills, she would have said it was a coyote.

Sonny turned to her, his gray eyes dark. He pointed very deliberately to the west. “The sun is going down.”

Kelley crossed her arms. “It does that, I’ve noticed.”

He suddenly seemed years older. He frightened her. “I’m glad. Now you should go before you get yourself into any more trouble. Like you did the other night.”

“What? That was not my fault!” Kelley was flabbergasted enough not to bother questioning how he knew about her near drowning. “How was that somehow my fault?”

“Whose fault was it then?”

She glared at him pointedly.

“What?” he yelped, jarred for an instant from his menacing attitude. “You can’t possibly think to blame me for…I’m not even sure what you’re blaming me for.”

Kelley was irate. “Okay. You see, if you hadn’t been all Mr. Chivalry in the first place-with the romantic gesture and the rose and the lilty voice and the eyes and everything-then I never would have hung around here long enough to have found Lucky and he wouldn’t be standing in my bathtub and I”-Kelley dug through her bag and pulled out the slightly rumpled pink sheets she was supposed to be posting-“wouldn’t have had to come back here with these stupid fliers. Which means we wouldn’t have run into each other again, and I’m starting to think that would be a really good thing!”

“‘Lucky’?” Sonny looked lost.

“He’s a horse.” Kelley shook the handful of fliers at him angrily.

“Of course.”

“Don’t start that.”

“I’m not starting anything. Wait…” Sonny’s eyes went wide. “Do you mean to say you have a horse in your bathtub?”

“Don’t look at me like that. Animal Control didn’t believe me either.”

“Is there water in the tub?”

“Yes!” Kelley blurted, surprised. “How did you know? Every time I try to pull the plug and drain the bath, he nips at me and manages to turn on the taps with his nose. I think he’s a circus horse or something. But I worry he’ll get hoof rot!”

“He’ll be fine. I mean, as far as his hooves are concerned, anyway… You don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into!”

Kelley snorted and shook her head, refusing to indulge any more of this kind of crap. She turned sharply on her heel, heading north up the path.

Sonny shot out a hand and grabbed her, stopping them both in the shadow of the park’s famous Alice in Wonderland statue. “You can’t go that way.”

“I can go any way I damned well please!” Kelley erupted, shaking loose. What was with this guy?

Sonny huffed. “Why? Why?”

“Why what?”

“Do you see anyone else here?” He flung out an arm.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Kelley was mystified and angry, although she had to admit that