Once Waffles realized that a walk was happening, he stopped running in circles and practically dragged me down the driveway. He seemed to go crazy for the first few minutes, running to smell as many trees and rocks as possible and then appearing to regret this and circling back to get the ones he’d missed. I hadn’t brought a flashlight, but it was light enough out that I could see—the moon peeking through the clouds gave me enough light to maneuver down the street. As I watched Waffles joyfully sniffing, I really started to feel bad that he’d been cooped up all day with us.
I walked him to the end of the road, and while Waffles seemed more than happy to keep going, it appeared that he’d pretty much done what he needed to and now just seemed to be sniffing for fun. Everything that had happened today was hitting me, and I was beginning to feel just how late it was. And it was also not warm out—I hadn’t noticed it as much when we’d all been running full speed across the yard, but in the last hour or so, it had gotten a lot colder, especially with the wind picking up. I crossed my fingers on both hands that this was just a fluke and I’d wake up tomorrow to perfect wedding weather. I pulled Waffles over to the other side of the road and started heading toward home.
Right away, I noticed the truck. It was parked on the road, about three houses down from ours. I don’t know why I hadn’t paid attention to it as I’d been walking away from the house—maybe I’d been fixated on the dog. But you couldn’t help noticing it—for one thing, it was the only car parked on the street. And on our street, where there wasn’t a commercial district nearby, everyone just parked in their garages or driveways.
It wasn’t until I got closer to the car that I realized it looked familiar. I could see WHERE THERE’S A WILL painted across the side of it—this was the truck that Bill had been driving.
I stopped walking and just looked at it for a moment, and Waffles stopped as well, sitting down at my feet and also seeming to regard the truck, his head tilted to the side. What was it doing here? I had assumed Bill had driven back to his uncle’s house after the rehearsal dinner.
I walked toward it, glancing in through the driver’s-side window and then taking a small step back when I realized that Bill was inside. He was in the backseat of the cab, curled up on his side, sleeping, his suit jacket pulled up to his neck like a blanket. Before I’d even worked out if this was a good idea, I was reaching out and knocking on the glass.
Bill shot up, sitting up straight and looking around, half-panicked, and I realized too late that I probably should have knocked more gently, or tried to get Waffles to howl again, something that would have maybe not startled him quite so much.
He looked around, blinking, and I waved as his eyes landed on me. “Hi,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure how much he’d be able to hear me through the glass.
Bill just stared at me for a second, like he was still trying to understand what was happening. His hair was flattened on the side he’d been sleeping on and standing practically straight up on the other.
“Charlie?” he asked, his voice muffled through the glass. He reached across and opened the door, and I leaned my head in. “Hey. Is everything all right?”
“Yeah,” I said, stumbling slightly as Waffles lunged in the direction of something he felt compelled to sniff at that particular moment. “Hi. Sorry—I was walking the dog and I saw your truck. . . .”
“Yes,” Bill said, rubbing his eyes briskly, like he was trying to wake himself up. “I . . . well, I stopped by the house after the dinner, just to drop off some of the decorations from the Inn, and then when I tried to leave, my car wouldn’t start.”
“Oh,” I said, wincing. “Jeez. I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s probably my fault,” he said, not sounding particularly concerned about this. “I have a tendency to leave the inside light on.” He shook his head. “I was always having to get my battery jumped back in New Mexico. My stepdad used to say he had Triple A on speed dial.”
“So . . .” I looked around, like there was going to be a tow truck coming up the street at any moment. “Um . . . do you not have them on speed dial?”
Bill’s smile widened. “I know,” he said. “I was about to call them, but then I did the time math. And having to wait for them to come, give it a jump, then drive all the way to my uncle’s, then all the way back here in the morning when I have to be here first thing . . . It just seemed easier to stay. I have all my clothes with me anyway, since I had to change for the rehearsal dinner. I’ll just get a jump tomorrow morning.”
“But . . .” I bit my lip and looked around the empty street. It wasn’t like Stanwich was a hotbed for crime or anything, but I still didn’t think it was a good idea for Bill to be sleeping on the street like this. I knew my parents would have not been happy if they’d found out I’d slept in my car. “Aren’t you cold?” In just the time I’d been standing and talking to him, I’d felt myself getting colder, reminding me that some Aprils in Connecticut, it snowed.
“It’s totally f-fine,” Bill said with another smile, though he undercut this somewhat when his teeth started to chatter on the last word.
“It’s not fine,” I said, shaking my head. There was really only one solution here that I could think of—I wasn’t about to let Bill freeze sleeping in his car all night. “I think you should stay with us.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” Bill said, giving me another smile, one that seemed to turn into a grimace, though, as he was clearly fighting his teeth chattering again. “Really. I couldn’t impose.”
“You’re not imposing,” I assured him. “We have a ton of people staying already. I promise it’s fine.” Bill just looked at me for another moment, his eyes searching my face, like he was trying to determine if I really meant it. He must have realized I did, because he nodded and climbed out. I could see that he was back in the jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt he’d been wearing during the day. He pulled a duffel bag out of the front seat, then carefully folded his suit jacket and laid it across the backseat.
“Are you sure?” he asked me across the hood of the truck as he lifted his duffel bag out. “I really was okay in there.”
“I’m sure. We can’t have the wedding coordinator’s assistant freezing the day before the wedding.”
“But then I could’ve been the something blue,” he said, and I laughed. We all started to walk down the center of the empty road together, Waffles leading the way. Bill nodded toward the dog. “I didn’t get to meet this guy earlier. He’s really cute. What’s his name?”
“Oh—that’s right.” While we’d been getting temporary dogs dropped off, Bill had been fixing the rehearsal dinner decorations. “His name’s Waffles.”
Bill stopped walking, which meant I stopped walking, which meant Waffles got yanked back by his leash. “Like in the comic strip?” he asked, his voice going high and excited. “You guys actually have a dog named Waffles?”
I hadn’t realized Bill read the strip—or that he’d known who we were. But if you read the strip, it was pretty obvious. “I guess you’re a fan?”
Bill started walking again. “Oh yeah. I didn’t get it at first—I mean, that you guys were those Grants. But I kept feeling like I’d been in your kitchen before. It was the weirdest feeling, and then I finally put it together.”
“Well, he’s not really our dog,” I said, then explained Waffles’s temporary nature. “I don’t suppose handling temporary canines is anything you’ve dealt with before?”
Bill laughed. “It’s a first.”
We rounded the curve in the road and reached the house—and as soon as it was visible, Waffles pulled me forward, straining against the leash to go in. And it hit me that this dog hadn’t even been in our house a full day but already knew it and wanted to get back inside. That even if it was just temporary, he wanted to go home again.
* * *
“All set?” I asked as I came into the family room. I’d arranged one couch with blankets and pillows for myself and another for Bill. When we’d come in, I had told Bill I could get him set up in the family room before it hit me that I would also be sleeping in there. Somehow, this hadn’t occurred to me until that moment, that inviting him to stay meant we’d be sleeping in the same room. Normally, there would be other options, but we were, for the first time in my memory, totally out of rooms.