Free A Bad Day for Pretty by Sophie Littlefield

that says to me … could be Cory Layfield isn’t quite so nice a boy as you think he is.”

SIX

    Stella pulled slowly into her driveway, noting the piles of downed branches lying around her yard. A few were sizable, entire limbs ripped from the sweetgum trees that shaded her house and the red oaks lining the street. Now there was a calorie-blasting few hours waiting to happen. She’d have to see if old Mr. Bayer across the street would let her borrow the chain saw to cut up the biggest branches.
    One of the ceramic flowerpots that flanked the front door lay on its side, cracked and shattered, clots of dirt and broken geraniums spilling out onto the walk. A four-foot section of gutter had come loose from the roof and hung, swaying gently, clumps of damp leaves stuck to its sides.
    Stella opened the garage door with the remote and navigated carefully between the yard tools and other clutter stacked along the sides, turning off the ignition when she hit the tennis ball suspended from the ceiling.
    She let herself in the door to the house, and was hit with the stench of garbage. She entered the kitchen and saw that the floor was littered with the contents of the trash: coffee grounds were scattered in a three-yard radius, orange peels were tossed everywhere, papers fluttered in the breeze from the outside. A package of stale bread had been torn open, but only crumbs remained. Yogurt containers, takeout boxes, Lean Cuisine packaging, clots of cold spaghetti … all had been dragged around the kitchen, globs of gunk of unknown provenance smeared on every surface.
    A rhythmic thumping sound came from under the kitchen table.
    Stella picked her way carefully across the floor to investigate. Crouching down and pushing one of the dinette chairs out of the way, she saw a medium-sized white-and-black dog lying on its back, eyes rolling back in its head, tongue hanging out of its mouth and tail wagging so hard, it smacked against the table leg. Incriminating bits of food were stuck to its snout.
    “Shit,” Stella breathed softly. “Who the fuck are you?”
    At the sound of her voice, the dog’s tail-whapping sped up to a frantic pace and it nudged closer to her with a lavish waggle of its hind legs. Then it rolled to its stomach, looked up at her with wide eyes the color of root beer, and flattened itself as low as it could, chin flat on the floor, and whined.
    That tail never stopped wagging.
    Stella noticed another smell in the olfactory stew and glanced around for its source … ah, there, over by the fridge—evidently the dog couldn’t wait to get outside to relieve itself.
    Stella hauled herself up off the floor with effort and threw her keys on the table. Only then did she spot the note. Written in a juvenile scrawl in maroon marker on a torn envelope were these words:
Her name is Roxy, she like’s scrambled eggs
Don’t tell mom she’s here!!!!!!!!
    “Figures,” Stella muttered. She recognized the handwriting—it belonged to Todd Groffe. The boy knew where her spare key was, and while she couldn’t be sure why he’d sicced this small canine vessel of destruction on her, she was willing to guess.
    The dog had the look of a runaway. Stomach slightly caved in, it hadn’t eaten in a while—hence its zeal with the trash, perhaps—but there were signs that until recently it had been a cared-for dog, a pet. Its coat was smooth, without burrs or scabs; its ears hadn’t been torn or chewed in a fight. It had no collar, no tags, but Stella felt sure it had belonged to someone not long ago.
    She. She had belonged to someone. Stella sighed and knelt back down next to the dog, and laid a hand on her back, where a trio of large black spots made a sort of saddle design. Her fur was agreeably soft, and Stella gave in and petted her, tracing the black-speckled sides and stomach with her fingers, smoothing back the cockeyed, soft triangular ears, the dog rolling her eyes and grinning in ecstasy and whining happily.
    Much as she