“Is your name Gromley?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“What?” Mel, sitting alone on the bench, looked up from his cellphone to the stranger with a Chihuahua.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGromley? Frank Gromley?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I could’ve sworn you were him. Frank, I mean.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“My name’s Mel.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Chihuahua, named Pepe, wanted to pee over Mel’s trouser leg. It was obvious. It whimpered and shook as though chilled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I haven’t seen Frank since high school. You could be his double. You’ve the same kind of posture\u2026”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Sorry, my name’s Mel.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What kind of posture was he talking about? Mel sat up straighter on the wooden slats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“You weren’t in the correctional facility with Frank, were you?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“What?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“You just look like a guy who might’ve been there.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“No, it wasn’t me.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Not out of the facility, huh? And not one of Frank\u2019s relatives, by any chance? I mean, they all had that same kind of vacant expression.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mel tried to stop fumbling with his cellphone. ” I can’t say I’m a relative either.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“No kidding? It’s hard to believe you’re not at least one of the Gromleys.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo, I’ve never been a Gromley.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Was Mel even thinking before he spoke? Never been a Gromley?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The stranger, too, looked at him oddly after hearing that, then yanked the leash. “Well, c’mon, Pepe.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dog had finally finished urinating over the trousers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
David Sydney is a physician.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “Is your name Gromley?” “What?” Mel, sitting alone on the bench, looked up from his cellphone to the stranger with a Chihuahua. \u201cGromley? Frank Gromley?\u201d \u201cNo.\u201d “I could’ve sworn you were him. Frank, I mean.” “My name’s Mel.” The Chihuahua, named Pepe, wanted to pee over Mel’s trouser leg. It was obvious. It whimpered and … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-Wg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3613,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3612\/revisions\/3613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}