Page 16 of It Started With a Scarf

Down three flights of stairs, he flew. He moved so fast that his phone fell out of his pocket. He stopped for a split second to pick it up, gripping it in his hand and not taking the time to look at it or notice if it was broken.

Dominic began to move again—instantly at full speed.

Down the remaining stairs, across the hall, out the door, and onto the sidewalk.

He spotted the guy. He had his back turned and was walking the other way. He had the scarf in his hand. He was cradling it in front of him as he walked.

Dominic could see the edge of it.

He closed the distance between them and rushed the guy suddenly. He lunged forward, grabbing the scarf and quickly but nimbly pulling it out if the guy's hand in one motion.

"I'll be taking this. This isn't yours." Dominic scowled at the guy, looking him over. He was way too concerned with fashion to be any sort of physical threat.

"It's not yours either," the guy said, reaching back for it, like some sort of idiot. Dominic easily evaded his reach and looked at him like he was crazy.

"Who are you, and why don't you have on shoes?"

Dominic's apartment was warm. He had run out with bare feet and a tank top. He was lucky he had on a shirt at all. He would have run out without one.

"It's my sister's scarf, and I saw you take it from her."

"That girl's your sister?"

"Yes."

The guy grinned at him with a sideways smile. "I tried to holler at her and give it back, but she ran off too quick."

"No, you didn't. You reached out and took it." Dominic began backing up to walk off. He was done here. He could tell that the guy had relented and wasn't going to protest him taking the scarf.

"Your sister was flirting with me at Abercrombie, dawg. She's getting shy now, but she straight-up wanted me at Abercrombie. You need to hook me up with her."

"No. And you should never talk to her again."

The guy held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, but he didn't mean it, he was still wearing that grin. "It's all good bro!" he called as Dominic turned to walk away from him. "Go get you some shoes!" he added.

Dominic was sure he got a few looks on his way into his apartment, but he didn't pay attention to his surroundings. He kept his head down, walking until he got back into his apartment. And then he found himself standing in his living room with Mariam Waterson's scarf.

***

That scarf would spend the next several days in the closet of his Chicago apartment. Dominic was in Milwaukee for a week, and during that time he had a bad case of food poisoning. He was distracted with that and with seeing to business at his Milwaukee gym, and the week before Thanksgiving had passed quickly. Before he knew it, he was back in Chicago where he would spend Thanksgiving with his family.

He had been thinking about Marley and the scarf on his way there, and one of the first things he did was go to his closet and look at it. He hated to have something that didn't belong to him, but it was better in his hands than with that other guy. He looked at it again a couple of hours later when his mom asked him to run an errand and he went into that same closet to grab a jacket.

It was so cool looking that he took a photograph of it. The scarf was hanging on the same hanger as his black wool coat, and he checked it out again after he got a good shot. He stared at it, noticing the different colors of yarn and the speckles that were in each row. He felt the knitted texture between his thumb and forefinger, realizing that Mariam Waterson herself had made each of those knots with needles. He appreciated it for a good long minute, trying to think of a way to get it back to Marley.

In the meantime, he left it on the hanger and took his coat.

He had an errand to run. He promised his mom that he would pick up something for her at a store and take it with him to their house for Thanksgiving lunch the following day. It was a fancy place with some women's clothes and jewelry along with knickknacks. The clean scent of cotton and perfume hit him like a wall when he walked in.

"Hey little bud," Dominic said, seeing a small dog heading his way. It was one of those dogs with long hair, but Dominic didn't know the breed—Pomeranian maybe. "Heyyy," he said to the dog as he jumped up, putting his front paws on Dominic's knee as he stooped. The dog didn't stop there. It jumped eagerly into Dominic's arms, pawing and clinging to his chest.

Dominic stood up, and the dog continued to cling to him, smelling his collar and then up on his neck and face before sniffing his chest again. It tickled, and Dominic let out a little laugh as he tried to hold it.

"Mitzy! No, Mitzy down!" a guy came out from the back of the store, sounding mortified.

"Oh, no, it's okay, I think she likes me," Dominic said, holding the dog while it continued to rub its face on his chest.

"Mitzy!" the guy said, gawking disappointedly at the dog. "I am so sorry. She's being weird. I don't know what she's doing." He reached in to take the dog from Dominic and the dog yelped suddenly, causing the man to yelp as well and almost drop it. The dog's yelp was loud, and the man let go of that dog just as quick as he touched it. "No ma'am!" he said. "Oh, my goodness, I don't know what is wrong with her! I'm so sorry."

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