Across an empty parking lot, beyond a wrought iron fence, moonlit waterslides intertwined down to umbrella-shaped fountains which showered water encircled by beach chair-lined wade pools.
Eyes closed, seated beside a German Shepherd on a shadowy gazebo bench, Sadie tilted her head upward, listening to the fountains’ water splash.
Before long however, a radio transmitter echoed, and she opened her eyes, ducked behind a support column, and watched a security SUV creep through the lot.
The dog whined, and she threw an arm around it.
“Easy, Ren,” she said.
Soon, the SUV wheeled onto a shadowy road, and Sadie sighed.
“That was close.” She reached beneath the bench, took up a stick, and dangled it before Ren who snapped at it. She then hurled it over a handrail and toward a swing set, and Ren darted down a staircase, into a leaf-littered yard, and tackled it. Stick clamped in his mouth, he raced back-and-forth past the staircase but then dropped it sniffed a silhouetted tree trunk.
“Ren.”
The dog snatched the stick and dashed upon the gazebo platform to a spot alongside Sadie.
“Good boy.”
She reached for the stick, and Ren jumped away and then laid down with it in his paws. She chuckled and shook her head and then closed her eyes. Wind gusted through branches, and swing chains creaked, leaves skittered across the lot, and the fountains’ water splash altered.