Rock's cousin

Rock's cousin Jill called just after daybreak. He answered in his front bedroom bed and could immediately tell she was at an Aikman family gathering. Jill put her brothers Bill and Crutch and her daughter Rebecca on the phone.

"Jill, are you in Longview or Beaumont?" Rock said.

"No, dummy. I'm right here."

She sat on a corner edge of Rock's bed, the one by the window that overlooks the front porch.

"Did you climb in through one of the windows?"

"No. I just unlocked your front door."

Rock remembered Jill's skill as a locksmith.

"I thought you were somewhere in Texas," he said.

"Rock, you didn't know? I'm the mayor of San Diego. Everyone's out there. You should come join us."

French fries

A cute, short-haired, twenty-five-year-old brunette woman sat at a desk connected across from Rock's at the paper. As she ate her lunch, Rock was struck by the appearance of a bag of French fries before her. Each fry had a light sheen of grease and was pitted by tiny indentations that bespoke of its crispiness. Rock could not resist.
"I hate to have to ask, but I have no choice," he said. "Could I try one of those French fries?"
The woman paused for a second, but then said, "Sure. Have one."
Rock did, and he found the fry among the best things he had ever tasted.

Rock's stuff

Jen Reynolds checked her carry-on luggage before she flew out of the airport in downtown Little Rock and found several things that belonged to Rock, including at least half a dozen pairs of boxer shorts.
"Rock, find something to put these in," Jen said. "I'm not taking this stuff with me."
Rock had no idea how his things had made it into Jen's bags, but he could see they had. He walked to a nearby gift shop and asked for a plastic bag to carry his underpants out of the airport.

Trips to Nashville

Someone—he couldn't figure who—had begun to keep track of the number of trips Rock made to Nashville, Arkansas, to visit his maternal grandmother. He didn't know why, but it seemed in some way connected or correlated to the presence of his new cat Joe.
Rock found a chart on the website Facebook that showed he had gone much more frequently before he adopted Joe. The best he could tell, this was worrisome data to somebody out there, but Rock didn't understand any of it.