stared at his blue blue shirt and silver badge.
“Yeah, how about …” He paused and she dared to lift her eyes up to the beam of his face. He was doing that lip-biting thing again. His teeth. His dark, level eyebrows. His voice, God, sometimes she thought the thing she loved the best about men was their voices. “Two of the Baja Steak Gorditas and a large drink.”
“For here or to go?”
“To go, please.” Damn.
Josie repeated the order, forcing Bonnie to turn and reluctantly begin fumbling with the bags and cups. Josie announced his total and waited while he reached for his billfold with the same lazy movement you might use to scratch a not-very-pressing itch. There was an actual gun and all that other police stuff on his belt. Every molecule of her body felt scrambled, as if she’d been microwaved. She actually felt dizzy. She didn’t trust herself not to fall in a heap. His hand warmed the air above hers as he passed the money to her. Say something. If she didn’t say something, she might as well commit suicide.
“Arrest any bad guys today?” Just shoot me.
“Not yet. My shift hasn’t started.” He smiled, but the smile settled somewhere above her head as he waited for his order to come up. Frantic, she attempted to get some part of her being to function properly. Mouth, hopeless. Feet, gone. Her eyes were open but they were connected to something other than her brain. Name tag. Name. Tag. Focus. It said M. CROOK . A cop named crook? No way. Rings? Nothing. Glory be. But already he was picking up his food, telling Bonnie he wanted hot sauce, rattling ice cubes into his drink, fifteen seconds away from disappearing forever.
The door opened and closed behind him. Bonnie already had her mouth working, saying, “I don’t believe it, he was like …”
But when she turned around, Josie was no longer there. She was out the backdoor of the Taco Bell, tearing off the stupid hat and sending it skating across the parking lot. She was diving for her car keys. Everything within her had started up again. She had stepped off the cliff edge into brilliant air and she knew now what splendid shape her life was meant to take.
She would fall in love.
Service Engine Soon
T here was nothing wrong with the car, they said. Everything checked out, oil pressure, battery, emission control. They swore up and down. Elaine, a woman who was no longer impressed with promises and who didn’t mind being difficult, made them go through it all over again everytime the light came on. Difficult was now called “assertive” and was a good thing. She figured that sooner or later they’d get tired of dealing with her and fix the damn car. It was driving her crazy. Literally. She’d forget all about it, she’d be behind the wheel, hands, feet, eyes doing the car thing, her mind lightly tethered, free-floating, enjoying the ride. Then the light would go on. A pinprick of worry puncturing all that good feeling. Elaine tried ignoring it. It was, after all, only a stupid lightbulb. But it was taking on a life of its own. She tried to predict it, outsmart it, by doing things like not using (or using) the air conditioner. No dice. It was becoming a superstitious tic she used to measure the success of her days: light off, good; light on, not so good. She kept waiting for the car to do whatever it was threatening to do so she could drag it back to the dealer in triumph.
Meanwhile, she had other problems. Ed Pauley was doing his fussy best to make his interminable point. Elaine kept nodding to show she was paying attention, and also, she hoped, to hurry him along. Finally she found a place to wedge in an interruption. “Ed, I agree with you, it’s a matter for concern. But why not tell Frank? After all, Harvey’s
his
uncle.”
Ed puffed his cheeks and pretended to think about this. Frank was the last person to be useful in any human crisis. They both knew this and she was mildly curious as to how he would avoid saying it.