“If I had thought of, if I’d felt any reason at all to stop, I would have. You know I would have stopped. Well, maybe you don’t know me that well. I mean, we’ve only met that one other time, at Julie’s birthday party, right? But you know me a bit, and you know Julie, and any one that is a friend of hers has to be a certain type of person, and that person definitely would have stopped. But I didn’t feel a thing, or rather, my car didn’t feel a thing. No bump, no vibration, nothing.
“You can imagine my surprise when the police showed up at my door. They knocked just as I was checking my lipstick, putting on my shearling jacket, getting ready to leave for work. Scared the living daylights out of me. I mean, you don’t expect someone at that time of the day, right? I had an important meeting with the Muscone Foundation and my head was tied up in figures and presentation approaches because the Foundation, you know, is very old fashioned and proper, so it’s necessary to take their old world perspectives into consideration. No PowerPoint here. Just handshakes and under the table gifts of cigars and Pieropan Soave Classico La Rocca, which I happen to know they’re partial to. And lots of cleavage, which is why I was bringing my intern Kati. With just an ‘i’. Supposedly to give her training, but the more window dressing the better.
“So the doorbell rings and I literally jump out of my skin! Well, not really, obviously, but, what’s the opposite? Metaphorically. I did drop my coffee. There’s a spot on my carpet to prove it. I put my foot on that spot when I opened the door so no one would see anything. If you come over one day, promise you won’t look. Anyway, now I’m jittery from the coffee, jittery because I dropped my coffee, jittery because I was interrupted from thinking about the presentation, and jittery because my adrenaline has been spiked by shock of the doorbell when I’m standing right at the door.
“So anyhow, I open it, and there’s one hot cop; tall, dark wavy hair with snow glistening in it, filling out his suit nicely. He’s smiling a lopsided smile and you know what that means; he’s checking me out and he’s liking what he’s seeing. I’m wearing my Eileen Fisher layering sweater for the presentation; discreet, but also very sheer.
“Unfortunately he’s got a butch partner. Can I say ‘butch’? Is that a no-no? I’m not gay so I’m not supposed to say things like that. At least that’s what Kati says. Anyway, Officer Hunky has this short haired, male-looking partner. I don’t look at her much, but he’s very easy on the eyes, let me tell you. His partner gets aggressive. Jealous, maybe. She might have been more interested in me than he was, but hey, I’m just not wired that way. I can’t help it!
“Anyhow, they start asking these questions. Are you the owner of a Honda? Were you driving it Wednesday at 4:30? Is there anyone else who drives your car? I tell them I’m the only owner of a Honda who’s not Chinese that I know of. That seems to annoy them, or at least her. Maybe because she’s black, but I was only trying to help. And it’s true! The only reason I have the Honda is because I got it in the divorce settlement. God knows why that bozo bought it, but it’s all I could get out of him. I had the seats steam cleaned before I touched it. I don’t want to know what or who he’d done in there.
“My Beemer gave out last month so I had no choice but to start driving the Honda. Max, Julie’s friend Max — I don’t know if you know him, I didn’t see him there tonight, I guess because it was a Christmas party — he said he’d get me a deal on a new Beemer but he and I haven’t been able to connect yet. Not that I’d want to mind you; Jewish guys aren’t my type. But anyway, for now I’m driving the Honda.
“Anyway, I tell the cops I’ve got to get going, that I’ve got an important meeting to go to and it’s starting to snow again. That’s when she says I’m not going anywhere, that I’m not driving anymore because they think I’m the driver of a hit and run. I say hit and run what? She says hit and run on a pedestrian; someone knocked down a pedestrian and drove off. I said I don’t remember that, and they ask what do I remember. I say all I know is I was trying to get to a meeting across town but I didn’t know the cross street. So was I in that area, she says, and I say yes, of course. And do I remember seeing someone walking on the street to avoid a snowbank? I say no. What do you remember about driving down Dolphin Street he asks. I say not much of anything. I was on the phone the entire time talking to Kati back at the office. She was trying to help me find my meeting.
“Apparently someone says they saw the whole thing and followed me, got my license plate and reported it. I think it’s all BS, that my ex has put someone up to this because I don’t remember a thing. Oh, there’s my place, right on the corner. You can pull into the entrance for the underground parking; at least they’ve finally cleared the snow from the driveway. Thank you so much for giving me a ride home! It was lovely to see you again, and I hope you have a Merry Christmas!”
Fiction is Glenn Mori’s most recent area of study. The first discipline was music, where he completed a masters degree in music composition, followed by accounting, more practice with jazz music, and then writing about online poker, where he remains winning micro stakes player. His ruminations about fiction can be found at www.intermittentrain.com.
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