Chapter 17
Mary started the FTW-provided Jeep Grand Cherokee before opening the garage door.
“Four degrees. This is insane!”
She turned the heat on full blast and warmed her seat and the steering wheel before reversing into the street. She wondered how people survived before these luxuries.
That afternoon, she wore a silver puffer coat over a long, black turtleneck tunic and dark gray yoga pants with tall striped socks and her sneakers. Not her usual outfit, but she made exceptions for the weather. It wasn’t like she was going to run into anyone she knew.
She was headed to the store for ingredients to make her Nonna’s spaghetti and meatballs. She craved a taste of home.
As she drove, Mary sang along to Sabrina Carpenter, a flashback to the song of the summer that had shocked her mother with its lyrics. In the seclusion of the Jeep, Mary belted out the most profane line. “Brilliant,” she thought.
Mary didn’t mind running errands for The Crew. The grocery store was her domain. Besides, she was the only one who really knew how to drive. Dot and Harper were like a lot of city kids, just taking the train, taxis, and Ubers to get around.
Mary was the opposite. Her father had insisted she learn how to drive a stick shift in case she was ever stuck somewhere. “Survival skills,” he’d called it.
She took to driving right away, especially in the city.
Sometimes she’d take her dad’s Mercedes sedan across the Verrazzano Bridge, along the BQE to the tunnel and into the city north all the way up the FDR, cut across from the Harlem River Drive, then snake her way south down the West Side Highway before heading back home to Staten Island. It gave her time to think.
As a typical New Yorker, she was insanely aggressive in the car, which often gave her passengers a bit of a heart attack.
“Merge or die,” her brother Frankie said the first time she navigated through Times Square.
With her combat experience in the city, driving in Cedar Falls was too easy. There was light traffic and very polite drivers.
At the store, she whipped around putting items in her cart. She bought a jar of Ragu. “Forgive me, Mother.” She wasn’t talking to the Virgin Mary, but to her own, who never served anything but homemade sauce for dinner.
Everyone was friendly at the Piggly Wiggly. When she couldn’t find fennel seed, she asked a young man working at the store for help. He said he’d never heard of it.
“Let me go ask my grandma—she’s working the register.”
He came back with a cute, owlish woman with sparkly blue eyes wearing a red uniform smock. She led them two aisles over from where they were.
“Son, it’s right here. Always in aisle three.”
“Got it, Grandma.”
“Thank you so much,” Mary said to the woman, missing her Nonna. Turning to the young man she said, “Be good to her. She’s a treasure!”
The boy put an arm around his grandmother and squeezed.
“Always,” he said.
“He’s my favorite. Just don’t tell his brothers.” She poked him in the ribs then went back to her post. Did every grandmother play this favorites game?
When Mary went through the checkout, the boy offered to carry her bags to the car. She nearly turned him down.
“You’re not even wearing a coat.”
“Oh, it’s not that bad out,” he said. “Besides, I like the cold.”
Were they even the same species? She reached in her bag for a five-dollar bill. Her dad had taught her always to have a little cash for tips. “Makes the world go ’round,” he’d said.
The boy seemed surprised.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Ma’am?
Mary snuck a glance in the rearview mirror before leaving the parking lot, vowing to use more eye cream.
ABOUT TWO BLOCKS from the house, police lights flashed behind her. Strange, Mary thought. The streets were so quiet. Who could they be after? She thought there must be an emergency up ahead.
She pulled over to let the police cruiser pass. But it pulled in behind her. What in the world?
She waited for the officer, a little unnerved.
It had been ages since she was pulled over.
Not since that time at the Jersey Shore after a night out at the Point Pleasant Beach boardwalk a few younger and dumber years ago.
She’d been speeding on the Garden State Parkway to get home by curfew.
Her high school friends were in the car with her, and all of them were still in their bikini tops and cutoffs.
She’d blinked wide-eyed at the officer, and he’d sent her on her way suggesting she slow down.
She promised she would. Then she raced home to Staten Island before her parents put out an Amber alert.
She rolled down the window and turned off the car. A freezing blast hit her in the face and made her eyes water. She heard the crunch of the policeman’s boots on the frozen street.
“Evening,” he said. “License and registration, please.”
He was taller than the Jeep and had to bend down to look in the window. He wore a thick navy blue ski jacket and matching hat that said “Police” in white lettering. He had bright blue eyes, a chiseled jawline that was only slightly sharper than his cheekbones, and a small scar on his chin.
“Hello.” Mary’s tone was cool.
“Do you know why I pulled you over tonight?”
“Boredom?”
“Wrong. I’ve never been bored a day in my life.”
He smiled out of one side of his mouth. She noticed a dimple in his left cheek.
“So, what did I do? Or . . . what do you think you saw me do?”
“Aha. Let me guess—a lawyer?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
“Well, counselor, you rolled through the stop sign back there. And stop means stop.”
“So, I’ve heard. And said.”
She needed to pull it together. She decided not to fight. She took a deep breath.
“Okay. Let me try again.” She turned toward him with a smile. “Officer, I thought I stopped. I promise to pay more attention in the future.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. I’ll be right back.” He took her documents and returned to his car.
Mary shivered in her seat, unsure if she was allowed to restart the Jeep, roll up the window, and turn on the heat while the officer checked whether she had a rap sheet. A few minutes felt like forever. Was this a violation of her civil rights?
In the side mirror, she saw him walking back to her driver’s-side window.
“What’s the verdict?” She decided to try some charm, hoping to avoid a ticket.
“How’s this? I’ll give you a warning—this time. Take it easy. This isn’t Manhattan.”
“Yeah, I noticed.” She tried to hide her snark, but it wasn’t easy.
“With that accent, I had a hunch you weren’t from around here. We’d have met before,” he said.
“Hopefully not like this.”
“Definitely not like this.” There was that smile again. “So . . . New York. What brings you to town?”
“The weather. And the nightlife.”
He laughed and patted the top of her car. “Okay, ma’am. You’re free to go.”
A second “ma’am” in less than ten minutes? There wasn’t enough eye cream in all of Sephora.
“Thanks . . . and sorry about the stop sign.” She gave him a genuine smile.
As she pulled back into the road, she honked a goodbye.
She snuck a glance in the rearview mirror. He stood watching her go.
She thought he was probably wondering how a girl like her ended up in a place like this.
If he only knew.