Kaylie had laughed and lied, saying, “Nah. She wasn’t my type. Besides, I’m not going anywhere.”
“You can sell my house when I’m gone. That’ll be a nice grubstake for you.”
“I’ll retire,” Kaylie said, lying again. Her grandma’s termite-infested house needed a new roof, a few coats of paint, and probably a new foundation. She wouldn’t be leaving her job or chasing some woman in Dallas, at least not for a couple of decades.
The pulsing red light, as viscous and deeply colored as cough syrup, kept flooding the interior of the Pontiac. Of course Kaylie was that poor sop getting pulled over.
Breathe, she counseled herself. Just breathe through this. Make sure the cop doesn’t try to wake up Grandma, that was key. For all Kaylie knew, the Pontiac’s registration hadn’t been renewed in years. She drove through the intersection, hands at two o’clock and ten o’clock on the steering wheel, and carefully pulled into the Blick Art Materials parking lot. The patrol car followed. The wait, both of them in their cars, felt interminable. Kaylie carefully took her driver’s license out of her wallet, and actually found a paid, up-to-date registration in the glove compartment. The uniform finally approached, coming from the rear with a hand on the grip of her gun. Kaylie thanked all the deities for the pale shade of her skin, her fucking whiteness, an accident of fate that would increase her chances of finessing her way through the encounter.
The cop hefted a huge flashlight to shoulder height, as if it were a spiked javelin. She blinded Kaylie by shining it right in her face. Kaylie fumbled her license and registration out the car window as fast as she could. She might have white skin, but other variables in this situation — the contents of the backseat, the kayak in the trunk, and the ancient Pontiac itself — were not going to be helpful. As the cop turned the flashlight’s beam on the documents, Kaylie tried to memorize the information on her badge. Officer Marta Ramirez was pretty, even with her hair pulled back in a tight bun, and wore no makeup — a hopeful sign — and carried a nice solid build. She might have been family, but Kaylie knew flirting would not be a good idea in this situation. Still, she might be able to signal sisterhood. Uh, did you go to Pride this year? Or, How does your wife like your uniform?
Of course that could backfire if she was in fact straight. Or even if she wasn’t. Kaylie kept her mouth shut.
Marta (and why not be on a first-name basis in the privacy of Kaylie’s own mind?) shined her light into the backseat. “Who’s this?”
“That’s my grandma.”
“Why is she—”
“She’s ninety-three. Full-on Alzheimer’s. Sleeping is so difficult for her. You’ve heard of sundown syndrome?”
The cop’s whole body loosened, slumped a little. Her eyes softened. “Oh, yeah. My grandma too.”
“Really? I’m sorry to hear that. Anyway, Grandma’s like a baby who can only fall asleep in a moving car. So I take her out at night sometimes, just drive her around so she can sleep.” Kaylie was pleased with her quick thinking, and as she spoke, she tried to come up with as good of an explanation for the kayak.
“You should put the seat belt on her.”
“I know! I usually do. I was just realizing that when you pulled me over.”
“I pulled you over because the kayak is improperly secured.” The cop shot the beam of her massive flashlight at the erect kayak stern. “That’s a real hazard. It doesn’t look like you’ve tied it at all. If it slides out, someone could get killed.”
“God, I’m sorry. Stupid of me. Yeah, I borrowed the kayak from a friend this past weekend. I figured if I was going to drive Grandma around tonight, I might as well use the opportunity to return the kayak. I mean, she won’t wake up when I get to my friend’s house. I just have to slide the kayak out and drag it to her side yard.”
Just shut the fuck up. Less is more, idiot. Stop talking.
The cop paused for far too long. Kaylie could see all the questions flashing through her mind. The woman took a deep breath of assessment.
“I’m sorry,” Kaylie repeated, with lots of feeling.
Officer Marta Ramirez (Kaylie returned, in her mind, to the more respectful full title and name) began a slow circumnavigation of the Pontiac, using her flashlight to examine all four tires, and even look under the carriage. She shined her light into the passenger-side back window and gazed at Kaylie’s grandma for a long time. A very long time. Long enough for Kaylie to wonder if prison was really like Orange Is the New Black, long enough for her to consider the possibility that behind bars she might actually, at long last, find a girlfriend. She wouldn’t have to worry about fixing up or selling the house. She wouldn’t have to lift anyone in and out of a bathtub, clean sheets soaked with piss or streaked with shit, listen to the painful sounds of someone she loved trying to breathe. That part was all over now — it was as if she realized this for the first time, just now as the cop stared at her grandma in the backseat — whether she went to prison or not.
When Officer Ramirez circled back to the driver’s window, she pressed her lips together and made eye contact. “Okay. I’m not going to write you a ticket.”
Wait. Kaylie had almost begun looking forward to prison. To not having a single job other than surviving. If she’d been given another few moments, she might have started fantasizing about prison sex. Maybe instead she should start fantasizing policewoman sex, gratitude sex.
“I really, really, really appreciate that,” Kaylie said. “Thank you.”
“Get Grandma home. And get a rack for that kayak.”
“I will! Tomorrow. I mean, I’ll get Grandma home right now, and a rack for the kayak tomorrow. I mean, for next time I borrow it.”
Now that their official interaction was over, could Kaylie ask Marta Ramirez for her phone number? She imagined cracking that joke, if it was one, for Grandma, and Grandma’s loud honking laugh. Do it! the ghost of Grandma shouted. Do it!
“Hey,” Kaylie said as the cop started walking away. “I mean, I don’t know if you’re married or not. But I wondered if maybe some time you’d like—”
The woman spun around on the soles of her shiny black practical tie-up shoes. “Really?” she responded. “I just let you off. I mean, I just let you off, and—”
“And I said thank you. Good night.” Kaylie rolled up her window and started the engine, the car lurched forward, and she almost hit a parked car as she tried to turn the huge tank around. Marta Ramirez was busy getting into her own vehicle and didn’t bother to look up again.
Five minutes later, Kaylie parked the car in one of the spots along the Berkeley waterfront, on the east side of the pier. She rolled down her window and sat listening to the wavelets lapping against the giant stones which formed the barrier between the bay and the parking spaces. It was high tide, and the water splashed within feet of her car. At last she could fill her nostrils with the salty wet smell of the bay.
Twisting around in her seat, she couldn’t see much of Grandma in the dark, but Kaylie knew exactly what she looked like: the sparse pale smoke hair, the tissuey skin with deep laugh lines, her thin frail limbs, knobby with arthritis.