Toby was face down on the sidewalk with Adam’s knee on his back, his hands being masterfully bound by my boyfriend’s necktie. When Adam tossed my purse to me and winked, he seemed kind of hot until I remembered he just beat the crap out of Coronado Playhouse’s Clarence the angel. Again with the damned cell phone, Adam dialed 911 and waited for the police to arrive.
Toby shot me a terrified look, and I tried to nonverbally communicate that I would take care of everything, though honestly I had no idea how I’d do that. Within minutes we heard sirens and four officers jumped out of their car with batons poised for the whooping poor Toby had already received.
“You guys,” I pleaded pitifully. “I really didn’t have much in my purse. Why don’t we give the guy a second chance? I don’t want to press charges against him.”
“Ma’am, it’s not your choice,” said a junior officer with slick brown hair and an oversized chin.
Toby looked at me with sheer panic. His beady eyes sat under vertically scrunched eyebrows, punctuating his face like exclamation points. Toby’s entire face was covered in sweat, and regrettably there was a little blood from his lip. He was cuffed and shoved into a police car, crying that his lip was bleeding while Adam gave a statement to the police.
“Where are you taking him?” I whined.
“To the station.” reported an officer.
“Which station?” I cried as the passenger door slammed shut.
“The police station, lady.”
I ran to the driver’s window and rapped on it frantically. “Which police station?” Then in a muttered whisper, I told the officer, “Rss isn huh wy it rooks. R’ll cub dow huh huh statuh and hsplain reverything.”
“What you saying, lady?” he shouted.
I leaned in about an inch away from his face and whispered, “I said this isn’t how it looks. I’ll come down to the station and explain everything, okay? He isn’t really a purse-snatcher. He’s an actor.”
“Come on, Mona!” Adam shouted. “Let the boys do their job and forget the bleeding heart routine. He’ll get what he deserves.”
He’ll get what he deserves. He’ll get what he deserves, haunted me like the ghost from the past. I couldn’t remember where I’d heard this before, but the words struck me as cruel, punitive, and completely unforgiving. Maybe because they were, but there was something more to this phrase that crept into me and hurt in a place I wasn’t aware existed. But not quite as much as Toby had been hurt, so I quickly refocused on getting myself out of this date and down to the police station before the actor had a criminal record.
“Adam, I’m a little shaken up by this whole thing. I think we should call it a night,” I said.
“Okay, it’s a night. I’ll take you home and make you a cup of tea before you check in for the evening.”
I wasn’t particularly interested in having sex with Adam, but wondered why he wasn’t pursuing a more physical relationship with me. So far, on these greatest dates of his life, he hadn’t even tried to kiss me. I was in no hurry to kiss him, but it bothered me that the feeling seemed to be mutual.
Chapter 27
“All right, lemme get this straight,” an older pudgy police officer delivered entirely through the right side of his mouth. He sighed for effect and continued. “You say this guy snatched your purse ‘cause you paid him to?”
“Yes, Officer Marman.” I shook my head eagerly, hoping that my reading his name from his tag would help us connect.
“And you did this ʼcause you wanted to show off for your new boyfriend?” I couldn’t tell if he was baffled or amused or a little bit of both.
“Yes, yes, that’s it.” I craned my neck to see the officer who sat in a dispatcher box a few feet above me. The walls were the pale blue of a computer screen, almost gray. I felt as though I’d done something wrong just by the hard surroundings of metal desks and hardwood chairs set against the stark background of nothingness and gating. Three prostitutes and a drunk guy muttering about Bob Dylan being a murderer sat in the lobby waiting for their photo session and booking for the night. Slouching in her chair, one of the hookers sat with her arms folded across a red sequined tank top and a look on her face that was pure righteous indignation. “I don’t know whatcho thinking,” she repeated to the officers who brought her and her friends in. “This bullshit. You undastand me, buuuull-sheeet, motherfucker.” I was amazed at her complete conviction that she had been wronged by the police when I was on the brink of peeing in my pants just for being there. However, from the smell of things, I wasn’t the only one who had that impulse. “You motherfuckers gonna be sorry,” said another prostitute in a green lame prom dress hemmed to the upper thighs. “Sorry-ass mother fuckers.” I kept waiting for the third to get up and start singing “She Works Hard for the Money,” realizing that I’d gotten far too used to the characters in my life being paid actors.
“Hold on a sec, toots,” said Officer Marman. He picked up a phone receiver. “You gotta get in here, Davy. Bring Ernie and Burt, too. I’m definitely takin’ the pot tonight.” Within seconds, I was surrounded by six uniforms. “All right, tell them what you told me.”
“Where is Toby?” I asked.
“Who?” Marman asked.
“Toby, Toby, the guy who snatched my purse.” I panicked at the thought that they’d misplaced him—lost in the criminal justice system after only forty-five minutes. Damn that Adam and his tea!
“She means Weepy Boy,” said Burt.
Oh no! “Weepy Boy?” I asked.
Marman smirked. “He ain’t exactly a hardened criminal.”
“Has he been crying?”
“Since the moment he got in the squad car,” said another officer.
“I insist you let him out!” I stomped my foot.
“Oooow, child!” said hooker number three, laughing through her bubblegum.
“You go, girl!” said the green prom dress. “Don’t take that shit from these motherfuckers. Getcho man out this place.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I realize my foolishness caused you unnecessary work this evening, officers. I do apologize for that, but you must understand that the thought of my dear friend—a fragile soul at that—sobbing in a jail cell and not knowing his fate is simply unbearable to me. You must understand that.”
“It’s not like we beat him or anything,” said Marman.
Red Sequins chimed in. “Don’t believe that sheeeet, girl. We seen that boy and he got his ass kicked. Yo man is one ass-kicked motherfucker in jail.”
“I’m sure you didn’t harm him, officers. If anyone put him in harm’s way, it was me, and I feel just awful about it. Can you please get him now, then I’ll explain the whole story to your colleagues here?”
When they brought Toby out into the lobby, he looked as though he’d been released from a three-year sentence. His slouched body was topped with a head that weighed nearly a hundred pounds, or so it looked from the way he struggled to keep it up. His eyes were blotchy and red and the sight of his split bottom lip made me jolt with sympathy pain. “Oh God, Mona, you have no idea what this night has been like.” He ran toward me with arms outstretched. For a moment, I thought he might just pretend to hug me so he could get close enough to grip my throat with his bare hands. Whether it was genuine goodness or fear of committing a crime in a police station, Toby hugged me with all his might and sobbed into my shoulder. “You have no idea what I’ve been through. Look at my lip!”
“All right, put the harmonica away, jailbird. G’head, Miss Warren.”
“Well,” I shifted my weight uncomfortably as the officers grew quiet. “Seven years ago, I met my grandmother’s accountant. Well, actually he was her accountant’s son who had just become a CPA and joined the family business. Anyway, he was just magnificent. Confident, sexy, and totally charming, everything I wasn’t. I looked at him and thought that is the man I’m going to marry. Grammy told me she’d known Adam’s family for years and they were as close knit as could be. And you could see it
just by looking around the office, too. There were pictures of all of them together on a sailboat, smiling in the sun with their arms draped around each other’s shoulders. There was one of Adam on a horse with his six-year-old niece who was missing both her front teeth and had the biggest, most beautiful smile you’d ever seen. There was another one of Adam’s parents, and I don’t know where they were or what they were doing, but they looked so happy, so in love with each other still.
“I thought, I want to be in those photos. I want to be part of them. And I looked around the office some more and there was all this stuff, souvenirs and paperweights and I didn’t know where any of it came from, but I imagined there were stories behind everything. They had history. Texture. It was like Grammy and I were these two little drops of water and they were this big ocean and I wanted us to just drop right into it with them.” I looked over and now the hookers were listening, too. “I don’t know, Adam just seemed perfect. Like he’d be the ideal man to marry. I don’t have a family.” I choked on my words. “They, they ... they all died a long time ago and it was just me and Grammy for the last fifteen years. Then she died last year and I, I ...”
Marman pulled a chair and told me to sit down. Another brought me a glass of water. “I felt so ... I was so alone. Then one day I walked into my office and they tell us that they’re having financial troubles and asked who wanted to leave. At that point, I realized that nothing is permanent; everything is completely fluid, changing, and disappearing. And I was like, hey, I’m not getting any younger and my life is passing me by. If there is one thing I really want in this world it is the feeling of belonging somewhere, being a part of something. Love. I want to be part of a family again.” I stopped to wipe away a tear that had escaped in my losing battle to hold them back.
“So, I thought, if I want to marry Adam, I’d better kick it into high gear and make it happen. Anyway, to make a long story short, I’ve been trying to impress him, to show him what an asset to his life I’d be, but everything I do turns out wrong. I hired some guy to pretend he was my cool forlorn ex-boyfriend and, well let’s just say, that didn’t go well. Then, I tried to save someone’s life, but ended up getting some poor woman’s driver’s license taken away. And now, instead of looking like a woman who can take care of herself against a purse snatcher, poor Toby got beaten up and arrested.” At this point, I buried my face into my hands and sobbed.
“Jeesh.” Marman sighed. “I thought this was going to be a funny story.”
“Yeah, that’s really sad,” said another.
“Didja ever think of maybe cooking your boyfriend a meal?” Marman offered.
“How ʼbout sucking his dick?” the green prom dress offered.
Toby wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Or fall in love without engineering the whole thing.”
I laughed.
“What?” a few asked.
“It’s just that I used to be an engineer, that’s all. I found it amusing.”
“Owww, child, you can take the girl out of engineering, but you can’t take the engineering out the girl!” said a hooker.
“All right, your story wasn’t the crack up I thought it was gonna be, but I believe it. And I doubt Weepy Boy over here is gonna snatch any more purses, that right?” Toby shook his head emphatically. “You seem like a nice enough girl. Can I give you a bit of advice? You don’t have to be Evel Knievel to get a guy to fall in love with you. My wife didn’t do squat to get me hooked. She still don’t do much, but I love her. It’ll happen or it won’t, and if it don’t it just means there’s someone else.” I felt like I was his teenage daughter hearing that if a boy didn’t like me it was his loss. “You’re a terrific little lady, you hear me?”
“What about some love for Ruby?” one of the hookers taunted Marman.
“Owww, child,” said her friend. “We ain’t never gettin’ outta here tonight.”
“Death row for three ho!” Ruby said as she laughed.
I leaned in closer to Marman and asked what would become of these women. He said they would likely be bailed out by their pimp later that night and beaten for cutting into his profits. Or, he might not show up and they would be sent to Las Colinas Women’s Detention Center. “Most likely back out on the streets tomorrow night with a black eye and a fat lip,” he said far too casually.
“How much is their bail?” I asked.
“You’re not thinkin’—”
“How much?” I said.
“Two grand a piece,” he said. “You got that kind of money?”
“Can I write you a check?”
Officer Marman laughed. “Miss Warren, you seem like a good kid, but we don’t take checks from anyone. Ever heard of fraud?”
Heard of it? I’m living it.
“Give me an hour to get back here, okay? Come on, Toby. You’re coming back to Coronado with me.”
I gave Toby an extra couple hundred dollars for his trouble that evening, got him into a taxi, and returned to the police station, which looked like a warmer place than when I’d first passed through its doors an hour earlier. After taking care of Ruby, Tiffani, and Parfait’s bail, I handed Marman an envelope with five hundred-dollar bills in it. “Look,” I whispered. “This is not a bribe, okay? You just gave me some very good advice and I want to thank you. In this envelope is the name of a woman who lost her driver’s license because I asked her to pretend to pass out in the zoo so I could save her. Anyway, there’s no reason she shouldn’t drive so if you could—”
Marman grabbed the envelope and opened it. “This isn’t a bribe?” he asked skeptically. “It’s for my good advice?”
I shook my head. Marman took the slip of paper with Julie’s name and tucked it in his shirt pocket, then handed the envelope full of cash back to me. “Miss Warren, this is a bribe in the first degree. You wouldn’t pay Sigmund Freud himself this kind of money for his advice.”
My male consultant gets a lot more and he’s a complete idiot.
“But—” I attempted.
“Miss Warren, first off, we don’t have any say in license suspension. Second, what I told you was ʼcause you seem like a nice girl. A nice girl who’s had a hard life and don’t have anyone around to tell her that any guy would be crazy not to fall in love with her. Not ʼcause she can do a backflip or jump through hoops to prove how great she is, but because she’s good and kind and cares about people. ‘Cause she’s pretty, creative, clever, and a little bit nutty. And she loves family. That counts, Miss Warren. All of this counts a hell of a lot more than you know. That’s why I told you what I did, not ‘cause I thought you were gonna pay me for it. People say nice things to each other without getting paid for it. I know some people at the DMV. I’ll see what I can do for your friend. It don’t seem right that she can’t drive if you swear to me on your ... just promise me that you’re telling me the truth that she didn’t really go out cold ‘cause, if that’s the case, she really shouldn’t be driving.”
“I promise,” I said to my surrogate father for the evening.
“Free at last!” I heard Ruby’s voice echo through the corridors. “Free at last, free at last. Good God Almighty, I’m free at last!”
Chapter 28
When I returned home, my cup of cold tea sat on the kitchen countertop. It had been nearly four hours since I’d been home, but that mug with its pressed Tetley tea bag sitting in a spoon beside it seemed like a relic from a former life. After leaving the station, I paid Ruby, Tiffani, and Parfait to be my bitches for the night. At first, they assumed I wanted to have sex with them, a great disappointment to Parfait, who quickly announced that she “hated eating punany.” I didn’t have any desire to have sex with any of these women—or women in general—but couldn’t help wondering why the thought of me was so repelling to a hooker. Much to her relief, I took the three of them to a diner and asked them each what they would do if they didn’t have to street walk. Parfait and Tiffani didn’t know, but Ruby said she would be a dancer, a singer, a model, and the CEO of a
recording label.
At times during my evening as Richard Gere in Pretty Woman, I felt like the benevolent John empowering Ruby by asking her to focus more on what she wanted from life. At other moments, I suspected my motives weren’t as pure. Perhaps I was a voyeur peeking into the unseemly underworld of poor prostitutes, both repelled and intrigued by their plight. I felt guilty driving across the bridge that separated our island from the rest of the city, and returning to my life of clean granite countertops and crystal vases.
The number four blinked on my answering machine, letting me know I had messages.
Beep—Hi, it’s Greta, touching base about tomorrow morning. Don’t forget we’re having the team brunch at the Big Kitchen afterward.
Beep—Men are total dickheads, Vicki launched without introduction. I am so pissed off right now I could scream. Anyway, I found the most amazing stained glass window at Architectural Salvage. It’s sacrilege to even describe it as just a window. It’s a work of art. Anyway, I put it on hold for you to look at after the lunch thingy tomorrow. I hope you don’t think I’m being pushy, it’s just perfect with—”
Beep—Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, men adore you, a very drunk Mike sang into the phone with a soundtrack of sports bar behind him. I’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places, looking for love in too many faces—” he switched before fumbling to hang up.
Beep—Hello, Mona. It’s Adam calling to see that you’re okay after tonight’s incident. I guess you’re sleeping. I’ll call you tomorrow. I had a terrific time tonight, aside from the mugging. You really are a lot of fun.
Immediately, I picked up the phone and dialed, hoping it wasn’t too late to call. “Hello,” he said groggily.
Reinventing Mona Page 17
