Flirting In Cars

by Alisa Kwitney

  Moroney gritted his teeth. “Your file. Read it.”

  Mack looked out the front window and was relieved to see the lights of the hospital. “Oh yeah?” He was so busy humoring Moroney that it took him a moment to process what had been said. The bastard had read his army file.

  Moroney winced, and Mack came over to him. “Are you experiencing any discomfort?”

  “I know.” Moroney sucked in a hard breath. “About you.” He reached out and grabbed hold of Mack’s latex-gloved hand. For some reason, the pressure was painful.

  Mack removed the other man’s fingers, wondering if he was going to need restraints. On the one hand, Moroney was exhibiting clear signs of irrational aggression. On the other hand, the last thing Mack wanted to do was agitate his patient further. Mack patted Moroney’s hand, then held it.

  “Listen to me, Jim. I know you’re scared, but it’s going to be all right. Okay, that’s it, we’re here.” He positioned himself near Moroney’s feet at the back doors as Danny pulled up in front of the emergency room, and after that everything went smoothly as they transferred Moroney into the hospital’s care.

  “Wow,” said Danny when they were back in the ambulance. “You think he’s going to be all right?”

  Still writing up the report, Mack grunted. “That horny old bastard? He’ll probably live to be a hundred.” In the back of his mind, he half understood Moroney’s problem. Since Jim used information to manipulate people, he figured Mack would do the same. Kind of like that quote of Zoë’s about the confidence you have in yourself. “Come on, Danny boy, let’s get out of here.”

  Danny put them into reverse and then pulled out onto a side street. As they passed the tidy town houses immediately surrounding the hospital, Danny turned right, taking them down into the center of Poughkeepsie.

  “Wrong way, Danny. We need to turn around.”

  “Yeah, I know, but I’m hungry. I know a great Mexican place around here.”

  “We can get a bite on the way back to Arcadia.”

  “Yeah, but not good Mexican. It’s just around the corner.” Mack thought about protesting, but then remembered Moroney saying, I know about you. So he let Danny make a left turn onto a street filled with squat, rectangular buildings, the lone streetlight only revealing the multitude of shadowy areas and blind corners. A number of cars were parked in a lot outside the largest building, which had huge plate-glass windows and a neon sign that read “Mama Mexico.”

  “I used to come here all the time when I was in the Academy,” Danny was saying as they walked in the front door. Mack absently rubbed the sore pad of his thumb where Moroney had squeezed, then pressed again, deliberately concentrating on the slight pain. Problem was, thinking about the panic attacks always seemed to bring them on, and worrying about other people noticing made it worse. Trying to distract himself, Mack looked around. The restaurant was a dark maze of tables, with potted plants placed at angles that obscured a clear line of vision. If that wasn’t bad enough, there were also balloons and streamers hanging from the ceiling, and piñatas dangling low enough to catch on people’s heads.

  Danny turned back to him. “You want take-out, or we could sit at the bar?”

  Mack managed to mumble, “Take-out.” He followed Danny into a knot of people gathered by a high desk and looked out at the dinner crowd. Despite the late hour, there were small children seated at high chairs, clearly entranced by all the noise and bright colors.

  A woman in tight jeans gave him a look. Next to her, Mack spotted a teenager wearing a heavy jacket, despite the heat from all the packed bodies. Stay alert to your surroundings. Mack’s palms began to sweat; any appetite he might have had disappeared. The distinctive, overpowering odor of refried beans and chili powder was beginning to make him feel sick.

  “I’m trying to decide,” said Danny, showing him the take-out menu. “Should I go for a taco, or try one of the enchiladas?”

  You have to adopt a different mentality. Assess and evaluate in terms of potential threat.

  “This looks good—the steak and chicken combo. And you have to try the red beans, dude.”

  Mack nodded, hoping he looked like he was holding it together. He could feel the hum of conversation setting up a sympathetic buzz in his ribs and sternum. He felt as if he was shrinking inside himself, away from the noise and vibration. Mack tried to focus on the ordinariness of the situation. Teenagers giving each other secret, lustful glances. Mothers telling off their kids. Waiters bumping each other as they maneuvered laden trays. Do not make assumptions about what you see. Describe only what things appear to be. Just because an object appears to be a cow doesn’t mean it’s a fucking cow.

  Mack blinked his eyes. “Hot in here,” he said, scraping his fingers through his hair.

  “You’re not kidding.”

  As always, he was amazed that no one noticed what was happening to him. His voice felt like it was coming from the bottom of a well. For all he knew about the body, he’d never figured out why he’d begin to see things as if lit by a strobe light. Retrain your brain, boys. The hostess turned to them, and to Mack’s eyes she appeared to move in the speedy, jerky motions of an actress from a silent film.

  She smiled at them. “You ready to order?”

  “Yeah,” said Danny, but Mack interrupted him.

  “Danny, I got to go.”

  “What? Are you kidding?”

  Mack pressed the sore pad of his hand, allowing him to ignore the illusion that Danny’s freckled face was flickering from black to white. “Meet you outside.”

  He pushed blindly through the crowd, feeling like he couldn’t breathe. His heart was racing so fast he had a moment of wondering if he would need oxygen, and then he was outside, sucking in the cool night air. He leaned against the ambulance, head between his knees, as the humming in his body grew fainter and his vision cleared.

  “Hey, you okay, dude?” Danny had apparently decided to leave without placing an order.

  “Yeah, yeah, I just needed some air.” Mack straightened up.

  Danny frowned, clearly suspicious. “I thought you were going to pass out.”

  “It’s just the smell. Chili powder. I think I’m allergic.” And then, because he was embarrassed, he added, “Jesus, Danny, how can you eat that shit, anyway?”

  Danny gave him a sharp look as he climbed back into the driver’s seat. “Before you say anything else, you should know that my best friend on the force is Mexican American.”

  “No offense meant,” said Mack, staring out the window as they left the lights of the city behind. He thought about explaining himself, but decided against it. Maybe the army doctors were right, and there was nothing unusual about him freaking out in crowds, but Mack thought he’d rather Danny pegged him as an asshole than as a mental case.

  Fifteen

  O ld Pete Grell was not exactly a bundle of charm. He drove in complete silence, maneuvering his sturdy old Chevrolet down the dark road with a kind of studied deliberation that was somehow more unnerving than recklessness. Every two seconds he moved his head an inch to the right, then an inch to the left, like an animatronic figure on a Disney ride. On the bright side, Zoë thought, he was certainly patient, waiting placidly while she dropped Maya off at Mack’s sister’s house, giving her plenty of time to exchange a few pleasantries and get a sense that Maya liked the horsewoman and vice versa. Moira reminded Zoë of Mack a bit: both had dark blond hair, wiry builds, and similar strong-boned jaws and watchful eyes, and both gave an impression of being laid-back and easygoing. But while Mack still possessed more than a hint of youthful curiosity and recklessness, his sister exuded an air of centered calm that made Zoë feel immature by comparison. In any case, she seemed more than willing to show Maya all her horses, and Maya was thrilled. Her one request: see if her classmate Allegra’s mother would agree to a playdate.

  Back in the car, however, Zoë began to wonder if Pete really knew where he was going. It seemed as though hours had passed since they’d turned
onto the dirt road, which wound up and around the mountain at a very steep angle.

  “Crazy rich people,” muttered Pete. “How they’re going to plow all this in winter, I’d like to know.”

  The answer, it became clear as they turned the corner, was that Kiki Armstrong had enough money to buy her own highway department. Zoë had been expecting a standard McMansion, but what she saw as they approached the top of the hill was a bona fide castle, built of stone, complete with wrought-iron gates, turrets, mullioned windows, and liveried servants who stood ready to greet them.

  “Huh,” said Pete, scratching his head. “Would you get a load of that? You’d never even know it was there from the main road.” He sounded a little bewildered, as might be expected of a man who’d lived in a place his whole life but had no idea there was a castle in the neighborhood.

  It made Zoë wonder what other country fantasies might lay at the end of other nondescript dirt driveways. She might have neighbors who had constructed a miniature racetrack for their vintage Model T Fords. A Moorish pleasure palace might be hidden behind the scrubby viburnum bushes in the back of her house. Hell, there could be an entire pack of tigers stashed in someone’s private zoo not a mile from her front door. In the city, there are rules about whether or not you can own a llama, and in the suburbs, committees decide whether or not you can add a gargoyle to your roof. Only in the country, Zoë thought, are you limited only by your bankbook.

  There could well be a story in that, she thought, wishing she’d brought a pen to write the idea down.

  “May I park your car, sir?” The valet, a young man in an emerald green jacket, gave no outward sign that she and Pete weren’t usual guests at the castle.

  “Not going to hand over my car,” said Pete. “I’m just going to wait for the young lady over here.”

  Aw, crud. Somehow, Zoë hadn’t thought about Pete sitting out all alone in his car while she mingled with other parents. “Are you sure you don’t want to come in?” Under the circumstances, she assumed it would be all right to invite a nonparent.

  “Not my kind of party,” said Pete.

  Not mine, either, Zoë suspected. “Well then,” she offered. “Why not just go home and then swing back in an hour or two?”

  “Go out four times instead of two,” said Pete, raising his grizzled eyebrows as if she were crazy. “Not on your nelly.”

  “You won’t be cold out here?” Zoë had dressed in her most conservative dress, a fitted black 1950s shift with matching cap sleeve bolero jacket, and her arms were already prickling in the chill night air.

  Pete sniffed. “This ain’t cold,” he said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Go on, you have yourself a good time. I’ll be right here.”

  “I won’t be long, then.” Crunching over the gravel path in her chunky 1940s heels, Zoë wondered how long she had to stay without giving offense. She couldn’t imagine keeping old Pete waiting for more than an hour, but could she stay less than that without giving offense to her hostess?

  Zoë walked through the heavy, Tudor-style front door and realized that she didn’t have to worry. She’d been to a couple of snazzy Fifth Avenue apartments for cocktail parties, and she’d seen her share of gorgeous SoHo lofts and swank Brooklyn brownstones. But this wasn’t garden-variety Manhattan wealth. This was vast, palatial, country wealth, complete with timbered ceilings and marble busts displayed alongside antique oil paintings of oddly proportioned horses and weak-chinned ladies.

  Zoë wondered whether Kiki Armstrong was aware that decking your home out like a period film set was proof positive that yours was not bona fide old WASP wealth. A real Daughter of the Revolution wouldn’t have built herself a citadel in the middle of horse country, no matter how many acres she had to play with.

  As she approached the main room, Zoë could hear the animated murmuring of a large crowd, accompanied by the clinking of glasses. She followed the sound to a room done up to look like a British gentlemen’s club and began pushing her glasses up her nose before recalling that she was wearing contact lenses.

  “Caviar, madame?” A waitress, the only woman besides herself dressed all in black, paused to offer Zoë her choice from a platter.

  “Thanks.” Zoë took a tiny blini and a napkin. “Now all I need is a drink.”

  “The bar’s over there,” said the waitress with a small smile of amusement, “and there’s someone walking around with champagne.”

  “Excellent,” said Zoë. She went straight to the bar and ordered a scotch and soda.

  “Single malt?”

  “God, yes. Make it a double.” A woman of about her own age came up beside her. She was wearing a headband and an expensive, frumpy dress that, on close inspection, bore a pattern of maroon horse’s heads. Zoë gave her a friendly smile. “Some party, huh?”

  “Oh yes,” the woman agreed. “The Armstrongs always make an effort.” She turned to order a gin and tonic, then said, “Are you new to the school?”

  “My daughter, Maya, started fourth grade this fall.”

  “Ah. My son, Amory, is in the second grade. It’s been so good for him. Did you move from Manhattan?”

  “Yes, I’m still adjusting to this country life. I feel a little like Eva Gabor in Green Acres, only without the negligee and the chickens.”

  The woman smiled politely. “Give it a month, you’ll love it. Lots of the other parents are from the city, and after a year or two, hardly anybody uses their Manhattan apartments anymore.”

  “I’d use mine,” said Zoë, “but the new owners might object.”

  “You sold? Very wise,” said the woman. “The market’s probably peaking, and a hotel is so much easier. Although I do find it convenient to have a little pied-à-terre when I go in to see a Broadway show. Tell me,” she went on, “does your husband still work in the city?”

  Zoë took a fortifying sip of her scotch. “No husband, just my daughter and myself. I’m a freelance journalist.” She waited for a follow-up question, but instead the woman smiled politely again.

  “That’s convenient,” she said. “You can work from home. And which town are you in?”

  “Arcadia,” said Zoë.

  “Oh, land is so reasonable out there,” the woman enthused. “I’ve been telling my husband we ought to move out of Milton, we really need more room for the horses.”

  Zoë was beginning to suspect that her Manhattan repertoire of small talk—indie films, new nonfiction, The Daily Show—was not going to serve her here. After a beat too long, she came up with a suitable question. “How many horses do you have?”

  “Twelve,” said the woman. “Do you ride?”

  “I tried it once, but then decided I’d better quit while I still had some nerve endings left down there.”

  The woman’s smile flickered for a second before vanishing. “Oh, gosh,” she said, scanning the room, “please excuse me, I see someone I’ve been searching for all evening.”

  The woman vanished into the crowd, and Zoë took her scotch and wandered around the room, catching various fragments of conversations: “The vet said to wait a good month before I jumped him again.” “…came up to me at the charity dinner, and I said there was a three-year waiting list for my stone mason.” “She left you all alone with the two kids for the last week of August? I’d complain to the au pair service.”

  The men, whose voices didn’t carry so well, seemed to be discussing golf and finance, but Zoë did overhear one political debate.

  “What people don’t understand about the war,” said a short, chubby man with bright blue eyes, “is that if we withdraw our troops from Iraq, we’re just rolling over and letting Iran take over the region.”

  “And no one can argue that they don’t have weapons of mass destruction,” added a tall, thin man in a bowtie.

  “Well, they certainly don’t have them at the moment,” said Zoë, joining the circle of men. “But you’re right, they do have the capability. On the other hand, it could be argued that President Khatami w
as making diplomatic overtures to the States before Bush made his big Axis of Evil speech. Maybe removing our military presence will convince some of the moderates that we don’t just want to control oil production around the Caspian Sea.”

  There was a moment of silence, and then the chubby man recovered enough to say, “What do you call a moderate? The Iranians are living in the Middle Ages.”

  “Yeah, well, we have no problem making deals with the Saudis, and their women don’t have as many rights as Iranian women do. At least in Iran, a woman can drive a car, cast a vote, and sit in parliament. Not to mention show her face.”

  The new silence went on a little longer than the last. The chubby man cleared his throat. “Are you certain of your facts? Because I’m pretty sure that Iranian women aren’t allowed to drive.”

  “Absolutely certain,” said Zoë. “I’ve just finished researching and writing an article about it. So I think the question really is, What are the criteria for being a member of the Axis of Evil? Totalitarian regime? Repression of minorities? Fostering intolerance of other religions? The Saudis qualify on all counts.” Zoë smiled, waiting for the riposte. Her blood was up, and she felt more alive than she had in weeks.

  “Well,” said the man in the bowtie. Zoë began to feel like a Major League player who had struck out a bunch of Little Leaguers. Before she could think of something else to say, the chubby man turned back to his friends. “Now, not to change the subject, but have any of you been playing any golf recently?”

  The men eagerly pounced on this new topic, and Zoë drifted toward another group of women. Two were pretty ponytailed blondes in pastel cashmere twinsets, one was a plump redhead bursting out of a tight red suit, and one was a poised brunette in a navy silk dress.

  “As a friend, I’m telling you not to buy it,” the brunette was saying to one of the blondes. Unlike the other women present, her long, silky hair was worn loose, and occasionally she flicked some of it over her shoulder, making it ripple. “They’re going to go ahead with that development behind the post office.”