Everyone's Dirty Little Secrets (22 page)

*****

Stupid me.  Dodg
e makes
himself laugh, test driving his
new
navy blue Crown Vic, giggling at the way i
t makes cars scatter.  It definitely looks like a trooper car.  A quick
acceleration up on anyone’s rear end
, in any lane, sends t
hem scrambling
to get out of his way.  The Thule ski racks
on top
only help.  He knows from experience any dark car, Crown Vic or not, with ski racks sends the pulses of drivers racing
, looking like a cop car
at first glance.

Even more so with the Crown Vic.  Hell, with a flashing light, he cou
l
d pull somebody over.  He wouldn’t mind playing bad cop.  Bad
l
ieutenant.  Emitting his own desperate whine.  A siren for help.

He needs help.

There’s no doubt about it.

The smart thing is to get a lawyer.

But getting a lawyer makes him look guilty.

Buying a Crown Vic makes him look crazy.

Sometimes crazy looks suspicious.

But looking guilty always looks suspicious.

In his
heart of hearts, he knows
Jaime
is the only one
who can really help him.

Not a lawyer.

She has a way of making things happen.

In his heart of hearts, he knows this.

And if he wants to, he can make her make things happen for him.

He doesn’t have a specific plan.

Just articulating the possibility, though, conjures the vision, the confidence.

Jaime uses him.

It’s okay for him to use Jaime.

And not
just in the way that Jaime wants
him to use her. 

*****

Jaime changes direction, takes an unplanned right at the stop sign just past Dodge’s house.
  She sucks on her vodka and cranberry from a fountain soda cup
, wrapping her lips around the straw an
d pulling the sweet booze
into her mouth.

It doesn’t surprise
her she picks up a tail at Dodge’s house
.

She’s being followed.

When she passes his hous
e, whoever is staking
him
out
starts following her.

It’s a sure sign he’s not there.

She catches a glimpse of a
cop
car sliding into traffic behind her aft
er she passes the gate at hi
s driveway. 

She doesn’t care if she’s being followed, as long as she doesn’t get pulled over.  She’s drunk.  Wasted drunk.  Her nerves have been getting to her.  Tension
is growing on these streets.

She wonders if it’s the little boy cop with the little boy crush on her.

Or hopes.
  The
n she
might not mind getting pulled over.

She could
make his day.

And the
n
make an anniversary out of it.

The lights never come on, though.

So she just pulls over.
  She’s too
drunk to drive anyway.  Maybe they can just haul her off to prison and she can stop worrying about what she’s done.  Spend the rest of her days as some butch guerilla’s sex slave.  Maybe
t
hat’s
what
she needs right now.

She do
esn’t know, she might
be serious about making this cop’s day.

Maybe she needs to start playing another game besides the Dodge game.

She’s so serious about these stupid thoughts that when she sees Dodge walking toward her,
she bursts into a smile.  He climbs
out of some absurd, ridiculous
ly cop-like
Crown Vic, grinning
for the first time in weeks, walking with a s
wagger he lost a long time ago.

She laughs out loud
, biting her lip to suppress it to a giggle
.
 

He’s such an asshole.

A stupid, funny asshole walking toward her car like he’s some super
cop.

Just beside himself.

Which she’s so happy to see.

He arrives at her window.

She really wishes he was in a uniform. 
That would make the whole scene perfect, a little bit crazy
. 

And
now she’s just
smiles
at the thought even of how
uptight
she’s been lately. 

Of course,
she stops laughing when she
remember
s why she’s so uptight,
all of the things she’s done
over the last cou
ple of weeks.  And
feels a little more shame than anything.

But what’s worse, she realize
s about herself, is how when Dodge sticks his face in her window, she acts no differently whether this is lust or
laughter,
shame or disgust.

She slams
him
with a smile she knows destroys men.

But what she realizes is that the very same smile destroys her too.

In a more culpable way, though.

Is it mommy jealousy or daddy hate, n
ature vs. nurture, or any – some -
other, dumbass psych
obabble that makes her this way
?

Or is it just simpler?

It’s not so hard to understand.

She wants a man. 

She wants money.

Dodge
is both to her at this point.

So she reaches up and just touches him dearly on the face.

He is so precious
, she thinks, looking
into his eyes.

“Dodge,” she whispers, full of love, and sincere about it.

She’s not happy about all of the emotions she has, but she knows too that she loves Dodge,
and has to take care of him
.  Not just herself.

If she takes care of Dodge, she takes care of herself.

She remembers the only other time she ever held him like this, all of the things she wanted then, and how little of them she
still
has now.
 

She would do anything to make
him hers.

The horizontal dance for the vertical chance
.

It seems inevitable.

But the moment is broken as soon as
she see
s the lights -
real cop light
s -
out of the corner of her eye.

It’s her tail
.

The boy cop who’s been following her all around town.

“I’ll do anything you need me to do,” she promises Dodge.

He knows, sharing a slight grimace with his nod.

T
heir fleeting moment of joy is gone.

*****

Dodge doesn’t know what the hell Jaime’s doing
, just sitting there grinning goofily a
t him.  She seems pretty hammered, just caressing his face.  The uninhibited affection warms him.

He need
s it more than he let himself admit before.

He’s feeling horribly alone.

Which makes it even more disappointing when a cop suddenly show
s up behind him. 

I
t’s only a townie cop, though, at least, and pr
actically a kid.  A
rookie.  Dodge figures this isn’t who they’re sending if they’re going to arrest him.

So he’s got that going for him.

“Mr. Dodge,” the officer recognizes him as he approaches.

Dodge watches Jaime eyeing the cop.  He’s hit with
a
pang of both inexplicable jealousy, and worry.  Jealous over the way she seems to be looking at the office
r
, which is the same way she’s looking at him.  Worry over just how drunk she might be.  He doesn’t want her to get in trouble.