You Are Here (15 page)

They’d barely gotten back on the highway when Emma began to tease him for driving like an old woman. There had been a faint hint of rain in the air after lunch, and so the top of the convertible was now up, and Peter felt hunched and slightly claustrophobic beneath it, his eyes trained on the road.

“What happened to the guy who tore into the rest stop?” she asked, propping her feet up on the dashboard and reaching over her shoulder to hand the dog a potato chip. “You were a maniac yesterday. Now I’ll bet we get pulled over for going too slow.”

Peter raised his foot with the intention of hitting the gas, but then saw yet another police car—this one tucked in the entrance of a fast-food restaurant just off the highway—and instead jammed down on the brake, causing the car to balk and both him and Emma to lurch forward in their seats. Behind them a truck driver leaned hard on his horn before swinging into the left lane and blowing past them in a haze of exhaust.

As they crawled past the dust-coated police car—a Maryland state trooper whose head was tipped back against the seat as he slept, his mouth propped open so that he looked a bit like a baby bird—Peter breathed out and loosened his grip on the steering wheel. It was nearly impossible to stop his heart from pounding each time they passed one, not necessarily because he was speeding or driving any more erratically than usual, or even because one of the taillights was cracked and refused to light up—though that last was also true. Mostly it was because Peter had started to see the face of his dad behind every shadowy windshield of every single emergency vehicle they passed.

Peter knew it wouldn’t have been terribly hard for him to put out some kind of alert, the kind of thing that would come over every crackling radio in every worn-down cop car from upstate New York straight down to the very tip of Florida, a warning to every fellow man in uniform that the son of a sheriff had stolen an impounded car and was now fleeing to who-knew-where. Peter guessed it wouldn’t take a whole lot of effort for his dad to call in a few favors, have someone fetch the blue convertible and reel them back home like a couple of squirmy fish on a hook.

But even so, a part of him wasn’t surprised they’d gotten this far. That would have been like being surprised that Emma’s parents were still calling every hour. It was simply their nature. Just as this—this long, stubborn silence—was Dad’s.

Peter remembered the first time he’d ever gotten beat up, sucker punched (not for the last time) by a bully of a kid named James McWalter as they walked home from school in third grade. Dad must have been patrolling the neighborhood in his squad car, because even as Peter staggered to his feet—a hand cupped over his eye, blinking back tears as he felt the side of his face begin to throb—Dad had the kid by the shoulders, steering him calmly over to the car, where he must have given him a good scare, because after a moment James grabbed his backpack, mumbled an apology, and darted off in the direction of his house, white-faced and trembling.

Afterward, Dad had taken Peter by the shoulder in a similar manner, half shoving him toward the squad car. His left eye was twitching, and his thumb was pressed hard against the back of Peter’s neck, as if
Peter
had done something wrong. When they got home, Dad pulled a bag of peas from the freezer and jerked his chin toward the couch, all without a word.

Later, while Peter stood on his tiptoes in the bathroom, examining the pink-tinged bruise that had bloomed below his eye, Dad appeared in the doorway.

“You were holding your books with both hands.”

Peter stared at him, not quite sure how to respond.

“If these kids are gonna keep bothering you, make sure to put your books in your backpack,” he said. “Keep your hands ready and your eyes open. Don’t be such an easy target. You have to be able to take care of yourself.”

Peter nodded feebly. It wasn’t until later that he realized this meant Dad must have seen him
before
he was punched, before his books went tumbling to the ground. Which meant he hadn’t come to the rescue just in time. He’d seen what was happening and had chosen to wait.

And so when Peter finally
did
spot a flashing red light in the rearview mirror—accompanied by a whirring siren so loud it made him feel sure the whole interstate was in on it, hitchhikers and semi trucks and roadkill alike—it didn’t come as much of a surprise. In fact it was almost a relief. And even as Emma began to speak fast—outlining such a litany of possible excuses and explanations that even Peter had the presence of mind to be impressed—he was still half thinking it would be easier to simply stick out his arms and wait for the officer to clap on the handcuffs, bringing this whole mismanaged expedition to a fitting end.

By the time he pulled the car onto the shoulder of the highway, he was feeling like he might very well throw up. The top was up, and suddenly the inside felt crowded and close, with Emma looking amused and the dog’s tail thumping steadily against the back of his seat, making everything seem too small and impossibly stuffy. Peter sat frozen, staring straight ahead at a pink billboard for a nightclub, and so he failed to notice the policeman stepping up to the car.

“Put down the window,” Emma said, looking at him with alarm when the cop knocked on the glass and Peter still didn’t make a move. He was so focused on imagining what his dad might do to him once he was returned home that he didn’t even flinch.

There was a second knock, this time a bit louder.

“Put. Down. The. Window.” Emma’s face was very close to his now, and Peter blinked at her, a bit stunned by the proximity.

“Jeez, Peter,” she said, once it was clear that he wasn’t in the state of mind to follow even the simplest of instructions. She launched herself across him, straining against her seat belt, and rolled the window down herself.

“Afternoon,” said the cop, a balding man whose name tag, perhaps ominously, read officer hurt, and whose uniform strained against a belly that made it look like he was hiding a bowling ball under his shirt. He lowered his face so that it was level with Peter’s, glancing at him and then at Emma as if puzzled by how the two of them had ended up here together.

“You were doing a fair amount of weaving back there, son,” he said, turning a suspicious eye back to Peter, who hitched his glasses up farther on his nose and attempted a smile that seemed to go sorely wrong. “I’m gonna need to see your license.”

As Peter fumbled through the glove compartment for his wallet, the dog took the opportunity to dart forward between the seats—eager to greet this visitor to his new home—and let out a bark so loud it rang against the sides of the car. Startled, Peter jerked away, managing to bump the back of his head hard against the cop’s chin.

“What the hell?” the officer said, drawing back from the window and clapping a hand over his jaw. He narrowed his eyes at Peter. “Out of the car.”

“Both of us?” Peter asked, shooting Emma a desperate look.

“Just you’ll be fine.”

Officer Hurt swiped the driver’s license from Peter’s hand before he was even fully out of the car, then stood examining it for what seemed like far too long. Peter shifted from foot to foot and tried not to look too guilty, following the flight of two crows circling overhead in the glassy sky. A guy in an old green Chevy gave them all the finger as he drove past.

“Have you been drinking, Mr. Finnegan?” the officer asked, and even as he shook his head and croaked out a feeble “no,” Peter could feel his face turn an incriminating shade of pink. The cop looked at the picture on his license and then back up at him several times, and Peter felt sure that at any minute he’d realize who he’d found, would recognize in him the same jawline and freckles and thin brown hair as his father. As the seconds wound past and neither of them spoke, it seemed impossible that he couldn’t have made the connection, and it seemed that in only a moment he’d reach for his walkie-talkie to send out a nationwide bulletin, listening back as thousands of sighs of relief came in from all over the country—
That damn Finnegan kid’s finally been caught in Maryland
—and the one faint whoosh of air that would be his dad shaking his head in a mixture of anger and relief.

But instead the cop looked up, twisting his mouth into a frown. “Son, I’d like to see you take nine steps along that line right there,” he said. “Do you think you could do that for me?”

Peter stared at the faded white line that ran beside the metal median of the highway, then looked back at the policeman. “Um, sure.”

“Wonderful,” he said, nodding as if by answering, Peter had just correctly completed the first stage of the test. “And then I’d like you to turn on one foot and walk right back, okay?”

Peter opened his mouth to protest, but thought better of it and instead turned to begin the walk. His face was burning as he held his hands out unsteadily at his sides, trying not to look at Emma, who was still sitting inside the car. He squared his shoulders and set a foot down on the line just beside a ladybug, which scurried away and disappeared onto the other side of the highway. He toyed briefly with the idea of just turning himself in—rather than going through this particular kind of humiliation—but forced himself to thrust his arms out, place his heel in front of his toe, and begin to walk. At the end of the nine steps, he spun on one leg like a graceless flamingo, then made his way quickly back to the car.

“Fine,” the officer said, looking unmistakably disappointed.

“I don’t drink, sir.”

“You’re sixteen,” he said, as if that meant something. “Anyway, you were driving pretty haphazardly.”

“The car’s old,” Peter said miserably. “It can be sort of … tricky.”

Officer Hurt looked unmoved by this. “Tricky?”

Peter watched as he began a slow circle of the car, considering it with an appraising eye and making little grunting noises here and there, his boots clicking on the pavement. Even if Peter himself weren’t flagged on some kind of police network, he was sure the car must be, and his mouth went chalky as he waited for the verdict.

“And the dog?”

Peter stifled the urge to groan.
Of course,
he thought;
of course we’d dodge everything else and get caught because of a stupid stray dog.

The back window was open a crack, and they could see the dog’s black nose snuffling along its edges as he twisted his head to get a better whiff of the world outside. After a moment, he set about licking at the window, his great pink tongue covering every inch of glass as if it were a giant ice cream cone.

“It’s yours?”

Peter hesitated, glancing at the car, where Emma was nodding through the window. “Yes, sir?” he said, unable to help it from emerging as a question.

The cop peered into the car once more. “He’s got no collar or tags.”

“No, sir,” Peter agreed with a sigh.

Suddenly, Emma was out of the car too. She let the door hang open as she jogged around to the other side, her flip-flops slapping against the pavement.

“Miss, you can’t just …,” the officer began rather futilely. “Please get back in the—”

But Emma had already sprung into action. “It’s a funny story,” she was saying, half laughing at the sheer comedy of it all, and Peter struggled to imitate her, attempting to arrange his mouth in a way that might suggest he was also carefree and endlessly amused.

Officer Hurt chewed on the end of his pen and waited for Emma to continue.

“Well, we’ve been driving a convertible, right?” she said, motioning to the blue car, where the dog was now pacing the small confines of the backseat. “And it’s been hot, so we usually keep the top down. I mean, you know how it is in the summer.” Peter looked on, mortified, as she patted the now dumbfounded policeman on the arm. “So we got to a stoplight yesterday morning, and he decided to jump right out of the car—the dog, not Peter,” she clarified. “Anyway, we took him to the vet, just to be sure he was fine, because he had an accident as a puppy, which is why he only has three legs in the first place.” Here she lowered her voice conspiratorially, leaning in toward Officer Hurt. “If you’ve got a three-legged dog, you need to be very careful about other injuries in case anything happens to
another
leg, you know?”

The cop just barely managed a nod.

“We had to take his collar off at the vet so that he could examine him properly,” Emma continued, unfazed. “And it wasn’t until we left again that we realized it, and by then we were a hundred miles away.” She rocked back on her heels with a satisfied smile. “We’re on our way to visit my grandparents in DC, and we don’t want to be late for dinner. So we’ll have to get him a new collar once we get there.”

“Uh, yeah,” Officer Hurt said, once Emma had finally fallen silent. “Yeah, just … be sure that you do. And tags, too.”

“Of course, Officer,” Emma said with an overly bright smile. “We really appreciate the reminder.”

Peter thought this last part was a bit over the top, but Officer Hurt flushed at the show of gratitude and began backpedaling toward his car.

“Well, then,” he said, bobbing his head. “Drive safely, okay?”

“Uh, my license?” Peter asked, and felt a rush of relief once the little piece of plastic was back in his own hands. They stood and watched as Officer Hurt sank back down into the driver’s seat of the police car, lifted his hand in a wave, and peeled back out onto the highway.