Alexandria of Africa Read Free Page A

exclusive.”
    “What a pity. Poor Mr. Collins is destined to spend his life appearing as though he is far more concerned with what is
in
his head than what is on
top
of it. I imagine that isn’t a concern you have been accused of having, Ms. Hyatt.”
    “No,” I said. I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant, but I had to agree with his assessment of my lawyer’s haircut.
    “But I digress. The reason I was late was because I had to see my doctor. You might have noticed this.” He pulled his robe down slightly to reveal a thick white collar around his neck. I had noticed the white, but I’d assumed he was wearing a scarf. This was no scarf. It was the sort of thing people wore when they had a neck injury … it was called whip … ship … something.
    “I am suffering from a case of whiplash,” he said.
    “That’s it!” I exclaimed, without thinking.
    “My doctor will be so glad that you agree with his diagnosis. Have you ever had whiplash, Ms. Hyatt?”
    I shook my head and then stopped. Maybe that was like showing off that I
could
move my head.
    “Any of you?” he asked.
    There was a general shaking of heads.
    “You are all very fortunate. It’s not pleasant. In fact, it’s rather painful. If I didn’t have medication I’d be in constant pain.” He held up a little bottle of pills and shook it. “Now I’m going to share with you all how I received this injury. Very informative.” He paused and looked directly at me. “Ms. Hyatt, this story isn’t boring you, is it?”
    “No.” It
was
starting to get a little long, but I wasn’t going to say anything. I wasn’t stupid or rude.
    “Good. I was driving along when I made the terrible mistake of stopping at a red light. How, you might be asking yourselves, could this be a mistake? It was a mistake because the car behind me decided that the red light was merely a suggestion and plowed into the rear of my car.”
    “How awful,” I said.
    “How kind of you to feel that way. Actually, in all fairness, it wasn’t that the driver made a conscious decision to go through that light. She surely knew that red means stop and green means go, but she failed to see either the light or my car stopped at it. She was, in fact, doing what my kids like to call ‘multi-tasking.’ Mr. Hyatt, a successful businessman such as yourself must be very adept at this practice.”
    “It’s part of the job description of any successful CEO.”
    “Then apparently I must have been rear-ended by a future Fortune 500 CEO, because this young lady was not only driving, she was also talking on her cellphone and, this is truly remarkable, retouching her nails!”
    Not that impressive. Everybody I knew stripped them down and reapplied. Retouching nails was so tacky!
    “And all of this at the tender age of sixteen while driving her father’s very expensive car. Do you drive your father’s car, Ms. Hyatt?”
    “My client is only fifteen,” Mr. Collins said.
    “I know her age, Mr. Collins. It’s all in this report,” he said, holding up some papers. “My question is, have you ever driven your father’s car?”
    “Well …”
    “I let her drive in parking lots,” my father said, jumping to his feet. “I’m just helping her to become a better driver, the sort that wouldn’t crash into a judge’s car. She’ll be sixteen soon.”
    “And then she’ll drive your car,” the judge said. He paused. “Or will you be buying her a car of her own?”
    “Well, I was thinking that might be a possibility.”
    I knew it was more than a possibility. It was a locked-down, guaranteed thing. I expected a car to be waiting at the end of the driveway on the morning of my birthday. I’d been taking driver’s education and had already spent time behind the wheel of a car. I was a pretty good driver already.
    “So, back to my story. This young lady rammed my car, and do you know what she was most concerned about? The air bag, which probably saved her from injury, had smashed her