Jo Piazza Read Free Page A

one of the true great beauties.
    “We were just giving her a place to park for the night, Officer,” I said, smoothing down bangs that refused to settle against my forehead.
    “She here?”
    “Of course she is. She’s getting cleaned up.”
    “Got our keys?”
    “I believe they are still in the ignition.”
    “Great place for ’em.”
    “How’d she get them in the first place?” Now Alan, his chesticles straining against the brass buttons of his vest, looked sheepish and began playing with his imaginary bangs—the ones that were there before his receding hairline got the better of them.
    “Alan made a bet with Annie and he lost,” Chris chimed in for his partner.
    “Darts?”
    “What else?”
    “Doesn’t he know better than to challenge Annie on her home turf to her game?”
    “I think Alan was a little tipsy himself. Anyway, he lost the bet.”
    “So he gave her his car?”
    “No, no, she just asked to run the siren. She said she wasn’t going to take it. But then she took it.” It was pretty obvious that these two, despite being on duty, had also been partaking of beverages at the bar, which is why they didn’t end up tracking Annie down until after the sun came up.
    “Of course she did. It sounds like this is just as much Alan’s fault as Annie’s. I don’t see any reason to haul her in.”
    Annie was famously good at darts. She had learned how to play while studying abroad in Prague, when a group of gangsters in her local pub took a liking to her because they had never seen a ginger before and took her under their wing. To pick up extra cash Annie worked with them hustling tourists who didn’t think such a pretty American girl would be so good at hitting a bull’s-eye or remaining standing while shooting bathtub vodka.
    Chris looked down, and Alan shuffled his feet some more.
    “There’s the problem. Annie caused quite the path of destruction on her way over here. She took out two mailboxes, dented a fire hydrant, and ran over Ms. Dinkdorf’s cat.”
    I put my hand to my mouth. “Fluffy!”
    “Cat heaven. Half the town saw her rip shit barreling through the streets with that siren going. We’ve got to get her for DUI and destruction of private property or we are going to be held liable.”
    “So what are you going to do? Arrest her?”
    “She can come to the station with us willingly and we’ll have to charge her and we can tell the judge to go easy on her. She’ll probably get probation and some alcohol education classes,” Chris said. Then, dropping his tone to a conspiratorial whisper, he went on, “Which I don’t think is necessarily a bad thing at this point. She’s kind of outgrown adorable drunk, don’t you think, Soph?”
    “I hear you out there,” Annie said, all of a sudden appearing and looking absolutely no worse for the wear from the night before. Serial abusers of alcohol never suffer the same hangovers as us moderate drinkers—the same way I imagine serial daters rarely experience the same kind of heartache that the serial monogamous person enjoys after a bad breakup. She had somehow found a washed pair of jeans and a violet button-down top that looked killer with her green eyes and fresh-from-the-shower hair. It’s too bad Annie doesn’t like boys like “that,” because both the officers turned to mush when she strode over to them.
    “Last I saw you I was getting my latest bull’s-eye,” she said, wrapping an arm around a red-faced Alan’s formidable waist.
    “Last I saw you, you were burning rubber on Decatur, siren blaring and Backstreet Boys on the radio.” Now it was Annie’s turn to go red. If I knew anything about my friend’s tendency for blacking out, and at this point I knew a fair bit, it was that she had all her faculties about her until she hit some mysterious wall and then the rest of the night was a complete loss to her.
    “You hauling me in?” Annie clasped her hands in front of her own waist with a coy smile, her embarrassment