turned to obeisance in an instant.
“Get in your car, Annie, and we’ll sort it all out at the station.”
Annie and I rode to the police station together in silence.
The Yardville cop shack is a four-room affair with a reception area and tiny lobby containing a faded yellow couch that had seen better days back in the ’70s, a drunk tank, where I knew Annie had ended up a couple of times before I came back to town, a bathroom, and an open area for the town’s six cops and sheriff to do their desk work, which was minimal given the low level of exciting crime activity. I perched on the edge of the crusty old sofa waiting for Annie to emerge from the back, hopefully properly cowed after she had been filled in on the destruction she caused in the wee hours.
Cowed she wasn’t.
“BULLSHIT! Probation? Rehab? I don’t have a drinking problem!” Annie was stomping through the station like a rhinoceros on Red Bull.
“Annie, come on now,” old Sheriff McNulty said in his grandfatherly tones, better suited for public radio than reading people their rights. “We called the judge and we can give you probation and rehab, and none of this will stay on your record once you do those things. You don’t even have to go to court. He’s doing you a favor, you know, because he was a friend of your dad.”
“I. Don’t. Need. Rehab.”
I was starting to think that she did need some rehab, but I didn’t know how to tell her they were right. I stood up and asked McNulty, “What kind of rehab are we talking about? Does she have to go away? Does she just have to go to meetings?”
“That’s up to her and the judge. She needs to start by going to the town’s AA meeting tomorrow night in the Presbyterian church basement. Then we can talk about options and we can try to figure something out.”
Annie tossed me the keys to her MINI Cooper convertible in the parking lot.
“I don’t drive stick,” I shrieked, tossing them back.
“Figure it out. Suspended license, bitch.”
Blerg! I hadn’t touched a stick shift since high school when my boyfriend, Matt Siggman, got hopped up on whippets at a Dave Matthews concert (the first time he proved himself anything but boring and stone-faced sober) and I had to drive us home from Jones Beach in his Mustang convertible, the one he bought because he thought it made him look like Dylan McKay from 90210 . Matt had a real thing for 90210 . He had every episode on VHS. He recorded them himself and labeled each tape with a white label in sequential order from 1 to 27. He let me watch them all when I had mono, which was really nice of him, but also led to our inevitable breakup, when I lost tape number 11, the one of the summer before senior year where Brenda goes off to Paris with Donna and Dylan cheats on her with her best friend, Kelly Taylor. I always thought Kelly was such a skank for doing that. Kelly Taylor may have been my first encounter with a BTCBT (blonde that can’t be trusted). Anyway, Matt broke my heart after number 11 went missing. We’re on speaking terms these days, and when I’ve been home in the past few years, I’ve had a glass of wine over at the house he shares with his husband, Robert. The Dylan McKay thing should have tipped me off.
I grinded the gears all the way home. “How long is your license suspended?”
“Ninety days, or until I complete the outpatient rehabilitation program, the AA.”
“Which is every week?”
“Pretty much.”
“And not walkable and we live in a town with no public transportation.”
“You have so much going on?”
That stung. I didn’t. I was able to do my job as a children’s book illustrator from the house, even though before Eleanor died and before the Eric situation turned me into a useless lump on the couch, I had faithfully gone into the office every day to meet with editors and authors and storyboard book ideas. I had initially taken two weeks off to deal with everything in New Jersey, but my boss had been
“Get in your car, Annie, and we’ll sort it all out at the station.”
Annie and I rode to the police station together in silence.
The Yardville cop shack is a four-room affair with a reception area and tiny lobby containing a faded yellow couch that had seen better days back in the ’70s, a drunk tank, where I knew Annie had ended up a couple of times before I came back to town, a bathroom, and an open area for the town’s six cops and sheriff to do their desk work, which was minimal given the low level of exciting crime activity. I perched on the edge of the crusty old sofa waiting for Annie to emerge from the back, hopefully properly cowed after she had been filled in on the destruction she caused in the wee hours.
Cowed she wasn’t.
“BULLSHIT! Probation? Rehab? I don’t have a drinking problem!” Annie was stomping through the station like a rhinoceros on Red Bull.
“Annie, come on now,” old Sheriff McNulty said in his grandfatherly tones, better suited for public radio than reading people their rights. “We called the judge and we can give you probation and rehab, and none of this will stay on your record once you do those things. You don’t even have to go to court. He’s doing you a favor, you know, because he was a friend of your dad.”
“I. Don’t. Need. Rehab.”
I was starting to think that she did need some rehab, but I didn’t know how to tell her they were right. I stood up and asked McNulty, “What kind of rehab are we talking about? Does she have to go away? Does she just have to go to meetings?”
“That’s up to her and the judge. She needs to start by going to the town’s AA meeting tomorrow night in the Presbyterian church basement. Then we can talk about options and we can try to figure something out.”
Annie tossed me the keys to her MINI Cooper convertible in the parking lot.
“I don’t drive stick,” I shrieked, tossing them back.
“Figure it out. Suspended license, bitch.”
Blerg! I hadn’t touched a stick shift since high school when my boyfriend, Matt Siggman, got hopped up on whippets at a Dave Matthews concert (the first time he proved himself anything but boring and stone-faced sober) and I had to drive us home from Jones Beach in his Mustang convertible, the one he bought because he thought it made him look like Dylan McKay from 90210 . Matt had a real thing for 90210 . He had every episode on VHS. He recorded them himself and labeled each tape with a white label in sequential order from 1 to 27. He let me watch them all when I had mono, which was really nice of him, but also led to our inevitable breakup, when I lost tape number 11, the one of the summer before senior year where Brenda goes off to Paris with Donna and Dylan cheats on her with her best friend, Kelly Taylor. I always thought Kelly was such a skank for doing that. Kelly Taylor may have been my first encounter with a BTCBT (blonde that can’t be trusted). Anyway, Matt broke my heart after number 11 went missing. We’re on speaking terms these days, and when I’ve been home in the past few years, I’ve had a glass of wine over at the house he shares with his husband, Robert. The Dylan McKay thing should have tipped me off.
I grinded the gears all the way home. “How long is your license suspended?”
“Ninety days, or until I complete the outpatient rehabilitation program, the AA.”
“Which is every week?”
“Pretty much.”
“And not walkable and we live in a town with no public transportation.”
“You have so much going on?”
That stung. I didn’t. I was able to do my job as a children’s book illustrator from the house, even though before Eleanor died and before the Eric situation turned me into a useless lump on the couch, I had faithfully gone into the office every day to meet with editors and authors and storyboard book ideas. I had initially taken two weeks off to deal with everything in New Jersey, but my boss had been
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