Going Too Far

"I thought you were dating. I thought John said he caught you on the bridge together." "More like consorting."

Will gasped and put his hand to his mouth in mock horror. Luckily, Rashad and Skip were talking to each other and didn't notice. Otherwise, I might have kneed Will.

"In case you haven't figured this out," he said, "Eric is bad news. You should stay away from him."

I shrugged. "Eric's not that evil. It's a rite of passage to get in trouble when you're a freshman in college, isn't it? Finding yourself or whatever."

"Eric found himself a long time ago," Skip called. "He found himself to be a stoner."

"Maybe you didn't know him that well in school," Will told me, "but we all learned our lesson about Eric in sixth grade, when he huffed gasoline on a Boy Scout camping trip."

"And John told the Scoutmaster," Rashad offered.

"And John told the Scoutmaster!" Will said, grinning. "It's a blood feud by now."

I shrugged again. "Like I said, I'm not serious with Eric, anyway."

"How about..." Will nodded toward McDonald's.

"You mean am I serious with John?" My heart raced at this idea—exciting and terrifying at the same time. I reminded myself that being serious with John wasn't a possibility, just a misunderstanding on Will's part. "John doesn't like me very much."

All three of them made nuh-uh noises.

"When y'all walked over here from the car," Will said, "he had his hand on your—" He put his hand at waist level behind me, without touching me.

"He had his hand on my ass?"

"No," they said.

"Behind your back," Rashad said. "Like you're dating or something." He put his hand behind Skip's back. Skip hit him.

"It was enough for all three of us to notice," Will said.

I wanted to say, But my hair is blue! I decided this went without saying.

"And he smells good," Will said.

Skip took a big whiff of Rashad. "You smell like Teen Spirit."

While Skip and Rashad shoved each other, I looked up at Will and said quietly, "I remind him of the girl who got killed on the bridge."

Will went very still. "Oh. Right. You messed with his bridge. He's been obsessed with the bridge since he was nine. What he lacks in clarity, he makes up for in consistency."

"Here comes the heat," Skip said. "Act natural."

John came back to the circle, handed me one of the cups of coffee, then stepped between Will and me. Will moved over. John looked around at our faces. "'Fess up."

"Nevah," Skip said in the Schwarzenegger voice.

"I ran into Angie in Target," Will told John. "She's staying with her folks in town this week."

"Why doesn't she go to Florida?" John asked.

"She says she hopes she'll see you while she's here."

John gaped. "Why? She broke up with me\"

"Girls are icky and have cooties." Will nodded to me. "Pardon."

" Angie's coming to my party when we get back Saturday night," Rashad said. "You can make it to that at least, John. Whether you want to see her or not."

"I have to work," John said.

"There is much work to be done for da people of California," said Skip Schwarzenegger.

"Would you like to come to my party?" Rashad asked me. "Eric will probably be there. I've never known Eric to miss a party, even when he wasn't invited."

John said, "No," just as I asked, "Where is it?"

"Around the corner from Five Points," Rashad said. "You know where that is?"

I loved Five Points, the artsy section of Birmingham near UAB, filled with cool shops and apartment buildings from the 1920s. In the center of the intersection was a fountain with statues of animals. A big ram held a book and read to a bear, a rabbit stacked on a turtle, and other forest creatures. Some people said the ram was the Devil. He had horns and hooves and told stories to other beasties. And five frogs in the shape of a pentagram spat water at him. But the fountain sat in front of a beautiful old church, with a glass-tiled synagogue down the street. You would think the Devil would be canceled out by the houses o' worship.

"I'll be there," I said at the same time John said, "No. She's seventeen." While Rashad gave me the apartment building and number, John edged closer behind me. "Rashad, she's seventeen."

I looked around at John. "I'll be eighteen in May."

"The party is in March." The small radio on his shoulder suddenly buzzed with static and Lois's voice. He spoke a few words into it, then put his hand on the back of my neck. "Official police business."

"Leave da woman," Skip said. "She must pass da state inspection."

John's hand tightened briefly on my neck, then let go. He was behind me, so I couldn't see the look he gave Skip. It must have been ugly. Skip put up both his hands. "I'm kidding!"

John and I headed back to the car. When we got in, John started the engine, and I punched the correct siren. It should have been exciting to go investigate another crime.

But all I could think about was John's hand on the back of my neck. It had happened so fast—there, and then gone. The hair on my scalp stood on end anyway.

As John drove out of the parking lot, Rashad and Skip talked together, and Will watched our car. Rashad poked Will's shoulder, but Will continued to watch us. He never took his eyes off us. As if he expected the cop car to burst into flames.

We sped across town, siren shrieking. But by the time we got to the crime scene, the burglary was over. Neighbors said the victims were out of town for spring break. Officer Leroy was standing guard.

There wasn't much for John to do. Just a little Official Police Business such as securing the scene and smoking a cigarette and waiting an hour for the detective to show up.

There was also a lot of Sullen Malarkey on John's part. I followed him around the ransacked house, stepping over broken furniture, trying to make conversation. Every time I asked him a question, he said, "Don't touch that."

"Do you work your way up from cop to detective eventually?"

"If you want to. I don't want to. Don't touch that."

"I see. You're all man, right? You don't want a desk job. You want the thrill of the hunt, the adrenaline rush."

"No. I just don't want to be a detective. They figure out what happened after the fact, when it's too late. I want to prevent it from happening. Don't touch that."

"Yeah, you were a lot of use to these folks. When they get back from vacation and see the Yankees stole their silver, they'll want to meet you and thank you in person. They might even buy you a Moon Pie."

"Meg, for the last time, you're tampering with evidence. Don't touch—Get out of here. Go wait for me in the Goddamn car."

I slammed the door of the crime scene on my way out.

Then I sat in the Goddamn car, lowered the windows, blasted the heat so I didn't freeze in the dark, and turned up the radio. "Dirty Little Secret" again. I'd figured out last night, after the sixth playing of "Dirty Little Secret," that no one bothered to man the radio station in the wee hours. They stacked twenty tunes in endless rotation. These songs were an odd mix, too, like someone had grabbed a handful of CDs and thrown them in the machine before they went home to bed.

My Chemical Romance, "The Ghost of You."

I put my feet up on the dashboard.

A sickly sweet Phil Collins song from a Disney movie.

The seat wouldn't recline. The metal grate that separated the front seat from the criminal seat was in the way. I lay my head against the door and closed my eyes.

Mariah Carey, "Touch My Body."

I leaned forward and turned up the volume as high as I could stand it, just for spite. It was loud enough to wake the neighborhood, but I was tired enough to sleep through anything. I settled back and closed my eyes again.

"God damn it." John jerked open his door and turned the radio off, then sat down and cranked the engine. The detective's car was parked in front of us. I wondered if I'd gotten John in trouble. I didn't really care.

I took my feet off the dashboard.

A few minutes later, he pulled in at Eggstra! Eggstra! Excellent, we could share a meal in this mood. Good for the digestion.

I was further irked when he hung his leather cop jacket on the coatrack by the door, like he owned the place. I suppose that's what we had the coatrack there for. I'd just never seen anyone use it. Then he headed for the windmill table, like last night.

"Hold on, there, Officer," I said to his back. "I suffered through the windmill table when I thought you were forty years old. Now that I know you're nineteen, I'm putting my foot down."

He looked around the diner. "The what? Oh, you mean the windmill salt and pepper shakers."

"My mother collects salt and pepper shakers. My parents are easily amused." I gestured toward the corner. "I can't sit at the windmill table. It makes me claustrophobic. I always sit at the unicorn table by the window."

"I can't sit by the window. Too exposed." He meant too vulnerable.

"Let's split the difference," he said. We sat down at the Elvis table. Purcell poured us both coffee, thank God.

"You really thought I was forty years old?" John asked. “What made you think that? My manly physique?"

His dark eyes challenged me. They were weapons that could hurt me. Here was the worst thing about them: I could tell that if Johnafter loved you, his dark eyes would be beautiful and friendly and warm. So every time he cut me down with a look that was cold and unfriendly and ugly, it was a double insult, a reminder of what I could never have. I found myself avoiding his dark eyes when I could.

"I think it's the hair," I said.

He touched the nape of his neck and just managed to stop himself from running his fingers through his growing-out military cut. "So." He slid one of the little Elvis busts toward him. Salt spilled out the King's nose. "You seem to get along really well with my friends."

That was the cause of the Sullen Malarkey? "For a full-time city employee, you sure are immature. When's your birthday?"

He spun Elvis so the salt flew in all directions. "December."

"You see? I'm one and a half years younger than you. Since boys are two years behind girls in maturity level, I'm really six months older than you."

He slid Elvis back in place, next to the sugar, and looked up at me. "That's for high school boys. I'm nineteen."

"Wow, nineteen. You probably haven't even finished growing yet."

He straightened in his seat and stretched his arms over his head. "So? I'm one of the tallest people on the force."

I almost laughed at the idea of our small-town police as a Force. "I don't think you should be hired as a cop until you've reached your full adult height. It seems barbaric. I've never heard of a nineteen-year-old cop."

"You have to be twenty-one most places, but there are a few where you can be nineteen. Montgomery Police. Florida Highway Patrol."

"Seems like they'd have another cop riding with you. I mean, come on. You've only been driving for three years."

"They did. Leroy rode with me until last month. But they were in a hurry to get me in my own vehicle because it took someone else off graveyard shift." He yawned.

"Graveyard shift or not, it sounds like a huge compliment. If they put you on patrol by yourself, they trust you with their lives. Or at least their squad car."

"I guess. They also threatened me. They told me that I'd better not screw up, or.. .Have you seen Braveheart?"

"No."

"They cut off Mel Gibson's—Well. We're about to eat." He gave me a wan smile to go with the unhappy picture.

Even with a wan smile, his dimples showed.

"Now you look nineteen." I tried not to say it tenderly. "What'd you do between graduating from high school and starting this job? Party hearty?"

"No, I went to the police academy"

"Right, the police academy. Please tell me you at least went out and got good and soused on your nineteenth birthday."

"No. I came in to work. It was my first day on the job. Night, I should say." He shifted to his authoritarian voice, calm on the surface with a threat underneath. "Most adults do not take any available opportunity to drink themselves into a stupor. You've been around Eric too long. Eric's not going to make it to thirty."

"Oh, good God. He's harmless."

"I wouldn't be too sure. Especially when he's around you. You never can tell with domestics. They're completely unpredictable."

"Domestic! We're not a domestic. We're not married. Ew." I squirmed at the thought. Which was probably what John wanted.

"That's what we call it." he said. "Domestic."

"That's what you call what? We're not living together. We're not serious at all."

"You're having sex."

Not for over a week, I thought to myself. But I was able to stop myself from saying it. I realized just in time how lame it would sound.

"Then you're a domestic," John said.

I didn't owe John an explanation. And I didn't think this crush I had on him would ever be anything but. Still, it bothered me that he considered me whore-like.