Officer After leaned across the seat toward me—which, under the circumstances, made me start back. "I'm sorry I'm not allowed to beat the shit out of him for you."
"Oh, that's quite all right."
'it's one of the first things they teach you at the police academy" Officer After turned to Zeke. "Say one more thing to her and I'll add corruption of a minor to the list of charges." Then he whispered to me, "I'm glad you reminded me of that one last weekend. Handy."
"Aw, man!" Zeke said. "This is the last female I'm going to get for about two years."
"You're not getting this one." Through the window, Officer After made a super-secret cop motion. Officer Leroy waddled over and dragged Zeke out of the backseat. Stumbling after Officer Leroy on the way to the other cop car, Zeke looked back at me and licked his lips.
"Ready?" Officer After asked me. I nodded. I was relieved Zeke was gone, but the weight of what he'd said to me still sat on my lungs. Demetrius's tortured moans from the backseat were a constant reminder.
"Put your seat belt on," Officer After said impatiently. "I don't want to have this conversation with you every time I start the vehicle."
I waited, hoping he would start the car anyway. He didn't. "I can't," I said.
"You can. I didn't say anything the night I arrested you, when you pretended to wear it. You were in the backseat where it's safer, and I was tired of arguing with you. But police cars won't start unless the front seat belts are fastened."
I glared at him. "Do you think I'm a crack ho? How stupid do you think I am?"
"Then let me put it to you this way. Either fasten your seat belt, or we go to the police station right now, call the DA, and tell her the deal's off."
The seat belt felt like a hairy arm as I pulled it across my chest, and the click as I fastened it sounded like a key in a lock.
Officer After cranked (he engine and pulled onto the highway. We sat in silence for a few minutes, except for the radio, Demetrius's moaning, and my own breathing in my ears.
Finally Officer After said, "Meg."
He probably realized I was going to faint again. My arms were crossed. I'd learned in public-speaking class at school that this position told people you felt uncomfortable. As if I could have hidden this. It also pushed my br**sts up so I looked like I had a more ample bosom. In addition, my chest heaved with heavy breathing. My skull-and-crossbones T-shirt looked like a pirate flag waving in the breeze. No wonder Officer After had noticed.
"Meg, I'm sorry," he said. "It's illegal in Alabama to drive without a seat belt. I can't have you doing something illegal in my police car."
It was touching for him to be so sweet to a criminal. I felt halfway guilty about making him feel bad. It really wasn't his fault.
However, as I was having some trouble staying conscious, I concentrated on my own needs. I hit the button to roll down the window and hung my head out like a dog. Between moans. Demetrius complained about the wind and the cold. But unlike Zeke, he didn't mention my privates, so he was easier to ignore.
Watching the sickeningly familiar highway and trees and buildings spin by, I wondered whether Graceland was everything my mom had dreamed or if she was actually more impressed by the chandelier in the lobby of Memphis's Comfort Inn.
I wondered whether the football coach, the cheerleading sponsor, and my classmates had reached Miami in the bus yet. I wondered if they would get drunk first thing, or if they would run down to the beach first, like I would have done. I wondered how the sand felt between their toes, and whether the water was soft and warm.
I sat up when we pulled in at the emergency entrance of the hospital. "What are we doing here?" The hospital was one of my least favorite places to visit.
"I may have broken the suspect's arm." Officer After looked sideways at me. "By accident." I followed at a safe distance as Officer After dragged Demetrius out of the car and led him into the emergency room.
Tiffany met me in the entrance with a violent hug that nearly knocked me down. "It was so exciting to listen on the scanner to what was going on! I wish we could trade places!"
"Be careful what you wish for," I said as Officer After came back alone. "Tiffany, this is Officer After, who arrested you. Officer After, this is Tiffany Hart, who doesn't remember you."
They shook hands more cordially than they should have. Officer After didn't have a problem with her touching him while he was in uniform.
"I am so sorry," Tiffany giggled and gushed. "You know how it is when you're drunk."
"No, he doesn't," I said. "He's been sober since birth."
"Me too!" Tiffany said. "Until last Saturday." She tilted her head annoyingly. Officer After showed his dimples.
"But I do remember him," she said. "You know who this is, don't you, Meg?"
Officer After's dimples faded.
"Mr. Harrison, my yearbook faculty sponsor, also taught AP English last year. John was the only John in that class." She touched Officer After lightly on the hand. He didn't flinch. She prattled on, "But his full name had such a ring to it that Mr. Harrison used the whole thing, Johnafter. The seniors told the yearbook staff about it, and we all called him Johnafter, too. It was a running joke that if we couldn't decide which picture to use in a certain place, we'd say, 'It's the perfect place for Johnafter.’"
"So he's in the yearbook fifty times?" I asked.
"We didn't have any pictures of him. No social shots. We decided he must be very antisocial." She elbowed him in the ribs. "No, just his senior portrait and his track team picture. He was on the track team that won the state championship last year, with Will Billingsley and Rashad Lowry and Skip Clark. And he dated Angie Pettit. And"— she pointed at him as more came back to her—"he was in Spanish class with you and me, Meg."
I turned to him. "¡De verdad!"
"Sí." He eyed me warily.
"I missed that completely," I said. "I must have been in the back of the class, smoking meth and hacking the Department of Defense computers. So, Johnafter, you're only eighteen years old?"
Chapter 6
I'm nineteen," he said self-righteously, as if this made all the difference in the world.
Then he cut off my outraged protest by informing me that even though his shift was over, he would have to stay late (or early, since it was 6 a.m.) to wait for the Suspect to Receive Medical Attention and Transport him back to the Detention Facility in his Vehicle. Tiffany offered to drive me back to the police station so I could get my motorcycle. Officer After slipped into the emergency room to guard Demetrius.