"Oh, look," I cried as more blue lights emerged from the woods. A second cop car pulled into the clearing. Maybe the arrival of backup would distract Dudley Do-Right from his mission. "Are we that much of a threat to society? Or is it just a slow crime day?" Now an enormous fire engine eased into the clearing. Low-hanging tree branches screeched against its red lights. "Slow fire day," I added. Last came an ambulance. "Slow stroke day. Why'd you call the cavalry?"
"Thought we'd need them when you got hit by a train," the cop said.
"What train?"
The low hum escalated into a roar as the train's headlight emerged from the dark trees at the far side of the bridge. In a few seconds, the locomotive had reached the middle. Two beer cups blew over the metal wall and floated downward, disappearing into the darkness.
A few more seconds and the locomotive passed us. The engineer chose this moment to lay on the head-splitting horn. Eric and Brian, chained close to the tracks, each put one free hand up to one ear.
I stumbled a few paces before I realized the cop was dragging me backward by the elbow toward his car, cussing.
We passed a knot of emergency response personnel chatting together, disappointed there was nothing for them to do. "There's McPherson," called Quincy, the paramedic I happened to know. "I could see even when you were thirteen years old that you were nothing but trouble."
"Of all the freaking nerve!" I screamed back at him, but the cop shoved me into the car and closed the door.
I tried the handle. Locked.
Do not panic. I made myself breathe slowly. At least the cop had forgotten about handcuffing me. And I couldn't panic in front of Tiffany. Stretching the shoulder belt to the limit, she lay sideways and sobbed into the vinyl seat.
I pulled her head into my lap and wiped her wet hair out of her eyes. "Have you put the yearbook to bed yet? You could add something to the list of accomplishments under my senior picture. 'Managed to get the valedictorian arrested.’"
She sniffed. "It's not funny, Meg. They might take valedictorian away from me. They might take away our scholarships to UAB."
I seriously doubted the University of Alabama at Birmingham was watching the police blotter for incoming freshmen. "They can't even keep my name straight," I told her. "I've been getting registration forms addressed to Mr. Mac McRearson. I almost wish I was going to live in the dorm so they'd give me a boy for a roommate." But I planned to work my way through college to pay for an apartment. I didn't want to live in a dorm with visitation hours and curfews and monitors. I'd had enough of the Big Brother treatment from my parents at home. And my arrest wouldn't help that situation for the next few months.
Tiffany laughed a little, sniffed again. "I'm going to need a new boy, too, after this."
That was the truth. Now that Tiffany and Brian had been arrested together, a date at the putt-putt golf course wouldn't hold the same romance. While tank cars and flatbed cars and boxcars decorated with graffiti continued to rumble by, the cop got down in Brian's face and shouted at him. Then he got up in Eric's face and shouted at him. Through the rolled-up windows of the police car and over the roar of the train, I couldn't hear what he was saying.
But judging from the look on Brian's and even Eric's face, it was pretty intense. One of the spectator firemen took a step in their direction as if to coax the cop to back off.
A second cop put a hand on the fireman's shoulder and held him in place. The second cop was older than our cop. Not nearing retirement age, but way too old to be wearing a patrolman's uniform without getting a promotion to detective.
The endless train behind them made me dizzy. I looked down at Tiffany, who had resumed mouthing. "Oh my God."
"We're getting off easy, Tiff. Too easy, come to think of it. Why are the boys the ones who get yelled at, like they're the only ones who matter? We should be offended."
"Then go tell the police officer how offended you are," Tiffany snapped. "Let him handcuff you to the bridge."
I tried the handle once more, jokingly. "Door's locked." But I began to shake again in the warm car.
"I shouldn't have said that." Tiffany sat up awkwardly and leaned her head on my shoulder. "You have a thing about being locked up. I'm glad I'm handcuffed and not you."
Me too, I didn't say. I had thought of Tiffany as a walking, talking version of Microsoft Excel, but she had more soul than I'd given her credit for.
We both jumped, probably delayed a few seconds by our hampered reflexes, as our cop opened his door. The racket of the train followed him inside. The last of the train cars had cleared the bridge. I watched its flashing taillights disappear around a bend in the tracks.
The cop shoved his muscular frame into the driver's seat and slammed the door shut. Then he said a few words into his CB, reached for a clipboard, and began filling out forms. He never glanced at us through the metal grid that separated him from us dangerous criminals. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of his thick cop-neck.
I looked for Eric and Brian and saw them in the backseat of the old cop's car, which was parked on the far side of Eric's Beamer. The dejected fire truck and ambulance eased out of the clearing and up the road without flashing their lights.
"What are you so mad about?" I asked the cop. "Is it true that a couple of teenagers got killed here a long time ago?"
"It's true," he said without looking up. "And y'all came close to adding four more to the body count tonight."
"Not four," I said. "If I'd gotten caught on the tracks, I would have been the only one killed. My boyfriend wouldn't cross the street to save my life."
"Some boyfriend." The cop drew broad strokes through parts of the form that did not apply to us, perhaps previous convictions or gainful employment or significant other.
"How'd you find us down here?" I asked.
"You were out of luck. Beware the Ides of March."
A wave of that paranoia I'd felt on the bridge washed over me. It was March 15. Then my drowning brain struggled to the surface.
But before I could make a smart-ass remark, Tiffany lifted her head from my shoulder. Her own drunken brain must have recognized the Ides of March line from Shakespeare. "Oooh, were you an English major in college? I'm going to be an English major!"
"At this rate," the cop said, "you're not majoring in anything."
It was all I could do to stop myself from screaming at the cop. Surely he could see how freaked out Tiffany was already. If she thought her college English degree was threatened, she was liable to melt into a pool of tears and beer right here on his torn vinyl police car seat. And it would serve him right to have to clean it up.