They pulled up to her house and Steve turned off the car. She wouldn’t mind going out with him again, but she hated this part of dates—the turn in the driver’s seat, the awkward seeking out of eyes, the fitful kiss and request to see her again.
She glanced over at the house to make sure Pat wasn’t watching—no way she could stand him teasing her about a good-bye kiss—and that’s when she saw something was missing. She got out of the car as if in a trance, started walking toward the house.
“So that’s it?”
She glanced over to see that P.E. Steve had gotten out of the car.
“What?” she said.
“Look,” he said, “this might not be my place, but I’m just gonna say it. I like you.” He leaned on the car, his arm propped on his open door. “You asked me what you were like at school . . . and, honestly, you’re like you’ve been the last hour. I said you were intimidating because of the way you look, and you are. But sometimes it’s like you’re not even in the room with other people. Like no one else even exists.”
“Steve—”
But he wasn’t done. “I know I’m not your type. That’s fine. But I think you might be a happier person if you let people in sometimes.”
She opened her mouth to tell him why she’d gotten out of the car, but you might be a happier person pissed her off. She might be a happier person? She might be a— Jesus. She stood there silently—broken, seething.
“Well, good night.” Steve got in his Duster, closed the door, and drove away. She watched his car turn at the end of the street, taillights blinking once.
Then she looked back at her house, and the empty driveway, where her car should have been parked.
Inside, she opened the drawer where she kept the spare car keys （gone, of course）， peeked in Pat’s bedroom （empty, of course）， looked for a note （none, of course）， poured herself a glass of wine, and sat by the window, waiting for him to come home on his own. It was two forty-five in the morning when the phone finally rang. It was the police. Was she . . . Was her son . . . Did she own . . . tan Audi . . . license plate . . . She answered: Yes, yes, yes, until she stopped hearing the questions, just kept saying Yes. Then she hung up and called Mona, who came over and picked her up, drove her quietly to the police station.
They stopped and Mona put her hand on Debra’s. Good Mona—ten years younger and square-shouldered, bob-haired, with sharp green eyes. She’d tried to kiss Debra once after too many glasses of wine. You can always spot the real thing, that affection; why does it always come from the wrong person? “Debra,” Mona said, “I know you love that little fucker, but you can’t put up with his shit anymore. You hear me? Let him go to jail this time.”
“He was doing better,” Debra said weakly. “He wrote this song—” But she didn’t finish. She thanked Mona, got out of the car, and went into the police station.
A thick, uniformed officer in teardrop glasses came out with a clipboard. He said not to worry, her son was fine, but her car was totaled—it had gone over an abutment in Fremont, “a spectacular crash, amazing no one was hurt.”
“No one?”
“There was a girl in the car with him. She’s fine, too. Scared, but fine. Her parents already came down.”
Of course there was a girl. “Can I see him?”
In a minute, the officer said. But first she needed to know that her son had been intoxicated, that they’d found a vodka bottle and cocaine residue on a hand mirror in the car, that he was being cited for negligent driving, driving without a license, failure to use proper care and caution, driving under the influence, minor in possession. （Cocaine? She wasn’t sure she’d heard right but she nodded at each charge, what else could she do?） Given the severity of the charges, this matter would be turned over to the juvenile prosecutor, who would make a determination— Wait. Cocaine? Where would he get cocaine? And what did P.E. Steve mean that she didn’t let people in? She’d love to let someone in. No, you know what she’d do? Let herself out! And Mona? Don’t put up with his shit? Jesus, did they think she chose to be this way? Did they think she had a choice in the way Pat behaved? God, that would be something, just stop putting up with Pat’s shit, go back in time and live some other life— （Dee Moray reclines on a beach chair on the Riviera with her quiet, handsome Italian companion, Pasquale, reading the trades until Pasquale kisses her and goes off to play tennis on this court jutting out of the cliffs—） “Any questions?”