by Fields, MJ
“Miss Sadie . . .” Evelyn, an eight-year-old girl, came running toward me. “We’re having a father-daughter dance at school.”
“You are? Have you asked someone to be your dad for the day?” I asked Evelyn.
“I’m thinking about asking Mr. Sam. I haven’t asked him before.”
“I think Mr. Sam will like that a lot. If he can fit it in his schedule, I’m sure that he’ll be there. What else do you have going on?” I took a chair and turned it around so that I was straddling it when I sat.
“Hey, everyone,” Lizzy interrupted my time with the kids. “You know what I have?”
“What?” They bounced like Mexican jumping beans.
“I have that new movie you all have been asking me for,” Lizzy waved it in the air. “Let’s go to the auditorium, and I’ll put it on.”
“Can we watch it after Miss Sadie leaves?” Evelyn asked.
“If you want to stay with Miss Sadie, you can, but you’ll miss the movie. It’s up to you.”
I debated for a brief moment between my TASER or pepper spray . . . hmmmm, which one should I use on the twatwaffle? She could have let them watch that movie anytime but nooo, she waited until I was here.
One of the kids called my name, and I dropped my annoyance. “I’ll stay with Miss Sadie, I’ve already seen that movie.”
“Why don’t you all come sit with me?” I waved over the group of girls who I always spent time with. “How has this week been?” I asked Charlotte, she was a tender soul.
“I can go into the auditorium with you if you want, I don’t mind. We can watch it together,” I offered.
“No. I’d rather talk with you.” Charlotte held on to my hand, and she and I waited for the others to follow Lizzy out.
“Okay, Charlotte, what would you like to talk about? Boys?”
“Yuck, no.”
“Yeah, boys are yucky,” I agreed with her, but images of gorgeous blue eyes appeared in my mind.
“My daddy has a girlfriend.”
“That’s wonderful, have you met her?”
Charlotte nodded. “I don’t like her.” This was a common issue. A lot of kids hated someone new assuming the position of their other parent. Especially if it was still relatively fresh or if they were older and had vibrant memories of their missing parent.
“Why not? Your daddy likes her, and he wouldn’t like someone mean, would he?” I asked, trying to pull Charlotte around to see the truth.
“He doesn’t see her being mean.”
“You see her being mean?” Charlotte nodded. “How is she mean?”
“When Daddy leaves, sometimes Patricia will watch me, she looks in the drawers and goes through things in Daddy’s closet. She even took some of Mommy’s things and put them in her purse.”
“Did you tell your daddy?”
Charlotte shook her head. “Patricia will get mad if I do.”
“Okay, let me see what I can do, okay?” Charlotte nodded.
“Besides Patricia, how is everything else? How is school?”
“Good.”
“Does your teacher still have a wart on her nose?” Charlotte giggled, I loved that sound. “No, she doesn’t have a wart. She has squinty eyes.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think that she needs glasses, she squints when she looks out at the classroom, like she can’t tell who is talking. Sometimes she mixes us up and it’s funny.”
For the next hour, Charlotte and I talked and laughed and I let her win a few rounds of Jenga, but then my alarm went off and I had to leave.
As I headed out, I paused when my name was called. “Sadie.” I turned to face Lizzy. “Are you still planning to come back next week?”
Why did she make this sound like a chore? “How long have I been coming here?” Lizzy didn’t answer. “You have no clue, do you? That’s probably because I’ve been coming longer than you have been running it. Lizzy, the kids love you, you know that, right? I’m like a toy that they only get to play with once a week, but you are their favorite toy they get every day.” I hoped that she caught on to my analogy, it wasn’t often that I was eloquent, but when I was, I was downright poetic. Frost, Emerson, and Dickinson could learn a thing or two from me. I smiled at my own silliness.
“Oh, and by the way, will you have Charlotte’s counselor call me?”
“No, you are a volunteer.”
“I’m also a deputy, which you seem to always forget. So, I’ll ask you again, will you have Charlotte’s counselor call me?” I didn’t wait for her to answer because I knew I didn’t have to. She would pass my request along. Still, as I strode out, I made a mental note to try to find out who it was if I didn’t hear from anyone in the next day or so. I didn’t want to blow things out of proportion because sometimes things weren’t as they appeared, but at the same time, her worries were important and needed to be addressed.
Thanks to Orlando traffic and people who became idiots when they spied a sheriff’s vehicle and overcompensated by driving under the fucking speed limit, it took me forty-five minutes to get to Bridget’s.
I knocked on the door and then walked right in. “Hey, about time,” Bridget said as she held out a bottle of beer to me.
Every Wednesday, me and the girls gathered for our all-things-unladylike night. Sure, that wasn’t the intentional name, but it ended up being called that since we spent most of the night cussing, drinking, and sharing our dirty senses of humor.
We brought all of this together in Bridget’s apartment, god help her neighbors. It was always her place since Bridget was Irish—really, really Irish, and her mother came over every Wednesday with containers full of food and stocked Bridget’s refrigerator. Plus, she also cleaned Bridget’s apartment for her. I tried this once with Margaret, my stepmom, and she laughed at me. Every now and then she still laughs, saying, “Remember that time you asked me to come cook and clean for you? Bwwahahaha.”
My friend Kat was Greek, we were hoping that she would have more luck, maybe it was a European cultural thing. But it didn’t work for her either. Her mom tied it to typical Greek-mom thinking, telling her, “You can come to me, I’ll feed you and I’ll send you home with some leftovers. But, you need to keep a clean house, how else are you going to catch a husband?”
“Sorry, I was running a few minutes late, was up at Kidz Klub.” I plopped down onto the sofa.
“No clue why you still volunteer there. That clitcake stresses you out,” Harley, the tad bit most outspoken of us, pronounced.
I coughed as my swig of beer went down the wrong pipe from laughing. “How the hell do you come up with this shit?”
“It’s a gift.” Harley winked.
“Don’t, the clit is sacred—hell, men have been searching for it for years. Do not defile it by using it as a reference to that woman,” Kat reprimanded.
I’d stopped drinking because I was laughing so hard I was wasting Yuengling and spewing it was alcohol abuse. “So, what are we doing tonight?”
“We’re waiting for Piper to get here and then Cards Against Humanity.” Bridget pulled out a deck of black cards.
I was already smiling.
“Are you girls ready to eat?” Mrs. McGuire called from the kitchen.
Bridget’s front door opened and in walked Piper. “Woman, your stomach hears food and you appear. Ma just said dinner was ready.” Bridget handed a beer to Piper.
“Perfect timing then.”
Of the five of us, Piper was the only one on motors with me. Kat and Harley drove squad cars, although they were both hoping to interview for positions on motors, and Bridget was in dispatch.
“We’re coming, Ma,” Bridget hollered, and we all followed, Bridget carrying the card game with her.
“I made shepherd’s pie for you all tonight.”
We had all just taken our seats when the front door flew open again. “What’s for dinner?” Aiden, one of Bridget’s brothers, asked as he walked into her apartment without knocking.
&nbs
p; “Nothing for you. It’s Wednesday, which means it’s my night. Go home, Ma cooks for you on Mondays.” Bridget jumped up and ran to block the kitchen doorway.
I glanced to Harley, whose eyes were alight with something already stirring in her mind. She and Aiden had this long-standing challenge of who could make the other one blush first. Unfortunately, neither one was the blushing sort, so we were all subjected to their fucked-up foreplay.
“Come now, Bridget, I made enough for all of ya, your brother can have some, too.” But before Colleen finished, the front door opened again and Callum, Bridget’s oldest brother, walked in.
“No. No, no, no. Go home, both of you. Ma will be at your house on Friday. Tonight is girls’ night. Go.”
“Stop being a little shit,” Callum said as he moved into the kitchen and gave his mom a peck on the cheek. “Hey, Ma, you look lovely.”
“Well played,” I whispered. “Ouch.” I grabbed my side where Bridget jabbed me.
“Fine, Ma, just fix them paper plates and they can take them to go.”
“I’m on the motorcycle.” Aiden glanced at his motors uniform.
Callum, on the other hand, was a detective and was in a button-down shirt and tie. Their father retired from the sheriff’s department, and Bridget was the only one not a deputy, but her job was equally as important, she was a dispatch operator.
“Fine, eat fast—” Bridget’s words were cut off by her front door opening yet again.
“How many times do I have to tell you to lock this fucking door?” Patrick McGuire boomed.
“Patrick,” Colleen reprimanded.
“Da, there’s no use since these two buffoons come over without calling first, I’d constantly be answering the door, have a ringing bell in me head, or no peace and quiet. Now, you tell me, look around the room. There’s you, both me asshat brothers, Piper, Sadie, Harley, and Kat, all of whom are armed. Really, what kind of idiot would bother me?”
The Irish drama was only going to escalate if I didn’t intervene, so I stepped forward and caught Bridget’s attention. “Why don’t we all fix a plate and then all of us can play Cards Against Humanity?”
Bridget groaned, but everyone else cheered on the idea. With a plate in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other, we each made our way to the living room and took a seat around the coffee table.
“Our typical rules?” Piper asked.
“Sure,” Harley agreed.
“What are your typical rules?” Aiden asked.
“Not our problem you don’t know, you could just go home to your own house and eat your own food.” Bridget was back on her tirade.
“When it is our turn, we have to use an accent, but it can’t be your natural accent. So, none of you can use Irish brogue.” I pointed to all of the McGuires. “And Kat can’t use a Greek accent. But other than that, we slaughter the rest of the languages.”
I took a bite of shepherd’s pie while Piper passed out ten cards to each of us. I began and asked my first question in my very best Cockney accent. “Wha’s a gul’s bes friend?” I giggled because my rendition of the accent was horrific, but I knew the cards that were going to be slid my way would be epic. I closed my eyes and waited for everyone to pass off a card. When given the all clear, I opened my eyes and then stacked the pile before picking up the top one. “What’s a girl’s best friend?” I asked again and then began reading the possible answers in the worst accent ever. “Shiny objects, the clitoris, the Wi-Fi password, Arnold Schwarzenegger, all the dudes I’ve fucked, Viagra, dick pics, and queefing.” As I read each answer, we all laughed harder, and I couldn’t help but look over at Colleen. Although, she was married to Patrick and had kids who all had the mouths of sailors, I was embarrassed.
“What’s queefing?” Colleen asked, and we all laughed even harder.
I stared at Bridget. “She’s your mom, you explain.” I pointed to her and then to Aiden and Callum, who were both red.
Bridget leaned over and whispered into Colleen’s ear. We could all tell the moment she comprehended because she wiggled in her seat, and I busted out laughing.
“All right.” I maintained my accent. “My answer is: Viagra is a girl’s best friend.”
“Amen to that.” Colleen crossed herself, and we all busted up again.
I passed the deck on to the next person, Harley grabbed a question and read it in her Indian accent, “What brought the orgy to a grinding halt?”
I read through my cards and debated whether or not I should play it, but hey it was us, so I pulled out Child Protective Services and slid it across.
Once Harley started reading the answers, mine got the most boos, but in the end, I got the black card for the point. She passed the deck on to Patrick. His surfer, stoner-dude interpretation was epic, but when he asked, “My mom freaked when she looked at my browser history and found blank dot blank.” We each sent over two cards, when Bridget won the round with dead parents and necrophilia, we knew the night had come to an end.
“Okay, we’re out.” Aiden and Callum stood.
“If it were that easy to get you to leave, I’d have started playing sooner,” Bridget said. “Maybe we can find some cards that land on bleach assholes and have Ma talk about it.”
“No.” Aiden threw his hands over his ears like he was a kid.
I couldn’t help but smile.
Four
Sadie
“Orange County, stand by for BOLO, prepare to copy.” The dispatch warning rang out, and I was full throttle on Bumby Avenue heading to my afternoon patrol, Audubon Park Elementary School. “Orange County, signal eight, missing child, female, age six, brown hair, blue eyes, approximately forty-three inches, and forty-five pounds. Last seen wearing a pink dress and white shoes, name Caroline Montgomery, answers to Callie. Last known location was the Audubon Park Elementary area. If found, please contact the school or Officer Campbell, the school’s liaison officer immediately.”
Shit. I listened again as dispatch repeated the information. As soon as it was done, I pressed my radio bottom.
“Thirteen twenty-two.”
“Thirteen twenty-two, go ahead,” the dispatch officer replied.
“I’m ninety-seven in the area, reference the BOLO, put me ten seventeen Bumby and Virginia for the missing child,” I said, telling dispatch to mark me as investigating the missing child case as well as my location.
“Orange County copies, fourteen forty-seven.”
Flipping my lights and sirens on, I blew through the last few stop signs and headed up to the school. Several patrol cars were already on site, so I passed them and headed on up to Corinne Avenue, the busy cross street. Even with my lights and sirens on, cars didn’t slow. It was four lanes and the thought of a little kid trying to maneuver through this traffic sent a shiver down my spine.
Easing my bike into the intersection, the sounds of horns honking in the distance filled the air. So many drivers had this entitlement factor about them, just because it was their right-of-way, they believed they had the actual right-of-way. Fuck me and any emergency that I was going to, unless of course it was their emergency or their loved one.
Finally making it over the four lanes, I pulled into the first strip of stores. There were some consignment shops, bakeries, and an ice cream store there, and if I were six, this would be where I would head. I turned my bike into the first parking lot, and slowly rolled by each shop, scanning inside the stores and around cars as I went. I even took time to make eye contact with the workers, hopefully someone would wave to me. None did, so I pulled into a spot in front of Blue Bird Bakery and ran inside to talk to the girl behind the counter.
“Have you all seen a little girl, about six years old? She’d probably be by herself.”
“No, I haven’t. I’m sorry.”
“If you do, call me or call 9-1-1.” I threw my business card down on their counter and headed back out.
My next stop was the 7-11 on Winter Park Road. There were three people waiting in line and t
he clerk looked barely old enough to hold the job, so my hopes of him seeing Callie were slim. Sighing, I grabbed a business card, hoping I was wrong about my assumption, and then froze. Standing in the candy aisle was a little girl with brown hair, but she wasn’t in a pink dress, she was in shorts and a T-shirt.
“Hi, are you Callie?”
The little girl’s head swung toward me and her eyes got big. “Yes.”
“I’m Sadie, what are you doing here?”
“Avoiding my nana until my daddy gets home?”
“Well, your dad is looking for you.”
“He is?”
“Yep. I need to call him and let him know where you are, okay?”
She nodded. “Then we can sit and talk.” She nodded again. “Thirteen twenty-two, cancel the BOLO, I’ve found the signal eight, my twenty is 7-11 at Winter Park Road. Parents can fifty-six me at this location.”
“Orange County copies, BOLO canceled, fifteen thirty-nine.”
“Do you want those?” I pointed to a bag of Skittles the little girl held in her hand. Then I thought better of it because I probably shouldn’t offer kids candy, since I had no clue what she was allergic to.
“Yes, please.”
Damn it, she was so polite. “Have you had them before?”
“Yes, they are my favorite. I don’t like the sour ones, but they are my daddy’s favorite.”
I laughed. “I like the sour ones, too.” I headed up to the counter and paid for the Skittles. “Can you tell me why you don’t want to see your nana?”
“She’s going to be hurt.”
“What happened?”
Callie pointed to her clothes. “I like wearing this.”
“I think you are cute.”
“I know, right? But Nana thinks little girls should not wear pants or shorts to school, only skirts and dresses are proper.”
“Oh.” I fought the urge to groan. I would totally hate that, since I wasn’t a skirt or dress type of woman.
“I don’t like girly stuff,” Callie explained. “I want to wear boots, but not like yours.”