Interspersed with thoughts about becoming president of Morgan are my obsessive musings about Officer Hottie, whose face now appears in my head 24/7.
Only how do you track down a cop? He’s not on Facebook. No mentions on Google. He’s not in the phone book because on a cop’s salary he probably can’t afford a landline. I don’t have the nerve to call the precinct because they’d ask who I am and what it’s about, and what am I supposed to say, I’m chasing the guy who hauled us in for DUI, resisting arrest, and whatever the hell else the charges were?
“Maybe we could go speeding up the Henry Hudson again,” I say to Ro, only half kidding.
“Gia. Someone like you does not fall for a cop. He wants to fry your tail. He wants your whole family to fry. He’s probably up nights fantasizing about locking up your dad, so wake the fuck up.”
“You’re right, Ro.”
“And you are full of it, Gia.”
I am sitting in the white canopied bed that I got for my ninth birthday when I was convinced that sleeping in a princess bed was all it took to turn me into one.
And now like a third grader I am on top of the world because I have a brand-new jumbo pack of sixty-four magic markers—orange, red, blue, green, purple, yellow, brown, black, maroon, and what have you—along with calligraphy pens and rulers and fifty sheets of oak tag for my campaign posters fanned out around me.
The marketing possibilities are empowering and I’m getting that amped-up first-day-of-school high before reality hits. I’m trying to dream up smart pledges and promises and ways to get people to vote for me because I would definitely enjoy winning, but more importantly, I would rejoice at seeing Christy and Georgina and their tool friend crash-land and burn in loserdom even though on some level I could care less whether or not people agree with me, especially the kind that go to Morgan.
That said, I still do not yet have a campaign slogan. And if I don’t stop writing Michael Cross in thirteen different fonts in every color and size, I am going to blow my chances of competing in this so-called election, which would not help me on the road to my secret plan for the future.
The phone rings. Clive.
“How are you doing?” he asks in his sweet, innocent, almost musical voice. “Have you come up with anything?”
“Uh…not yet,” I say, filling in the a, e, and o in Michael Cross’s name with my hottest pink marker.
Clive doesn’t know about Michael and what happened, so I tell him.
“Oh my God, Gia,” he says. “Did they drop the charges?”
“Super Mario is on it. But my bigger problem is the cop.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s my latest and greatest crush.”
“Do you know what I think, Gia? I think you should forget him.”
“You sound like Ro.”
“Well, she’s right. It won’t end well. I mean a—”
“I’m not worrying about how it will end, Clive, I’m worrying about how and when it will begin because I can’t even find him.”
“What’s his name?”
I hear keys clicking and he’s spelling out M-i-c-h-a-e-l C-r-o-s-s. “I don’t believe I’m doing this,” he sighs, “but I’m doing it. I am. I’m hacking into my dad’s system…terrific…so give me five minutes and we’ll see.”
I end the call and begin pacing my room. How can Clive find him? Does his dad have some spy network he plugs into? Connections with the police? All I know is if anyone can figure it out…
I jump when the phone rings.
“Gia,” he says. “This is your lucky day. Your guy is a rookie cop who works out of a precinct in Washington Heights, and FYI his dad was a cop too. There’s more stuff, only there’s this security block and I have to find a way to get the password…and I will…eventually. But anyway, Michael Sean Cross lives two blocks from the precinct and I checked Google Earth and there’s a bar called Uptown Lounge half a block away that’s described as a hangout for off-duty cops. So it’s not a stretch to imagine him hanging out there because—”
“How did you do that? ”
“My dad has this resource.”
“Resource?”
“Sometimes he needs information fast,” he says, which doesn’t explain anything.
“I owe you. Anything. Tell me…a Fendi weekender?”
“Just the slogan,” Clive says. “And it has to be good. We have to blow them out of the water. I can’t face being on the losing ticket.”
“It will be, I swear.”
“Off to Clive’s,” I tell my mom. “School stuff.”
“What? At this hour?”
“I’ll be back soon. We can’t do this on the phone.”
“Why not?”
“Maaa, it’s math. Do you want me to fail? It’s complicated.”
“Frankie will drive you,” she says
“Clive’s driver is on his way. Don’t worry.”
My dad is out and my mom buys it because even though I’m grounded, this is schoolwork. I hail a cab a block from my street. It’s raining lightly and the pavement glistens under all the red and green traffic lights giving the world a fresh Christmassy glow. And yes, okay, this feels right and special and positive and maybe there is some kind of magic in the air and this will work out because it’s preordained, if you believe things like that. And when I’m feeling out-there and directionless, which is most of the time although I try not to admit it, I do start to think there has to be a bigger plan that I can’t exactly see, because how else can you explain the way things work?
Anyway, even if it’s all a crapshoot, I guess I’ll survive. I check my watch because I don’t have much time for fairy-tale magic, especially on a school night when I could definitely get caught by my dad who sometimes has me tailed, and that makes me nervous and I don’t want to be, and shit, if I at least had a beer.
And then there’s the bar. A grunge bar? Who would be there? Old guys? Ex cops? Off-duty cops? Drug dealers? Junkies? Would the assholes hit on me? Would the bartender see my fake ID and toss my sorry ass onto the street or worse call the cops, which would be a laugh, then again, crap, Super Mario has enough on his plate and he does not need more from me. Washington Heights isn’t exactly Park Avenue and, Gia, I remind myself, you are a candidate for school president and you don’t need something else for them to throw at you because half the kids are already convinced that you’re a lowlife.
Then for some reason the idea of once again being driven back to that derelict precinct—like hello, instant replay, rewind, do over—cracks me up, and if you are out by yourself laughing so hard you’re in pain, you definitely look like a psycho.
“What’s so funny?” asks the cab driver.
“Inside joke.”
“Inside joke, what’s ‘inside joke?’” he says with an accent from someplace not on my got-to-go-to itinerary.
“Uh…well…” Then my phone rings.
“Where are you?” Ro asks.
“Going up to the bar to meet Officer Hottie,” I say, laughing harder at that than the fact that I’m running for president.
“Gia, what are you on?”
I look out the window. “Dyckman Street.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“We’re here, lady,” the driver says.
“Gotta go, Ro.”
“Be careful,” she whispers.
“What do you think I’m going to do?” I hang up before she can answer and use the backseat as a dressing room, peeling off my flannel shirt, spraying it with cologne because it stinks, and stuffing it in my bag, and then changing into heels while the driver is repeating, “What’s inside joke? What’s inside joke?”
“Something funny…to only you and your friends…like my sorry life.”
I slam the door, inhale, and stare at the sky. It’s dark and hazy and I can’t find even one teensy star to wish upon and this is all so…out of the box.
Then it hits me. I have my campaign slogan.