40

AS I STARE AT THE television set and listen to Ana Maria’s nightly broadcast I DVR’d—I am riveted to anything she does—I wonder how can she be out there in the open? With people around? Anyone who could do her harm, especially since she’s spouting off about those veterans’ deaths. I tell myself I’ve done everything I could to warn her off: first the dead cat sent to the television station, then the threat through the email. A normal person would be more frightened, but not my Ana Maria. I guess that is one of the reasons I am so fascinated by her. So attracted to her, even if I feel it is taboo.

But some days you feel like the dog, and some days you feel like the hydrant. Today, I am the hydrant, for no warning I have given her has caused her to quit meddling in places she does not belong. Do specials on the county fair or traffic accidents in the abominable roundabout that are causing so many wrecks. Anything else. But not the veterans’ deaths. If she finds nothing else about them, there will be no reason for me to fear detection.

Should I teach her a lesson as I did Anderson? I don’t trust myself, for—as much as I admire her spunk—I might go off the deep end, as shrinks say, and fail to stop with that one blow of the wrench. Like I would have done if not interrupted the night I caught Anderson in the Outback parking lot unawares.

But I have to warn her off. But how… I have a way, I think. She is—after all—a gear head who loves her cars.”