I was so excited to see Mel already at the restaurant and even more excited by her obviously pleased reaction to my get-up and hairdo. My excitement became anxious though when I could see that Mel’s mind was elsewhere even though she was sitting with me. After her radio went off and she apologized for the intrusion and explained, I started to feel a little better.
“I need to apologize to you too,” I began. “My mother’s been a little out of line. It’s not right for her to be telling you what you should and shouldn’t do and getting involved in our...”
Mel vaulted from her seat and almost knocked the table over in the process. She burst into the aisle way and ran toward the front door. I rose in time to watch as she tackled a man trying to exit and then drug him back into the aisle.
“What’s going on?” I called out to her.
“This guy just robbed a bank,” she told me as I watched her while she cuffed him. After radioing for backup, she began to frisk him. When she stopped, to a horrified server standing dumbstruck nearby she said, “No one goes into those restrooms until I check them.”
A manager came up front and demanded to know what was going on. Mel was polite as she informed him that she was taking a suspect into custody and she’d be out of their way momentarily.
Seconds later, one of her deputies came through the door, weapon drawn. An already horrified older patron screamed in fear and collapsed. As the deputy gauged the situation and holstered his weapon, the manager moved to assist the distressed woman.
Mel pointed at the cuffed man on the floor and addressed her deputy, “Get him to the station. I need to check the restrooms for his gun.”
Once the deputy was gone, Mel turned right for the restrooms. I sank into a chair at a table halfway between ours and the door and waited.
She emerged from the men’s room only seconds later, with something loosely wrapped in paper towels that I could only take to be the weapon she’d gone in to look for.
I stood as she came over to me.
“I’m sorry Dana...really sorry. The robbery went down just down the street as I was on my way here...I’m...I have to go...I’m sorry.”
I watched in stunned silence as she headed toward the kitchen.
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