39
Lida drove, keeping the engine at red-line much of the way. Occasionally she would squint at the speedometer, then lighten her foot on the gas. But her caution would never last.
She was on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, heading into town. Lord knows, the cops were always waiting for her here. If they stopped her again, she decided, she would leap from the car, screaming over her shoulder, “You’ll never take me alive, copper!” And then go live deep in the hills, the Blue Ridge, maybe, and never drive again.
She would call the Department of Motor Vehicles tomorrow or the day after. Tell them she was sorry that she’d missed their date. But she’d been in the hospital. For open-heart surgery. Daws had been pecking at it.
The light was red at North Capitol Street. She switched the radio on. Jimi Hendrix, asking if she had ever been to Electric Ladyland. The tail end of the song, where the voices wind down, exhorting the listener to make love.
She turned the volume so high that a pedestrian turned to look at her, though the roof was up and her windows were rolled shut.
Despite her tenure at Brady State College she couldn’t unravel all of Hendrix’s words. She liked, though, what she thought she heard, liked the angel imagery, liked the way the words seemed to glimmer as they were sung. Good and evil. Electric love.
She shouldn’t let herself in for this. She should stand him up. Not give him a chance to fuck her over. She wouldn’t let herself in for this.
It was then that Lida saw the parking space on Connecticut Avenue. She backed into it with flair.
She ordered spaghetti alla carbonara. That shouldn’t conflict with the nectar and yogurt too much. And she wouldn’t have dessert, because then she might break out tomorrow. God. She didn’t want to see him with a pimple in the middle of her forehead. Well, what the hell. She’d see him. What was the point of standing him up. Besides … She held her fork in midair, remembering.
“Everything all right?” the waitress asked.
“Delicious,” Lida said. “The best ever.”