The Art of Adapting (novel excerpt)

part 2

She unrolled her window just as the police officer came up next to her. She put one hand out protectively over Matt, hovering just above his skin, trying to transmit some calming force onto him.

“Do you live in this area?” the cop asked. He had on sunglasses and a hat, the brim pulled low over his eyes, his pad already out, flipping to a blank page.

“Um, yes. Back on Meadowlark?”

“So then you must know there’s a stop sign back there? On Coventry?”

“I missed a stop sign?” Lana said. It seemed impossible. She was an annoyingly cautious driver.

“No,” Matt said. He raised his hands to squeeze his head and started to rock his body back and forth against the back of his seat. “No, it’s not on Coventry. It’s on Capital. It’s on Capital, and she stopped. A California stop, they call it. It wasn’t a long stop. Not the five full seconds. I always stop for five seconds. It was barely one second. But I counted one second. She had her brake fully pressed for one second. And it counts. If you look in the driver’s handbook even one second counts.” He rocked and rocked, knees to his chest, fists poised at his temples.

“It’s okay, Matt,” Lana said. She watched helplessly as Matt punched his ears once, twice, and rocked steadily. The car shook with him. The anxiety in the car was rising. The officer was suddenly more interested in Matt than in Lana.

“Is he okay?” the officer asked.

“Yes, fine. He, um, he just . . . Police officers intimidate him.” That was true. She nodded in agreement with herself. She pulled out her license and handed it to the officer. She’d take the ticket. Anything to get out of there before Matt lost it.

“He doesn’t look okay,” the officer said. “Sir? Do you need help?” He was nearly shouting at Matt, which just made Matt withdraw deeper into his tight ball, made him cover his ears more fiercely, punch them a third time, a fourth.

“Oh, please don’t raise your voice. He’s sensitive to loud noises. He gets overwhelmed. He’s got Asperger’s?” She didn’t mean to make it a question, but it hung there between them, a plea for understanding. The officer slowly took Lana’s license from her, still eyeing Matt. He peered down at Lana’s license, studied it thoroughly. And smiled. He leaned to his left to look around Lana for a better view of Matt, who continued to rock against the seat, eyes shut, ears covered, a turtle hiding from a predator.

“Matt?” he said. “Matt Croft?” Both Matt and Lana startled at the sound of his name. How would the officer know him? Lana wondered if he was the same one who’d pulled Matt over for his DUI and scared the hell out of him with his blowhard threats. That would be bad. That would push Matt over the edge for sure.

“Officer, if you can just write the ticket. My kids are waiting for me, and Matt here is . . . He’ll calm down as soon as we go.”

“It’s okay, Lana,” the officer said. He held Lana’s license out to her. “Matt here’s right. The sign’s on Capital, not Coventry. And even a one-second stop counts. My mistake.”

Lana, confused, accepted her license. He was letting her go? Matt opened his eyes and took in the officer in his own safe way, casting sidelong glances at him, mostly checking him out with his peripheral vision. Matt pointed a finger at him. Leaned forward, across Lana, to point vigorously at the officer’s chest. Lana fought a surge of panic. Was that an aggressive move? Would the officer grab Matt and pull him from the car, slap handcuffs on him and take him away, for pointing?

“You’re Nick Parker,” Matt said. He withdrew his pointing finger and returned to rocking absentmindedly, but his hands were in his lap and not punching himself in the head anymore. He seemed to be calming back down. “You were in the Marines. You were at Camp Pendleton and you wore too much cologne and you had shorter hair and it wasn’t gray yet, and you said you’d teach me to hit a baseball, but you never did.”

Lana slowly took in the police officer, who was now smiling very clearly at her. “Nick?” she asked. Sure enough, the gold pin on his uniform read PARKER. It had been nearly twenty years since Lana had seen him. Since Graham had stolen her from him.

“So you married him,” Nick said. He removed his Wayfarers, and without the glasses, Nick emerged. The same high cheekbones, deep-set dark eyes, striking physique. He had aged beautifully. “I saw on your license. Lana Foster now?”

“Oh. No.” Lana laughed, suddenly self-conscious. She touched her messy hair. “I mean, yes. I married him. But I . . . um. We . . .”

“They’re separated,” Matt said. “They don’t live together anymore. The kids are at Graham’s. Lana gets sad when they’re with Graham. And today is Valentine’s Day. Which is a silly holiday. A Hallmark holiday. But Lana was sad about it and then when it was time to get the kids she was happy. Until you pulled her over. Then she was scared.”

“Shh,” Lana said, laughing nervously. Nick laughed with her.

“Nice to see you again, Matt,” he said. “You’re right. I promised to teach you to hit a baseball before I shipped out.”

“Then you and Lana broke up and you never did. She met Graham and she liked him better, and you stopped seeing her, and me, and forgot to teach me to hit a baseball.”

“I’m sorry I let you down,” Nick said. He opened his notebook and started writing. Lana’s gut writhed. So was she getting the ticket after all? Because Matt had spoken the blunt truth, as he always did, and made Nick angry? Lana’s body was a taut wire of tension. She really couldn’t afford a ticket. Nor the humiliation of being given one by an ex-boyfriend from decades ago. Nick ripped off the sheet of paper and handed it to Lana. It was his name, email, phone number. “Maybe we can get coffee sometime? Catch up?”

“Oh, I’d love that!” Lana said, too loudly. She laughed, embarrassed for herself. “So how long were you in the Marines for? And are you married? Kids?”

“If I tell you everything now, we’ll have nothing to catch up on,” Nick said, giving her that sly grin of his, the one that had lured her in so long ago. “Happy Valentine’s Day.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze, gave Matt a salute, and slid his sunglasses back on. As he did so, Lana noticed that he had no ring on his left hand. Lana watched him walk back to his car in her rearview mirror. It was a very nice view.

“The kids are waiting,” Matt reminded her.

“Right,” she said. She started the car, but waited for Nick to drive off first. He slowed next to her and waved, and she waved back, her fearless, long-forgotten twenty-four-year-old self reemerging temporarily. The bright-eyed girl of hope and promise, the one who didn’t take life so seriously, who loved sex and kissing and hand-holding but didn’t need a man in her life full-time. It was time to dust off that version of herself.

“There are three more stop signs on this road,” Matt said. “You should do a five-second stop. That way there’s no mistaking that you stopped. I always stop for five seconds. I can count if you don’t know how long that is. Most people don’t know how long a second is. Not really. Not exactly.”

Lana drove toward her children, Nick Parker’s information in her hand, and Valentine’s Day laid out before her, ripe for the picking. “You do that,” she said. “You count for me.”

She was on such a high that even the sight of Graham, freshly showered and well dressed, smiling, relaxed, and happy to be free of her, did nothing to rattle her. She embraced her children as if they’d been gone more than just sixteen hours. She wondered briefly if she should be concerned that her mood that day had swung so quickly from insomnia and tears to ecstatic, effusive joy.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, my loves!” she sang, kissing both kids, knowing how her gushing affection embarrassed them. Abby rolled her eyes and Byron shrugged her off.

“Oh, right. Happy Valentine’s Day,” Graham said. Lana gave him a smirk and turned away. As if there were any chance she’d been talking to him. She floated down the steps toward her car, still holding Nick’s note.