Great Girls(Victoria Pedretti)

C. 12🕰

"Do you think animals know that we love them, even if we unintentionally harm them from time to time?" Luci asked as we lied on the grass bed of Hailey Park, which happened to be a few blocks away from my job. "Define 'unintentionally harm from time to time'?" I question, placing my hands over my stomach as the stars gradually moving clouds in the pink sky.

I heard Luci chuckle and felt her move beside me. I glanced over at her to examine her roll on the left side of her body, one hand propped up on the grass to hold her head from slouching.

"When I was nine years of age, I had a cat named Hans—" I cut her off with a silly inquiry. "Like Hans Zimmer, the composer of literally every single movie to walk the earth?" I turn over to my right to face Luci, holding my hand in the same stance she was holding hers.

Luci and I brought our faces so close together, laughing, I presumed we were going to smack our lips against one another. "No. Just Hans and he was an orange fat cat like Garfield. Except Garfield wasn't as clumsy as Hans, at least I don't think he was. But, anyway, that's beside the point, so you see one day I was practicing cartwheels in my grandmother's living, you know the one that passed away and whose house I own."

I nodded in agreement as Luci's words commenced to fade away when my phone caught my attention. The light from the screen nearly blinded me as I picked it up from the gap where Luci and I were lying down.

It was a message from Aminah. I sat up, crossing my legs like a pretzel. I tapped the message and my phone unlocked via Face Recognition and there was a message from Aminah, explaining that someone was removing my car from the premises of the children's museum parking lot.

"Shit, we have to go," I panic, getting up from the grass and hauling towards Luci's red bike. "What's the matter? Where are you going?" she asked. I turn my head and yell, "My car! It's being impounded!"

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"What are you looking for?" asks Luci, who was standing against a rose spray-painted white brick wall, one leg standing on the wall and the other is on the ground.

I was five feet away from Luci, searching for a sign that had information about a Tow Away Zone, but had no luck.

Dusk was beginning to fall upon the town of Brown, Connecticut, and the weather was breezy.

I spun around disappointed and answered, "I was trying to find the No Parking sign. It usually has a number listed for the—wait for a second, I got an idea. C'mon let's go, " I say, jogging towards Luci's bike.

"Where are we going?" she asks, sitting on the very front part of the seat, leaving as much space room as possible for me to sit down in the back. "To the police department. I know someone who'll tell me where to get my car, " I say, hoping on the edge of the seat.

By the time Luci and I reached the station, it was dark and the only lights that were lighting up Brown were the black lamp posts, leading to the entrance of the precinct.

Luci began to slow her velocity down on the pedals when she looked back at me and asked, "You want me to wait outside?"

I squint my eyebrows in disagreement, "No. Are you kidding? It's like Alaska Premium here in Brown. I can't let you freeze to death. Who would bury you? Who would—" "Sallie," she called my name.

Something about the way she said my name, made my heart flutter. Okay, snap out of it, Salinger. You're standing in front of the Brown Police Department for a reason. "Right. Let's just get inside and find out where my car is," I say as Luci picks up her pace again and halts her bicycle when she discovers a bicycle rack.

I got off the bike, stumbling because I'm a baby deer. Meanwhile, Luci is on her bike, and from her brown leather jacket that had white shearling on her sleeves, around the collar, and the back, she pulls out a black chain and turns to me. "Why don't you go inside while I handle this?" she advises.

I open my mouth as my breath condensed, "Yeah, okay. I'll see you inside." I ran up the steps and opened the door to the vivid lobby that greeted me with the smell of hot coffee and a burning cigarette from Lieutenant Tim's former office.

"Salinger," a raspy voice called.

You see what happens when you summon the devil.

I spun around and saw that the whiffs of a cigarette were coming from some officer's desk that reminded me of a row of dominoes. If one fell, the rest would suffer the same action.

Lieutenant Tim was a retired officer, but now and then, he would visit the 10th Precinct to steal donuts, drink coffee, and chat with other officers while the Deputy Chief wasn't in the building. He had salt and pepper hair and a mustache that was similar to Colonel Sanders except that was grey also. Short man, the same height as a gaming chair, but will kick your ass if you tease him about it.

No one in the department said anything to him because of two things: privilege (you can infer which one of the two privileges that he possesses by looking at him) and his temper. The man was as mean as a junkyard dog, but he was generous to me. He and my Grandpa Albie go way back, so of course, he knows me. Lieutenant Tim also knew my father and my mother when they were going together. He, even, caught them getting their groove on near the Rover Creek.

Rover Creek was 'the' spot back in my parents' day if you know what I mean. Every teen in Brown was there on the weekends and the parents knew what they were going to do, but they didn't want to be the reason why their children can't trust them. So, one parent from one of those parent board meetings would call cops from the Brown PD and those cops would alternate, check up on the teens, and make sure they weren't doing the 'devil's work' or whatever.

I couldn't make out who the Lieutenant was speaking to, but as I was approaching them, I noticed it was my dad's high school friend, Officer Jacobs or as everyone else would call him Jake. After all, his name was Jake Jacobs, which made perfect sense via his first name and not the shortened version of his last name.

I reached the desk and before I could greet them, Officer Jacobs asked, "What brings you here, Sallie?"