IT WAS FIRST THING early the next morning when they came. One man cop, one woman cop, wearing regular-people clothes. Business wear. Neither wielded a gun but they each probably had one.
“Tina Fontana?” the woman said when I opened the door.
“Yes.”
She was polite and she did all the talking. A black woman with auburn corkscrew curls. Past the doorway were a few squad cars, uniformed cops.
Emily was at my side. We were both in sweatpants, what Emily called house clothes, which for her meant pajamas that actually covered her body and provided warmth.
“Are you Emily Johnson?” the woman asked.
“Yes.”
The man cop pulled out handcuffs then, shoved me aside, not roughly, but assertively. He began reciting the rights, just like out of a TV show where the antihero finally gets what’s coming to him.
The man cop had his olive-skinned palm on the back of Emily’s T-shirt. He’d gone around behind her and secured her wrists.
I held my wrists out to the woman, waiting.
“Please step aside, Ms. Fontana,” she said.
Emily’s blue doll-eyes pooled, but she remained silent. Not because she had the right to, but because her shrieking was coming out without sound in a silent scream.
“You have the right to an attorney,” and all that, the man cop was explaining to her.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Why are you only taking her?”
They guided Emily to the door and she finally eked out a sound. “Tina?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t understand, but listen to me, I’m going to figure out what’s happening.”
Yet even as I said it, I knew. Robert had spared me. Emily was going down for the both of us.
“I’ll take care of it,” I said. “I’m going to get you out, I promise.”
Makeup-free tears streamed down Emily’s face. She hadn’t even had a chance to put eyeliner on—that was the thought that ultimately broke me up. I knew how much Emily would be pained by sitting in a cell wearing her house clothes and no foundation. It would feel to her like they’d stripped her naked.
I followed after them, out to the street, where the cool autumn morning air stung my cheeks.
“Step aside, Ms. Fontana,” the woman cop ordered me.
“Can I come with you?”
“Ms. Fontana, please step aside.”
They stuffed Emily into the back of their black sedan. She locked her eyes on mine through the window.
“I’m going to get help,” I screamed at the glass. “Don’t be scared.”
Then they drove her away. The uniformed cops got in their squad cars and peeled off in sporadic directions until everyone was gone but me.
I stupidly never asked where they were taking her. When I turned around to go back into my apartment, throw on some sneakers, and call a cab, I realized I had no idea where to have the cab take me.
I took my computer into the kitchen and tried a few searches, but Google was failing me. I needed Kevin, but I couldn’t ask him for help now. Wendi, Lily, and Ginger would all be at work by now, and there was no sense terrorizing them with this unexpected turn of events any sooner than necessary. It would only transform the next few hours into a cacophony of opinions and scolding, finger pointing and self-reproach—and I needed to think!
What would Emily do, I wondered, if I’d been the one taken? There was an acronym that would never find its way onto a rubber bracelet. What Would Emily Do? But she would do everything in her power to help me, wouldn’t she? She wouldn’t run, right? Just last night she’d professed that we were in this together, that she wasn’t going to jail, so neither was I. And I promised her the same just now when she had her hands up against the glass of that cop-car window like a new breed of Pound Puppy. So I couldn’t just pack my blue IKEA sack and go—I had to do the right thing. I had to preserve what was left of the goodness in my soul. But for the record, this was exactly why I never wanted to have friends.
So much for being an island.
Thanks to the Legal Aid website, I eventually figured out that Emily had most likely been taken to the local precinct, and the best I could do for now was wait for a phone call. I couldn’t even bring her some clothes. Some moisturizer. Her hand lotion, so she could at least smell like herself while she was there.
I moved back into the bedroom, sat down in the middle of my bed, upon the checkered tablecloth and bath towels Emily had laid out the night before. I pulled my knees into my chest, observing a circumference of spilled-whiskey stains and cookie crumbs, and I shuddered at the thought—it was all up to me now.
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