If I could drive past the McDonald’s, I thought, see that she was okay, make sure that Trevor’s car was nowhere to be seen, I’d pack it in. I’d head home.
The McDonald’s was right where the cop said it would be, its golden arches visible nearly a mile away. It was on the left, and as I approached I put on my blinker, pulled into the turning lane. I figured I’d do a sweep through the parking lot, and if everything looked satisfactory, I’d call it a night.
I drove down the west side of the restaurant, the windows to my left, the cars parked on an angle to my right. And there was the Virtue, pulled in between a couple of small cars, neither of which was a black Chevy.
I swung around the back, where there were only a few cars parked, probably those belonging to employees, then down the east side, past more cars.
Everything looked okay.
There were two vehicles ahead of me, the first of which was turning left, across two lanes of traffic. I put on the brakes and waited to pull out.
I happened to glance left, and saw Angie and her boyfriend seated at a table, Angie’s back to me, the boyfriend looking in my direction. I saw him raise his head as my car went by, saw him say something to Angie. As she turned to look outside, I was able to pull ahead another car length so she wouldn’t be able to see my face.
Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go, I thought, trying to will the car ahead of me to get moving.
And then, all of a sudden, he was at my window. Angie’s boyfriend, banging on the glass.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Hey, you!”
I wanted to pull ahead, but the car ahead of me was still in the way, and there was no place to go.
“I want to talk to you!” he shouted.
I was going to have to fess up, come clean. Admit to my daughter what I’d been up to. I hit the button, brought the window down.
“Why the fuck you following us around?” he demanded.
“Listen,” I said, trying to be calm. “You don’t understand. I’m actually—”
And then his fist was coming through the open window, so fast it was a blur, and then it was connecting with the side of my head.
26
I TRIED TO AVOID HIS FIST, but it came through the window so quickly, I didn’t have time to react. And when you’re sitting in a car, seatbelted in, you don’t have a whole lot of room to bob and weave. So Angie’s boyfriend was able to strike the side of my cheek, just below the temple, bouncing my head sideways a foot or so, and it was like a rocket had exploded in front of my eyes.
He was still yelling at me, I’m not sure what, exactly. I heard “pervert” in there somewhere, and “fucking asshole,” I believe, and somewhere off in the distance, a more familiar voice, screaming, “Cam! What are you doing? Stop it!”
I figured the odds were that Angie had no inkling who her boyfriend Cam was punching out, and I now preferred to keep it that way, which precluded jumping out of the car and attempting to beat the shit out of Cam, who was probably twenty or more years younger than I and in a hell of a lot better shape, and would probably have beat the shit out of me, anyway.
So I hit the gas and swerved right, narrowly missing the bumper of the car in front of me, squeezed between it and a fence, and hung a hard right out of the parking lot, nearly cutting off a Corvette, whose driver had to slam on the brakes to avoid rear-ending me. The resulting squeal was no doubt heard a couple of blocks away.
I floored it. I wanted to put as much distance between me and that McDonald’s as quickly as I could. So intent was I on making a fast getaway that I had yet to notice how much the side of my face was smarting.
My heart was doing a fair bit of pounding, too. Once I’d put a few blocks between myself and that McDonald’s, I pulled into the parking lot of a 7-Eleven, swinging the car around so that I was facing the street, and turned off the ignition. I switched on the interior light and adjusted the mirror so I could get a look at the side of my face. It was already turning blue and puffing out.
I went inside and bought a small bag of ice, got back into the car and pressed the bag of cubes against the left side of my face. I wasn’t sure which hurt more, the punch, the ice, or my pride, but it was all I could do not to scream as I held the bag against the bruise.
I hoped Cam wasn’t the one Angie was thinking of spending her life with. This was not the best way to kick off a relationship with a future son-in-law.