it might be. So every time, Linda is compelled to answer, no matter how occupied she might be. After all, this one might be an emergency. Dropping her case file to the table, she answers and it is, indeed, an emergency. It is her mother, and her mother is very agitated. Linda tries to be soothing. “Calm down Mother. Calm down. Now what did you say was the problem?”
“I told you. I’m at the beauty parlor. I just had my hair done, like I do every other Wednesday. And I got in my car to go home and it wouldn’t go. It just wouldn’t. So I need for you to come and get me and take me home.”
“Can’t you call Dad? He’s a lot closer. I mean, Mother, I’m twenty miles away.”
“Nonsense! Your father is home, but don’t be silly, Linda. How could he come and get me? I’ve got the car.”
“What do you think is wrong with the car?”
“I have no idea. It just won’t go.”
“Where did you say you were?”
“I’m at the beauty parlor. Come and get me, right now.” Her mother hangs up the phone. Linda grimaces.
Philip is in his editing cubicle slaving away on a wedding video. He glances up when he hears the familiar footsteps approach from behind. “Well, well my lovely, I thought you were doing internet chores. Getting bored?”
“My mom’s car broke down at the beauty shop. I’ve got to go on a rescue mission. Want to come along, be my sidekick?”
“I would Sweetie, but Dr. Peters is coming in at 3:00 to lay down his voice-over on his childhood home movies. He’s coming all the way from Corvallis, so…”
“Okay, I guess I’m flying solo on this one.”
Soon she is driving along the freeway westward from Portland towards the suburban city of Hillsboro. Linda attempts to keep the car at the speed limit, fifty-five miles an hour, but occasionally she slips up and pushes a bit faster. It is during one of those slip-ups, near Beaverton in afternoon rush hour, that the right rear tire blows. It takes a quarter of a mile and about a pint of adrenaline to bring the car to a safe stop in the right emergency lane. Three solid lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic fly by. The collage of SUVs, pickups and sedans provides a blurry backdrop to her plight as she opens her trunk and struggles through mountains of possessions in search of the spare tire.
By the time the motorcycle cop pulls in behind her, Linda has deposited several dozen items in various stacks behind the car. She also has jacked the rear wheel high into the air and has successfully substituted the spare for the flat.
She is in the process of lowering the car back to the ground when she sees him climbing off the big cycle. “Hello,” she greets the helmeted officer. “You’ve arrived just in time to put a man’s touch on a situation where it counts the most.”
The policeman seems confused. “Excuse me?”
Linda chuckles. “The lug nuts. There’s no way a lady can give that extra oomph when tightening those. Wouldn’t you agree, officer?” She hands him the four-way wrench.
After tightening the nuts, he notices the many teetering piles of recently stacked items from the car’s trunk. “Let me help you with that,” he offers kindly. He retrieves several grocery sacks stuffed with file folders and hands them to Linda who hastily arranges them. He suddenly becomes alarmed and touching the front of his holster, he shouts, “A gun! Lady, are you in possession of a firearm?” Before Linda can respond the officer bends over and picks up a clear gallon sized Ziplock plastic bag with a .357 snub nosed revolver clearly visible inside along with a pair of speed-load clips.
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry about the gun, sir. But I have a permit to carry it, although I must confess that gun mostly just stays in the trunk. I’m a licensed private investigator.” She pulls some documents from her crowded purse and attempts to give them to him. In order to take possession he hands her the plastic bagged revolver. Linda comments while he inspects the papers. “You can see everything is on the up-and-up. Now if you’ll excuse me, I am on an emergency trip to Hillsboro. My mother’s having a crisis. Her car broke down at the beauty parlor and I need to rescue her. I guess I’ve got a lot on my plate today.”
The policeman removes his sunglasses and ponders. “How old is she?”
“It’s not polite to ask a lady’s age, but what the hell! She’s seventy, going on twelve, if you know what I mean.” Linda laughs and looks at her watch.
He smiles. “It’s probably just a dead battery or something like that. Do you have jumper cables?”
“No, but if I can’t get it started I’ll just call a tow truck. For God’s sake, that’s what she should be doing. I don’t see why…”
The officer smiles warmly. “I have a mom just a little younger than yours, and sometimes they just need a little TLC. It’s going to be okay, ma’am, it really is.”
Linda is touched. “Thanks for saying that, sir. It’s very kind.”
“It’s the truth, ma’am.”
Linda returns to her re-packing. “Can you hand me that?” She points to a round, white plastic object attached to folding legs.
The young policeman makes a face as he gingerly picks up the strange item. “What the heck is this?” he inquires.
Linda puts her hand over her mouth in mock embarrassment. “It’s a folding port-a-potty. You tie these little plastic bags on the wire frame there. You see, you guys, when you’re on stakeout and nature calls, just lean up beside the car. But what’s a girl to do?” Linda giggles, takes the toilet seat from the officer and tucks it into the crammed trunk on top of some crushed file sacks.
Moments later she is back behind the wheel ready to roll. The friendly state patrolman approaches with a final comment. “Okay ma’am, best of luck to your mother and you.”
Lydia’s Lovely Look Salon is an integral component of Linda’s mother’s weekly regimen. For decades, she has been having the same style done before making a customary stop at the local supermarket during the journey home. Today’s car trouble is the first break in that routine for more than thirty years.
When she pulls into the parking lot of the beauty salon, Linda notices that the building and signs are exactly the same as the last time she had her hair done at Lydia’s for high school graduation. Linda was salutatorian, and had gone for the latest “Bond Girl” style. She also remembers the graduation card her mother had given her for the occasion—the one that contained a gift certificate for an introductory session at Weight Watchers. Her parents’ charcoal Taurus sits nestled right in front of the shop’s main entrance in the only designated “handicapped” spot. Linda briefly peers through the driver’s window then enters the shop where she discovers her mother near the front window chatting with a few salon employees and their customers.
Her mother turns and sees her. “Linda, I was just telling them about your grandpa’s place, the house I grew up in, in Iowa. Remember my grandpa’s house was just up the path on the little rise?”
“Yes Mother, I remember.” Linda picks up her mother’s nearby purse and hands it to her. “Give me your keys. I’m going to check out your car and see if I can get it started.”
She surrenders
