If only I hadn’t taken that shortcut this morning because I was running late.
Just like that, my life as a “typical ingenue working at her first job in a new city” ramped up to “unwitting witness to a mob hit and now trying not to get snuffed out.” But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I was on the schedule to be the assistant at an Arboretum photo shoot.
“Be there no later than 9:00 a.m.,” said Stan Hennessey, the photographer I’ve been dying to work with. I have an enormous crush on him, and I was imagining that by the end of our gig today, he’d maybe feel the same way toward me.
We’d make the most adorable couple: him with his close-cropped red hair, sparkly blue eyes and long, gangly legs and arms, me with my waist length black curls, compact body and open, friendly face. He’s quiet and serious; I’m outgoing and fun. We’d be the Opposites Attract poster couple, no two ways about it.
I planned to turn my charm dial to its “Overdrive” setting as soon as I arrived at the shoot.
But, I was so busy perfecting my mascara and cream blush that I failed to realize I was not going to have any “just in case” time buffer, like I normally would, in order to arrive at our location on time. (My father was in the military. He instilled in every one of us four kids: “If you’re not five minutes early for an appointment, then you are LATE!” That was always served in tandem with, “There’s no such thing as a good excuse.”)
I high-tailed it out the door and into my car, already acquiescing to the fact that I was going to have to use a shortcut I knew through the dicey-but-no-traffic part of town if I were going to make it to the Arboretum by 8:55.
A quick glance into my rearview mirror at my superior make-up application, though, assured me that even though I might be vain, my taking the extra time to look good most certainly had not been.
And then it happened.
I turned carefully onto Market Street from Caversham Place but couldn’t avoid slightly grazing a wild-eyed pedestrian who was screaming and barreling through the crosswalk against the light.
The impact, though infinitesimal, thanks to good brakes and being taught to drive defensively by my always-prepared, ever-cautious Marine father, did still put the fleeing woman off her stride. Both she and her large red handbag windmilled a good ten paces before recovering and disappearing down an adjacent alley.
Before I could even transfer my foot from the brake back to the accelerator and continue hurrying toward the Arboretum, a mastodon of a man with huge sunglasses and an oil slick for hair trampled in front of my car like a rocket-fueled rhino.
I wanted to be equally fast myself so I’d be on time for Stan Hennessey, but I could hear my Marine dad’s voice warn, “Wait. Waaaaaait.”
And that’s when I noticed something foreign on the hood of my car.
Exasperated, I quickly shifted into “park,” jumped out and retrieved a vintage Kodak Instamatic camera, which, I surmised, had landed there after becoming dislodged from the windmilling propulsion of the running woman’s big red handbag.
I had no time to ponder it further. I had only six minutes left now to get to the Arboretum, which was eight minutes away.
No excuses.
I floored it and roared past the alley where the racing woman and jet-propelled rhino-man had disappeared. Daggots Alley read the black-and-white street sign.
The good news: my mascara and cream blush were still perfectly intact.
Somehow, miraculously, I still managed to make it to the photo shoot at exactly 8:55, as Stan Hennessey was slogging his oversized equipment bag from his car and onto his shoulder.
“Stan! Wait up!” I called. “Let me help you with all that!”
His head jerked in the direction of my voice, and I watched his eyes scramble to understand why some short, curly-haired girl would know his name.”
“Oh! Janine, right?” he said as I scurried up to him and heaved his duffle onto my own shoulder.
“Jenna,” I corrected, giving him an adoring smile, appreciative that, although not exactly correct, it was in the ballpark. At this early stage of a relationship, “sort of close” still counted. Besides, wouldn’t it be the cutest story to tell our kids someday?
A squadron of wailing police cars began speeding by. Stan immediately grabbed up his camera from around his neck, held it to one eye, the telescopic lens protruding like a frozen elephant trunk, and loped like a gangly gazelle to the far corner of the Arboretum’s lot, clicking constantly the entire way, hoping to head them off at the intersection for a Pulitzer-winning shot. The man was amazing.
When he returned to where we’d originally stood, his breaths were coming in short, excited bursts. “Look at these!” he exclaimed and scrolled through the digital images for me.
I repeat: amazing.
“Let’s check the police scanner!” he cried like a ten-year-old on the loading platform of a roller coaster. “There’s something huge going on here!”
Sure enough. Two dead bodies were just discovered outside a warehouse…on Daggots Alley…near the intersection of Market and Caversham.
I felt blood making a frantic mass exodus from every corpuscle in my body. Vivid firefly-like sparkles began to step-ball-change before my eyes as fuzzy, distorted black shapes began singeing the edges of my line of sight.
The next thing I knew, I was on the ground and being cradled by Stan Hennessey, though the Nikkon on his chest was rather obstructing my view of his perfect face.
“What happened?” he asked, using his free hand to gently rub the pulse point on my wrist. “One minute, we were listening to the police scanner, next thing I know, you’re on the ground!”
It seemed like an eternity before my vocal cords could manage the necessary explanation. But once they started, my words flowed over Stan Hennessey like an avalanche.
“NO FREAKIN’ WAY!” he screamed. “Where’s that Kodak Instamatic now?” he asked, his voice the timbre of a Vienna Boys’ Choir soloist.
I rummaged through my purse, found the buried treasure and watched Stan Hennessey’s eyes grow razzle-dazzle round.
“Screw the Arboretum!” he shouted. “Let’s get over to my dark room and develop these. We’ll scoop everyone!”
And so we did. Biggest trans-continental RICO bust of all time, replete with twenty-four crystal-clear photos to substantiate it...and a Pulitzer Prize.
“And that, my little Hennessey kids, is the story of how your father and I met and fell in love. Now – off to bed! No excuses.”