“Don’t believe everything you think,” she says loudly, another moldering Yeagerism. It’s hard to halt her imagination and all of its doomsaying escalation.
The end of the pier is the chaos the lights promised: an ambulance faces her in the middle of the street, straddling both lanes, its left front side badly smashed in; another ambulance runs parallel, its back doors open toward her; a fire engine is partially up on the curb between the damaged ambulance and The Grove, where Formal is being held; police cars are parked and double-parked askance throughout the lot on her left; a clot of police surround a boy in a bright blue tux sitting on the pavement, his hands handcuffed behind him, his head bowed; everywhere there are emergency workers bustling or filling out paperwork; everywhere there are attendees standing idly, gawking; young ladies hold their heels in their hands, their overexerted bare feet resting on the cold pavement; gentlemen have slacked their ties and bowties. Many of them are reacting with the appropriate detached engrossment, receiving the scene through the prism of their outstretched phones, bending reality into cinema in order to later say convincingly and without irony “It was like a movie.” Some of them are crying. Everyone looks exhausted, but no one seems to be going anywhere.
Beddy pulls into the parking lot where a policeman stops her. She rolls down her window.
“What are you doing?” he asks, and jabs her with the beam of his maglight.
This is a good question.
“I’m um, just getting here.”
“Are you arriving late because you had a good time elsewhere?”
She winces. “God, no.”
“You’re not currently intoxicated, then?”
“No, sir.”
“Have you had anything to drink this evening?”
“No, sir.”
He leans in towards the car, sniffing perceptibly. “All right, then. Let’s get you parked. Move toward the back, park as far back as you can. When you cross the street, watch for broken glass. We haven’t gotten it cleaned up yet. And don’t loiter with the rest of this crowd.”
She wants to ask him what happened, but he pats the top of her car brusquely, the universal sign to move along. She obeys.
The parking lot is three rows deep, and she chooses a spot in the third row, in front of the guardrail. She grabs her purse, gets out, and weaves through the occupied parking stalls toward the crowd. A knot of worry is tying itself in her guts.
A tall EMT leans against the front of a brown station wagon up ahead, smoking a cigarette. He’s the only emergency worker who doesn’t seem to be active. He stares off into ambiguous space. The pacing of the turret lights intermittently backlights the smoke in red or blue.
She stops when she reaches the front of the wagon. She looks at him. Everything about him is dark: his hair, his eyebrows, the pockets of his cheekbones, the fine shadow of stubble along his jawline and chin. He doesn’t look back. She looks where he’s looking.
“Shit’s fucked,” he says.