Page 81 of Love at a Funeral and Other Awkward Conversations

A moment later, something hard taps my leg, and I’m forced to lift my head up again, taking inventory of my body. Everything hurts.

“Need help?” the voice says again. I turn toward it. It’s a big, bald police officer. He’s scowling at me. He bends down and extends his hand to me. When I take it, he roughly pulls me to stand and doesn’t let go. “All right?”

He waits until I nod to step away.

“I’ve got to be honest, I’m surprised you aren’t worse off right now,” he says like he knows me.

I can’t pick apart the jumble of words through the fog in my head. “What…how…um…” I smooth a hand down my face and glance around at the empty jail cell, the door open, to where a female officer sits behind a counter a few yards away. She’s staring at me with a mixture of disdain and humor.

“Was…was I arrested?” I ask to no one in particular.

The bald officer eyes me carefully. “Close, but no. We put you in here to dry out.”

“Oh.” I’m relieved but still overcome with shame and follow him out of the cell, where he stops by the woman at the counter so she can hand me my bag.

Lifting a cup of coffee to his lips, the cop says, “You remember me, Cassandra?”

Everything about this situation confuses me, and I’m rendered mute.

“I’m Officer Stone. I had the unfortunate job of delivering the news of your brother the night he died.”

It all comes rushing back, and I collapse all of my weight against the counter. It’s hazy, but I think he looks a little familiar.

“We got a call last night about a disturbance at the train station.” He pauses for unnecessary dramatic effect because I know what he’s about to say. “The disturbance was you.”

I rub my temple. “What happened?”

“You apparently got hysterical on the train.”

“Jesus,” I wheeze, the bits and pieces of yesterday starting to come back into focus.

“You got sick, knocked over an elderly passenger, and wouldn’t let go of another one.”

“Wouldn’t let go?”

“Physically,” he says after a sip of coffee. “You wouldn’t let go of him. That’s when they called us. Lucky for you, I was the one who arrived on the scene.”

“Jesus,” I say again.

I run my hands through my hair. It’s all tangled. The skin on my face is dry, and when I rub a finger under my eye, black makeup is left on my fingertip. “How’d I end up here?”

He shrugs. “Once you calmed down, you passed out, so I brought you in here to sleep it off.”

I stare at my shoes, my cheeks heating. If I weren’t so hungover, I might be able to cobble together some excuse or apology, but it’s no use. I soak in my humiliation.

“I don’t presume to know you at all, but I do remember that night,” he says. “I’ve seen other people react the same way when they receive bad news. Something clicks, you can see it in their eyes, and it’s almost like they go into overdrive. They overcompensate.” When I don’t make any move to respond, he goes on. “I could tell that was happening with you. Watching how your parents reacted to the news was difficult, knowing you would be left holding it all together.”

He waits until I look up at him. He’s so tall and muscular; it’s an odd juxtaposition against his soft tone of voice. “It’s obvious you’re going through some tough stuff, but what happened yesterday isn’t the way to handle it. There are people and places to help you, you know that, right?”

I nod. I have the pamphlets.

He finishes off his coffee and throws the cup in the trash can next to me.

“You’ve been dealt a bad hand,” he says. “Make peace with it however you can, but next time I get a call about you, I will arrest you.”

“Right. Got it,” I say and shuffle out of the police station, only to realize my phone’s out of battery, so I can’t call anyone for a ride and have to walk the five miles back to the train station to pick up my car.

It takes me nearly two hours, and when I am finally behind the wheel, I take account of my wrinkled clothes, clown-like makeup, and hungover breath. The last twenty-four hours have been hell, and I’ve seen enough cops in the past year to last a lifetime, but it is a wake-up call.

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