“Hi,” she said. “Is this your car?”
The nearer of the two women turned and looked her over. Liz felt a little bit intimidated by that cool glance. The woman was a head taller than her, broad-built and statuesque. Her blonde hair had a sheen to it, as did the blue satin jumpsuit she was wearing. In fact, she was all-over glossy, as was her car.
“Yeah,” she said. “What of it?”
“You’ve kind of blocked me in. Could you please roll forward a few feet so I can get my car out?”
The woman looked from Liz to Liz’s very unglossy Kia Rio, and then back to Liz. “What,” she said, “so I’m meant to believe you’re disabled?”
Liz kept her tone neutral, suppressing her irritation. “My daughter is disabled. She’s got a respiratory condition.”
Jumpsuit lady looked at her friend, who fanned herself theatrically as though this was dramatic, late-breaking news. She was blonde too, but less emphatically so. There was a pecking order, clearly. “Okay,” she said. “But it’s not on your license plate, is it? So I guess you’ve got one of those placard things from the DMV. Show me.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I said show me. Show me you’ve got the right to use that space.”
Liz felt herself blush furiously, not with embarrassment but with anger. She didn’t have time for this. But a shouting match would only waste more time, even if she had the stomach for it. Better to be the grown-up and let it pass.
At the same time, she didn’t want to condone such shitty behavior or make it seem like she accepted it. As she took out her keys, she said, “I’m going to make a note of your registration and report this to the school. Just so you know.”
The two women exchanged another glance, clearly not thrilled with this pronouncement. “So now you’re threatening us,” the jumpsuit lady said flatly.
“I’m not threatening you. I’m just saying. There are rules here.”
“Sounds like a threat to me,” not-so-blonde said. “This is a free country, you know.”
“Yeah,” jumpsuit lady agreed. “I’m within my rights to park here unless you got a placard. Which you didn’t prove it, so here I stay until you do.”
“You can’t intimidate us,” added not-so-blonde. “Anyone gets reported, sweetheart, it’s gonna be you.”
Liz turned and walked toward her car.
“Yeah,” jumpsuit lady said. “That’s right, bitch. Put up or shut up.”
Liz’s hand was raised to click the key and open the door. The blue DMV placard, stamped and up to date, was sitting right there on the dash.
But the thing inside her was quicker. It broke over her all at once, ice-cold, freezing her volition, taking her limbs away from her like a pickpocket.
Taking control.
Wait, Liz protested. No.
Her lips didn’t move. Her breath didn’t stir.
She turned around slowly to face the two women.
“Would you mind running that by me again?” she said with brittle courtesy. Only it wasn’t her saying it. She just felt her lips move, heard the words coming out of her mouth.
“What, are you deaf?” jumpsuit lady demanded.
Her friend shook her head in a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger kind of way.
“No placard, no can do,” jumpsuit lady said. “Just the way it is. If you’re kosher, it’s all good. But if you’re abusing the system, then you’re gonna find out you picked the wrong—”
Liz was up in her face before she finished the sentence. “You know,” she said, “I’m finding a little of you goes a really long way. So here’s a thought. How about you shut the hell up right now before I shove my hand down your throat, drag out that little dangly thing at the back, the uvula or whatever it’s called, and tie it round your neck tight enough to tourniquet the sucking wound you call a mouth?”
Jumpsuit lady’s eyes went wide. “Hey!” she said, “you are way out of line. You can’t talk to me like that. That’s a threat. You threatened me!”
She tried to push Liz away, two-handed, but Liz leaned hard into the push and didn’t budge. As before, she was watching all this happen, feeling it happen, but someone else was running the show and making all the decisions. Either that or her body was acting by itself.
Her hand came up as fast as a whip, pressing her car keys against the blonde woman’s cheek just underneath her eye.
“Monocular vision is okay for most things,” Liz said, “but it’s for shit when it comes to depth perception. If I poke your eye out right now, the fist fight is going to be hilarious.”
Jumpsuit lady gasped. Her friend reached out to grab the keys. Liz intercepted her without even looking. She took hold of the woman’s thumb, left-handed, and bent it back. A surprisingly little pressure made the woman shriek with pain and drop to her knees. Liz’s right hand, holding the keys, didn’t waver by so much as a millimeter.
“Really?” she said. “You want to do this? I mean, look at little me and look at the two of you. I could scar you both for life and call it self-defense.” Liz felt her lips curve into a grin, and she felt the intent behind it as a prickling rush across her own nerve endings. The thing that was moving her meant the grin as intimidation, but at the same time just … meant it. It was genuinely happy, genuinely enjoying this. Being in the driver’s seat, making the decisions, was pleasurable. And the confrontation was pleasurable, for its own sweet sake. Laying down the law to these two sizeable adversaries. Being better than them, and knowing it, and proving it.
The woman whose thumb Liz was twisting whimpered, bowed down almost all the way to the ground.
“Oh, now that’s a sweet sound,” Liz said. “I want some more of that.” Her wrist flexed. The woman on the ground gave a short, bleating squeal.
The thing inside Liz stared the jumpsuit lady down with cold joy. Liz wanted to take her own gaze out of that equation but she couldn’t. Her eyes weren’t her own.
“You’re crazy!” jumpsuit lady protested.
“Not impossible,” Liz said. “That’s probably what I’ll go with, anyway. I mean, if you decide to hide your ass behind a lawsuit, because that’s the kind of pussy move a pussy bitch like you falls back on when she can’t loudmouth her way out of trouble.”
The blonde woman backed away. The key had left a bright red mark on her cheek. She got the door of her car open and scrambled inside. “Let Eileen go,” she said. “We’ll leave. We don’t want to fight with you!”
“Then go ahead and roll your cunt-mobile the hell out of my way,” Liz countered. “Eileen and me, we’re bonding over an intense experience. She’ll join you when we’re done.”
Jumpsuit lady started the SUV and moved forward about twelve feet in a series of bunny hops, too scared to keep her foot straight on the pedal.
“Eileen what?” Liz said in a mild, almost gentle tone.
“Garaldi,” the kneeling woman gasped. “Oh God! Eileen Garaldi.”
Liz cupped both of her hands around Eileen’s one hand—a gesture that in other circumstances might have been a benediction. “Well, it’s really nice to meet you, Eileen Garaldi. But just this once. If I ever see you again, my boot is going straight up your ass, okay?”