dad said tickets weren’t that expensive,’ Nicholas said.
Karolina forced herself to smile, though the boys couldn’t see her in the driver’s seat. ‘I’m sure he’d love that,’ she lied, and sneaked a peek at Harry to see if he could hear it in her voice. Despite the fact that Harry was passionate about professional football in general and the Redskins specifically – and Graham, as a sitting U.S. senator, could name his seats anywhere in the stadium – father and son had never attended a game together. Every year Graham swore to Karolina and Harry that they’d sit in the owner’s box, fly to an important away game, or invite a bunch of Harry’s friends and get seats on the fifty-yard line, and every year another season went by without the Hartwell boys in attendance. Harry had been to a game exactly once, two years earlier, when Karolina took pity on him and bought tickets off StubHub. He’d been thrilled and cheered like crazy in his head-to-toe gear, but she knew he would have preferred to go with Graham: Karolina had unknowingly gotten tickets on the visitor side, and she couldn’t totally follow who had the ball, and in spite of her best intentions, she kept cheering at the wrong times.
‘Mom! Hey, Mom!’ Harry interrupted her thoughts. ‘There are cop cars behind us with their lights on.’
‘Hmmm?’ Karolina murmured, more to herself. She glanced in the rearview and saw two police cruisers with their lights ablaze, so close to the Suburban that they were nearly pushing up against the bumper. ‘My goodness, it must be important. Okay, okay, give me a second,’ she said aloud. ‘I’m moving over.’
She was grateful Harry was safely beside her, because she always got nervous when she saw an emergency vehicle in her neighborhood. Their house might be on fire, but so long as Harry was safely in her sight, she could deal with anything. She put on her blinker and eased the unwieldy truck onto the side of the road as gracefully as she could, sending a silent apology to the Crains, who lived five doors down and owned the beautiful lawn her tires were probably digging up. Only the cruisers didn’t quickly pass her on the left, as she’d expected; they too pulled to the side and came to a stop directly behind her truck.
‘Ohhh, Mrs. Hartwell, you’re busted!’ Stefan, another of Harry’s friends, yelled as all the boys laughed. Karolina did too.
‘Yes, you know me,’ Karolina said. ‘Going twenty in a residential neighborhood. Crazy!’ She watched in the rearview as the officers stood next to her license plate and appeared to type it into an iPad-like device. Good, she thought. They would see the United States government plates that were on all three of their cars, and this whole silly thing would be over.
But the two officers who approached her window weren’t laughing. ‘Ma’am? Is this your vehicle?’ asked the female officer, while the male cop stood behind her and watched.
‘Yes, of course,’ Karolina said, wondering why they’d ask her such a ridiculous question. She was driving it, wasn’t she? ‘Officer, I really don’t think I was speeding. We literally just pulled out of the driveway. See? We live right back there. I’m just taking my son’s friends—’
The female cop looked hard at Karolina and said, ‘I’ll need your license and registration, please.’
Karolina checked the woman’s face. She wasn’t kidding. Karolina carefully removed her driver’s license from her wallet and was relieved to find the car’s registration tucked neatly in the glove compartment. ‘I, um, as you may recognize the name from my license there … I am actually married to Senator Hartwell,’ Karolina said, giving her best smile. She wasn’t usually one to name-drop, but then again, she wasn’t usually being pulled over by angry-looking cops.
The male officer furrowed his eyebrows. ‘Ma’am, have you been drinking?’
Karolina was vaguely aware of the boys going quiet with this question, and her mind flashed back to an hour earlier, when she’d deliberately opened a bottle of Graham’s outrageously expensive cabernet that he’d been buying by the case lately. Harry and his friends had been polishing off pizzas, and of course she’d known she’d be driving them home shortly, so she’d had half a glass. If that. She hadn’t even wanted it, really, but it had been satisfying to open the bottle and know that it would likely go bad before Graham got home from New York. He’d asked to join him for a New Year’s dinner at a friend’s penthouse in Manhattan, but Karolina didn’t want to leave Harry behind on New Year’s Eve. She’d been upset that he’d gone without her, although she wasn’t completely surprised.
Summoning her most dazzling smile and her most direct eye contact, she said, ‘Officers, I have children in the car. I assure you that I have not been drinking. I didn’t think I was speeding either, but I suppose it’s possible. If so, I’m very sorry about that.’
At the mention of children, the male officer took his flashlight and began walking the perimeter of the car. He didn’t seem to care that the light was shining directly in the boys’ eyes. Karolina could see them all squint.
‘Mom, what’s happening?’ Harry asked, sounding nervous.
‘Nothing, honey. I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding. Just let them do what they need to do.’
With this, the male officer called to the female officer and gestured to something with his flashlight. They exchanged looks. Karolina felt her heart do a little flip-flop, though there wasn’t a reason in the world she should be nervous.
‘Mrs. Hartwell, please get out of the car. Slowly,’ the female officer said.
‘Excuse me?’ Karolina asked. ‘Why on earth would I get out of my car? I’m not even wearing a coat—’
‘Now!’ the male cop barked, and it became immediately clear that this wasn’t a routine traffic stop.
Karolina jumped out of the driver’s seat so quickly that she didn’t bother to use the running board, and as a result she twisted her ankle and had to grab the door to keep from falling.
The officers exchanged another look.
‘Mrs. Hartwell, we have observed both reckless driving and empty bottles of alcohol in the backseat of your vehicle. Keeping your arms down by your sides, please walk in the middle of the street for a distance of approximately twenty feet. Our officers are stationed down the road, so there will be no oncoming traffic.’
‘Wait – you found what? In my car? You must be mistaken,’ Karolina said, trying not to shiver. ‘My husband is going to be livid when he finds out about this!’
The female officer gestured toward the very road Karolina lived on, now slick with rain, and motioned for her to walk. Immediately and without thinking, Karolina wrapped her arms around her chest to keep warm in her too-flimsy silk blouse and began to stride confidently toward her house. If there was one thing Karolina could do better than nearly anyone else on earth, it was work a catwalk. But what she hadn’t expected was seeing her neighbors’ doors and curtains open, their familiar faces squinted toward her, recognition dawning on their features as they realized who was performing a field sobriety test like a common criminal on their beautiful, quiet street.
Is that Mrs. Lowell? Karolina wondered, seeing an elderly woman peek out behind a crisp linen curtain. I didn’t realize she was visiting now. I can’t believe she’s seeing me like this. Karolina could feel her cheeks start to color despite the cold, and somehow she must have missed the small pothole in the road, because the next thing she knew, she’d stumbled and nearly fallen.
‘Did you see that?’ Karolina said to the officers, who were watching her closely. ‘We’ve been telling the town forever that this road is badly in need of repair.’
They gave each other that look again. Without a word exchanged, the male cop approached Karolina and said, ‘Ma’am, you’re under arrest for suspicion of driving while under the influence. You have the right to remain—’
‘Wait – what?’ Karolina shrieked, before noticing that Harry had stuck his head out of the Suburban’s window and was intently watching the entire scene. ‘Under