My daughter, Ariel, was 10 years old. Car sick and holding a brown paper bag in front of her face, she looked at me greenly and asked, “Are we almost there?”
Foot pressed firmly on the gas edging the speedometer up close to 90, I gamely tried to keep the white van driven by my husband, carrying 14 of his students, in sight. I had no idea where we were going, and there was no GPS, much less a cell phone in my rented Ford Escort. All I knew was that I was to follow that van to our destination somewhere on Arizona’s Navajo Reservation. “I think we’re almost there, Sweetheart,” I assured her.
I-40 stretched out in front of us, a study in one-point perspective, a desert landscape on both sides.
I saw the swirling blue lights before I heard the siren. The state patrol car easily caught up to us, and as I slowed to pull over, I kept a watchful eye on the white van hoping my husband (still two full miles ahead of me) had noticed that I was stopping. He had, and he, too, pulled to the side.
I rolled down my window and waited for the police officer to approach.
“License and registration,” he said blandly.
I gave him an embarrassed smile and said, “This is a rented car, Sir.” He stooped down a bit to look in the window. Ariel still had her face in the paper bag, but she managed a weak smile.
Officer Cisneros was an Erik Estrada look-alike, and my heart fluttered just a bit when he returned our smiles and gently replied, “Do you have any idea how fast you were going?”
Meekly, I answered, “Almost 90?”
Cisneros chuckled a bit as he nodded his head. “I think you’re the first person I’ve ever pulled over who has answered that question honestly.” An over-achiever my entire life, this compliment pleased me.
“Well,” he continued, “I’m still going to need to take a look at your license. And how about your rental car document? Maybe you could just let me see that.”
I obliged by first rummaging through the glove compartment for the folder the dealer had placed there, and then pulled out my wallet and extracted my Connecticut driver’s license for him. He stood there for a moment looking at my license and then at me, I supposed making sure nothing else seemed suspicious, and then asked, “Why were you going so fast?”
I pointed at the white van and said, “Trying to keep up with that van. I otherwise don’t know where I’m supposed to be going.” He turned a scrutinizing eye on the van, nodded, and headed back to his patrol car.
“Mommy, I’m still feeling sick,” Ariel moaned.
I rubbed her head and said, “I know. This won’t take long, and then we’ll be at the campsite soon. I promise.”
It was a good ten minutes later before Officer Cisneros returned to my window with the rental document and my license. He sighed heavily and said, “Well, I’m going to let you off with a warning. But, you just must slow down. I know these roads are straight, and you can see for miles and miles, but we also have wild animals that wander onto them. Hitting anything at that speed can be dangerous, and with a child in the car . . .” His eyebrow raised in a ‘don’t-make-me-say-it’ attitude, “. . .you can’t be too careful.”
“Thank you, Officer,” I said taking back my license. “We’ll be careful.”
Just before I began to roll up the window, Officer Cisneros said, “Oh, and one more thing.” I looked at him intently waiting for another cautionary aphorism. “There seems to be a mistake on your driver’s license.” I looked down at my license confused about how there could possibly be a mistake. Address was correct. Social security number accurate. I looked back at him with a puzzled expression. His eyes twinkled at me and his Hollywood good looks flirted as he said, “Says you were born in 1958. Now that can’t be right.” He then winked, and I blushed to my blonde hairline.
“Have a good day, Ma’am,” he said with a parting grin.
I rolled up the window, returned my license to my wallet, and finally dared look at Ariel. She was no longer green, but pink with shock as she exclaimed, “Mama!”
