Noah face-palmed and I thought I heard him mumble “shit” again.
“License, please,” the policeman said in a tone that was as terrifying as Trevor’s mom’s.
“Sure, here.” Noah pulled out his wallet and handed his license over. The policeman began scrutinizing Noah’s photo and I noticed that something had fallen out of the wallet and tumbled to the floor, but I dared not point it out now.
“It’s an old picture,” Noah said. “My hair was different and I haven’t shaved.” He pointed to the card. “In case I don’t look the same.”
The policeman handed the card back to Noah without saying a word and then turned his terrifying attention to me.
“ID, please.” I shivered; he had a very penetrating gaze. Once he’d examined me and my card thoroughly, he made a long, slow walk around the car. Checking the license disk and the plates. He looked through the window into the back seat, as if he was expecting to see something dodgy there, like a body bag. Finally, after his inspection, he was back at our window again.
“You know that is a bus full of kids over there.” He was, of course, stating the obvious.
“Uh, would it help if I told you that I’m a paramedic and that this lady over here was experiencing breathlessness and I needed to administer mouth-to-mouth?” Noah asked.
The policeman looked at Noah with a deadpan expression for a while. “Would you have something to verify that?”
“Yes! YES! I do,” Noah scrambled for his wallet again and pulled out a card that identified him as an EMS.
The man looked at the card for the longest time now, and then his face softened.
“Man, I was just called out to a possible domestic violence case. Turned out the kid was just having a tantrum, but I had to climb over the fence, and I scratched myself, and it’s very red today and my wife told me to go to a doctor, but I don’t have time for that, and I don’t know if I need to.”
The policeman rolled his sleeve up, revealing a very red-looking cut.
“May I?” Noah reached out, and the policeman nodded. Noah pressed the skin next to the wound and the big, burly officer winced.
“Well, I’m afraid your wife is right. The skin around the wound is tender, swollen and warm to the touch, which means an infection has set in. You’re probably going to need a course of antibiotics, so you’re going to have to go to the doctor.”
The policeman rolled his sleeve up and then glared at us again for a while, and then he tapped the roof of the car a few times. “Do not—do not—let me catch you doing that again in public, you understand?”
“We totally understand,” Noah said.
I leaned over and made eye contact with the man. “We won’t. I promise.”
“Go on, get out of here. And don’t come back.”
“We won’t. I swear,” Noah reiterated as the policeman turned and walked away.
Noah slipped his ID back into his wallet and suddenly his head jerked up.
“What?” I asked.
“My . . . card, I usually have a . . .” He swiveled his head around frantically. “Something very important . . . I keep it in my wallet and I . . . uh . . .” He continued to look. He looked panicked now as he opened the car door and checked the ground outside.
“Is it that?” I pointed to the place at his feet where the folded piece of paper had fallen.
Noah’s demeanor changed in a second. He let out a massive sigh as he picked it back up and slipped it into his wallet with care. Whatever that was, it looked really important to him. It also looked old. Like it had been there for a very long time. The stretched credit-card slot in his wallet told me so.
“What’s that?” I asked, unable to contain my curiosity.
“It’s just something I’ve had for a very long time. Something that was given to me by someone special.”
I nodded at this very vague description. He wasn’t telling me something, and I couldn’t help but wonder what it was, and who had given it to him. I didn’t want to pry. It was clear that, whatever it was, it wasn’t something he wanted to share with me, and I didn’t really know how I felt about that.
Soon we were driving again, rather aimlessly, it seemed. But the drive didn’t feel comfortable. I squirmed in my seat, still feeling the warmth of Noah’s lips on