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Living the Life of Holly
By Holly Winter
Lawless Lethal Lena

“Order anything you want.” Lena said.

“Thanks.” Um. I was suspicious. Something was up. She invited me to lunch, and offered to pay. I’ve known Lena for a long time. Believe me. Something was up.

“Aren’t you going to have fajitas with corn tortillas?” She asked. “They’re your favorite.”

“No.” Now I was really wondering. “I’m not that hungry.”

I could wait her out.

She calmly picked up her menu and started reading.

Ok. Maybe I couldn’t wait.

“Did you have a good time with your mother?” I asked.

“I did.” Her menu answered.

“Did she enjoy her first visit to Denver?” I probed.

“Yes.” She said, lightly. “She will have many stories to tell for years to come.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Many stories?”

“Oh. Yes.” She breezed. “So many interesting times.”

“Tell.” I demanded.

She dropped her menu. “Do you promise NOT to write a column about this?”

“No way.”

She laughed. “Can you change my name to Charlotte or something? So people don’t know that this happened to me?”

“Lena. If that’s what you want, then Charlotte it is.”

“Ok.” She hid her face in her hands. “You’re not going to believe this.”

“I leaned forward. Is your mother moving in?”

“Bigger than that.” She laughed.

“Charlotte. Will I be paying for lunch?” I asked, sweetly.

“Yes. Ok. Well….We were on our way up to Vail to have a little mother-daughter overnight. My car started having problems….. There was a police car on the side of the road, and I pulled up behind it to see if the officer inside could suggest a good place for me to have my car looked at.”

“This is your good story? Um. Let’s order.”

“He noticed right away that I had expired tags…”

“Have you dogged me into buying lunch?” I whined. “What kind of friend are you? When I’m the one without the pay check?”

“But I talked him out of that ticket.”

“Really?” I perked right up. “You didn’t sell your mother, did you? I never got to meet her. She sounded so nice.”

“I played the teacher card. You know. Been busy teaching those kids. No time for tags.”

I laughed. “He fell for that line? When you were off all summer?”

“I thought he did. He said he would do a quick license check and be right back. My mother was pretty annoyed. She wanted to get to Vail so she could start shopping.”

“And…”

“The officer came back and asked me to step out of the car.”

“Why?”

“I asked him why. I told him that I would get those new plates as soon as I got my next paycheck. He said my plates were the least of my worries.”

“Cause he knew that your mother was a marathon shopper, right?”

“He said that there was a warrant out for my arrest.”

I sat very still. I was in complete and total shock. “You’re kidding?”

“Nope. Should we order now?”

“No. Not yet. Your story is improving. You might be able to have an appetizer or two. What was that about the warrant…You? Ms. Follow the law to the letter? How could there be a warrant out for your arrest?”

“I KNOW. That’s what I thought too. I figured that he was joking and flirting with me.”

“He wasn’t?”

“He said that I had a warrant out for having a Dog at Large.”

“What? A dog at large? Did he make that up? For your mother’s benefit? You don’t have a dog.”

“I know. And that’s what my mother kept saying. That I didn’t even have a dog. But he insisted. I kept laughing and maintaining that he had the wrong Lena. He was starting to doubt it all, and then the clouds lifted and I remembered.”

“What? You remembered your lawless days?” I sat back in my chair. I had to be sure to take this all in very carefully. This was going to be good teasing material for ever and ever.

“She giggled. It all came back to me really fast. Two years ago I was walking one of Sean’s dogs without a leash. I didn’t pay the fine cause it was just a park ranger.”

“So. Do you have a thing against all authority figures or just National Forest employees?”

“Then he pulled out his handcuffs.”

“You got arrested?”

“My mother started screaming and yelling that he couldn’t arrest her daughter. I couldn’t stop laughing.”

“They put handcuffs on you? Because you’re a hoodlum, right?”

“YES. They left my mother there on the side of the road in the broken down car and drove me down to the county jail and held me in cell number five.”

“WHAT? They left your mother there?”

“She kept yelling that they couldn’t leave her in a broken down car in the woods. So. They sent another police officer back to fetch her and bring her to the station.”

“Lucky guy.”

“It took her hours to cut through all the red tape and pay the one hundred ten dollars bail and do all the paperwork.”

“Why’d it take so long?”

“I don’t think they liked her attitude. And I don’t think they liked having a woman in their cell who wasn’t scary. The other people in there were pretty scary.”

I started laughing harder. “Lena, do you believe in timing? Cause. Your first arrest happened during your mother’s first visit to Denver when you were on your first mother-daughter trip out of town. Um. Have you been doing your good deeds lately?”

“They took my shoes and make me wear jail slippers.” She moaned.

“Where you upset?”

“No.” She giggled. “I couldn’t stop laughing. I smiled for my mug shot.”

“You got a mug?”

“Yup. I had to wear an orange jail uniform over my clothes.”

“I’m going to start calling you Lawless Lethal Lena.”

“I asked the officer if I was the least dangerous criminal he’d ever driven to jail.”

“Were you?”

“No. He said that he once had to arrest an eighty five year old woman.”

“Why? What did SHE do? Dentures at large?”

“I didn’t ask.”

I stopped laughing. “Hey. That’s not funny. You didn’t ask? That’s criminal.”

“I know. I know.”

“You didn’t ask? About the old lady. How could you hurt me like that? Leave out the MOST IMPORTANT PART?”

She sighed. “I know. That’s why I’m paying for lunch. To atone for my big mistake. For not getting the whole story.”

“You know. You have a police record now. You’d better get the full story next time….”

“What?,,,,, What?” She laughed. “What might happen if I don’t?”

“Oh. Someone might call the police and leave an anonymous tip about all the laws that you’ve been breaking lately.”

“What laws?” She laughed. “I’m clean. There’s nothing else.”

“You know.” I said. “I think the police might want to know that Lawless Lena has grass in her back yard that is about two feet higher than city code allows. I mean. This makes three…”

“Three?”

“Expired tags, Dog at Large, and tall grass. Once they find out that you are a regular law breaker they would probably want you to do some community service.”

“Why would YOU want ME to do community service?” She laughed.

“Oh. You know. To collect more stories… why else?”

Wanna try another column? How about #131 As Good as it Gets which is about a computer problem in Lagos, Portugal.

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