Have You Seen This Girl

Her flier stares from the dash, young and pretty like a breath of spring. It’s winter now, and it’s been ten winters come and gone, but there she is, still as pure as mountain air, and the winter is in my bones. A car flies by in the dark. 95. My siren goes “whoop whoop” like an excited dog. Blue and red ignite the darkness. The car pulls to the shoulder–a sexy red convertible as foreign in the cold as that pretty picture. Lights flash off the rear plastic window as I leave the dark and the warm and crunch over to the driver.

“Do you know how fast you were going?”

He’s a young man, fresh as summer in the cold night. She’s young and pretty, and pure as spring. He shakes his head. She buries her face in the soft pink of her palms. Tourists from somewhere distant and warm, out for a ride in the crystalline solitude of the night.

“No signore.”

“Somaro!” she snaps and slaps him on the arm. His knuckles whiten on the steering wheel.

“Have you seen this girl?”

He squints at the flier.

“No Signore.”

She sighs and begins rifling through the glove box for papers.

“You two have a good night. Be careful out here. It’s easy to get lost.” And I crunch back to my car, back to the dark and warm, and the convertible pulls away.