Circle Park by Lynnette Curtis (Fiction ’19)

Circle Park

Outside the downtown dive from which she’d just been ejected, Enid danced alone. She bobbed and swayed and sweated, performing her signature sloppy bounce to a distant techno beat, while grinning in defiance at the big blank sky. No way would she let this latest humiliation ruin a reprieve from what Hank had called her wrong-way life.

Then a Metro cop rolled up and parked himself right in the middle of it.

“Afternoon, ma’am,” he said, not in a friendly way, after climbing out of his cruiser.

She watched him amble over to the news rack, which was stuffed with pornographic flyers. Here he struck a no-nonsense cop pose: legs spread, thumbs hooked to duty belt, pecs flexed. His dimples undermined him completely. He resembled the beefy stripper she’d hired to perform at her grandma’s bachelorette party. That guy had also shown up in uniform and aviators, with a badge and a nightstick.

“Buy me a drink,” Enid said, tilting her pelvis his way.