1
Holt Webster, aka a professional rugby player ready to start the next phase of his life
An unfamiliar car is parked in the loading zone.
That’sthe text message waiting for me when I pull into the staff lot behind the Copper Valley Aquarium.
I don’t work at the aquarium, but I do occasionally moonlight as private security for a high-end catering company that often does after-hours events here. And one of the staff I know has texted that they’re worried about the black Kia sedan blocking the oversize garage door behind the building.
Loading zone’s for the catering vans.
That car shouldn’t be there.
I text back that I’ll check it out, pocket my phone, then brace myself before opening my Jeep door and stepping out into the parking lot.
Not just hot this summer. It’s fucking hot. The kind of hot that makes you expect that the soles of your shoes will melt into the pavement if you don’t walk quickly enough, which you don’t want to do because the air is so thick, it’s like walking through a wall of swamp water.
I’m sweating by the time I get close to the loading dock, where two more things strike me.
One, the car’s running.
And two, there’s a person in the driver’s seat.
Bonus—I’m pretty sure it’s a rental.
This isn’t ago inside and find out whose car this issituation.
It’s aquestion how the hell someone in a rental car got a pass to get into the staff parking lot and why they’re sitting in the loading zonesituation.
I’m three steps away from the driver’s side door when I realize there’s one more thing completely wrong about this situation.
The driver is hunched over and gnawing on—what the fuck is that?
Is that a cake that she’s eating with her whole face?
A massive sub sandwich?
No, it’s—are you serious?
It’s a rotisserie chicken.
Isn’t it?
I squint harder, and yep.
That’s exactly what it is.
The white woman parked in the loading zone is gnawing on a rotisserie chicken. The kind you get at a grocery store deli.
But she hasn’t picked a leg. Not a breast. Or a wing.
It’s the whole chicken.
She has thewhole chickenin her hands, and she’s going to town on it. Large bites right out of the breast area. And?—
Is she even chewing?
Or is she swallowing every bite whole?
