Big Little Lies(4)

See! This kid wouldn’t have even noticed the loose gunman! She would have been staring vacantly at her phone, while Madeline sacrificed her life for her! It was infuriating.
The little car appeared to be jammed with young people. At least three in the back, their heads bobbing about, hands gesticulating. Was that somebody’s foot waving about? It was a tragedy waiting to happen. They all needed to concentrate. Just last week, Madeline had been having a quick coffee after her ShockWave class and was reading a story in the paper about how all the young people were killing themselves by sending texts while they drove. On my way. Nearly there! These were their last foolish (and often misspelled) words. Madeline had cried over the picture of one teenager’s grief-stricken mother, absurdly holding up her daughter’s mobile phone to the camera as a warning to readers.
“Silly little idiots,” she said out loud as the car weaved dangerously into the next lane.
“Who is an idiot?” said her daughter from the backseat.
“The girl driving the car in front of me is an idiot because she’s driving her car and using her phone at the same time,” said Madeline.
“Like when you need to call Daddy when we’re running late?” said Chloe.
“I only did that one time!” protested Madeline. “And I was very careful and very quick! And I’m forty years old!”
“Today,” said Chloe knowledgeably. “You’re forty years old today.”
“Yes! Also, I made a quick call, I didn’t send a text! You have to take your eyes off the road to text. Texting while driving is illegal and naughty, and you must promise to never ever do it when you’re a teenager.”
Her voice quivered at the thought of Chloe being a teenager and driving a car.
“But you’re allowed to make a quick phone call?” checked Chloe.
“No! That’s illegal too,” said Madeline.
“So that means you broke the law,” said Chloe with satisfaction. “Like a robber.”
Chloe was currently in love with the idea of robbers. She was definitely going to date bad boys one day. Bad boys on motorcycles.
“Stick with the nice boys, Chloe!” said Madeline after a moment. “Like Daddy. Bad boys don’t bring you coffee in bed, I’ll tell you that for free.”
“What are you babbling on about, woman?” sighed Chloe. She’d picked this phrase up from her father and imitated his weary tone perfectly. They’d made the mistake of laughing the first time she did it, so she’d kept it up, and said it just often enough, and with perfect timing, so that they couldn’t help but keep laughing.
This time Madeline managed not to laugh. Chloe currently trod a very fine line between adorable and obnoxious. Madeline probably trod the same line herself.
Madeline pulled up behind the little blue Mitsubishi at a red light. The young driver was still looking at her mobile phone. Madeline banged on her car horn. She saw the driver glance in her rearview mirror, while all her passengers craned around to look.
“Put down your phone!” she yelled. She mimicked texting by jabbing her finger in her palm. “It’s illegal! It’s dangerous!”
The girl stuck her finger up in the classic up-yours gesture.
“Right!” Madeline pulled on her emergency brake and put on her hazard lights.
“What are you doing?” said Chloe.
Madeline undid her seat belt and threw open the car door.
“But we’ve got to go to orientation!” said Chloe in a panic. “We’ll be late! Oh, calamity!”
“Oh, calamity” was a line from a children’s book that they used to read to Fred when he was little. The whole family said it now. Even Madeline’s parents had picked it up, and some of Madeline’s friends. It was a very contagious phrase.
“It’s all right,” said Madeline. “This will only take a second. I’m saving young lives.”
She stalked up to the girl’s car on her new stilettos and banged on the window.
The window slid down, and the driver metamorphosed from a shadowy silhouette into a real young girl with white skin, sparkly nose ring and badly applied, clumpy mascara. She looked up at Madeline with a mixture of aggression and fear. “What is your problem?” Her mobile phone was still held casually in her left hand.
“Put down that phone! You could kill yourself and your friends!” Madeline used the exact same tone she used on Chloe when she was being extremely naughty. She reached in the car, grabbed the phone and tossed it to the openmouthed girl in the passenger seat. “OK? Just stop it!”
She could hear their gales of laughter as she walked back to her SUV. She didn’t care. She felt pleasantly stimulated. A car pulled up behind hers. Madeline smiled, lifted her hand apologetically and hurried back to be in her car before the lights changed.