It's a Beginning

I figure I have to start somewhere - with my nonfiction novel that is. But that means dialogue, which I've never even tried before. So here it is... my baby steps... at least it's a beginning.

My ex decided not to bring Christa back that day.  She had just turned four in April, and ironically, it was Mother's Day.  I had a mind to just show up at his parents' farm.  I knew that's where he had taken her.  One slight problem in getting there - my car had just been totaled.  It was a hit and run while parked out in front of the duplex I called home.  My roommate, who had been working late, quietly and calmly woke me up in the middle of the night with her most serious tone of voice.

"Kathy... Kathy... Did you park your car up on the grass last night?!"

I had heard her talk that way only a couple of other times over the past ten months since we met.  She was a young single mom like myself, with a daughter not yet two.  We had decided to rent a place together only half a block from where we both worked. 

"Did I what?? What are you talking about? That's crazy."  I turned over to go back to sleep.

"Yeh, uh, I thought so too," she went on, "but then I got to thinking, I'd better wake her up and tell her, 'cause if she didn't park it there, then someone else did... and maybe she doesn't know it. So that's why I'm tellin' you now."

"Colleen..." I took a deep breath. "That's not something to be waking me up out of a sound sleep and joking about."

"Oh, it's no joke.  I would never joke about something like this."

I sat up, scrutinizing her face for some clue that would give away her uncanny attempt at getting a laugh.

"You might want to come and take a look," she added, still in that calm, serious tone.

I did.  We did.  Then I phoned the police.  My old red Pinto had been pushed a good 50 feet from where I had parked it on the street that evening, and there was white paint left behind on my scrunched rear fender from the other car.