Page 6 of Mexico Can Choke On It
“I will!”
I rush toward my car, mentally calculating how many traffic laws I can violate and still maintain plausible deniability. And then, lo and behold, “Let’s Fuck With Petra Day” kicks into high gear.
A parking enforcement officer.
Standing by my car.
Writing a ticket.
“No, no, no—I’m here! It’s fine!”
The officer—built like a garden gnome—doesn’t even look up, tapping away on his little ticket-spitting machine.
“Tearsdon’t work on me, sweetheart. Ask my ex-wife.”
“I wasn’t going to cry.”
“Smart. Flirting and bribery won’t work either. She didn’t care, and neither do I.”
“I don’t have time to unpack your relationship drama. The meter’s busted. It rejected my quarter, ignored my card, and didn’t respond no matter how much wrist action and enthusiasm I offered up.”
“Listen, doll, I don’t make the rules. I enforce them. Your kind of vehicle—” he nods toward my car “—tends to attract attention in this neighborhood.”
“First off, it’s a Lexus. It might not be up to your aesthetic, but it’s legally registered, insured, and entitled to park at anyfunctionalmeter.”
“Lady, this is Beverly Hills. If you can’t maintain our standards, you should consider parking… elsewhere,” he says, ripping the ticket from his printer.
The subtext isn’t even subtext at this point:You don’t belong here.
I pull out my phone and start snapping pictures—of him, his badge, the parking meter, my car.
“What’s with the paparazzi treatment?”
“Just documenting evidence for my court case,” I say sweetly, zooming in on his nametag. “Officer… Cockburn?”
He sighs. “Yes. That’s my real name.”
“Wow. That explains… honestly, a lot.”
“I’d watch that attitude if I were you. We take note of… problematic vehicles in this district.”
My stomach boils at the not-so-veiled threat.
He holds out the paper. “Save yourself the legal fees and pay the seventy-five dollars. City policy is so simple, even a kindergartner gets it. Broken meter? Don’t park there.”
“Listen up, OfficerCockburn,”I say, drawing his name out obnoxiously. “You might think you’re the king of the sidewalk, but that badge doesn’t make you special. I’m fighting this ticket. See you in court.”
I snatch the paper from his hand and unlock my car. I can feel his beady eyes as I slide into the driver’s seat, slam the door, and toss the ticket onto my messy dashboard. Another financial hit I can’t afford. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let Officer Little Dick and his broken meter win.
At least Jim got lunch. I’ll count that as a win, even if the scoreboard’s on fire.
***
Thisdayneedstodie. Full-on Viking funeral—torch it, sink it, and let a shark crap it out.
I scan Sterling Tower’s 32nd-floor boardroom—a shrine to capitalism, where twenty suits with perfect hair sit around an obscenely long glass table, flanked by a dozen more faces on a wall of monitors. Floor-to-ceiling windows offer a sweeping view of LA—the city where money talks, and the rest of us clean up after it.
My seat? Dead last—right next to the Wi-Fi hub, the projector, and a tangled mess of power cords. But hey, it’s closest to the tray of untouched artisanal muffins.Untouchedbecause in Beverly Hills, no one eats carbs without an Ozempic chaser.
