Alice Gets Ready

Alice Bradley hated the airport almost as much as she hated her husband, so dropping Mr. Bradley off in front of the terminal entrance and pulling her car away from the curb without so much as a bon voyage seemed entirely natural to her.
Good riddance, she thought. Don't get hijacked.

The respite would be brief. Her husband, Bradley Bradley, would soon be calling her to explain exactly how much it would cost to retrieve their teenage son -his son- from the Utah jail where he'd been held since the previous evening.

Most people- normal people- went to Park City to ski and to rubberneck at celebrities.
Her only child, Bradford Bradley, went to Utah to work as a dishwasher and had managed to break his ankle by falling on ice in the parking lot at the resort where he worked. While her son was in the ER, his manager found a half-pound of marijuana in Brad's locker and called the police. Apparently Brad had been exiting the rear seat of a Salt Lake City pot dealer's car and somehow gotten his left foot tangled in the front passenger seatbelt. His right foot lost it's purchase on the icy pavement and presto twisto , his left ankle snapped. He managed to limp back into the kitchen and stash his newly-acquired dope before the pain and shock kicked in. Young Brad didn't have much tolerance for pain. He passed out on the kitchen floor.

He lay curled on the greasy friction-tape in front of the dishwashing machine for several minutes before one of the busboys called the manager, who called an ambulance( and later, the police).
The elder Bradleys learned about this via a collect call from their incarcerated son, who insisted that the manager had planted the dope in his locker so that the resort wouldn't have to pay Brad worker's compensation.
Alice suspected Bradford's story was bullshit.

How could she have given birth to such a fuck-up? Despite numerous adulterous affairs on her part , there was no doubt that Bradford Bradley was Bradley Bradley's son; only Bradley could have chosen 'Bradford' as their son's name- so people don't get him confused with me, Bradley had explained- and only a son of Bradley Bradley could get arrested for felony drug possession while washing dishes for minimum wage at a Utah ski resort.

Bradford doesn't even know how to ski, she told herself.

Her only son broke his ankle at a ski resort, got arrested, lost his job- and he doesn't even ski.

Jesus wept, thought Alice.

No matter.
Brad would deal with Brad when he got to Utah.

Alice had other things to concern herself with.