High Occupancy

“Mr. Mayor, we have a problem.”

Hands clasped behind his back, Mayor McDougal turned from his window's sweeping vista of downtown Baltimore and faced the attractive intruder. The problem, thought McDougal, is that I have too many young female aides.

“What is it, Stephanie?” An image of Bill Clinton set firmly in his mind, he forced his gaze to a point between the well-dressed young woman’s eyes. They were bright blue and framed by Stephanie’s wavy blonde hair. In his peripheral vision, McDougal noted that she wore a smart cream-colored business suit with a black shirt that did nothing to hide her cleavage. Bill Clinton, thought McDougal. Bill Clinton. Eyes up. Maybe those Arabs have a point after all.

The aide dropped a report on his clear expanse of walnut desk. McDougal risked a glance down. The cover was bright orange and marked URGENT. “We may have to close down the HOV expressway,” she said.

“What?” McDougal snatched up the report and leafed through it, a good excuse not to look at Stephanie Schultz. “Why?”

“It’s all there in the report, sir,” she said deferentially. “Basically, some number-cruncher in the DA’s office discovered an unmistakable correlation between commuters’ use of the expressway and that nasty bug that’s going around. They recommend we close it down until the docs isolate the pathogen and find out how to stop it.”

Holding the report open, he looked over it at her face. It conveniently blocked any other view of the shapely aide. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Do you know what that road cost?”

“Five hundred forty million and some change for the Harbor crossing alone,” she replied smartly. “And it’s used by over fifteen thousand people a day, even though it’s restricted to HOV-4 or higher.” The expressway was an attempt at combining environmental protection and rush hour relief begun by McDougal’s predecessor, though the current mayor wasn’t shy about taking the credit when it opened during his own tenure. “But the report expresses concern that what we’ll be shelling out in settlements might double that cost.”

Now he’d be taking the blame, too. Damnation, thought the mayor. “What are the chances of the press getting wind of this?”

She looked at him as if he were stupid. While it irked McDougal, he forced himself to remember that he wasn’t elected because of his IQ. “There’s no chance that the press won’t get wind of it,” said the aide, tossing her head. “The only question is, will they see us act fast to contain the problem or not?”

McDougal sighed. “Fine. Get PR on it right away. And get Trans to close the exits.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you.” Stephanie turned to go, her skirt swaying like a ringing bell.

“One more thing, Stephanie.”

She paused in her tracks and turned. McDougal hastily raised his gaze again. Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton. “Sir?”

“Get Johns Hopkins on the line. Dr. Stevens, if you can get him; or someone in that department, anyway. I want them working on this night and day so we can get that road open again.”

“Yes, sir.”

The mayor turned back to his expansive window, through which he could just pick out the artificial jetty where the commuter expressway dipped under the gray waters of Baltimore Harbor. “Yes, indeed. Get the docs on it right away. We’ve got to find a cure for carpool tunnel syndrome.”