Your thoughts almost lulled you to inattention, but you were walking your dog then, and you’re programmed to look around when she squats. Where you live, failure to scoop the poop is as anti-social as vandalism; you’re sensitive to the looks of other people like a smoker is to their coughs. So when your retriever pushed her crotch toward the parkway grass, you took note of the white Saab sedan that was slowly moving up the street. You checked out the shape of your pet’s tail and determined she was only going to pee even as you observed that the car had little wipers for its headlights and a light-haired woman driver. Your dog lifted her rump again and turned to continue the walk as the car passed you.

You don’t often see a white Saab. Maybe they’re common around Sweden, but you’ve never noticed one before. That morning, which was yesterday, you saw one three times. The same one.

You’d only passed two houses when the white Saab came down the street the other way. It moved in your direction that time, so you could see the driver more clearly, through the side window. The hair was almost white. The face was middle-aged. The car moved at only a few miles an hour. You began to wonder what it was doing there.

You watched the back of the car as it pulled slightly ahead of you. There were no For Sale signs on the street. It was Wednesday, which was never a day for a realtor open house…
The driver of the white Saab got almost to the corner and made a three-point turnaround in a driveway. For at least a third time, she cruised the silent street.

You walked on and you wondered what the woman in the white Saab was doing. It occurred to you that if the driver were a man, you might think he was casing the neighborhood. Up to no good. Especially if he were black. Or Latino. Or Arabic. Especially if he appeared under 30. For that matter, you might even suspect nefarious behavior of a woman, if she were young and of color…

That stopped you, literally, in your tracks. Your dog looked back at you curiously as the leash went taut. You had been engaged in racial profiling! It appeared that this was not okay. So you tried to suspect the Saab driver of unsociable intent. And you just couldn’t. She looked too normal. Unthreatening.

You spent a bit of time trying to come up with a reason for the Saab driver’s cruising. You used up some moments admitting your own racism, admiring your quick admission, attempting to flush it, and accepting its permanent but evolving presence. You resolved to be more conscious, of your surroundings and of your assumptions. You hoped you’d try to be less fearful.

You got to the bottom of the sloping street and turned left for home. You never saw the driver speed up and away.

You might have asked her what she was doing there, but her windows were up and her attention wasn’t on you. You might have called the police and reported a strange vehicle repeatedly cruising the residential block. But you would have felt foolish and conspicuous if you acted. And the truth is, the driver wouldn’t have welcomed your questions and the police wouldn’t have welcomed your report.

It happened yesterday but it might as well have occurred a thousand years ago, for all the answers you think you’ll get about it. Consider:

Maybe the driver had inside information about the house four in from the corner on the west side, the one that’s been recently painted and hurriedly landscaped: that it’s going on the market, so she was previewing its exterior.

Maybe she used to live in that derelict place two down from the northeast corner, and she’s revisiting the site of her disastrous second marriage and the Meyer lemon tree she planted.
Perhaps she was early for an appointment, and filled time by checking out the persistent rattle she hears when she drives her relatively new car at low speeds.

Maybe she’s new to driving, and what you saw was just practice.

If there were a reference book about people, you could look her up. Then you’d learn she was casing the neighborhood. Her grown son works in the delivery department for the newspaper, and he lets her know when customers request any interruption in home delivery. That accounts for the rash of recent break-ins; every one of them occurred while the residents were away on trips.

There’s always something to chew on.