Excerpt from Suburban Dicks by Fabian Nicieza , plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Michelle," Niket called. He was standing by the Rt. 571 entrance to the station, dumbfounded. "What should I anchor it to? There's nothing here."

He was a sweet kid, but he was an idiot. As much a diversity-hire as she had been, Niket Patel joined the force after a prolonged outcry by the sizable Indian community of West Windsor about a lack of representation in the department. Years earlier, she had been hired as the department's first Asian-American police officer, who also just happened to be the daughter of West Windsor's Mayor.

Mom/Mayor had vehemently tried to derail Michelle's hiring, but Chief Bennett Dobeck had rallied to her side. Michelle was under no illusion he had supported her because he thought she would make a good cop or because he gave two shits about having an Asian-American woman on the force. He did it to piss Mom/Mayor off.

"Wrap it around the entrance-only sign and then run it to the traffic light pole on that corner," Michelle called out.

"That's like thirty yards," he said.

"Yes, it is," she replied.

Niket sloughed his way over to the sign and wrapped the tape around it without calamity. As he started to walk back across the one-way entrance, a blue Honda Odyssey mini-van barreled into the station, nearly running him down.

The car rushed past Wu, almost clipping their parked patrol car. The mini-van screeched to a halt in front of the battered Hyundai parked to the side of the building, which Michelle had assumed was Sasmal's car. She started towards the Odyssey when the driver's door flung open with such ferocity that she almost reached for her sidearm.

In what seemed like painfully slow motion, a woman slid out of the open door as if the car was oozing an egg yolk. Her legs popped out first, short and stubby, then she slid her body down and out of the seat. As much bowling ball as human, her feet wiggled until they touched the ground.

She was short, five-foot threeish, with an unkempt hive of thick curly dark hair. Her brown eyes were huge, and–Michelle had no other word for it–feral. She waddled as much as walked. The woman was more pregnant than any woman Michelle had ever seen in her life and, quite possibly, more pregnant than any woman had ever been in the history of human civilization. If Michelle had to guess, she would have estimated the woman was about to give birth to a college sophomore.

From inside the car, Michelle heard the unholy wailing of several children. They were simultaneously shrieking, shouting, and crying. To Michelle, blissfully childless, that van door sounded like a portal into Hell. She identified four distinct banshee wails. And this woman was pregnant with a fifth? The mini-van was a rolling advertisement for Ortho.

"Ruth!" the woman yelled. "Elijah! Stop shouting at each other! Right now!" Ruth and Elijah ignored their mother completely. The woman deftly ignored their ignoring of her and switched to a preternaturally soft voice. "Sarah, can you please stop yelling, honey?"

What Michelle assumed was Sarah's high-pitched voice continued shouting from the van's second row, "But Sadie's going to pee! Sadie's going to pee!"

"Screaming isn't going to make her not have to pee!" the woman responded, just as loudly as her daughter had. Then, in a bi-polar shift worthy of a theatre actor, she cooed, "Sadie, sweetie, hold it in. We'll use the bathroom here."

Michelle took tentative steps towards the van. She stopped. Niket's hopeless, bewildered shrug offered no help. Michelle sucked in some air. She had enough experience with the privileged castes of West Windsor, white, brown, yellow, or plaid, to know her next few seconds would be joyless.

"Ma'am," she said. "You can't be here."

The woman turned from the car, holding out a crying little girl in her hands like Mufassa holding Simba in front of the rising sun. The child wore a bright blue Elmo t-shirt and nothing else.

Excerpted from Suburban Dicks by Fabian Nicieza. Copyright © 2021 by Fabian Nicieza. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.