Elizabeth Wrenn - Last Known Address

She won’t even eat a cookie.’ Meg looked back and saw C.C. offering the dog a piece of Nilla Wafer, saying, ‘Cookie? Cookie, girl?’ but M.J. turned her head.

‘All right, all right. I’m working on it! Hang on,’ said Shelly. She made a hissing sound as she frantically scanned the heavy traffic. She flipped on the turn indicator. ‘C’mon, somebody let me in!’

Shelly made her way, at seventy miles an hour, across one of the lanes. The dog was whining in the back seat, punctuated by nervous noises from C.C.

Meg rubbed her face vigorously, sat up, rubbed and stretched her neck till it was moveable again, then helped Shelly watch for holes in the traffic that they might dart into.

‘Maybe after this green car, get ready…No! Wait! That van is changing lanes.’

‘Nice signal, asshole,’ Shelly said to the van as it flew by.

Meg felt displaced and disheartened. A passenger in her own little car, far from home in every sense, she was just so much flotsam being carried along this anonymous highway, and her suddenly anonymous life. That tsunami had hit, swept through her life, her home, shot her over the edge, a crushing, noisy waterfall, dropping her here. A passenger, in her car, and in her life.

Another horn blared. Cars of every color and shape whizzed by, passing the slow ones doing the speed limit. Why was everyone in such a hellfire hurry? What, exactly, were they rushing to with such life-threatening speed? Did they even know? Meg wondered. Did she?

‘I swear, girls! If we don’t get this dog outta this car, and soon, we are gonna have a little sea of dog pee back here!’ Meg looked back, saw C.C. trying to carefully ease her coat under M.J., over her lap, just in case.

‘Shit!’ said Shelly, scanning and twisting back, then forward. ‘Come on! Somebody let me in! Please? Damn! Okay, if you want to play hardball…’ She pulled on the emergency flashers. Nervously monitoring traffic both in front and behind, she cried, ‘Meg, roll down your window and point! I’m going to have to just go for it!’

Meg stared at her briefly, then, like an automaton, rolled down her window. The wind made her eyes water as it whipped into the car. She waved at the driver coming up, mouthed ‘Emergency’ and pointed. Amazingly, the driver slowed. Shelly veered into the gap, then kept on going. Meg screamed as they cut off a huge pickup truck, his horn blasting. M.J. started barking in the back seat.

‘Coming through! Dog pee-pee emergency! Sorry!’ yelled Shelly, veering across lanes. The pickup truck driver shot Meg the finger. She pulled herself back into the car, rolled up her window, holding her back tightly against the seat. Finally Shelly got the car to the wide shoulder of the highway, braking slowly at first, then very firmly. Meg felt squeezed by her seat belt.

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ cried C.C. Meg clicked her seat belt release and was out of the car before it had come to a complete stop. She pulled open C.C.’s door. She grasped M.J.’s narrow sides, lowered her to the asphalt. She wasn’t sure the dog’s toenails had even touched down before the relief finally flowed into M.J.’s eyes, and a yellow rivulet twined along the asphalt.

‘Thank you, Jesus! In the nick of time!’ C.C.’s hands were on her heaving chest as she sat in the car. ‘Better tie this on her again.’

She thrust the twine toward Meg. Meg untangled it, made a slipknot, and placed the loop over M.J.’s needle-nose and small head, remembering again that they needed to get her a proper leash and collar. But maybe not. They’d made good time. They’d likely be dropping her off later today. And the dog didn’t seem to mind the twine at the moment. Though Meg thought she probably wouldn’t mind an inverted spike collar, at the moment.

‘Wow. She has a big bladder for such a little dog,’ said Shelly, who had appeared by Meg’s side. ‘Boy. Look at her go.’

M.J.’s eyes were glassy and fixed. Meg tried not to look below, but found herself mesmerized by the pee moving across the asphalt. It was meandering down the slight grade, toward a dry ditch on the side of the road. C.C. was waiting, still sitting on the end of the car seat, door open, her spiky heels hooked on the edge of the car frame, staring at M.J., directly at her feet.

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