Shelly was cutting loose. Packing both a lightweight and midweight sweater for layering against the chill. Swigging her protein smoothie in three gulps, setting the tumbler in the dishwasher — without rinsing. “The manual says no-rinse,” Maxwell had said, “but I don’t trust it. Everything breaks.”
She scooped up laundry, not pairing washcloths with hand towels. Filing into recycling bins: Heights Neighborhood News, Virtue Magazine, and four greeting cards from her sainted aunt and overachieving cousins (all with kids in ivy league colleges). Pausing to edit her daughter’s college psych essay so Greta could meet her deadline.
Twenty years of marriage and five chicken enchilada casseroles in the freezer and two email accounts on automatic reply. Last thing was check brakes, so off she went to Alice’s Garage, biting back a manic smile. “I used to be so predictable,” she told the mechanic. “I’m taking a spontaneous road trip!”
Alice unfolded a map, traced freeway lines, chewed the end of her ball point pen. “Safest route.”
Shelly nodded, tucking the map in her purse.
In the parking lot, her phone lit. Can’t wait to see you.
You make me wild, she texted back.
Giddy, she called Ella. “Heading to my dream! Maxwell thinks it’s conference.”
“Ah,” said her best friend, recounting her affair at twenty with a married man.
Shelly half-listened. Six hours and twenty-three minutes to Charlie — lover, artist, free spirit.
“Can I . . .” Ella paused. “Water your garden?”
“I rigged a drip system. Should be good for the whole week.” She would get gas at Lev’s, the most dependable station.
“You sure about this?”
“It’s the new me,” she said.
It was six hours and twenty-six minutes, actually, but Charlie wasn’t there when she arrived.
Ran out to Starbucks, he texted as her beige Passport idled between the white lines of the condo parking space. Make yourself at home.
His refrigerator was empty, and his peace lily was dying, and there were no hangers for her sweaters. When he came back an hour later, he doffed his baseball cap and grinned at her adoringly. He took so long to make dinner plans that everything closed and they had to eat at Wilt’s Pizza. Because of her gluten sensitivity, she ordered Caesar salad, fork-stabbing the croutons and stacking them at plate’s edge. Charlie mentioned a gallery gig, which depended on how the call went tomorrow and whether he could finish his paintings with the carpal tunnel flareup.
His snoring kept her awake. “We should have STI screenings before we become intimate,” she told him, smoothing his pillowcase that smelled of soggy cornflakes.
“No medical insurance,” he said, getting up at midnight to pull cold pizza from the fridge.
Skipping breakfast, Shelly was a new woman for sure. She didn’t fold or separate clean from dirty, but stuffed her suitcase, catching a pink sweater sleeve in the zipper teeth. She didn’t fill up the tank for the drive home, but winged it. Her first stop was Joe’s Donuts, for bear claws: Maxwell’s favorite.
Christi Krug is a Pushcart-nominated poet and fiction writer with work published around the globe, most recently in Roses & Wildflowers, Penstricken, and GigaNotoSaurus. She lives at the Oregon Coast where she wears four or more hats at once: writing coach, yoga and meditation instructor, life partner, mom and stepmom, outdoor enthusiast, artist, and retreat leader. It gets interesting, and her ears stay warm.
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