strides. The sun was bright in a cloudless sky, and much of the ice of the parking lot was already melting into tiny rivers that drained into an oily, rainbow-hued pool by the drive-thru. If I sat up straight and looked past my reflection, I could see traffic on the turnpike moving at a steady clip. Still, I did not move, or make any plans. I was missing my physiology lab, missing it that very moment. My dog shark would stay wrapped in its frost-proof plastic bag in the lab refrigerator, saving its secrets for another time, another student.
At half past ten, I took my physiology book out of my backpack. But I didn’t open it. I just didn’t want to. I could not remember the last time I had let myself just sit, and not get anything done.
When Elise and I were small, my mother kissed our scraped knees and shins. She did not air kiss—she put her lips right up to the wound because that was what made us feel better. My father, always a little squeamish, had pointed out that an air kiss would probably spread fewer germs, and my mother said she didn’t care, our germs were her germs. If Elise and I had a germ, she wanted it, too. “No,” he finally said. “I mean your germs, Natalie. You’re giving your mouth germs to them.” It was only then that she’d stopped.
At quarter till eleven, an older woman with bleached hair pulled back beneath her visor came out to sweep the floors around the booths. I could hear her whistling as she moved the broom close to my booth, and twice, when I looked up, I caught her watching me. A Greyhound bus rolled into the parking lot, and someone from behind the counter called for the sweeping woman to hurry back to the grill. But she lingered for a moment, still sweeping.
“Are you okay?” She winced as if she already knew the answer. She wore silver earrings shaped like dragonflies. She looked to be in her sixties maybe. She had a rose tattooed on her forearm.
“You’re bleeding,” she said. She clicked her tongue.
“I wrecked a car.” I pressed my napkin harder against my lip. “Someone dropped me off here. I don’t have any money to call anyone.”
“Donna!” The person behind the counter was snapping repeatedly. “We’ve got a bus! Let’s go!”
She glanced at the counter and then looked back at me. One of the side doors to the parking lot opened, and a long line of yawning and stretching bus passengers with muddy shoes made their way up to the counter.
“DONNA.”
She held up her finger, still looking down at me. “I’ll call Highway Patrol after this rush,” she said. She leaned down to pat my arm, giving me an apologetic smile to show she wished there were more she could do.
Two hours later, an officer arrived. He had a South Kansas twang and a gray mustache that looked combed. We sat in the front of his patrol car while he filled out his report. He was surprisingly sympathetic, even after learning I had no proof of insurance and, really, no idea whether the car I had left by the side of the road was insured or not. He admonished me for not calling right away about the truck driver, though he agreed that it wasn’t clear whether any law had been broken. He would have liked to have been able to talk with the guy, he said, and run a background check. But he didn’t keep bugging me about it. He turned his heater on high and offered to turn it down if I got too warm.
“What you had, I think, is a certifiable case of a crappy morning,” he said, putting the cap back on his pen. “Sorry you had to wait so long. We were pretty backed up with the storm. Twenty-three accidents this morning, and that’s just on this stretch between Lawrence and Topeka.”
I nodded. I couldn’t think of what to say. I was hungry. My lip hurt. “That’s terrible,” I said finally, holding my hands against the heater. “You must be exhausted.” I was trying to stay on his good side.
“I’m actually fine.” He slid the report into a folder. “A storm like this gets my adrenaline going. I feel bad telling you this, but I kind of like it.”
He did seem energized as he drove me back to Lawrence, his posture straight, his hands at ten and two on