That was all.
I skipped three nonessential meetings, the usual lunch with my coworkers Angie and Kristyn, and dinner with Mom after her doctor’s appointment, which may or may not have included positive or negative test results. There was nothing that would give anyone any hint that I would have driven east for hours, and no reason for anyone to guess that I would ever do this, even on a bad day. I don’t even have a reason to tell myself. Just...a hunch that the day was going to turn bad.
I was a particle of dust that a breath pushed eastward, and so here I am inside dust. If I step outside the solid car, I’m afraid I’ll dissolve into the air and float forever, shifting across the desert...Stop with the bullshit, Lauren,I tell myself.
I fling the car door open. The town is back the way I came, unless I’ve mysteriously circled toward it again. I don’t know which is the quickest way, but I can’t stay here and stew in my own melodramatic miasma. Swinging my purse over my shoulder, I step out of the car. The dust pricks my eyes. Coughing, I hold my sleeve over my mouth. I turn to shut the car door behind me. And I scream.
A man dressed in black crouches on the roof of my car.
Screaming, I retreat so fast that I stumble off the road and onto the dirt. I keep backing up until I smack into a fence post. The barbed wire snags my clothes.
It’s the man from the dust storm yesterday. He wears the same black trench coat, open in front to display a bare chest with black feather tattoos. His hair and eyes are black as well, and he has a claw-shaped earring curled against one ear. He is so beautiful that he looks like artwork posed on top of my car, and for an instant, I am convinced that he is a sculpture.
He grins at me.
And my nerve breaks completely. I run. My feet slap the pavement. I hear my breath loud in my ears. I feel my heart thud in my chest. Dust swirls around me, stinging my eyes and drying my mouth. It feels as if the dust is tightening around me, even coiling.
I see a shape ahead of me. It hulks, monsterlike, a shadow in the dust.
I skid to a stop as the shape of a car emerges. My car, impossibly. The man is no longer on its roof. The door is still open. I slow to a walk, my heart fast, and approach the car slowly, nearly tiptoeing. I peer through the windows. He could be inside, hiding in the backseat, waiting for me to jump inside to apparent safety—
“You’re lost,” a voice says behind me.
I scream again and spin around to face the voice.
The man stands in the center of the road. He doesn’t move toward me. He isn’t grinning anymore. “Lost your keys. Lost your shoes. Lost your memories. Lost your mind. You look so very scared. Lost your nerve? Such a pity.”
“Ran out of gas.” I point to the car. My lungs feel tight, and I can taste the dust that fills the air. It swirls around him, stirring his coat. I put my sleeve back over my mouth.
He darts past me, climbs over the hood of my car, and stands on the roof. “Poor little Gretel, lost your way and the birds ate the bread crumbs.” He crouches as he considers me. “Or are you Little Red Riding Hood? You have the clothes for it.” I hug my arms over my chest, across my red shirt. “Of course, that would make me your wolf.”
He disappears over the back of the trunk, and the dust swallows him. I peer into the dust cloud. He’s out there, somewhere. I turn in a circle—
And he is directly behind me.
He grins.
“Your grandma is not here, Little Red,” he says. “And there are wolves all around.” His eyes are sparkling, as if he is a cat and I am his mouse. I swing my purse directly into his face and then run toward the car. This time, I dive into the front seat, slam the door shut, and lock it.
I am shaking, and my lungs feel so tight that I think they’ll squeeze shut. I gasp for air like a fish as I turn the key and floor the gas.Please, please, just a breath more gas. Please!
The car lurches forward. I look in the rearview mirror.
The man is pushing my car. My mind runs in tight circles, shrieking. I cling to the steering wheel. Without power, the steering wheel is stiff.
There aren’t many options for where he could push me. I control the wheel, stiff as it is. The car isn’t moving fast. It occurs to me that he’s helping me. Five minutes pass, ten, fifteen... He continues to push me down the road, which is where I want to go.
After twenty minutes, I unlock my door, open it, and lean halfway out, still keeping one hand on the steering wheel. Dust floods into the car. “What are you doing?” I call back to him.
“I am Sisyphus, Little Red,” he says merrily, “and you are my boulder.”
“This isn’t a hill,” I point out. With the door open, I hear the crunch of the road under the tires. It is strangely silent, rolling through the dust without the sound of the engine. “Um, thanks for helping me. Why are you helping me? I do appreciate it. But how did you find me? Why are you out here in this?” Half my words are muffled by trying not to inhale too much dust, and I doubt he’ll understand me.
“You’re a damsel in distress, and I am your knight.” His voice is light, as if he’s mocking me. Also, he doesn’t sound out of breath, as he should be from pushing a heavy car down a dust-choked road.
“I’m not a damsel in distress. I’m just a damsel without gas.” I lean farther out so I can see his face, half-faded in the blur of dust. The car veers toward the edge of the road.
“Just steer straight, damsel.”
