Right in front of her

Sheila juggled her cellphone in her right hand – that call from Mother, she was sure it was about those shirts she had to buy for Dad, should Sheila take the call or let it go to voicemail – and trying to put her lipstick on with the left hand, but she was right-handed and knew it’d go on badly, like that clown with the single teardrop – so she steered the wheel with her left knee, and then dialed that number, the one that always made her blood freeze because it always presaged that chalkboard-scratching “It’s about time you called your mother” –

Bamm. With the crash, Sheila’s head jerked forward, the cellphone flew out of her hand, she painted a criss-cross pattern of lipstick on her cheeks, nose, and upper lip, and her purse flew onto the floor by her feet. And then Sheila’s head came to a stop, just inches before hitting the steering wheel (a dark bruise on her forehead would’ve been hard to explain to Mrs. Findlay when she got to work), and smoke started to come out from the engine.

“Sheila! Sheila! You pick up this phone now! I know this is you calling!”

Sheila ignored the cellphone. She looked up at the car right in front of her. A brand-new Mercedes-Benz sedan, all black, a man with a crisp haircut in the driver’s seat, all alone, wearing a crisp shirt and dark jacket. He got out of the car slowly, and so did she. What to do? Easy enough … she remembered what Judy Winchell had told her for such occasions as this.

But when she opened the door, Sheila burst into tears. “My god,” she said to the man as he approached, “I don’t know what happened. How could this be happening to me when I’m just trying to go to work? How –“

“Sheila?” the man said. “Sheila Burnside, is that you? Are you all right?”

“Oh my god,” Sheila said, “it’s Harry Peters. Of all people –“

“It’s Henry Peters now. Sheila, you need to sit down, your face is all white –“

“And I’m Sheila Pembroke now, though I am divorced,” she said, flashing him an ever-so-slight smile. “I do think I need to sit down. May I sit in your car? Oh, dear, is there much damage?”

He escorted her to the back seat of his car – oh, what legroom, Sheila thought.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Peters said. “We’ll just send both cars over to my insurance carrier. I throw all my business over to him anyway, so he owes me one. And about you, Sheila, where are you living now?”