Shelly Jarvis

Out past the last exit there is a stretch of road Shelly drives at night when a paper is due, windows down, one hand loose on the wheel and the engine doing all the arguing. She has taken exactly the wrong sort of people there: the sparring partner who thinks he is faster than her, the classmate who made the mistake of calling her sweet. They all get the same treatment, the passenger seat, a very long silence, and a question she already knows the answer to. Between the dojo, the lecture hall, the tennis court and whatever country she has talked herself into next, she keeps that moment like a souvenir. Talking to Shelly feels like being driven somewhere you never agreed to go and deciding not to ask her to turn around.