Rhythm and Bluegrass by Molly Harper Page A

clearly more strenuous than it seems. I was alone, which was a relief. But I still had no idea who had lent me their bed for the night. Rubbing my eyes, I scanned the room, trying to figure out where Will had dumped me.
    I glanced around the room and saw sturdy, clean furniture and plain white walls. The only decoration was a familiar-looking couple posing for an eight-by-ten with a towheaded, bucktoothed little boy. A pennant for Mud Creek High hung over the oak dresser, where I could see a wallet, keys, and a Mud Creek Volunteer Fire Department cap.
    I wasn’t wearing pants, I realized as my bare legs rubbed against the soft sheets. Why wasn’t I wearing pants? I was wearing underwear, thank goodness, but the T-shirt I had on wasn’t mine. I glanced down at the emblem on the breast and saw that it was another article from the volunteer fire department. The name over the emblem read MCBRIDE .
    Holy bad decisions, Batman.
    Had I slept with Will? I remembered my raw exhaustion the night before and the unexpected, and disturbingly welcome, make-out session. I could very easily see myself falling into Will’s bed after being kissed like that. Part of my brain was dismayed at the idea that I may have had sex with someone I needed to work with on a semi-daily basis. The other part of my brain was even more dismayed that I could have slept with him and not remembered it. I at least wanted some memories to regret. I slipped out of the bed quietly, changing into the dry clothes in my gym bag. I cringed at my reflection in the tidy little bathroom. While Will had obviously cleaned and bandaged the laceration on my scalp, my hair looked like I’d combed it with an eggbeater. There were dark shadows under my eyes and a bruise on my temple.
    For some strange reason (I blamed the head wound), I stashed the T-shirt marked MCBRIDE in my bag. As I crept into the sunny living room, I could make out the outline of Will’s body underneath an old maroon-and-white log-cabin-pattern quilt stretched across the couch. Surely if we’d actually had sex, Will would have stayed in the bed. I didn’t snore that loudly.
    He’d given up his bed and slept on the couch. I smiled down at him fondly, resisting the urge to ruffle his hair and bring the blanket up to his chin.
    The nice thing to do, to say thank you, would be to fix him breakfast. But I had things I had to do today. I had to find another place to live. I had to get clothes and basic necessities. I had to figure out how the hell I was going to continue living here in Mud Creek as a scarlet woman.
    And frankly, I didn’t want to deal with whatever awkward morning-after conversation was involved when someone who passive-aggressively flirts with you does you a huge favor. And has clearly undressed you at some point. I definitely didn’t want to talk about that .
    I picked up my bags from the table beside the front door, holding my keys so they wouldn’t jangle. Once I’d cleared Will’s front door, I called Fred, using the towing service card he’d left me. My chubby chum was more than happy to drive me back to the trailer park and gave me permission to drive his loaner long-distance, since I would need to cover some serious mileage to sort out this problem. I stared at my overturned trailer, forlorn and battered under its trucker’s burden, before pulling the FrankenBug onto the highway toward sanity, toward dry clothing, toward Frankfort.

    Kelsey Wade’s apartment building was one of those old-school brick monstrosities in which you did not contemplate the level of lead in the paint for your own mental well-being.
    Kelsey was my closest friend at the KCT office, which was pretty funny, considering she was one of the most cynical people I knew. I was the warm milk to her whiskey, the Galinda to her Elphaba. I was the glass-half-full to her “I accidentally smashed the effing glass.”
    Kelsey was an odd duck. At the office, she was organized, competent, and super prepared. There