Megan sat in her unreliable Plymouth Reliant in 85 degree, remind-you-of-a-moist-mouth, Michigan summer heat. Why is the universe mad at me this time? She looked around, realizing that she was being dramatic again; to be stuck in traffic is to be stuck with the equally unlucky. Revision: only someone who is cursed could get stuck in traffic on a day like this in this car. Clarification always did something for her. Made the world more…she didn’t know what. She also didn’t know why she kept having all of those weird dreams about Salman Rushdie. He’d appear out of nowhere, as she did the normal and not so normal things of her dreams. Salman was always above her and looking down at her, looking like he had something to say to her, to impart upon her. Then he looked directly at her with those severe, strigine eyes and disappeared, as if deciding that she is not ready to become wise. She didn’t know what it meant that Salman Rushdie was the first person she thought of in the middle of the traffic jam. Must have something to do with the heat. Is this touch of life in Bombay? Mumbai? She had heard that it was crowded there, cramped. We’re lucky he’s even alive after that whole fatwa thing. Lucky no one killed him, Raid-style, exterminated him. That still didn’t answer her question. Why think of Salman in a time like this? W.W.S.D.? Maybe she just liked his name. Salman. Rushdie. Maybe it was the Rushdie part. Traffic jam-no rushing here. Rush. Limbaugh. At that, she knew he was bored. She had nothing to read in the car, all idle hands. That’s how people get themselves in trouble. What was a girl to do? And she was so hot. Her entire back was laminated with sweat. She reminded herself of a construction worker or a plumber or someone else who works with his hands under less than optimal conditions. She wondered if she should have been one of them. She fantasized that the plumber pants thing might work for her, if, of course, she could remember to wear cute underwear. Rosie the Riveter, she scolded herself, never thought of coordinating underthings. She probably went without. Anything to help the cause. She wondered just what Rosie looked like in her skivvies, what she drank after a long day at the plant, what a palm full of Rosie’s cheeks might feel like. Riveted, she wondered what was wrong with her—not Rosie, Megan.
I wanna take my clothes off, she thought. I’m gonna take my clothes off.
So she did.