Fast Cars Kristine Kathryn Rusch August 1988 As I drove out of the woods and down into Allouez the feeling came back. It hit me in thestomach pressed me against the side of the car. Even on that bright summer morning thebuildings were still gray the people overweight and the cars rusty. Lake Superior smelledlike dead fish and I stifled the urge to roll up my window. This wasnt the homecoming I had imagined. My father should still be alive and all of myfriends should be just as I had left them. I was supposed to be driving an expensive car withan expensive man—preferably my husband—by my side. Of course I had planned to make it bynow. Not too unrealistic: many politicians got their start in their late twenties. I wastwenty-eight and had completed law school. But I was working in Legal Aid shunning television cameras and ignoring friends who wanted to give me quotimportantquotcases. I drove under the viaduct where we had been that wild drunken night of the Senior Prom.The memories here were untapped and dangerous I had run away from this town the night after my high school graduation and had never lookedback. I pulled out the map Johnny had sent and leaned it against the steering wheel. I turneddown the grid-like streets knowing vaguely where he lived. And then I found it on what usedto be a tree-lined road a few miles north of East Junior High School. Johnny lived in theVictorian lumber barons home that had been converted into apartments back when I was a kid.Johnny was sitting on the porch. A chill ran through me. He had probably just been waitingafter all I told him what day I would arrive. But his presence made that oppressed feelingeven stronger. It reminded me of all those days when I would pick up the phone to call him onlyto find him already waiting on the other end nights when I would