‘Stella Ryman Takes the Wheel’ by Mel Anastasiou

Stella leaned forward over the shabby leather-covered steering wheel of the somewhat stolen Saab she was driving northward through the city on her search for Thelma Hu. Ahead, a red light turned green above the northbound lane, sending a few lucky lunchtime drivers through the junction that should, in the fullness of time, lead her to the first of three bridges, and then downtown. It had been several years — and one institutionalization into Fairmount Care Home’s driverless culture — since she had last travelled this road.

It was no wonder she felt shaky; she was an elderly, rusty driver who’d eaten no lunch. However, even an escaped care home resident was no worse than this fool on her left, who was tailgating a purple van while signalling right. Such a move would, if she read his intentions correctly, take him directly into the Saab’s driver-side door. 

She frowned out of her window and waved the driver away. He responded by steering closer to her. She waved again, with the more imperious wave she had used in her days as an elementary-school teacher and librarian, when the end of recess found a few students still swinging from the monkey bars, oblivious to the movements of others and the passage of time.
Ahead, the light turned red again. The driver on her left buzzed down his passenger-side window. Stella opened hers. 

The driver grinned at her. “Are you going to let me in, darling?”

Darling. Some things in the great world she’d thought she’d left forever didn’t change. Some she missed, like hamburgers and garlic soup, but she did not miss fellows like this one, who snapped endearments at you like elastic bands off a ruler.