No answer. The second shower shuts off. The room is suddenly quiet except for the sound of towel against skin. I look at my watch. My time is done. I pick up my duffel, and, miraculously, Shower Queen exits the booth. I can do this in one minute. I can’t stand the feeling of dirty hair. I hate that I smell like day-old sweat and Artie’s cigarettes. I can get in and under and out in two minutes, tops. I won’t dry my hair.

Artie will be pissed, but I’m confident that he’ll just bitch, not leave. I strip.

Five minutes later—it can’t have been more than five minutes—I emerge from the shower room, wet towel rolled up under my arm, duffel over my shoulder, and my hair, wet and unstyled, hanging to my shoulders. I’m in the second of three T-shirts I’ve brought and the same jeans I started out with. But I feel better. I’ll finish the job in the truck, put on the mascara and finger-wave my hair.

As I promised, and only a couple of minutes late, I head out the automatic doors, making straight for the truck lot. Maybe thirty semis are lined up in rows, Roadway, Bemis, UPS, Mayflower Movers, and independents with family names on the cabs and unmarked trailers behind. Rigs with full berths above, rigs with shiny red and chrome, fancy lettering, rigs with more lights than a carnival midway. And campers. Campers snuggled up between the big guys, tagalongs and fifth wheels; double-axle motor homes. Four-wheel-drive trucks with engines that rival those powering the big rigs.

I don’t see Artie’s truck. I look to the diesel pumps and then the line for the truck wash, but he’s not there. I start to trot down the lane between trucks. His rig isn’t distinctive, a plain dull green. He’s hand-lettered his name, Arthur B. Schmidt, on the driver’s door in an uneven attempt at block letters—the Schmidt is narrower than the Arthur. He’s hauling a trailer that he was hired to haul. Nothing to distinguish it from the others. But I can’t have missed it. It’s been my home for the past two days.

“Artie, for God’s sake, stop teasing.” I say this under my breath, but the panic is rising, a sour taste in my freshly brushed mouth, the taste of trouble. I stop looking for Artie. I know that he’s gone. The mean SOB has called my bluff. He’s taken my three hundred bucks and abandoned me in Ohio.

Then it hits me, like someone has punched me in the stomach. Mack was in the cab. My dog was in the truck, where I’d left him after giving him a quick walk in the doggy rest area. He’s been waiting for us to come out and give him a little treat of Artie’s leftovers, a bowl of fresh water. I can’t believe that Artie would have driven off with him. There’s no chance Artie would keep him. He’s dumped him into the middle of this parking lot of bulls.