Two twenty-somethings are in the convertible alongside you.  One of them is pushing her top up in a teasing motion.  Traffic is backed up on Interstate 77 Northbound.  The slant of the interstate ahead yields no relief.  All lanes are in this for the long haul.  The striped shirt clings to her body like moss to a rock.  A trucker leans his head out the window, takes off his charcoal-colored hat, and lets out a howl.  His face is damp with perspiration.  You close your eyes.  You are late.

 The old lady in the Buick ahead of you is really losing it.  Bigtime.  Pounding her fists against the car ceiling, gesturing wildly.  If she starts honking her horn, you are going to be extremely annoyed.  You look over at the carpool lane.  Stripes has undone the top few buttons, horns around her honk in delight like cattle at feeding time.  She’s sitting on top of the passenger seat now, looking out at the sea of cars.  May sunshine beats down on her face, her auburn speckled hair clinging to her cheeks stubbornly.  An old man gets out of a Jeep and peers forward, grumbles something, then returns.

 You check your watch, you are now forty minutes late.

 Traffic moves forward about three feet.  Brakes squeak and shudder.  The horizon shimmers in the heat like steamy bread.  Stripes shrieks with laughter, dancing to the cranked up radio thundering out of the convertible.  Trucker howls some more, grinning like The Grinch, blaring his horn and making Buick Lady pound on her steering wheel.

 You stare forward, watching Buick Lady’s small hands pound against the steering wheel.  You remember your mother in traffic jams when you were a child, watching her from the back seat, the way her lips pressed together tightly, as if mashing the rage between them like an Oreo cookie, and she’d turn her head and look at you with that face, saying nothing, rolling her blue eyes, then turning back and flipping somebody the bird.
 Stripes is now fully unbuttoned, and a tanktop is revealed to be underneath.  The disappointed moans roar around you as she peels off the striped shirt and whirls it around her head, her golden tanned arms glimmering in the sunlight, a light pink tanktop snuggling against her skin.  The driver is a brunette with huge sunglasses and a continuous grin.  She almost looks like a mannequin, sitting there with a little grin on her face, as if this traffic jam is nothing more than just a tiny inconvenience.