THE SECOND RAINCOAT

It was raining. Hard. It felt like the sharp, biting drops were headed just for her. Lindsay shivered inside the cheap Amazon-brand rain cape that felt like wet tissue paper around her shoulders. It really wasn’t keeping the rain out. And anyway it stopped at her waist where the rain continued to assault her, sloshing around her bare ankles. “Rain rain, go away, she muttered. And don’t come back another day.”

Not that Lindsay didn’t have a real raincoat; she did. It was rubber duck yellow, one of those old-fashioned numbers that you’d find in a Sears and Roebuck catalog or a vintage thrift shop. But right now, it was awkwardly wrapped around Puck as though he was a Thanksgiving turkey. It was important that he stay dry and invisible. At least until it was safe.

The bus was coming. At least they would be able to dry off a bit inside. She hugged Puck to her chest and climbed on the bus as soon as the doors clattered open, her flip-flops making a squishy sound on the steps.

“ Pick it up, sister.”

The bus was half empty, thank God. And warm even though it smelled like yesterday’s tacos. The bus driver was a huge lump of a woman somewhere in her fifties wearing a baseball cap backwards with some sports insignia Lindsay didn't recognize. Her name tag said McGEE. McGee looked permanently pissed. Or maybe she was just depressed. No surprise. And just as well. Lindsay didn't want to talk to anyone.

She needed time to think; she and Puck needed to avoid people.

Lindsay stared out the rain-smeared window at the dismal passing scenery. It was 7 am in South Bend, Indiana, where she had once heard on some TV show that it rained an average of 41.7 inches a year! Lindsay squeezed her eyes shut and tried to imagine herself on a sunny island somewhere with a frosted drink in her hand and flowers in her hair. Why couldn’t she be in some exotic faraway place like Turks and Caicos, or the Seychelles, one of those fantastic places she had only read about in travel folders? Some incredible fairytale place where the sun shone more than the rain came down.

But those places were a world away from here. And maybe this would be the way it all ended unless her luck changed. In the rain, on the run

Unless…..

Puck stirred and made a small whimper inside his wrappings. Lindsey reached into her drawstring ”runaway” bag and put a square of vegan bacon into his mouth. And kissed him on the nose. She could feel his little terrier tail wagging at her hip. “Good boy,” she said, whispering “Bad Lindsay” to herself.

It had all started that morning when she had run away from the home. Some home that was. Why did someone with 3 little kids want to foster a teenager? Two years with them and their dysfunctional household had been enough. It had been raining that day, too. Anyway, that life she was putting behind her. Lindsay reasoned that since she had just turned eighteen now, she was legally a grownup. And she wanted to be on her own, to be her own person. Lindsay felt in her pocket for the money she had saved from babysitting and other stupid odd jobs, along with some gift cards for coffee and donuts and fast food meals her current and mostly absent foster mom Alice had left lying around in kitchen drawers. Lindsay had done enough free labor over the past two years to have earned them. Then she had just set out with a change of clothes on foot for the nearest bus station. After all, her “stay” with the Jergens family was coming to an end, and they didn’t need Lindsay. Nobody had ever “needed” Lindsey. Life in three foster homes had taught her that.

That’s when, wet and sad, she had found the small brown and white whiskered terrier with the huge chocolate eyes and that tiny curlicue of a tail. Running like a frightened squirrel between people’s legs and then cowering in the corner up against the trash bin trying to make himself disappear. But he had let Lindsay rescue him. (Or rather they had rescued each other). If he had had a collar, it was gone now. His heart ws thumping when she gathered him up in her arms.

An orphan rescues an orphan, she’d whispered into his fur, smothering him with hugs and kisses and shared her glazed donut. Now she knew why she had taken two raincoats with her this morning!

“Puck! That’s who you are!” Just as The bus was squealing to a stop, she had named him then and there. Everyone needed to have a name to be someone, didn’t they? Even a small dog. Puck would be hers forever and ever. And Lindsay would never leave him.

Just then, a man with a scruffy gray beard in a crumpled suit jacket over a misbuttoned sweater stopped at their seat .

“Whatcha got in there, honey? A Thanksgiving turkey? ” He teetered and grabbed for the back of the seat to steady himself, pointing at Puck’s tail poking out of the bottom of the raincoat.

The old man smelled like cheap whiskey, the way her last foster dad had smelled on the weekends.

“We’re getting out, excuse please.” Lindsay clutched Puck to her chest and rushed past the old drunk toward the exit.

It was a rest stop like the hundreds of other bus stops in the state with a six stool greasy spoon restaurant and a gas station, like a hundred other bus stops in the state with one exception. There were three police cars parked outside this one. And a police chief’s car with a man in plain clothes under a policeman’s slicker standing beside it.

They were eying each of the passengers (all six of them) as they stepped down out of the bus into the rain.

Lindsay was trembling. Had the Jergenses sent the police to bring her home? It seemed unlikely. She had even been out overnight a few times, and they had barely noticed her absence.

The plainclothes cop was walking towards her. Lindsay felt sweaty and nauseous. Puck was wiggling inside his raincoat prison.” SHHH…I’ll protect you,”

“Miss, could we see what you are holding inside that blanket?”

“It’s not a blanket, it’s my other raincoat.”

“Could you open it up please?”

Lindsey could feel her heart beating faster. She felt like running, but that wouldn't work.

The older cop grabbed her elbow and pulled the raincoat-wrapped Puck away from her.

Puck yelped and jumped out of the policeman’s arms, running toward the bushes where the other two cops scooped him up. He whined and looked right at Lindsey who could feel the tears welling up in her eyes. She had promised to keep him safe.

“That’s my dog.” She held out her hands.

“I think not, miss. This is Angus III, the Scottish showdog terrier. He’s escaped from his crate early this morning. We’re here to return him to his owners.”

“He’s my dog.”

“I think not. Unless you have $10,000 and a copy of Angus’ AKC championship title.”

Lindsey bowed her head and let the rain soak her through and through. She deserved to drown in it.

“But the good news is you are in for a big reward, miss. Not just that, but the owners have kindly offered to give you, since you were Angus’ rescuer, training as a dog handler, even housing if that interests you. You could see Angus every day.”

“Puck,” murmured Lindsey under her breath.

“ What did you say, miss?”

Lindsey held out her hands, and the policeman let her hold the dog who licked her rain-streaked face.

“I said, yes, yes yes!”