Fox Foot
By Joanna Pearson, first published in Mississippi Review
On her drive to her hometown in Georgia, a medical student contemplates the recent death of her reckless friend and picks up a stranger with a cast on the side of the road.
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Plot Summary
Emily, a Baltimore medical student on her last year of internship, is driving back home to Georgia to attend an old friend's wedding when she sees a middle-aged man with a cast on the side of the road. Her friend Sabrina had once told her about this man as if he were a local legend. She had recently passed away after living the kind of debaucherous life so different from Emily's monotonous one. Her death had distracted Emily at work, and she'd inadvertently killed an elderly patient. Against her better judgement, she gives the man with the cast a ride. He says his name is George and that he needs to repay a debt in town. He keeps petting his fox foot as Emily drives. With George as her guest, they arrive at the wedding. A woman starts choking and the DJ asks for a doctor. Emily is ushered forward, and she successfully revives the woman. When she returns to her table, she's disappointed to find George gone. In her car, she finds his empty cast with the note "Put this on." She takes it as a sign to live a more adventurous life like George, like Sabrina.
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