The bridesmaid’s dress from your best friend Nina’s wedding, three months before your own, baby’s breath blue, strapless, tea length; it swirled when you danced with your him. Nina had pre-wedding jitters. You had none. You thought you’d found the perfect man. So thoughtful. So kind. So attentive. He said you were the love of his life, his jewel. He bought you flowers for no reason at all.

Continue reading… "In a Box for Goodwill"

As she did every morning, Beatrice Steingut stood facing her bathroom mirror, examining the tapestry of creases that criss-crossed virtually every inch of her face. She smiled broadly in a vain effort to stretch away age. The crevices weren’t always there, she knew, but when did they start?

Continue reading… "“Well, you know, we are…”"

Elizabeth Grace Roland prayed every night to wake up with cancer. Just as her husband Hugh found a steady rhythm with his snores, she would turn onto her side, tuck her arm under the pillow and whisper please, please, please. She was specific with her cancer. She wanted breast cancer like her best friend Hilary fought last May. It was feminine and almost sexy. Everyone wore pink ribbons, Hilary’s name on their lips.

Continue reading… "Rattling the Cage"

Paul walked towards me –twitchier than usual–pulling at his collar and scratching his wrists. Grade Ten Literature had just let out and he signaled to me among the throng; meet me in the Latin room upstairs. We both knew it would be empty during lunch. Always furtive, Paul was, but it was that sly quality that had drawn me to him in the first place.

Continue reading… "Paul"

There’s a knock at the door and Jason leans his body sideways. He eyes the wooden door for a few seconds before hollering “just a second.” Determined to make himself breakfast, he cracks the egg on the side of the pan, lets it drop on the oil with a small splash which leaves spots on the belly of his white shirt. “Shit,” he mumbles to himself before wiping his hands on the towel above the sink.

Continue reading… "White Lighters"

The boy and the girl sat alone under a black oak tree, their backs against a pale fallen branch, gnarled and shed years ago. It was still and getting dark and in front of them laid a long and forlorn stretch of prairie, a great Minnesota plain, broken only by a small creek. And in the distance, hills capped with trees. There were no clouds as they stared at a cold sky, a sky of pale dark, unmoving and unblemished and unbound.

Continue reading… "The Pale Tree"

Wanda plunged through the wet sheets dangling on the clothesline, bare feet slipping and sliding on the bathroom floor. I held my breath. Cracked skull. Blood sipping through her small, pink mouth. Blood dropping out of her pointy nose. Eyes staring coldly at the flickering neon lights above.

Continue reading… "Entirely Without Regret"

Myra, riding the inbound express to the Financial District, looks up from her cell phone at 33rd Avenue and sees bullet points. She can make out part of the text:
• Polaris calculates the probabilistic critical path …
• Polaris quantifies the lead sources and schedule-revision impacts…

She likes that. Polaris applies statistics when things are going wrong.

Continue reading… "The Safest Place in an Earthquake"

First, get the sorry out of the way. She’ll come up to you with her makeup smearing around her eyes from tears she’s trying to hold back and tell you that she fell asleep in the table and woke up with this disgusting hand up her skirt. The first thing that’s going to come springing out of your mouth is, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” You don’t want to sound macho but you also can’t pretend to really understand her experience since the worst thing that’s ever

Continue reading… "How to Talk to your Girlfriend after She Gets Groped in a Bar"

We followed the comet. Bremerton to Moses Lake, Moses Lake to Missoula. It was April Fools Eve, 1969, the USS Epstein back a week from Nam. McMurty was AWOL. In two days, I’d be AWOL too, me with only ninety days and a wake-up till I was out of the Navy. We were “rescuing Darla.” That’s how McMurty put it, although McMurty needed rescue too. Darla was McMurty’s main squeeze. She worked at Heavenly Donuts, outside the shipyard gate. Her dad, a pipe

Continue reading… "Comet"