Fiction

John Lorimer wants to be friends on Facebook. Amanda isn’t sure whether to accept. It’s a long night like any other, her bedroom blue-lit by devices, laptop and phone and iPad scattered on the comforter, earbuds nestled as she listens to Songwriters/Folk on Pandora; this is how she goes to sleep. She has three or…

“I am ashamed to own them. You must understand that. And yet, to own them and not acknowledge them is even worse. That’s why I need you.” Charles pauses, to make sure I agree. I nod. My thoughts are elsewhere, but he trusts my serious expression. I call him Charles in my head, but address…

In the summer, your father starts taking in the strays. First come Pete and Jane. They’re from Texarcana and they’re spending a week at the El San Juan Hotel. When they walk into the Trolley, they sit next to your father. “This is paradise,” Pete says. He lifts his drink. “You, my friend, have got…

1. At first the women disagree over the saltshakers and peppermills and then the cookware and finally the utensils, until the bickering gives way to full-throated arguments and one stupendous scream-fest. When Miriam bursts into tears, Tamara follows suit. Within moments the two women fall into each other’s arms apologizing, consoling, and vowing never to…

1. IN WHICH MY TRUE HEAD MAKES AN APPEARANCE When your best friend smashes fluorescent light tubes across your chest, because you asked him to, because you thought it might mean something, because you need to mean something, and you bleed into a water tank while smart people watch and analyze, and the smart people…

She was wiping the counter down for closing when he came and seated himself on a stool, asking for pie and coffee. There was nothing special about that, nothing special about him. He was in working clothes, a heavy cloth jacket, gray to begin with, and blackened now at the elbows and cuffs. He didn’t…