Fiction

The calm, early-summer afternoon that “in the flash of a moment would be shattered by gunfire”-the newspaper writer expressed it this way-had been unremarkable for the Blakelys: like the other “returning commuters” (the newspaper writer again), they were sitting in traffic, in the heat, with jazz playing on the radio, saying little to each other,…

Where did I get the idea for this picture? It was the year of El Niño-the current, I mean, and not anything else that I knew about at the time-and the meteorologists were telling us to expect strange events in the atmosphere. They didn’t say anything about events at home, where it hadn’t been good…

The man at her door was bald and wore a blue windbreaker. She had asked him twice what he wanted, but he had only said, “Are you Emily Fletcher?” as if he knew she was, but needed confirmation. It struck her from the man’s salutary tone that she might have won something-an envelope was about…

Kirby Dexter is forty-six years old, and for as long as he has practiced law, more than twenty years, he has thought of himself as someone who solves problems. He is a CPA as well as a tax attorney, and he is the person to call if you want something airtight. He is accustomed to…

Today is my fortieth birthday. I don’t feel old at all. I’ve been sitting here for a while, on this courtyard bench, and if she’s coming, then she’s late. Married couples walk around, trying to interest each other, pointing to the faded pink walls and to the iron balustrades. The men tell the women facts…

The Ivy League is a short haircut. The sides and back are buzzed, and the top is just long enough to comb. It makes Kenny look like the boy in the school portraits his mother props on the mantle. Also like some California surfer our friend Missy fell in love with. Lately, Kenny’s been going…

Hard to believe how popular I was. At Mt. Ephraim High School where I was in ninth grade that spring. Counted ten, twelve, sixteen, nineteen new friends! Not just boys in my class but popular juniors and seniors, athletes began to notice me, smiled and called me Doll, Doll-girl, Ingrid, In-grie. Word spreads fast, who…

Glenn Thrip failed to notice the bullet hole in the rear window of his pickup until several days later, after they had removed his wisdom teeth. Snowed on codeine, he was clearing the Nissan’s floor of pennies, trying to extract the keys from beneath the mat, when he looked up and saw the fresh Amnesty…

In those days, this was how you got to my place: Down from Ruidoso and Ski Apache, you took U.S. 70 (yes, the very route Billy the Kid, notorious bandito and youngster, hightailed horse-style to freedom in olden times) through Tularosa, past Ray’s Tire and Lube and the C & C Restaurant and Lounge, into…