Fiction

We bought the nylons before evening prayer at a twenty-four-hour grocery three miles away. They came folded inside paper envelopes, tawny mesh showcased under cellophane windows. We bought a dozen. They tend to rip. Later, we disagreed about whether the envelopes could be recycled. If paper’s affixed with plastic, is it still paper? Eventually, we…

I’m stepping into an espresso bar, fragrant with strong coffee and sweet cornetti, when my attention is drawn uphill by a weathered pink-and-green sign offering a vacancy at Il Piccolo Tesoro. The small treasure. I’m not greedy. The adjective appeals as much as the noun promises. I chose this Ligurian village in the sensible way,…

“The Rabbi’s father is coming!” Rose, the secretary, always overly exuberant, was telling Miriam Goldman the news. When they saw Claire walk in, Rose turned to her. “I’m so excited about your father’s visit!” “Thank you,” said Claire. “It’s so sweet he’s coming all the way here.” “It is,” agreed Claire, and hoped her insincerity—and…

from The Swank Hotel There was a girl, way back, who was going to become the patron saint of the mentally ill and their caretakers. The girl loved her father, and her priest loved her in a fatherly way. Her father, the petty king of Oriel, loved his queen. To him, the queen was perfect,…

Gneshel liked Rabbi Spitz right from the start. He reminded her of a frog. Though he was eight inches shorter than her, had a lazy eye and a metastasizing bald patch, she liked him. Experience had taught her that he was unlikely to reciprocate the feeling. Orange juice and autumn leaves should taste the same,…

I’m mopping the floor when he walks in, the future 42nd President of the United States. A little bell clangs, and a gust of wind fills the shop, as if—at the sight of the southern Governor who appeared on 60 Minutes just the week before, the candidate whose campaign is ablaze with celebrity and scandal—the…

At fifty-three, there is an ungainly weight to Dr. Elijah Crutcher’s body, a lack of spontaneity that he feels in his thighs as he goes up, up dark steps, following his young lover’s angry flight. She is twenty-eight. Moments ago, at the art reception beneath, she laughed effusively with the gallery host, the curator, a…

Kei wears everything he needs to look the part: sunglasses, even when the sky is darkening; a black suit, the sort most people only wear to Buddhist funerals, with a pack of Hopes visible in the breast pocket. He never takes off his coat, no matter the season, and when the occasion presents itself, Kei…

He started in Calais, rolling his scooter off the ferry as the sun came up, not exactly looking forward to the thirteen hours he estimated were ahead of him but eager to see Allabella at the end of his ride. By lunchtime his ass was numb and he was bone-shivered and weary but his heart…