The woman having a miscarriage bumps into the woman getting an abortion. It is New Year’s Eve. They are both in line at the pharmacy, buying ibuprofen. One carries a basket holding a bottle of wine, the other four candy bars. There are many people ahead of them. “Those look good,” says the first, glancing…
The Sahara it is not. At night, the little tourist caravan arrives at a wave of dunes cresting beneath the starry sky. But during the day, they carry on through splotches of the unvaried scrub that is Rajasthan’s Thar. Trees are occasional, of a variety that gives the camels gas and causes them to slobber…
She doesn’t know which aspect of the piece makes her want to become part of the space of the room—the midnight safety of the gathered sheet, pulled up at one corner to protect, to comfort, to block the light so white, to be sucked on around saliva-wet fingers, to hide; or the white light of…
Colette published this exploration of jealousy around the time she separated from her lover Missy, the Marquise de Belbeuf (1862-1945). It was first printed February 22, 1912, in Le Matin, a newspaper edited by her soon-to-be second husband, Henri de Jouvenel (1876-1935). I’m chewing on a sprig of bitter herb that makes my saliva…
My father was alone when he picked me up, which I found deeply disappointing. He explained that his new VW station wagon was tiny and Ernest was tall for fourteen—too tall to fit with my luggage in the back seat. I’d never had a brother before and I’d never been to South Africa before. The…
I. Mostly it was a great job—a real joy, the nurse usually told people when they asked—but every once in a while there were things that shocked her—or, rather, things that when she had first come to the ward shocked her: now nothing did. Or almost nothing. Every once in a while something happened that…
The first time Merel and Fen spoke to their yuppie neighbors, the Yuppie Husband pointed at the Yuppie Wife and said, “This is Christy Parker. If you happen to mention her to anyone around town, make sure to use both her first and last names, cool? She’s the top realtor in the state and her…
She steps up and out and stands in her yard. Ice crackling the mud and hoarfrost burning off the tall grass left unscythed beneath the trees. She bends and puts a finger to the ice, bends farther over and sniffs at it. Now here come the crows. Cawing and settling on the ridge line of…
The beach house in Bodega Bay was supposed to be our escape, but it was just another place for us to be uncomfortable together. Every summer, we used to spend a couple weeks there. My father drove us in his coral car, a BMW sedan so glossy it was almost as if it wasn’t there;…
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