Fiction

  • Fat

    The first couple of pounds were hard and I cried a lot; I wasn’t used to so little food. I had signed up at one of those clinics, spent a lot of money on diet soup, and got weighed in front of a bunch of other fat people so when I wanted to eat a…

  • Tell Me My Name

    Ever since the California economy collapsed, people have been coming to our street at night and going through the trash. That sounds worse than it is—I guess if it’s recyclable, then it’s not really trash. They sort through the blue bins that were wheeled out to the curb during the day by the gardening crews….

  • Three Summers

    The spring I turned ten my father told me we’d be spending a month in Maine with old friends. “They have a daughter who’s a little older than you, Josh. And it’s time I taught you to fish,” he said. “You remember the Izelins, don’t you?” I didn’t, not exactly. They’d stayed with us for…

  • What Happens Next

    “What’s wrong with Vanderbilt? Not that she’d get in necessarily,” Mrs. Holtzmann said to no one in particular. “There are plenty of good schools in the South.” She stood in the doorway of her classroom with her arms crossed. “Heil Holtzmann,” Audrey said under her breath. It was Monday. She was kneeling at her locker…

  • Transfer Station

    After the death of his wife, Loring began giving away things for free. His sister-in-law worried it was some kind of “suicide thing,” as his brother Bill put it, which only showed how little they knew him. Loring wasn’t suicidal. If anything, in the four months since Gloria died, there was a new kind of…

  • Andorra

    Sadie’s lover, Marcus, called her every Thursday from Chicago as he drove to and from marriage counseling. (His wife drove separately, it goes without saying.) The end result of this was that it felt as if the three of them were in counseling together, but Sadie sort of liked that. The reason Marcus had to…