Somewhere in the USA, Late September 2017 That losing the show wouldn’t be the worst thing, that there would be financial ruin, bullshit stories, public vilification, name-calling, getting spat at (because yes people do that), private conversations with jerks in dark moments telling him good on you for speaking up — that things would not
Cassandra heard Dean rough-housing with the dog upstairs—the barking and clomping were louder than the rumble of the dryer—and when she emerged from the basement with a loaded laundry basket and glanced through the front hall to the living room, her mouth dropped open. Her fiancé (clothed, thank God) was behind Koshi, their yellow lab,
Franny always said our pastries had the consistency of dried paper mache. At night we’d wrap the leftovers and leave them outside for the homeless. Not even raccoons would go near those things. One by one we had to let our staff go. We consulted a financial advisor, who said our best course of action
Maureen decided we’d redecorate the lounge. Our decor was no longer “chic”. I didn’t know what that meant but I argued it was quite chic indeed if it meant I didn’t have to tear up a perfectly good shag carpet. “It’s very ‘65, you know,” she said with disdain as if ’65 was universally agreed
It was a beautiful baby blue that made the walls look like an icing covered birthday cake. Ella enjoyed making shapes with her brush, a beach scene with a starfish, then a palm tree on a desert island, before sweeping the scenes away with a big roller. With each stroke, she felt a little more
Consuelo has always regarded herself as a fortunate woman. Just look at my life, she’d say, if anyone asked her. She’s spent her seventy years living in the same corner of the same Spanish city. Let other people roam the world, she thinks, if she catches a travel documentary on television. Let other people rush
On December 22nd, her father’s birthday, Mila Sloane tightened her jacket around her neck as she climbed the steps to enter the annual Christmas banquet as her dad’s guest. With temperatures plunging into the teens during the night, a light film of frost had carpeted the small coastal town. Inside the beach-themed office of the
Alex loosened his belt two notches but the action failed to ease his discomfort. Undoing his trouser top button, he felt his stomach sag forwards. He hadn’t visited the gym in 6 months: It was one more reason for him to hate himself. Alex was sitting in the King’s Metro bar, supposedly one of Toronto’s
The dressing room was an overcrowded sauna swarming with the wriggling bodies of family, reporters, and old white people from the Boxing Commission. An unholy roar filled his ears, like listening to music underwater. None of it made sense, and through it all, Ronny Lipton had only one question; Why was he so goddamned cold?
They met through the second law of thermodynamics. Over time, with increasing entropy, eventually they fell in love. The way people meet if they’re really going to fall in love. That’s how it is in a small town. Joy was at the Merrimaker, a local place, a dive bar so dirty that its profile picture
