#34: September 10, 2024

Double Creature

When we picked our daughter up from summer camp, we saw her first from a distance and didn’t recognize her, since she formed half of a double creature, which sauntered slowly and reluctantly in our direction. The creature was dark against the bright sunlight. As the creature got closer, we could see it was Millie, but not our old Millie. She was grasping the hand of another girl, their fingers entwined.

The two-headed creature approached us, watchful but interested, like deer on the neighbor’s lawn. Millie was now a sun-burnished, long-legged fawn, whose unruly hair was two shades lighter than it had been when we dropped her off. Almost blonde. We were transfixed before this new Millie, so much that we hardly paid attention to the other girl, except to note that she wore an ancient Ziggy Stardust tee-shirt. When Millie finally met our eyes, it was a look we hadn’t seen before: shy, guarded, but also triumphant. “This is Josephine,” she announced, and Josephine extended her hand for us to shake. It was only when she did this that we really saw this Josephine, how tall she was, how her eyes flashed and her chin jutted forward, defiant.

 #33: July 28, 2024

Lifting the Needle

I didn’t have sleepovers with Zosia or ride to school with her and her brother Nathan anymore. She barely talked to me, and I barely spoke to anyone else.

When Zosia was little, long before she could read, her very favorite record was Sgt. Pepper, but she called it “Saint Pepper.” She gazed reverentially at her saints in their zany jackets on the album cover while she listened. “Sergeants are not saints, Zosh,” her mother would say, laughing. But Zosia insisted. That was what she heard because sergeants didn’t exist for her, only saints.

 Zosia told me this as we walked endless loops around the playground in eighth grade, talking and singing. One of us would choose a Beatles album, and we would sing the whole thing together, every word and note precisely as it was on the record. If the sequence was interrupted by the bell, and we had to go back to class, it was understood that during the next recess, we picked up exactly where we left off. We called this “lifting the needle.” 

That was eighth grade, but in ninth, I ate my peanut butter sandwich alone in the courtyard while she sat on top of the picnic table as if it were a stage, with her new friends on the benches surrounding her. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I could see her gesturing and her friends laughing.

 It was on the car radio on Tuesday morning when my mother was driving me to school: “Former Beatle murdered in New York.” In the parking lot, I flung open the car door and raced towards the hallway where Zosia’s locker was, the other kids a blur around me. She was there, opening her locker, and I touched her shoulder. She turned towards me with annoyance in her eyes. “Did you hear, Zosh?” 

As soon as she nods, her face softening, I’m pulling her towards me, my wet face on her sweater. For a second, I’m conscious of nothing except the scratchy wool of the sweater and its animal smell, the sensation of being pressed against her.

#32: July 8, 2024

People in Hats

His brother Davey tried to help first by sitting in the treehouse and reaching one hand down for Owen to grasp. Next, he tried to help by standing on the ground below Owen, hands raised in case he fell. Either way, Owen got only a few rungs up before his heart started pounding, and he dropped to the ground, digging his fingers into the dirt and panting. “It’s okay, Owen,” Davey would say. “Next time.” But next time instead of trying again, Owen watched the neighbor boy, Jay, clamber effortlessly up the rungs and into the treehouse, Davey following.

As they disappeared into the treehouse, Owen crouched down and examined the roots at the base of the tree, sliding his fingers into the grooves of the bark, and then inserting acorns into the grooves. Rotting leaves gave off a rich smell, and he watched ants scuttling over the roots, which were mountains to them. He thought about the scale of the ant world, of his world, and other worlds in between. The treehouse seemed so high, so far-away.

He gathered four sticks and planted them in a rectangle in the dirt, then placed a large brown leaf on top as a roof. He placed several acorns, people in hats, in the little house. Around them, he arranged moss, and then began adding tiny rooms to their house, expanding it in the valleys between the tree roots. When the house with its many rooms was done, he added more houses with more rooms for more acorn-people.

The ants continued their journey through the village, over the mountains of tree roots, amidst the houses that were giant to them. This set him thinking again about the scale of things: tiny ants, giant houses; small Owen, tall tree; small Owen, big brother. Then he surveyed his village and thought with satisfaction: small town, big Owen.

#31: July 8, 2024

Used Hearse

She bought the hearse used from the Highlands Funeral Home, and the first time she drove it home to show Patrick, she felt invulnerable. She wasn’t sure how he would respond, but she was ready to argue that the hearse was perfect: plenty of space in the back for all their painting supplies—better than a station wagon or a pickup. Patrick, who was her cousin as well as her partner in the painting business, stood on the sidewalk with his arms folded when she pulled up. He shook his head and muttered, “Creepy.” But she liked the black leather roof with its decorative silver curve; the blue velvet interior; the car’s imposing size.

Driving the hearse lent a ceremonial quality to an ordinary day—a day spent scraping off old paint, caulking holes, taping baseboards. She drove a memento mori, she thought, which still smelled gently of roses. The interior was dark and quiet. One afternoon when she went to clear out the paint cans and trays from the back, she found herself instead crawling into the space where the coffin would be. She pushed aside the cans and settled catlike on the worn blue velvet. The metal stays for securing the coffin dug painfully into her back and thighs, but lying there, she felt immensely alive. If she closed her eyes, she discovered, the lives of the previous occupants drifted into her mind, their stories still luminous.

#30: July 7, 2024

Peak Theodore

I try to run by it without looking: the dead deer beneath the overpass. I try not to see the mound of its body, its delicate head on the damp cement, the puddle of blood seeping out. Most of all, I try not to see its bulging, black eye-spheres. I run past, but still see enough to know it is a stag because of the antlers. In the hallway at school, I tell Theodore, then instantly regret it. “We’ll give him a proper funeral,” Theodore announces. “No, please,” I say, knowing I will have to attend. “Don’t worry,” Theodore says. “We will drape the body.” Later that afternoon, I watch while Theodore gently covers the stag with a sheet, which rises to a peak over the antlers. “King Harold,” he begins, having decided this was his name. “We gather to honor your life. You grew to a majestic size and fathered many fawns. You were felled ignobly by a human vehicle, but your legacy lives on.” He flings his arm out and sprinkles the sheet with cinnamon, the closest thing he could find to ceremonial ochre. Theodore stands with hands folded and head bowed, and I lower my eyes as well, taking in the pigeon droppings, shards of green glass, and a soggy plastic bag littering the sidewalk. Theodore, I notice, is looking upwards, so I look, too: the black branches against the darkening sky, a flock of tiny birds dipping and rising in formation. We stand for a long time, gazing at the sky, while the King’s fawns gather invisibly around us.

#28: October 16, 2023

Thank You for Being My Friend

Thank you for putting the lost dog flyers up on all the telephone poles and for combing the neighborhood on foot and in your car and holding my hand day after day and for bringing me gelato when we thought Pica never would come back. And then, when she limped into the yard, for kissing her beardy Schnauzer muzzle and picking her up and carrying her to me and immediately piling us into the car and waiting with us at the vet and afterwards, for ordering Chinese while I lay on the rug with her, holding her bandaged paw and looking into her eyes. Thank you for escorting me so gently to bed and lifting Pica in next to me and pulling the blanket over us and sitting there for a while to hear us breathing together before you walked back to your house. I thought about you hiking up the hill on the dark street, while Pica wheezed peacefully and snuggled closer to me. Thank you, Lorna.

#27: August 21, 2023

Scarlet Ravens

Thalia’s mother, Mrs. Pomerance, said we couldn’t practice guitar in the shed anymore because we had moved the rakes without permission. That was when Thalia showed me the Clearing. It was on their property, but you could get lost walking from the Pomerances’ deck with its carefully arranged pots of flowers to that hidden, cavelike place. Our guitars slung over our backs, I followed Thalia through the underbrush, and every now and then, a branch would reach out and strum a weird chord on her guitar. We sat on rotting logs and played almost every day that fall. By November, the ravens had discovered us, and they came whenever we played, settling with demonic grace on the branches in twos or threes, adding their hoarse cries to our music. In the setting sun, they were red. When snow blanketed the Clearing, Mrs. Pomerance insisted we go back to the shed. We rearranged the rakes, and at sunset, crept out; I followed Thalia to the Clearing. When we started playing, ravens gathered; I promised myself I would always go to the places our mothers had forbidden.

#26: July 27, 2023

And Behold a Ladder

Claudette had fallen in love with the house, a shabby Victorian structure amidst all the austere modernist buildings on campus. She loved the high ceilings of the rooms and the decorative moldings, the peeling paint on the window frames, the clanging radiators, and the fireplace in the common room. She loved the staircase with its creaky steps and ornate banisters with decorative wooden knobs that she felt compelled to stroke surreptitiously whenever she went up or down. The house was one of the few comforts in her bleak sophomore year.

Claudette had just run her hand over the large knob ornamenting the bottom of the banister and was starting up the stairs when one of the other girls who lived in the house called her name from above. It was Patsy, a girl she knew slightly, who had a radiant, smiling face. Patsy held out a flower: a single, perfect bird of paradise wrapped in cellophane. “Here,” Patsy said. “This is for you.” Claudette stared, confused, until Patsy placed the flower in her hand. “Because you look so sad.” “Thank you!” Claudette said, examining the flower. “It’s beautiful.” She stroked the flower with one finger, as if it were a small animal. In her room, she considered Patsy’s gesture: Of course she was sad, but was her sadness that obvious? Was her sadness in some way special or remarkable? Among all the sad people in the world, was Claudette the saddest? Later, she wondered: was she destined to be singled out for sadness? Was that a distinction she wanted? She wandered out of her room and stood stroking the wooden knob at the top of the banister, sadly.

#24: May 29, 2023

Marlboros and SpaghettiOs

Our babysitter Justine’s favorite treat was a Marlboro, and the cigarettes—though we never tried them— were delicious to us too because they were a secret: she was not allowed to smoke them in our house. Whenever she lit one up, she swore us to secrecy, and we helped to air out the smoke by opening the kitchen windows, even in the middle of winter.

SpaghettiOs were not secret—our mother bought them—but secretly, Justine let us do SpaghettiOs Experiments, when she put the Os in a “cauldron” and let us “enchant” them by putting things in. The first time, it was what other people did: slices of hot dog. But Justine let us try other things to enchant the Os: popcorn, tater tots, M&Ms. The only rule was that you had to actually eat the result or at least a spoonful (she was nice about making grilled cheese if the Experiment was really awful). We wanted to impress Justine by pretending to enjoy melted M&Ms in our SpaghettiOs. They actually weren’t bad.

Sometime in March, we led Justine to the cabinet where our parents stored the Manischewitz for Passover, and I said, delighted by our cleverness: “A liquid Experiment!” Instead of putting wine into the Os, she poured us each some in one of grandma’s egg cups, and for herself a more generous portion in a mug. I liked the sweet, syrupy liquid, but Margaret rushed to the sink to spit it out and rinse her mouth. Then the wine became part of our ritual, and Margaret started to beg for more. “It tastes like good medicine,” she said. One night, I woke up to feel Justine’s wet face against mine, and I instinctively put my arms around her. “It’s okay, Kitten,” I said, because it was what my mother said to me when I was crying.

The new babysitter’s name was Brenda. She smiled nervously, gave a little wave when our mother introduced us, and thunked her heavy calculus book on the kitchen table. After pouring the SpaghettiOs into the pot, she stood there, studying them, holding the wooden spoon. Margaret and I searched the kitchen for Experiment ingredients: Goldfish crackers? Cheetos? Then Margaret suddenly widened her eyes and clapped her hand over her mouth. I followed her into the bathroom, where her favorite rubber snake was draped over the edge of the bathtub. He was a regular part of her bath routine, along with plastic dinosaurs and a rubber alligator.

Margaret picked up the snake and tucked him under her pajama top, trotted back to the kitchen. “Can I stir it?” she asked Brenda, looking into the pot of Os. Brenda considered for a second before handing Margaret the spoon. “Be careful, okay?” The babysitter began searching the cabinets for bowls, while Margaret slipped the snake into the pot, pushing its body down with the spoon. It reminded me of a miniature Loch Ness monster, poking its head and forked tongue out of the red goo, its orange eyes staring. Margaret pushed the head down with the spoon and stirred once, smiling at me.

#23: April 23, 2023

Mr. Gabardine

We’re packed in the yellow station wagon on the way to Utica to visit our cousins. The twins have a supply of M&Ms and pretzels rods, which are supposed to keep them quiet. They get to sit in the “backy-back,” the seat at the back of the car that faces backwards. In the backy-back, you can make faces at people in the car behind you. You can stick a pretzel rod up your nose and let it hang there, just to see their reaction. Even though it’s usually impossible to tell and then you get a bloody nose.

The drive is five hours long and endless, so Mom proposes the game: spot Mr. Gabardine. We know him so well from I-95 billboards: the squat little man who is basically a giant nose, with bare feet that stick out from under his overcoat. We know the Overcoat Outlet from these billboards and from TV, where the owl with two Os for eyes blinks slowly, and Mr. Garbardine opens his coat to reveal the words “durable, versatile, easy-care fabric.”

I look out the window at decrepit farms and Wendy’s billboards, metal barricades and desiccated trees. In the backy-back, a fight starts to escalate, the twins pelting each other with M&Ms. At that moment, I catch sight of the approaching billboard, and there he is, opening his coat to the announcement that everything is at least 20% off. “I see him!” I yell. Mom doesn’t have time to recognize my victory before the twins start objecting: “No fair! We weren’t paying attention!”

“That’s the whole point,” I yell back. “You’re supposed to pay attention!”

The twins beg Mom for a do-over, but she turns the question over to my father, who is driving. “Do-over,” he says, without taking his eyes off the road. I realize I’m old enough not to care: the point was really to keep the twins occupied, but somehow the injustice of it does matter. And always will.

“You skeevy fuck,” I whisper to Mr. Gabardine as we pass the next billboard, and the twins shriek in unison, “I see him!”

#22: April 14, 2022

The Sandwich Problem

By lunchtime, there was a dent in the sandwich like a black eye. The bread was so soft that the apple, resting against it in the paper bag, made a purple crater in the sandwich, a rounded indentation where the grape jelly and peanut butter oozed through. Was there some secret to packing lunch, a way mothers protected soft foods from hard foods?

Before she started at Kleinman’s, my mother always heated canned soup in the morning and poured it into my Thermos. I loved having soup so much, I didn’t care that I was the only freak eating soup from a Thermos at lunch. I didn’t care if they made fun of me when corn and rice got caught in my braces. “It’s better than cafeteria food,” I shot back. “Their chicken tastes like shredded string, soaked in Tang.”  Now that she worked at Kleinman’s, my mother rushed out the door while I was forced to sacrifice seven and a half minutes to the duty of spreading peanut butter on slices of bread and washing an apple, shoving them into the paper bag.

I tried erecting a barrier between the apple and the sandwich in the form of a shiny foil package containing a blueberry Poptart, but by lunch period, the pastry had shattered into gooey fragments. The next day, I left out the apple. The day after that, making the sandwich seemed pointless. So I left out the sandwich. “Why aren’t you eating lunch?” my friend Caroline asked. She was having cafeteria spaghetti and meatballs, which smelled like a floor mop. I shrugged.

#21: March 14, 2022

Deciduous

American Beech. Fagus grandifolia. Large tree with edible nuts; smooth, grey bark; pointed oval leaves with ridges, deciduous. White Ash. Fraxina Americana. Large, shade-giving tree, oval leaves with pointed ends, colorful in the fall, deciduous. Crape Myrtle. Lagerstroemia indica. Small tree; pink flowers; dark-green, oval leaves, deciduous.

I know the trees’ American names, their Latin names, and their secret names. The secret names: that’s something only me and the dogs know. I know because I can hear trees talking to each other, only not in language. The dogs know secret names by smelling—they don’t have to be told in words. Words are only good for other people. I like tree-words, but I like numbers better. It takes me 23 minutes to visit all the trees in our yard. On cloudy days, I visit them each twice, which takes 46 minutes. If Catherine makes me stay inside because of rain, I visit them three times the next day, which takes 69 minutes. It takes 4 minutes longer if I have to stop and pet our cat Fontina. Or if Fontina is torturing a caterpillar, and I have to rescue it. It is more efficient if Fontina watches from the window. When Catherine watches from the window, I feel how badly she wants to aim words at me. When I feel Catherine watching like that, wanting, I can’t go in right away. I have to visit Crape Myrtle one extra time, another three minutes, before I go inside. Then I take off my left boot, and then my right boot, and after they are lined up on the mat, Catherine can let her words out.

#20: March 7, 2022

Security Man

The music of the tree was blue. The tree stood in a grassy space beyond the playground where the other children shrieked and chased each other or kicked a soccer ball. Owen watched. His friend Sim was a blaze of pink and purple, weaving between boys, laughing as the ball skittered from one to the other. When Owen heard the tree’s blue music calling him, he went and stood near the trunk, cautiously touching the damp bark. He grew bolder with his fingers, pressing into the crevices and inhaling the odor of earthworms and mud. The tree, he could tell, wanted to shield him with its music, to protect him from the noise and chaos of the playground and from the feeling he had watching Sim. He rested his cheek against the bark and let the music envelop him, so he almost didn’t hear the bell ring. But he saw the children reluctantly cease their erratic running and line up before the door in a bright jittery snake. While the tail of the snake disappeared into the school building, Owen explored the bark with his fingertips, humming along with the blue music. Abruptly, the door opened, and Security Man came out. He paused, slicing the air with the beam of his vision, back and forth across the playground. Then turned his face in the direction of the music tree, pointing the terrifying orange shaft of his gaze towards Owen.

#19: March 2, 2022

The Girl With the Unhinged Hair

Genevieve wished she had not seen herself reflected in the window of the supermarket across from the bus shelter. She saw a bedraggled person wearing a yellow plastic raincoat, whose red striped socks sagged around her ankles. This person was weighed down by a distended backpack, and she held a cluster of bulging plastic shopping bags in each hand. The person’s face looked weary and distressed, but the worst part was probably the hair. Hideous, Genevieve thought. She was relieved when the bus pulled up and blocked her reflection, so she was looking instead at an ad for insurance with a dutifully smiling family, the father holding a pink-clad girl on his lap. She had only a moment to look into the father’s kind eyes before boarding the bus. Genevieve hauled the bags up the steps and struggled to tap her fare card with the bags suspended on her forearms, then heaved them all onto one of the plastic seats. Instead of sitting down, she stood panting and looking at the heap of bags: ingredients for her boyfriend Dominic’s dinner. Why was she the one hauling groceries up to Dominic’s place on Claremont Avenue? Her roommate was always bugging her about it. Why? Once again, Genevieve caught sight of herself, mirrored in the bus window. She tucked the disheveled hair behind her left ear and tried to smooth it flat. Through her own reflection, Genevieve could see a check cashing place with a flashing sign that said: “Cambio.” The word blinked frenetically, went black, and then appeared, letter by letter. It blinked again, more insistently, before disappearing again.

#18: January 5, 2022

Neurasthenics of the Fin de Siècle

The Hungarian Pastry Shop is crowded and warm, though the door keeps opening to admit blasts of icy air. Rosy scans the crowd, recognizes the woman at the back, a writer, with her oversized straw hat; the two girls whispering conspiratorially in the corner, one with electric blue hair; the guy with the battered dress shoes, refilling his coffee for the fifteenth time. She doesn’t see Petra, though this is where she promised to be. Rosy immediately thinks of Swann, frantically looking for Odette on the night he falls in love. Rosy is already in love, in fact well beyond love, into the realm of neurosis, like Swann: the second she realizes Petra isn’t there, Rosy imagines her lounging on the couch in the boy’s apartment, listening to the Strokes. To blot out the image, she says out loud to the girl behind the counter, quoting Swann: “How delightful! I’m becoming neurasthenic.” “What was that?” asks the girl, frowning and holding her pen above the pad. Rosy asks herself: if neurosis were a pastry, what kind would it be? She considers eclairs, napoleons, and slices of cheesecake topped with cherry compote, and finally orders an apricot hamantaschen. She squeezes behind the two whispering girls to a spot against the wall.

When the waitress brings the hamantaschen, Rosy is deep in reverie: what would it feel like to be “neurasthenic” or “melancholic,” rather than “depressed”? Did despair feel different at the turn of the last century? Neurasthenia, she thinks, entitled one to languish on a fainting couch, wearing a kimono, or, like Proust, to cocoon oneself in bed for an indefinite period. Before she can open her copy of Swann’s Way, she sees Petra at the door, her flushed cheeks, a fringe of blonde bangs beneath the knit cap. “Delays,” Petra explains, clapping her mittened hands together to warm them. Rosy teeters between rage and gratitude, choking back a piece of hamantaschen. She smiles up at Petra, nodding sympathetically, and gestures for her to sit down.

#17: October 26, 2021

Mermaids Are Girls

We’re rushing home for Shabbos, my older sister Shayna half a block ahead, holding our brother Jacob’s hand, me pushing Leah’s stroller. It’s a warm October day, still almost like summer, but she clomps along in those black boots with the heavy soles and the laces almost up to her knees; the fight with Eema didn’t stop her from wearing them. I think she looks silly, but I know the new boots make her feel tough—mean, even, which she isn’t. When Shayna stops suddenly in front of the wig shop, I take a deep breath, trying to be patient. But we’re already late. She points to the hot-pink wig: “When I get married, that’s the one I’m going to get.” I snort, while Jacob pulls on Shayna’s hand, putting his whole weight into the effort, trying to drag her forward. “I’m going to marry a mermaid.” She lets this sink in. “What do you mean?” I ask her, and she answers: “Exactly what I said.” Shayna doesn’t take her eyes off the wig. Jacob looks at her with wide eyes, mouth slightly open: “Mermaids are girls,” he objects. “Yes,” Shayna says, as if that settles everything. We stand there in front of the pink wig, trying to see the future, while the sun sinks down another inch.

#16: July 19, 2021

The Mix

We huddle by the donut case for rock/paper/scissors, to determine who gets which category. Evie gets salty; Trish gets sweet. I’m last: drinks. First of all, it has to fit the category, and it has to be something we haven’t had before. It can be a little gross, but not so disgusting that you don’t want to eat it. It shouldn’t make you sick—at least not right away, like the cherry chewing-tobacco Trish got once. Evie won twice last week: once with pickle-flavored potato chips and once with disco cookies, studded with candy mirror balls. Trish won a round with straws made out of Fruit Loops. It’s practically impossible to win with a drink, but I feel fierce today. The selection isn’t great: most of the Slurpee flavors are pretty standard, like Sour Cherry and Piña Colada, but at least there’s something called “Blue Meanie.” I mix them, using a Dr. Pepper base. The result comes out a deep, brownish purple, like hair-dye runoff. We start skating downhill to the park to compare, but as soon as Evie takes a sip of my Slurpee concoction, she gags and spits. “Oh, gross!” she yells. “Over-the-line nasty!” Rolling down the long, gentle hill on Holly Avenue, we see what looks like an old dentist’s chair sitting on the sidewalk. Evie hurls her Slurpee cup, which lands right in the seat of the chair. She shouts and raises her arms in the air. I don’t think I can do it, but I fling my cup hard as I sail past. Magically, it arcs and falls right in the seat next to hers. All three of us raise our hands, wooting as we fly in formation, Evie at the front of our V.

#15: June 21, 2021

Stay, Boris

All around us, the cicadas made their eerie shimmering sound; they whizzed by or lay capsized on the pavement, wriggling their legs in panic. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the woman in a pink gingham dress, sitting at the neighboring patio table. Her mask hung from one ear, mine was tucked below my chin so I could sip coffee. She had stars tattooed in a garland around her upper arm, long dark hair with bangs. Smiling, she sat perfectly erect while she ate her salad, composing each bite on her fork before she popped it into her mouth—on each forkful: a taste of burrata, a taste of arugula, a dab of pesto. Her dog pressed himself protectively against her leg, surveying the customers with distrust as they entered the café and left with their coffees. We smiled at each other, while the dog regarded me with suspicion. I wanted to tell her: Your dress is beautiful. Your dog is beautiful. Sitting on this patio in your company is the closest I have come to post-vaccine exultation. After finishing the last neat bite of her salad, she wrapped the dog’s leash around the table leg and raised the palm of her hand towards him: “Stay, Boris.” As soon as she disappeared into the cafe, Boris lowered his head, extended his great pink tongue, and scooped up a wriggling cicada. I could hear it crunch as Boris chewed, looking at me with defiance and satisfaction. When she emerged and placed the coffee on her table, I leaned towards her: “Your dog ate a cicada.” “He loves them!” she said, laughing. I must have looked dismayed because she reassured me: “They’re not toxic.” She leaned down, cupped Boris’s muzzle in both hands, and planted a long kiss on his nose.

#14: May 31, 2021

Stanley

It has been three weeks since he started waiting tables. William wears a name tag on his black t-shirt, but no one seems to care what his name is. He’s nobody, yet he feels painfully conspicuous as he moves among the tables: a gangly blonde boy of sixteen with a bashful expression on his smooth, childlike face. Someone noticed his gargantuan sneakers, the sneakers of a basketball star, and now when one of the cooks slides a plate onto the counter for pickup, he calls, “Okay, Champ.” The waitresses titter amongst themselves and call him “Stanley.” “Hey, Stanley,” they say, “better check table twelve.” His boss rarely addresses him as William either, but in a teasing tone calls him “Mr. Carter.” “Mr. Carter, water for table three.” On Tuesday evening, William sees his boss sitting at one of the side tables near the window, interviewing a scrawny kid, who nods intently as they go over the rules. Watching them, William suddenly feels in full possession of his three-week authority; he will no longer be the newest, the youngest. The mantel of humiliation will be lifted and placed on other shoulders. They will call this kid something, a word that was not his name. On break, William goes out to the metal deck behind the restaurant. He leans forward, breathing a sigh of relief, cupping his face in his hands. They smell like fries.

#13: May 17, 2021

M13

You want to say no, but when Salem tells you to meet her at the Crop Circle, you go. You don’t want to feel that queasy thrill when she puts her hands on your upper arms and places you at the spot where you must stand, saying Here. Especially when she is casting a circle, Salem has a commanding air of seriousness. You watch her kneel on the ground and sweep her abundant black hair back from her face before pouring water into the chalice and lighting a stick of incense. Why does it have to be here, in a public place, in front of a church, you wonder—but that seems to be part of the appeal for Salem, to perform the ritual on church grounds. She walks the perimeter of the circle with the incense, cleansing the space, and raises her arms to call on the elements. She shuts her eyes to concentrate, but you feel too self-conscious, so you see the M13 bus roar up, emitting a cloud of exhaust. A guy gets off—a chubby, bearded young man wearing khaki shorts and a bright green t-shirt, carrying what seems to be a French horn case. It bangs against his knees as he clambers up the hill, and you fear he’s going to blunder right through the space that Salem has drawn. You’re momentarily transfixed by the way his bare, plump thighs rub together. When you pull your gaze away, back to the circle, you see a purposeful vector of sunlight, directed into the circle: a sign that the universe hears Salem’s invocations, obeys them. You close your eyes and wait.

#12: May 3, 2021

Rescue

Lucas searched the garage, checking behind the recycling bins and under the blue tarpaulin their father used on the boat. His scooter was gone. He knew his older brother Stu had hidden it again, another act in the ceaseless round of retaliations—payback for shoving Stu off the roof of the shed yesterday. Stu had probably stashed the scooter under the shrubs in the park or flung it into the waterlogged ditch that ran alongside the playing field. Lucas set off, knowing that Stu would be there in the skate park with his friends, and the scooter would be somewhere nearby. Along Holly Avenue, Lucas saw it: the baby snake. It was long and black, but very thin, an elegant double curve on the sidewalk. Lucas squatted and watched it move, undulating once, rapidly, then lying still. Was it sick? Fear gripped him: someone would step on it. He could picture the heel of a man’s shoe crushing the delicate line of the snake’s body, its writhing. The thought made his stomach clench. But Stu would know what to do: he would find a stick to use as an instrument and gently scoop the snake onto it, pinning it with one finger so it didn’t fall off. He would lift the snake and move it to the bushes, where it would be safe. Lucas rushed towards the skate park and waved urgently at his brother. Stu stomped on the skateboard, flipping one end up so he could grab it. He looked over at his friends and back again. “Hey, Luke,” he said, a shade of worry on his face.

#11: April 19, 2021

Good or Happy

In the garden outside the student center, Sonya registers a lush array of pink and purple blossoms. Tulips and daffodils line the walkways. Under majestic trees, students sprawl on blankets or chase Frisbees. Unmoved, she passes them on the way to the wrought-iron gate, through it onto Georgia Avenue, swarming with cars. This is where she needs to be, alongside the rush of cars. Trucks roar past, blasting her with exhaust. In a bus shelter, a young mother slumps with exhaustion, standing watch over bulging grocery bags and gripping a stroller. Her toddler stares fretfully into the distance, clutching a pink owl with giant eyes. Sonya recalls the day’s lecture: in past eras, Professor Phillips had said, there was an internal imperative to be good; now it is to be happy. “What we are starved of now is frustration,” he had said. It is her brother’s job to frustrate her, but he is in Texas. She walks past the Safeway with its glaring florescent lights and shining surfaces, its empty aisles. She walks past the sub shop, the pupuseria, the Chinese takeout, the pizza place. She silently rehearses the ritual dispute she could be having with her brother about lunch. Her brother would demand pizza. Ramen is the best, she would object. Let’s get ramen. On the way back to campus, she passes the ramen place, still hungry. She keeps walking.

#10: April 5, 2021

I Can’t Today

On the wall across the street from her therapist’s office, Rowena could see the shadow of a lamppost, a hangman’s scaffold. Hangman was one of the secret games she played with Manuel during pre-calc. She thought of how he teased her by choosing the word “vampire,” because she looked like a vampire. How in the courtyard when they sat on the picnic table and smoked, she made her long black fingernails into teeth and bit his neck with them, hard enough to leave scratches. How he slapped her hand away and shrieked with demented pleasure, knowing she would do it again. In the office, she turned back to Dr. Cohen, offering a twisted, rueful smile, which said: “I’m sorry, I can’t today,” and he tilted his head in a way that asked, “Why not?” His eyes pulled at her. She traced the outline of the hawk tattoo on her forearm and looked again at the scaffold on the wall outside. Did she even like playing hangman? She could pick any word; the choices were dizzying. The words jostled in her head, vying to be chosen. Under the table in pre-calc, she could press the point of the pencil into the soft mound at the base of her thumb, leaving a black mark inside a blanched circle of skin.

#9: March 22, 2021

Stink

She was tired, but wasn’t everyone? Her limbs ached, but couldn’t that be from sitting at the desk all day? She could prove to herself she didn’t have that symptom—she just needed a pungent smell. She stepped into the alley where the garbage bins were lined up, and considered her history of smell. From the office, all last year: the enticing salty fragrance of microwave popcorn, which her friend Bridget crunched absently from a big bowl at her desk. No early memories of homey scents like baking bread or roasting meat; her mother was rarely in the kitchen. The childhood smell she recalled was the peculiar tang of urine-soaked newspaper and soiled wood shavings on the floor of her guinea pig’s cage. She remembered singing made-up nonsense songs to the guinea pig, Tobias, as she removed the damp newspaper and laid fresh shavings. The spirals of wood smelled clean and piney when she spread them with her hands. Now, she moved closer to the garbage bins and inhaled, yearning for the fulsome smell of decay. She caught it. The ingredients were familiar—orange peels, cat food, coffee grounds—but they had melded, transfigured into something as heady as wine, both sweet and sickening. She filled her lungs again--the precious stink of life.

#8: March 8, 2021

Dream Father

Owen is outside the green doors, and the windows stare at him like judging eyes. Then suddenly, he is inside, inhaling the odor of damp concrete and squinting at the jumble of shapes in the half-light. Here in the basement, he cowers with his back against the door while his raging father flings objects—a ski boot, a rake, a saw. They arc upwards and crash to the floor. His father’s fury crescendos until Owen wakes up, sweating. In real life, when his father is angry, he only presses his lips together, trudges upstairs, and pulls the study door closed so the lock clicks. After the click, Owen stands in the hallway, massaging the smooth knob at the top of the banister or squeezing the carpet with his bare toes, straining to hear his father’s fingers on the keyboard. When Owen comes home from school, he wants to pass the green doors quickly, but instead freezes before them, throat tight with dread. He can’t see into the basement windows to survey the stillness of the jagged shapes, but he tugs the padlock twice, three times. Locked.

#7: February 22, 2021

Trabi

Frank had to laugh each morning when he came out of the house and saw Dieter’s Trabi parked on his suburban Maryland street. The Trabi: a tiny Soviet-era East German car that was at once a joke and the object of a cult following. $1,200 dollars to have the Trabi shipped from Dresden to the US, another $700 for Dieter’s air fare. During the year in Germany, the scholarship money had seemed so plentiful; they didn’t think twice about the best champagne and an extravagant array of cheeses at Pfunds Molkerei, with its baroque interior—the gilded ceiling, the frolicking cherubs. Already giddy on new love, Frank was intoxicated by the music of Dieter speaking German. Frank’s yearlong delirium evaporated the moment he set foot in Dulles Airport. Now, teaching first-semester German as an adjunct once again, Frank barely had money to fill the Trabi’s tank. During their Zoom calls, Frank couldn’t help peering past Dieter’s face into his bedroom, as if he might catch sight of someone there: Ulrich? Gunther? It would be six weeks until Dieter finished his term and arrived, which now seemed uncertain, though Frank had already paid for the ticket. But the Trabi was there, parked on the street, waiting for him. He had to come, if only for the Trabi. 

#6: February 15, 2021

Milky Way

Sometimes when I went over, Caroline took her enormous grey rabbit, Steve, out of his cage and carried him to the backyard, where he liked to dig frantically in the dirt. Over time, he scratched out an oblong hole, as if digging his own grave. Caroline’s life was gloriously unsupervised: we ate butterscotch sundaes for lunch and danced maniacally to Abba in the carpeted basement. No one took any notice. When I slept over, we lay side by side and played “What Would You Do If,” spinning out scenarios that involved kissing Mr. Sigmund, our eighth grade teacher, a bashful young man who always seemed dressed for a hiking trip or an excursion to the beach. Then came the dispute at sleep-away camp over who had won the contest to eat less candy. Caroline accused me of eating a Milky Way, which I didn’t even like. Before long, I was walking well behind her on the paths, while she laughed with other girls. At the beginning of ninth grade, I walked past her house quickly on the way to the bus stop. I wondered what I would do if Steve appeared, walking on his hind legs like the White Rabbit and eating a Milky Way. I thought I would keep it a secret.

#5: February 8, 2021

One Morning

Her son wanted Cheerios lined up on his yellow plate, alternating with blueberries. He wanted to see if Bunny would like swimming in the bathtub and piloting his plastic ship. He wanted to brush his teeth with vanilla icing. He wanted his brother Paul to come home and play goalkeeper. He wanted his mother to play goalkeeper. He wanted her to sing the Batman song. He wanted her to sing it again, in Grover’s voice. He wanted to change his name to Batman. He wanted to hurl pinecones. He wanted to let Bunny run in the park with the dogs and learn to bark. He wanted a dog. He wanted to take a book to Clea’s house as a present. He wanted to make it known that Clea’s mother let her eat pineapple for lunch. He wanted a cupcake; he did not want a hard-boiled egg. He wanted to paint a picture of Paul on the mailbox so people would know he lived there. He wanted to paint a picture of Bunny on the little free library. She let him.

#4: February 1, 2021

Community Garden

Dominique texted her mother a photo of the three towering sunflowers: reverent gentlemen with their heads bowed. She put down the watering can when the phone rang—her mother’s number. She held the phone and with her free hand, flung a rusted trowel, a rake, and a hoe from the truck bed onto the ground. “Well, you’re going to get an A in sunflowers,” her mother said sardonically. It was impossible for Dominique to explain: she couldn’t stand the sterile air of the library or her dorm room and only felt warm working in the garden. That was why she couldn’t study or even read except here, in pauses between tending the plants. She did not know what had happened to the person who spent seven hours at a stretch taking practice SATs, the person who agonized over every word of her application essay to get into this school. Yes, an A in sunflowers, she thought, and if she was lucky, maybe in 20th-Century American Poetry. She took her anthology from her backpack and opened to the place she had marked: “and still nothing shields us from the aspirations of the sunflower; even at night you can hear its ever-unquiet breath.”

#3: January 25, 2021

Red Fence

In the weeks after she and Walter moved to the new house, she endured the neighbors’ lawn care regimen, which involved leaf blowers at 7 in the morning, and the throbbing bass notes from their stereo at odd hours. Margaret, a pianist, thought the noise grotesque. Then there was the red fence, which also seemed unnecessarily loud, a deliberate provocation. When she complained to Walter, he chuckled and shrugged: “What are we going to do, move again?” Early on, she had mistaken Walter’s passivity for kindness; now it infuriated her. She stormed off and began writing a letter to the neighbors, but as the words unspooled, Margaret found she was addressing her husband—about his abdication of responsibility for their daughter’s troubles; his reluctance to face his own bullying brother; his inability to share her rage about a red fence. She folded the finished letter and sat down abruptly at the piano, striking three dissonant chords. In the garage, she found her husband pointlessly rearranging tools. “Walter,” she said, and held out the letter.

#2: January 18, 2021

Don’t Be a Brat

The boys on the playground pelted Owen with acorns during recess so instead of staying there, he walked in circles around the school, singing made-up songs to himself. By Friday, his path was fixed, and each shrub was linked to the words of his song: the part about the monster belonged to the low, shaggy shrub; the part about flying belonged to the one with wispy arms. When he passed under the windows of his teacher Ms. Sally’s classroom, he liked to picture her in there beneath the map of the world, reading a book and eating egg salad at her desk. During Tuesday recess, as he passed Ms. Sally’s room, Owen heard a squat, bushy shrub say to a spindly one, “Don’t be a brat.” Owen’s older sister Lucy said this to him when he bent over strangely and twisted his face, making fun of her yoga pose. Owen marched up to the yelling shrub, chose a protruding branch, and snapped it off. When the bell rang, he walked back to the playground, whipping the branch back and forth, clearing a path for himself.

#1: January 13, 2021

Chat Bleu Vintage

Stella looked through the front window with the stylized blue cat that was the shop’s logo and saw the girl outside, scrolling through her phone with one hand and smoking with the other. She was almost sure it was the same girl. They exchanged hellos when she entered, and Stella spied on her from behind the counter, fiddling with the brooches and beaded necklaces. It was her: Stella remembered how tall she was, her jet-black hair with short bangs, the way she tucked it behind her ears while she flicked through the dresses on the rack, wearing a frown of concentration. Stella didn’t want to pounce too quickly, but she knew which dress to offer: the navy blue shirtdress with the pattern of white vines. At her other job, in the hectic store at the mall, she would ask the girl’s name, take her gigantic armful of garments, and start a fitting room for her. Here, she just held up the dress, and the girl raised her eyebrows and nodded. Stella’s heart lurched as the girl took the dress and disappeared behind the blue brocade curtain to try it on. Stella stood outside, not peeking at the girl’s feet, trying to guess her name, waiting for the curtain to open.