Activity

It was like nursery rhymes; they were two cute girls walking down the street talking harmless nonsense, while all around them the world was in full operation. Desperate vendors displayed miserable items arranged on dirty blankets—T-shirts, ratty sweaters and vinyl belts, wrinkled old magazines, fad…

Her life in New York had been erratic and unconnected. She had lived hand to mouth most of the time, working a series of menial jobs that made her feel isolated and unseen, yet strangely safe. She ate dinners of rice and beans or boxes of Chinese takeout food on the floor. She stayed up until seven…

Susan was thirty-five years old, and Leisha thirty-four. When they were friends, Susan was an aspiring writer and Leisha an actress. Whenever she had a positive image of Leisha—a rarity during these last six years—she saw them together in Leisha’s apartment drinking tea, drinking wine, snorting cok…

She had wandered through these days desultorily, enjoying the odd mix of memories and emotions that playfully showed their shadows and vanished again.

“I love you,” said Sara.

“It’s not real,” he said. “It’s puppy love.”

“No. I love you.” She nuzzled his cheek with her nose and lips, and her tenderness pierced him.

The image became tiny and unnaturally white, was surrounded by darkness, then faded like the picture on a turned-off TV.

…