Activity

SHE COMES IN rosy from the cold. Her scarf trails as she pushes the door shut behind her. The Requiem score drops from her hands. She bends to pick it up, and when she straightens, their eyes catch, spilling everything. Scared, defiant, pleading, thuggish. Wanting to be home again, with an old frie…

RAY NIBBLES ON DINNER—pistachios and an apple. Reading is slow, and all things distract him. Staring at the bottom of the apple’s core, he realizes that the calyx—a word he’ll never know in this life—is nothing less than the leftover bits of a withered apple flower. He looks up from the thicket of …

It’s drizzling. Nick and Olivia hardly notice.

“Most of you already know all about Humboldt Timber. For those who don’t, they were a family business for almost a century. They ran the last progressive company town in the state and paid incredible benefits. Their pension system was overfunded. Th…

THE BRINKMANS TAKE TO READING, when they’re alone together. And, together, they’re alone most of the time. Community theater is over; they haven’t acted in a play since the one about the nonexistent baby. They’ve never said out loud to each other that their acting days are over. No dialogue require…

They play three-ball, in rotation. Douglas is beyond pitiful. Four years of scrambling across slash, slag, and mud, stooping and planting, has shot his nervous system, wrecked his bum leg, and left him with a motor tremor that shows up on seismometers down in the Bay Area. Dum and Dee feel almost b…