Activity

MY SENIOR YEAR of high school I worked in a coffee shop. I took the bus there after school and stole bagels to eat before my shifts, 3 PM to 11 PM most nights. I met a man there—let’s call him Mike. I was 16 when we met; he was 25. I was 18 when he took me to his place after work one night, poured …

I’m married, Maggie.

Whatever that means. It could mean a million things. One of those things could be, I am married so we make out all the time and of course when the ball drops I deposit my tongue deep in my chosen one’s throat even if our kids are clawing at our ankles. Or it could mean, I am…

First sighting: tall, proud, shapely, with very black hair and a white dress; suave, elegant, warm and educated. Accompanied by a tall, proud, athletic, elegant and educated man. They came into the place where I worked, in the period following the episode with the green-eyed girl – the period of fi…

Amanda grew up smack in the heart of the heartland. You met her in a bar and couldn’t believe your luck. You never would have worked up the hair to hit on her, but she came right up and started talking to you. As you talked you thought: She looks like a goddamned model and she doesn’t even know it.…

I sat at the bar and had a scotch. The ashtray in front of me was full of pared fingernails. I was on the third drink when she arrived. The way she walked made her skirt sway lightly across her legs and I felt lucky and full of improvisation, a nice loose music in my head, and I knew the auto mecha…