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Fiction
American Standard
They pulled off the highway and followed the signs for the Thirteen Stars Motel. Besides proclaiming itself to be “American Owned,” the motel promised that its restaurant served “American Food” and that each room was held to “American Standards.” Alastair was thrilled. He’d never met a racist before, and now he was going to. Already he felt a mixture of fascination and compassion, as if he and his father were about to visit the zoo.
July 2002
The Counter
It’s not as easy as it looks, standing all day in the murky light of the museum. My feet ache and swell with blood, my back hunches in protest. People shuffle by, but they don’t see us. That’s why the museum hires immigrants: we are invisible.
July 2002
The Blizzard Of 1959
As night falls the February blizzard slips through the streets and avenues, to Montreal’s outlying districts, to Pierrefonds and the last line of houses on Pierre Lauzon, where the backyards give way to the eastern woods.
June 2002
Small Things
Small things. Not a family history of serving in high places in the government, nor owning businesses, nor inherited wealth. All of these your husband has in plenty. At this point in your life, after three years of marriage, the small things have become the basis for your opinion.
June 2002
Blue Flamingo Looks At Red Water
That bus is going to slam into my daughter. In my stop-action memory, everything lies bare a grace note before the accident. The school bus grinds forward stupidly, a yellow hippo. Henry is at the crosswalk, waiting for me as I turn the corner. He is not holding Mary’s hand.
May 2002
Mute
Our dinner conversation was usually quick, as my father was a fast writer. He might ask, “What did you do today?” or, “How’s school?” and while I answered, he would already be scribbling out his next question. But that night, Dad didn’t write or even look my way. We just sat there twirling spaghetti onto our forks and forcing giant noodle-cocoons into our mouths.
April 2002Roundup
His name was Tom Howard, and he hit my brother so hard that he broke both his cheekbones and shattered his nose, all with one punch. My brother was not yet thirty, but he was already on a decline that Tom Howard’s blow surely hastened.
March 2002
How To Prosper During The Coming Bad Years
In the summer of 1979, I fell ruinously in love with a coltish, athletically robust Greek girl of fifteen named Nicole Liarkos . When I think of her now (which isn’t very often), I always imagine her poolside, her creamy caramel skin twice bisected by the triple triangles of her buttercup yellow bikini, her left arm blocking the sun from her eyes.
February 2002
Cómo Aguantamos
The thing Terry hates most about going back to England, even on vacations, is that it’s like coral: a living dead thing. There is sweet nothing to do. Football. Sky television. The cancer of the reminiscence.
January 2002Witness
I had always thought of us as a model family. My mother taught nursery school. My father was the high-school principal. I was a twirler, which meant that on game days or national holidays — and especially Founder’s Day, the Founder being our direct dead relative — I’d put on my Temperance Wildcat outfit and throw the baton with eleven other girls, mainly girls like myself: not pretty enough to cheerlead, not smart enough to do none of it at all.
December 2001
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