Blond Short Quotes

You're really a blond," she said, her tone just short of accusatory. "And if you tell anyone, I will come to you in the night and smote your everlasting soul.

The door opened, and we were met by a fifty-something man with a grizzled blond beard. He was wearing Bermuda shorts and a Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt. Also, he had an eye patch. "This is incredible," I heard Adrian murmur. "Beyond my wildest dreams.

You're really a blond," she said, her tone just short of accusatory. "And if you tell anyone, I will come to you in the night and smote your everlasting soul.” Promise? Isobel turned back to the piano quickly, shocked that she'd almost uttered this aloud.

How do I look?” She was wearing a pair of tiny jean shorts and a bright pink T-shirt. Her blond hair was matted on one side and there were dirt smudges all over her arms, legs, and face. Gabriel hesitated. “Like a Barbie doll that got run over by a garbage truck.” “Wow. Really, Gabriel?

I envisaged a perfect detective’s assistant. She’d have long, wavy blonde hair, a short skirt, and curves in all the right places. She’d have a genius IQ, know how to hack and code, and be available at all hours. Now, make her into a robot. Sadly, I mentally removed her body, leaving a phone app.

The witch's hair was too short and too dark for blond. She wasn't sure if that relieved her or disturbed her. Riley had immediately begun his interrogation, and it had gone something like this: Riley: Where is the meeting between your kind and Aden Stone supposed to take place? Witch: Go suck yourself. Riley: Maybe later. Meeting? Witch: Enjoy death. Riley: I have once already. Now, decide to talk or lose a body part. Witch: May I recommend a finger? Riley: Sure. After I take one of your very necessary hands.

Truly, Mallow yearned to know everything. Curiosity was part of her, like her short blond hair and bitten fingernails.

Consider it this way: what would you say if a blond homecoming queen fell in love with a short Japanese businessman? He treats her cruelly, then goes home for three years, during which time she prays to his picture and turns down marriage from a young Kennedy. Then, when she learns he has remarried, she kills herself. Now I believe you should consider this girl to be a deranged idiot, correct? But because it's an Oriental who kills herself for a Westerner–ah!–you find it beautiful.

It just wasn't fair. God made some people naturally skinny and some people naturally fat. I'd never know how my life would have been different if I'd been one of the ones He made skinny. I didn't know how He chose. This one will be blonde, with long thin legs and great skin. This one will be short and fat with legs that rub together when she walks. I just knew I wasn't one of the lucky ones.

Something’s up,’ I say, handing the phone back. ‘Not necessarily,’ Jack says. ‘You think this is the first time Lila’s been hot-headed? Seriously, dude, you do remember my sister, right? Short, blonde, impulsive as shock therapy? Stubborn as a mule who won’t take no for an answer?’ Does Jack ever listen to himself? Does he appreciate the irony of this statement? I shake my head at him in wonder. ‘Hey, I’m not short or blond,’ Jack protests as he catches the look on my face.

I had never thought I had much in common with anybody. I had no mother, no father, no roots, no biological similarities called sisters and brothers. And for a future I didn't want a split-level home with a station wagon, pastel refrigerator, and a houseful of blonde children evenly spaced through the years. I didn't want to walk into the pages of McCall's magazine and become the model housewife. I didn't even want a husband or any man for that matter. I wanted to go my own way. That's all I think I ever wanted, to go my own way and maybe find some love here and there. Love, but not the now and forever kind with chains around your vagina and a short circuit in your brain. I'd rather be alone.

Who you are goes far beyond what you look like. My hope is that Ray’s story will inspire all of you—white or Black, Asian or Native American, straight or gay, transgender or cisgender, blond or dark haired, tall or short, big feet or small—to do what you love. Inspire those around you to do what they love, too. It might just pay off. Alone, we are a solitary violin, a lonely flute, a trumpet singing in the dark. Together, we are a symphony.

Once upon a time there was a king who had three beautiful daughters. No, no, wait. Once upon a time there were three bears who lived in a wee house in the woods. Once upon a time there were three soldiers, tramping together down the road after the war. Once upon a time there were three little pigs. Once upon a time there were three brothers. No, this is it. This is the variation I want. Once upon a time there were three Beautiful children, two boys and a girl. When each baby was born, the parents rejoiced, the heavens rejoiced, even the fairies rejoiced. The fairies came to christening parties and gave the babies magical gifts. Bounce, effort, and snark. Contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee. Sugar, curiosity, and rain. And yet, there was a witch. There's always a witch. This which was the same age as the beautiful children, and as she and they grew, she was jealous of the girl, and jealous of the boys, too. They were blessed with all these fairy gifts, gifts the witch had been denied at her own christening. The eldest boy was strong and fast, capable and handsome. Though it's true, he was exceptionally short. The next boy was studious and open hearted. Though it's true, he was an outsider. And the girl was witty, Generous, and ethical. Though it's true, she felt powerless. The witch, she was none of these things, for her parents had angered the fairies. No gifts were ever bestowed upon her. She was lonely. Her only strength was her dark and ugly magic. She confuse being spartan with being charitable, and gave away her possessions without truly doing good with them. She confuse being sick with being brave, and suffered agonies while imagining she merited praise for it. She confused wit with intelligence, and made people laugh rather than lightening their hearts are making them think. Hey magic was all she had, and she used it to destroy what she most admired. She visited each young person in turn in their tenth birthday, but did not harm them out right. The protection of some kind fairy - the lilac fairy, perhaps - prevented her from doing so. What she did instead was cursed them. "When you are sixteen," proclaimed the witch in a rage of jealousy, "you shall prick your finger on a spindle - no, you shall strike a match - yes, you will strike a match and did in its flame." The parents of the beautiful children were frightened of the curse, and tried, as people will do, to avoid it. They moved themselves and the children far away, to a castle on a windswept Island. A castle where there were no matches. There, surely, they would be safe. There, Surely, the witch would never find them. But find them she did. And when they were fifteen, these beautiful children, just before their sixteenth birthdays and when they're nervous parents not yet expecting it, the jealous which toxic, hateful self into their lives in the shape of a blonde meeting. The maiden befriended the beautiful children. She kissed him and took them on the boat rides and brought them fudge and told them stories. Then she gave them a box of matches. The children were entranced, for nearly sixteen they have never seen fire. Go on, strike, said the witch, smiling. Fire is beautiful. Nothing bad will happen. Go on, she said, the flames will cleanse your souls. Go on, she said, for you are independent thinkers. Go on, she said. What is this life we lead, if you did not take action? And they listened. They took the matches from her and they struck them. The witch watched their beauty burn, Their bounce, Their intelligence, Their wit, Their open hearts, Their charm, Their dreams for the future. She watched it all disappear in smoke.

How many skinny, short, blond men were rounded up when Dylann Roof massacred people

Gabe turned his head to look up at her. The moon came through the skylight and backlit Chloe's short blonde curls, making her look angelically lovely. Too bad she was insane.

Picture to yourself the most beautiful girl imaginable! She was so beautiful that there would be no point, in view of my meagre talent for storytelling, in even trying to put her beauty into words. That would far exceed my capabilities, so I'll refrain from mentioning whether she was a blonde or a brunette or a redhead, or whether her hair was long or short or curly or smooth as silk. I shall also refrain from the usual comparisons where her complexion was concerned, for instance milk, velvet, satin, peaches and cream, honey or ivory, Instead, I shall leave it entirely up to your imagination to fill in this blank with your own ideal of feminine beauty.

You remind me more of Princess Peach.” I looked down at my shorts and tank top, and caught the ends of my multicolored brown hair courtesy of careful instruction to Ginny. “Because of my beautiful pink gown and blonde hair?” Dallas’s mouth went flat. “She’s surrounded by men, but she’s still herself, and she’s got her shit together on Mario Kart.

I am thirsty, and very susceptible to flattery... you could talk me into anything..." "So much for fighting the good fight," I observed dryly. "He'll have a harem within a week." Bones watched Juan disappear down the hall, nuzzling the blonde's neck in a manner that didn't speak only of hunger. "He's a fine bloke. He'll learn." "Learn what?" At least he can't get or pass diseases anymore, I thought. That's one advantage turning Juan into a vampire did for womankind. Bones put an arm around me as we headed toward the exit of the flesh feast. "He'll learn that many women can satisfy for a short period of time, but when he falls in love, only one will sustain him forever." I cast him a sideways glance "Are you trying to seduce me?" His lips curled with promise. "Absolutely.

Leila, this is my friend and honorary sire, Menecheres, and his wife, Kira," he said, indicating the lopng-haired Middle Eastern man and the blonde. "Also let me introduce my friend, Cat." The redhead, and for some reason she looked familiar. "Her husband, Bones"-here Vlad smiled coolly at the short-haired brunet-"is not my friend.

Mac draws up short to keep from slamming into Barrons and her blonde hair swings back over her shoulder, brushing his face as it goes and my hearing is so good I catch the rasp of it chafing the shadow stubble on his jaw, then one of his hands grazes her breast and his eyes narrow when he looks at what he touched in a hungry way I want a man to look at me like one day and, as they continue to recover from the near-collision, their bodies move in a graceful dance of impeccable awareness of precisely where the other is at all times that is unity, symbiosis, partnership I only dream of, wolves that chose to pack up and hunt together, soldiers who will always have each other’s back no matter what, no sin, no transgression too great, ‘cause don’t we all transgress sometimes and it fecking slays me, because once I got a little taste of what that was like and it was heaven and they’re so beautiful standing there, the best of the best, the strongest of the strong that they practically glow to me, on fire with all I ever wanted in my life—a place to belong and someone to belong there with.

Later, when I hear others dismissing our voices, our protest for equity, by saying All Lives Matter or Blue Lives Matter, I will wonder how many white Americans are dragged out of their beds in the middle of the night because they might fit a vague description offered up by God knows who. How many skinny, short, blond men were rounded up when Dylann Roof massacred people in prayer? How many brown-haired white men were snatched out of bed when Bundy was killing women for sport?

And the other woman's breasts didn't look nearly as swollen as hers," Aspen went on. Pick snorted. "I'd say." The blonde shot him a glare. "Who the hell are you, anyway?" He grinned at her. "Pick." She blinked. "Pick what? I'm not picking out your name." "No, that's my name, Tinker Bell. Pick, short for Patrick Jacob Ryan. You like?

Ruxandra pulled the blanket down just far enough to see the two girls shut the door behind them, stuff something under it to block any light, and throw a blanket over the shutters. A flint sparked one, twice, and a taper flared to life, lighting the faces of her friends. Adela was a short blonde whose breasts pushed against her nightdress and were the despair of the nuns’ attempts to instill modesty. Her parents had sent her to the convent in desperate hopes to keep her from scandal. And between her sweet, round face and her ability to lie shamelessly, she almost managed to make the nuns believe they were being successful. Valeria was slim and dark, a mischief-maker whose pranks had gotten her in trouble more than once. They were both her lovers. Adela called it practice for when they had husbands. Valeria called it wonderful. The nuns declared it a sin in no uncertain terms. And while Ruxandra did her best to obey the nuns in most matters, and to turn her thoughts to God and do his good work, she could not stop loving the girls. From the moment she’d first held Adela’s hand, she’d known that, whatever else their feelings were for each other, they were too sweet to be sinful.

She curled her fingers into his chest instead of complying. “You’re an incredibly handsome male,” she said. “Perfect bone structure, pure blond hair, eyes so blue they should be impossible. Your only ‘flaw’ is this tattoo.” She traced the three jagged lines on his right biceps. “It’s an echo of the markings on your alpha’s face.” He gave a short nod. “A symbol of absolute loyalty.” Her lips parted. “Knowing that just makes you even more dangerously beautiful.

You think this is the first time Lila’s been impulsive? Seriously, dude, you do remember my sister, right? Short, blonde, impulsive as shock therapy? Stubborn as a mule who won’t take no for an answer?’ Alex raises an eyebrow. Without reading his mind I can tell he’s thinking that that’s like the ear wax laughing at the snot.

It doesn't matter what she looks like. It doesn't matter if she's long or short legged. It doesn't matter if she's pale or tanned, if her hair is black or brown or red or blond. It doesn't matter if she's pretty or not. It matters that she feels the sun on her skin.

the runway style. With her short hair freshly died platinum blonde she had to slay the scene in a black Crooks and Castle snapback, diamond stud earrings, gold collar necklace, red Crooks and Castle sweatshirt, Cartier gold men’s watch, black leather leggings, Saint Laurent suede peep-toe lace-up booties and a extra sickening red $7750 VBH Brera ostrich satchel bag.

Middle children weep longer than their brothers and sisters. Over her mother’s shoulder, stilling her pains and her injured pride, Jackie Lacon watched the party leave. First, two men she had not seen before: one tall, one short and dark. They drove off in a small green van. No one waved to them, she noticed, or even said goodbye. Next, her father left in his own car; lastly a blond, good-looking man and a short fat one in an enormous overcoat like a pony blanket made their way to a sports car parked under the beech trees. For a moment she really thought there must be something wrong with the fat one, he followed so slowly and so painfully. Then, seeing the handsome man hold the car door for him, he seemed to wake, and hurried forward with a lumpy skip. Unaccountably, this gesture upset her afresh. A storm of sorrow seized her and her mother could not console her.

Mrs. Tulliver was what is called a good-tempered person,–never cried, when she was a baby, on any slighter ground than hunger and pins; and from the cradle upward had been healthy, fair, plump, and dull-witted; in short, the flower of her family for beauty and amiability. But milk and mildness are not the best things for keeping, and when they turn only a little sour, they may disagree with young stomachs seriously. I have often wondered whether those early Madonnas of Raphael, with the blond faces and somewhat stupid expression, kept their placidity undisturbed when their strong-limbed, strong-willed boys got a little too old to do without clothing. I think they must have been given to feeble remonstrance, getting more and more peevish as it became more and more ineffectual.

Two months later Joel loped down the stairs to the third floor and strode along the hall to the conference room. He walked through the door and stopped short at the sight of Letty held high in the arms of a huge blond Adonis.

What's up?" Doug asked with a loud whisper as he swung the door open. His short blond hair was in a state of disarray and the pajama pants he wore were horribly wrinkled. The poor guy looked like a disheveled mess. Pressing his finger to his lips, he stepped back and gestured for Sadie to come in. "Emily is finally asleep, and if she wakes up, I might actually cry.

Julian’s not at the house in Bel Air, but there’s a note on the door saying that he might be at some house on King’s Road. Julian’s not at the house on King’s Road either, but some guy with braces and short platinum-blond hair and a bathing suit on lifting weights is in the backyard. He puts one of the weights down and lights a cigarette and asks me if I want a Quaalude. I ask him where Julian is. There’s a girl lying by the pool on a chaise longue, blond, drunk, and she says in a really tired voice, ‘Oh, Julian could be anywhere. Does he owe you money?’ The girl has brought a television outside and is watching some movie about cavemen. ‘No,’ I tell her. ‘Well, that’s good. He promised to pay for a gram of coke I got him.’ She shakes her head. ‘Nope. He never did.’ She shakes her head again, slowly, her voice thick, a bottle of gin, half-empty, by her side. The weightlifter with the braces on asks me if I want to buy a Temple of Doom bootleg cassette. I tell him no and then ask him to tell Julian that I stopped by. The weight-lifter nods his head like he doesn’t understand and the girl asks him if he got the backstage passes to the Missing Persons concert. He says, ‘Yeah, baby,’ and she jumps in the pool. Some caveman gets thrown off a cliff and I split.

What does he look like? Not big, not small, not short, not tall, not old not young, not dark nor blond. His eyes are the only thing that give him away; they’re as mean as a snake’s. We were all afraid of him. Sometimes we feared we might become as evil as him!

She's fifteen years younger, in her mid-thirties, and at six feet, four inches, the tallest woman he knows personally. With short blonde hair and Scandinavian features, she's not beautiful exactly, but regal. Often severe without trying. He once told her she has resting monarch face.

Rosie and Mary had taken only a 10 percentage of this privilege - they were three minutes late leaving their room and took the second bus that went past rather than the first just so they could feel themselves standing at a bus stop in Manhattan, New York, surrounded by people who were short, dark and voluble rather than tall, blond and silent. The fatal part was the bus they got on. They, of course stood, because they had been taught to do so, out of respect to everyone else in the whole world - they were from the Midwest and deference was their habit and their training. ......."Did you see that?" "What?" replied Mary "That woman." "God, she was rude," said Mary. And from that statement Rosalind knew that Mary would live the rest of her life in the Midwest, which she did.

Sicarius stood behind them, not bothering to hide his face as the breeze rifled through his short blond hair. He hadn’t drawn a weapon yet, and Amaranthe hurried to catch up, to keep him from doing so. First one security man glanced over his shoulder and jumped, then the second emulated the move. Sespian lifted a hand. “Don’t hurt—”One of the men pointed to the side of Sicarius, cried, “Look, enforcers!” and hurled himself past Sespian and into the river. The second man squeaked, scuttled backward until his shoulders rammed against the railing, then grabbed it and also propelled himself into the water. His lantern caught and dropped to the deck instead of falling overboard. It clanked and highlighted a dubious puddle before tipping over and winking out. Amaranthe had forgotten how much Sicarius’s reputation affected the average person.

Her short blond hair shifted in the wind, and she appeared the very definition of peace and comfort. Like she belonged in the world that had existed before everything was scorched.

Chomba is seeking to redefine the term ‘precocious,’” Estray Lassils told Kabe, ruffling the child’s short blond curls.

We saw men tall and short, Men of every size, Some were dark, some were blond, But none was our prize!

He pauses, swipes a matchstick on a column. It bursts into flame. “I tell you, you must take risks in my studio.” He finds a cigarette behind his ear and lights it. “I tell you not to be timid. I tell you to make the choices, make the mistakes, big, terrible, reckless mistakes, really screw it all up. I tell you it is the only way.” An affirmative murmur. “I say this, yes, but I still see so many of you afraid to cut in.” He begins to pace, slowly like a wolf, which is definitely his mirror animal. “I see what you are doing. When you leave yesterday, I go from work to work. You feel like Rambo maybe with the drills, the saws. You make lots of noise, lots of dust, but very few of you have found even this much”—he pinches two fingers together—“of your sculptures. Today this changes.” He walks over to a short blond-haired girl. “May I, Melinda?” “Please,

Jakob Hlasek is six foot two and built like a halfback, his blond hair in a short square Eastern European cut, with icy eyes and cheekbones out to here: He looks like either a Nazi male model or a lifeguard in hell and seems in general just way too scary ever to try to talk to. His backhand is a one-hander, rather like Ivan Lendl’s, and watching him practice it is like watching a great artist casually sketch something. I keep having to remember to blink.

Joe and Carter and Kelly were coming out of the woods, finishing up their run as I came back from the garden. They were laughing and shoving each other the way brothers do. I loved all three of them. Except. Except. Joe wore a pair of low-slung shorts. Just the smallest things. And that was it. He was almost as big as I was now. We were eye level, or so close that it didn’t matter, which put him a couple of inches over six feet. There was a sheen of sweat over his torso. A spattering of wet blond hairs curling on his chest that looked to be cut out of granite. The soft definition of muscles on his stomach. A line of sweat that hit his happy trail and soaked into the waistband of his shorts. He turned, saying something back to Carter, and I saw the dimples above his ass. The way his legs flexed and shifted as he hopped from one foot to the other. He pointed wildly at something back in the woods and there was a blue vein that stuck out along his bicep and I wanted to trace with my fingers because when had that happened? And those hands. Those big fucking hands and I— Joe had grown up. And somehow, I hadn’t really seen it until it was on full display. Right in front of me. He

In the mid-1980s, on a spring Sunday morning, a Volvo stationwagon parked in Brunswick Street. A young couple got out. She was trim, blonded, tanned. He was already broadening in the midsection, sockless, short and hairy legs ending in boatshoes. From a restraining chair in the back seat, he unloaded a child, complaining, flailing. They took it into a cafe. They were going to have brunch. The old Brunswick Street was dead, Brunchwick Street born. There was no turning back.

always focusing on the commonsense stuff. Don’t slap on a platinum wig and high heels just because you’re a short brunette. Don’t think opposite; think inconspicuous. Think about what attracts attention—like blondes and stilettos—and avoid it.

There MacRae was, disheveled and hatless, but breathtakingly handsome. To her pleased surprise, his hair had been cut and shaped to his head in short layers of amber and gold. He had the cool, sensual allure of a lost angel painted by Cabanel.

Since solving The Secret of the Old Clock, she had longed for another case. Here was her chance! Attractive, blond-haired Nancy was brought out of her daydreaming by the sound of the doorbell. At the same moment the Drews’ housekeeper, Hannah Gruen, came down the front stairs, “I’ll answer it,” she offered. Mrs. Gruen had lived with the Drews since Nancy was three years old. At that time Mrs. Drew had passed away and Hannah had become like a second mother to Nancy. There was a deep affection between the two, and Nancy confided all her secrets to the understanding housekeeper. Mrs. Gruen opened the door and instantly a man stepped into the hall. He was short, thin, and rather stooped. Nancy guessed his age to be about forty.

Evan saw a man across the kitchen, butt leaning against the counter, muscular arms folded over his broad chest. His blond hair was cut very short, and his eyes were bright blue sparks. Evan’s gaze locked with Paul’s, and a sudden sense of vertigo swam through his head. The conversation in the other room, the back and forth between John and Alden, the startling brilliance of Bill’s teeth -- all of that faded away as Paul stared back at him. Evan found himself inside a strange bubble that blocked all outside stimuli. He had never experienced a connection this intense before, especially with an initial look, and even though it terrified him in a thrillingly sexual way, he didn’t dare pull his gaze away from Paul’s for fear of breaking the timeless moment between them.

At first Alexander could not believe it was his Tania. He blinked and tried to refocus his eyes. She was walking around the table, gesturing, showing, leaning forward, bending over. At one point she straightened out and wiped her forehead. She was wearing a short-sleeved yellow peasant dress. She was barefoot, and her slender legs were exposed above her knee. Her bare arms were lightly tanned. Her blonde hair looked bleached by the sun and was parted into two shoulder-length braids tucked behind her ears. Even from a distance he could see the summer freckles on her nose. She was achingly beautiful. And alive. Alexander closed his eyes, then opened them again. She was still there, bending over the boy’s work. She said something, everyone laughed loudly, and Alexander watched as the boy’s arm touched Tatiana’s back. Tatiana smiled. Her white teeth sparkled like the rest of her. Alexander didn’t know what to do. She was alive, that was obvious. Then why hadn’t she written him? And where was Dasha? Alexander couldn’t very well continue to stand under a lilac tree. He went back out onto the main road, took a deep breath, stubbed out his cigarette, and walked toward the square, never taking his eyes off her braids. His heart was thundering in his chest, as if he were going into battle. Tatiana looked up, saw him, and covered her face with her hands. Alexander watched everyone get up and rush to her, the old ladies showing unexpected agility and speed. She pushed them all away, pushed the table away, pushed the bench away, and ran to him. Alexander was paralyzed by his emotion. He wanted to smile, but he thought any second he was going to fall to his knees and cry. He dropped all his gear, including his rifle. God, he thought, in a second I’m going to feel her. And that’s when he smiled. Tatiana sprang into his open arms, and Alexander, lifting her off her feet with the force of his embrace, couldn’t hug her tight enough, couldn’t breathe in enough of her. She flung her arms around his neck, burying her face in his bearded cheek. Dry sobs racked her entire body. She was heavier than the last time he felt her in all her clothes as he lifted her into the Lake Ladoga truck. She, with her boots, her clothes, coats, and coverings, had not weighed what she weighed now. She smelled incredible. She smelled of soap and sunshine and caramelized sugar. She felt incredible. Holding her to him, Alexander rubbed his face into her braids, murmuring a few pointless words. “Shh, shh…come on, now, shh, Tatia. Please…” His voice broke. “Oh, Alexander,” Tatiana said softly into his neck. She was clutching the back of his head. “You’re alive. Thank God.” “Oh, Tatiana,” Alexander said, hugging her tighter, if that were possible, his arms swaddling her summer body. “You’re alive. Thank God.” His hands ran up to her neck and down to the small of her back. Her dress was made of very thin cotton. He could almost feel her skin through it. She felt very soft. Finally he let her feet touch the ground. Tatiana looked up at him. His hands remained around her little waist. He wasn’t letting go of her. Was she always this tiny, standing barefoot in front of him? “I like your beard,” Tatiana said, smiling shyly and touching his face. “I love your hair,” Alexander said, pulling on a braid and smiling back. “You’re messy…” He looked her over. “And you’re stunning.” He could not take his eyes off her glorious, eager, vivid lips. They were the color of July tomatoes— He bent to her—

The tightness of genetic linkage, in short, was a surrogate for the physical proximity of genes on chromosomes: by measuring how often two features-blond-hairedness and blue-eyedness-were linked or unlinked, you could measure the distance between their genes on the chromosome.

The girl with the short strawberry-blond hair was in front of her. She cast a glance back at Cassie and faced the front again. Cassie wanted to say hi, but the thought of speaking out loud when no one had called on her made her throat go dry. Instead she planned what she would say

Nervousness from earlier surged back into me. Goodness. He was honey poured over an athletic body. Short, sandy-blond curls outlined his face, which boasted full lips, high cheek bones, and long lashes that any woman would envy. Even with those soft features, his face appeared hard and sculpted by an artist.

Anney makes the best gravy in the county, the sweetest biscuits, and puts just enough vinegar in those greens. Glenn nodded, though the truth was he’d never had much of a taste for greens, and his well-educated mama had always told him that gravy was bad for the heart. So he was not ready for the moment when Mama pushed her short blond hair back and set that big plate of hot food down in front of his open hands. Glenn took a bite of gristly meat and gravy, and it melted between his teeth. The greens were salt sweet and fat rich. His tongue sang to his throat; his neck went loose, and his hair fell across his face. It was like sex, that food, too good to waste on the middle of the day and a roomful of men too tired to taste. He chewed, swallowed began to come alive himself. He began to feel for the first time like one of the boys, a grown man accepted by the notorious and dangerous Earle Boatwright, staring across the counter at one of the prettiest woman he’d ever seen. His face went hot, and he took a big drink of ice tea to cool himself.

How many years have passed since that far-off June afternoon? More than thirty. And yet, if I close my eyes, Micòl Finzi-Contini is still there, leaning over her garden wall, looking at me and talking to me. In 1929 Micòl was little more than a child, a thin, blond thirteen-year old with large, clear, magnetic eyes. And I was a boy in short trousers, very bourgeois and very vain, whom a small academic setback was sufficient to cast down into the most childish desperation. We both fixed our eyes on each other. Above her head the sky was a compact blue, a warm already summer sky without the slightest cloud. Nothing, it seemed, would be able to alter it, and nothing indeed has altered it, at least in memory.

I married an American man I met in a supermarket parking lot. He worked in construction, and when I met him he was sitting in his truck swallowing beer. I fell in love with his arms; they were golden from the sun and a thin film of dust glistened on his blonde hairs. These are the things of love, my father once told me. “Cuídese, mi hija. It only takes one thing.

The girl was undeniably beautiful. She was tall, with a spectacular figure. Her white dress, shimmering with crystal beads, was cut low enough to prove the authenticity of her remarkable cleavage. Her long hair was almost white in its blondeness. But it was her face that held Anne’s attention, a face so naturally beautiful that it came as a startling contrast to the theatrical beauty of her hair and figure. It was a perfect face with a fine square jaw, high cheekbones and intelligent brow. The eyes seemed warm and friendly, and the short, straight nose belonged to a beautiful child, as did the even white teeth and little-girl dimples. It was an innocent face, a face that looked at everything with breathless excitement and trusting enthusiasm, seemingly unaware of the commotion the body was causing. A face that glowed with genuine interest in each person who demanded attention, rewarding each with a warm smile. The body and its accouterments continued to pose and undulate for the staring crowd and flashing cameras, but the face ignored the furor and greeted people with the intimacy of meeting a few new friends at a gathering.

continued. “The solution to almost every problem imaginable can be found in the outcome of a fairy tale. Fairy tales are life lessons disguised with colorful characters and situations. “‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf ’ teaches us the value of a good reputation and the power of honesty. ‘Cinderella’ shows us the rewards of having a good heart. ‘The Ugly Duckling’ teaches us the meaning of inner beauty.” Alex’s eyes were wide, and she nodded in agreement. She was a pretty girl with bright blue eyes and short strawberry-blonde hair that was always kept neatly out of her face with a headband. The way the other students stared at their teacher, as if the lesson being taught were in another language, was something Mrs. Peters had never grown accustomed to. So, Mrs. Peters would often direct entire lessons to the front row, where Alex sat. Mrs. Peters was a tall, thin woman who always wore dresses that resembled old, patterned sofas. Her hair was dark and curly and sat perfectly on the top of her head like a hat (and her students often thought it was). Through a pair of thick glasses, her eyes were permanently squinted from all the judgmental looks she had given her classes over the years. “Sadly, these timeless tales are no longer relevant in our society,” Mrs. Peters said. “We have traded their brilliant teachings for small-minded entertainment like television and video games. Parents now let obnoxious cartoons and violent movies influence their children. “The only exposure to the tales some children acquire are versions bastardized by film companies. Fairy

FATHER FORGETS W. Livingston Larned Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside. There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor. At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, “Goodbye, Daddy!” and I frowned, and said in reply, “Hold your shoulders back!” Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive—and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father! Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. “What is it you want?” I snapped. You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs. Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding—this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years. And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed! It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: “He is nothing but a boy—a little boy!” I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf ’ teaches us the value of a good reputation and the power of honesty. ‘Cinderella’ shows us the rewards of having a good heart. ‘The Ugly Duckling’ teaches us the meaning of inner beauty.” Alex’s eyes were wide, and she nodded in agreement. She was a pretty girl with bright blue eyes and short strawberry-blonde hair that was always kept neatly out of her face with a headband.

Maybe he’s still in the forces, his dark-blond curls now greying and cut military-grade short, his freckles perhaps fading with age. I picture him in his uniform, shiny medals with colourful ribbons attached to his jacket, rewards for successful tours of duty. But while I might no longer recognise him if he stood in front of me, I’d like to think that he is every inch the hero to others today as he was to me back then.

Look at your hair!” she says, moving her hand toward my short hair but not actually touching it. “It’s so different.” I am stronger than when I knew them. I stand straighter. I am more patient. I hold fewer grudges. I am more thankful for what I have, less resentful for what I don’t. I am less restless. I read a lot more books. I play the piano. I’m engaged. But, of course, she can’t see all that. The only change she can see is my short, blond hair.

Irma, she said. But I had started to walk away. I heard her say some more things but by then I had yanked my skirt up and was running down the road away from her and begging the wind to obliterate her voice. She wanted to live with me. She missed me. She wanted me to come back home. She wanted to run away. She was yelling all this stuff and I wanted so badly for her to shut up. She was quiet for a second and I stopped running and turned around once to look at her. She was a thimble-sized girl on the road, a speck of a living thing. Her white-blond hair flew around her head like a small fire and it was all I could see because everything else about her blended in with the countryside. He offered you a what? she yelled. An espresso! I yelled back. It was like yelling at a shorting wire or a burning bush. What is it? she said. Coffee! I yelled. Irma, can I come and live-- I turned around again and began to run.

Darce and Jill were an odd couple—especially when we all were kids. Darcy was short and small with chin-length black hair. My wife was always cute and approachable. Jill was as tall as most boys. Her straight blond hair cascaded down to her butt. She floated through the high school hallways like a goddess. I would have never dreamed of speaking to her back then. As adults, Jill was the one who was always nervously telling jokes and Darcy was the one who was always quick to laugh, throwing her head back and roaring with her mouth wide open. My wife was easy to please and Jill was a pleaser. Jill’s looks often made other girls self-conscious but my wife was always very comfortable in her own skin. Jill was impulsive. Darcy was thoughtful. All of the Jill and Darcy puzzle pieces just naturally snapped together. For every tab, knob, and loop one had, the other had a corresponding blank, hole, or socket. They were a perfect fit.

He has left out details of the barbershop he visited, in which he was shown to a windowless room behind a red curtain, where a short man in the pastor’s same shirt quickly dispensed with his beard (unasked) and the hair on the side of Less’s head, leaving only the blond wisp at the top, and then asked: “Massage?” This turned out to be a series of thumpings and slaps, a general pummeling, as if to extract military secrets, ending with four resounding wallops across the face.

She was a beauty queen!'' ''Holy shit.'' Harrison dissolved into a fit of laughter. ''No way is Redding pulling that one off. Look at her. Her hair's shorter than mine. ''My hair is convenient for my job,'' I said, running a hand over inch-long, blond locks that had been trapped under a hot wig the day before, ''and besides, I thought short hair was fashionable.'' ''Short, yes,'' Harrison said, ''but you're sporting the Britney Spears Nervous Breakdown style. Not a hit among men or the beauty pageant circuit

Her name was Pilar Ternera. She had been part of the exodus that ended with the founding of Macondo, dragged along by her family in order to separate her from the man who had raped her at fourteen and had continued to love her until she was twenty-two, but who never made up his mind to make the situation public because he was a man apart. He promised to follow her to the ends of the earth, but only later on, when he put his affairs in order, and she had become tired of waiting for him, always identifying  him with the tall and short, blond and brunet men that her cards promised from land and sea within three days, three months, or three years. With her waiting she had lost the strength of her thighs, the firmness of her breasts, her habit of tenderness, but she kept the madness of her heart intact. Maddened by that prodigious plaything, José Arcadio followed her path every night through the labyrinth of the room. On a certain occasion he found the door barred, and he knocked several times, knowing that if he had the boldness to knock the first time he would have had to knock until the last, and after an interminable wait she opened the door for him. During the day, lying down to dream, he would secretly enjoy the memories of the night before. But when she came into the house, merry, indifferent, chatty, he did not have to make any effort to hide his tension, because that woman, whose explosive laugh frightened off the doves, had nothing to do with the invisible power that taught him how to breathe from within  and control his heartbeats, and that had permitted him to understand why man are afraid of death.

Rosalind was the kind of girl who didn’t have to try very hard; she just drew men like moths to a flame. A natural ash blonde with unbelievably dark blue eyes, she had a near perfect figure, always wore the trendiest gear and said exactly the right witty things. Not like me. I’m no raving beauty by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve got masses of dark unruly hair which just sort-of hangs around, and I buy only clothes which suit me regardless of fashion. I wouldn’t be seen dead in a mini-skirt – as I’m rather tall with long slim legs, I think I’d look like Olive Oyl.

Kerah!" "Opal, finally, you little puke," Ronan said. A creature capered from between the woods, a scrawny, hollow-eyed child. She wore an oversized cable-knit sweater and a skullcap pulled down low over her short white-blond hair. Someone might have mistaken her for a human girl if not for her legs, which were densely furred and ended in hooves. "I told you, that's Chansaw's word. You have lips. Call me Ronan," he told her. The little creature threw her arms around his legs and then pranced around him in a hectic circle, her hooves leaving divots. He lifted a foot. "That was my food, come on.

Nothing short of Trump shooting my daughter in the street and my grandchildren” can dissuade me from voting for Trump, a woman told Ashley Parker of the New York Times. So imagine how you would feel if every time you turned on NBC, you saw my reporting on this figure you love—this figure you think will lift you up, save your job, make your country great again. Imagine how you’d feel if every night and all day this little blond-haired girl was shining a critical light on your beloved figure. Who is she to question his plans? Double-check his statements? Follow up on his promises? You would hate me. And people do.

Galen slides into his desk, unsettled by the way the sturdy blond boy talking to Emma casually rests his arm on the back of her seat. "Good morning," Galen says, leaning over to wrap his arms around her, nearly pulling her from the chair. He even rests his cheek against hers for good measure. "Good morning...er, Mark, isn't it?" he says, careful to keep his voice pleasant. Still, he glances meaningfully at the masculine arm still lining the back of Emma's seat, almost touching her. To his credit-and safety-Mark eases the offending limb back to his own desk, offering Emma a lazy smile full of strikingly white teeth. "You and Forza, huh? Did you clear that with his groupies?" She laughs and gently pries Galen's arms off her. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the eruption of pink spreading like spilled paint over her face. She's not used to dating him yet. Until about ten minutes ago, he wasn't used to it either. Now though, with the way Mark eyes her like a tasty shellfish, playing the role of Emma's boyfriend feels all too natural. The bell rings, saving Emma from a reply and saving Mark thousands of dollars in hospital bills. Emma shoots Galen a withering look, which he deflects with that he hopes is an enchanting grin. He measures his success by the way her blush deepens but stops short when he notices the dark circles under her eyes. She didn't sleep last night. Not that he thought she would. She'd been quiet on the flight home from Destin two nights ago. He didn't pressure her to talk about it with him, mostly because he didn't know what to say once the conversation got started. So many times, he's started to assure her that he doesn't see her as an abomination, but it seems wrong to say it out loud. Like he's willfully disagreeing with the law. But how could those delicious-looking lips and those huge violet eyes be considered an abomination? What's even crazier is that not only does he not consider her an abomination, the fact that she could be a Half-Breed ignited a hope in him he's got no right to feel: Grom would never mate with a half human. At least, Galen doesn't think he would. He glances at Emma, whose silky eyelids don't even flutter in her state of light sleep. When he clears his throat, she startles. "Thank you," she mouths to him as she picks her pencil back up, using the eraser to trace the lines in her textbook as she reads. He acknowledges with a nod. He doesn't want to leave her like this, anxious and tense and out of place in her own beautiful skin.

Mott glanced back to nod a hello at me. He and Cregan couldn’t have been designed to look more different from each other. Mott was tall, dark-skinned, and nearly bald. What little hair he did have was black and shaved to his scalp. He was the one by the tavern who’d tripped me when I was trying to escape the butcher. In contrast, Cregan was short — not much taller than I was, and shorter than the tanned boy near me. He was surprisingly pale for a man who likely spent much of his day outdoors, and he had a thick crop of blond hair that he tied back at the nape of his neck. Mott was lean and muscular while Cregan looked softer than I knew him to be, judging by the way he’d clubbed me at the orphanage.

Now Justin stood in our reading room, leaning up against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. He was tall, with a wiry athletic build. Usually, he was Mr. Ultra-Casual, with sun-kissed blond hair that he kept out of his eyes by pushing his sunglasses up on his forehead. Today, that messy blond hair was clean-cut, and he’d traded his typical board shorts and loose T-shirt for a striped shirt and khakis. His father, the mayor of Eastport, was running for re-election. Since the campaign started last month, Justin had become the mayor’s sixteen-year-old sidekick. I’d heard he was spending the summer working for his dad down at the town hall, which would explain the nice clothes. What sucked for me was that the new style fit him. He looked even better, the jerk. “I heard you and Tiffany got into a catfight over me at Yummy’s,” Justin announced with an overconfident grin that pissed me off. I slammed the door behind me. “First off, I dumped a soda over her head. That was it.” “Damn, a catfight sounded much hotter. I was picturing ripped shirts, exposed skin.” I rolled my eyes. “And second, it wasn’t over you, egomaniac. You can date every girl in town as far as I’m concerned. I hate you. I pray every night that you’ll fall victim to some strange and unusual castration accident.” I pointed to the door. “So get the hell out.” His lips twitched, fighting a smile. Ugh. I was going for “crazy ex filled with hate” not “isn’t she cute when she’s mad?” “Feel better after getting all that out?

turns out Jason’s mother is a knock-out. “Hello,” she says in a voice like a songbird. “You must be Murray McBride.” She puts her drink down, stands, and puts her hand out real polite-like. I take it and kiss the soft skin on top. Then I think of Jenny. I’m sure she’s having a good chuckle right about now, watching me flirt with a woman sixty years my junior. So’s the woman next to Jason’s mother, judging by the smile on her face. She stands to greet me too and her hair—with bright purple and blonde streaks—is cut short and spiky. But she’s got a nice smile, too, so I nod to her polite-like. “Ma’am,” I say to Jason’s mother. “You’ve got a wonderful boy here. I’m grateful to have a chance to spend some time with him.” “Well!” she says, and I wonder if she’s ever heard such things about Jason.

In Dream Street there are many theatrical hotels, and rooming houses, and restaurants, and speaks, including Good Time Charley's Gingham Shoppe, and in the summer time the characters I mention sit on the stoops or lean against the railings along Dream Street, and the gab you hear sometimes sounds very dreamy indeed. In fact, it sometimes sounds very pipe-dreamy. Many actors, male and female, and especially vaudeville actors, live in the hotels and rooming houses, and vaudeville actors, both male and female, are great hands for sitting around dreaming out loud about how they will practically assassinate the public in the Palace if ever they get a chance. Furthermore, in Dream Street are always many hand-bookies and horse players, who sit on the church steps on the cool side of Dream Street in the summer and dream about big killings on the races, and there are also nearly always many fight managers, and sometimes fighters, hanging out in front of the restaurants, picking their teeth and dreaming about winning championships of the world, although up to this time no champion of the world has yet come out of Dream Street. In this street you see burlesque dolls, and hoofers, and guys who write songs, and saxophone players, and newsboys, and newspaper scribes, and taxi drivers, and blind guys, and midgets, and blondes with Pomeranian pooches, or maybe French poodles, and guys with whiskers, and night-club entertainers, and I do not know what all else. And all of these characters are interesting to look at, and some of them are very interesting to talk to, although if you listen to several I know long enough, you may get the idea that they are somewhat daffy, especially the horse players.

Before I knew anything about church, I'd assumed that most Christians spoke the same language, shared a sense of fellowship, and beyond minor differences had a faith in common that could transcend political boundaries. But if I had imagined that, initiated as a Christian, I was going to achieve some kind of easy bond with other believers, that fantasy was soon shot. Just a few months after I began going to St. Gregory's, I found myself at a restaurant counter in the Denver airport, waiting for a flight home from a reporting trip. A woman—perhaps noticing the silver crucifix I had recently and self-consciously started to wear around my neck—caught my eye and smiled as she took the stool next to me. She had short blond hair and a cross of her own, and was wearing some kind of sexless denim jumper that reeked of piety. I smiled back, and we exchanged small talk about the weather and flight delays, and then she asked me what I was reading. I showed her the little volume of psalms that I'd borrowed from Rick Fabian. “From my church,” I said proudly. “What church is that?” the woman asked. She leaned forward, in a friendly way. “Saint Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church, in San Francisco,” I said, as her face rearranged itself, froze, and closed. It may have been the “San Francisco,” I realized later, but the city's name was a reasonable stand-in, by that point, for everything conservative Christians had come to hate about the Episcopal Church as a whole: homosexuality; wealth; feminism; and morally relativist, decadent, rudderless liberalism. The church I'd unknowingly landed in turned out to be a scandal, a dirty joke at airport restaurants, a sign—in fact, thank God, a sure bet—that I was going to eat with sinners.

In the year 2000, it was standard practice for the successful chief executive officer of a corporation to shuck his wife of two to three decades’ standing for the simple reason that her subcutaneous packing was deteriorating, her shoulders and upper back were thickening like a shot-putter’s—in short, she was no longer sexy. Once he set up the old wife in a needlepoint shop where she could sell yarn to her friends, he was free to take on a new wife, a “trophy wife,” preferably a woman in her twenties, and preferably blond, as in an expression from that time, a “lemon tart.” What was the downside? Was the new couple considered radioactive socially? Did people talk sotto voce, behind the hand, when the tainted pair came by? Not for a moment. All that happened was that everybody got on the cell phone or the Internet and rang up or E-mailed one another to find out the spelling of the new wife’s first name, because it was always some name like Serena and nobody was sure how to spell it.

Jean Kurek looked a bit like a field mouse herself, with her close-cut gray hair, in her shapeless gray dress—no zippers, no buttons. Stroke clothes. Her appearance was no more or less distinguished than it had been all her sixty-eight years, the most likely description of her a string of negatives. Not really tall or short, you wouldn’t say she’s heavy but she isn’t particularly thin, not ugly, not at all, but not pretty either, her hair is that color that isn’t blond or brown. Arguably, her most striking feature was the absence of any striking feature—though her hair had finally claimed a color, gray. She’d certainly never been considered beautiful, not by anyone other than Cliff, who had been adamant on the point for over forty years; but if she’d ever yearned for greater consensus, that yearning had been tempered by her knowledge of how she would loathe the attention it would bring. Jean had spent a lifetime trying to be inconspicuous, appreciating that nature had given her a head start.

We entered the grove, and a few yards in, the trees opened to another clearing. In the center was a Sunbeam bread truck, the tires missing, mounted on cinder blocks. It had to have been from the 50s. Little Miss Sunbeam, blond curls framing her face, looking down from the side of the truck with one blue eye. The other missing, replaced by a large spot of rust. Innocent and poised, forever taking a bite out of a piece of buttered white bread. The slogan above her head, Reach for Sunbeam! ENERGY-PACKED! Under Miss Sunbeam the truck was lined and stacked head high with crosses of all sizes, the artificial flowers attached to them faded by the sun. I realized they were roadside crosses, many I recognized that were placed at accident scenes along Death Road and disappeared shortly after. An eighteen-foot four-by-four utility pole and meter leaned dangerously inward toward the truck, anchored by nothing but mud and rocks after the rain. A deep cast iron pot sat a few feet in front of the truck surrounded by ashes, bits of charred wood and odd shaped tree stumps.

Kat Godwin, Kipps’s right-hand operative, was a Listener like me, but that was about all we had in common. She was blonde, slim and pouty, which would have given me three good reasons to dislike her even if she’d been a sweet lass who spent her free time tending poorly hedgehogs. In fact she was flintily ambitious and cool-natured, and had less capacity for humour than a terrapin. Jokes made her irritable, as if she sensed something going on around her that she couldn’t understand. She was good-looking, though her jaw was a bit too sharp. If she’d repeatedly fallen over while crossing soft ground, you could have sewn a crop of beans in the chin-holes she left behind. The back of her hair was cut short, but the front hung angled across her brow in the manner of a horse’s flick. Her grey Fittes jacket, skirt and leggings were always spotless, which made me doubt she’d ever had to climb up inside a chimney to escape a Spectre, or battle a Poltergeist in the Bridewell sewers (officially the Worst Job Ever), as I had. Annoyingly, I always seemed to meet her after precisely that kind of incident. Like now

Yeah,” Steiner said. “Anyway, it looks to me like the building’s out of perspective—it’s too big where it is.” The old man nodded. “But it’s a necessary cheat. Otherwise nothing would show but the roof. As for the fallen pillar and statue, forget them—they wouldn’t be visible at all.” She didn’t care about the background; all of her attention was fixed upon the painting’s central figure. At the top of the hill, turned to look down at the ruins of the temple so anyone viewing the picture could only see her back, was a woman. Her hair was blonde, and hung down her back in a plait. Around one of her shapely upper arms—the right—was a broad circle of gold. Her left hand was raised, and although you couldn’t see for sure, it looked as if she was shading her eyes. It was odd, given the thundery, sunless sky, but that was what she appeared to be doing, just the same. She was wearing a short dress—a toga, Rosie supposed—which left one creamy shoulder bare. The garment’s color was a vibrant red-purple. It was impossible to tell what, if anything, she was wearing on her feet; the grass that she was standing in came almost up to her knees, where the toga ended.

It is said there are only two stories—a man goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town; they are both here in mine. I took a journey, and Carolyn came to town. We were at Sea Song. I was washing dishes, Anthony was running on the beach, and John was reading the paper when she walked out of the bedroom, blonde and ten stories high, in a white cotton nightgown with eyelet trim. She walked across the living room and put a hand on my shoulder. She seemed to know me. “Hi, I’m Carolyn. You must be Carole. I forgot a toothbrush. Do you have one I can use?” Her eyes were as big as quarters and blue like a swimming pool and she spoke softly, almost whispering. I thought later, she didn’t want to scare me away. I was wearing red-denim shorts and a white T-shirt tucked in. I remember this because she teased me about it for years. “You should have seen Carole when I met her, this sweet little thing, with her belted shorts and tucked-in shirt.” She told anyone who would listen. We had a story, like an old couple, about how we met, and she loved this part. “What was wrong with wearing a belt?” “Lamb, no one was wearing belted shorts, and red! I thought, ‘Oh, my God, who is this little one?’ ” She made me believe I was captivating

Have you met my new dancer?" The girl approached and he was able to dink in the sigh of her with a slackened jaw. Her short, icy-blonde hair wisped around her face, drawing him in to her deep brown eyes. Her brows had a strong arch to them that made her look as though she was either intrigued or annoyed. Beau didn't care so long as she was looking at him. He liked his lips absently, letting his gaze sweep over her face for a moment more. He couldn't stop his brain from picturing her smearing the shimmering pink gloss from her perfect mouth all over his body. Leaving her mark. He cursed in his thoughts again. Who the hell was this girl and what was she doing to him? He cleared his throat and extended his hand toward her coolly. "Beau Harris, nice to meet you," he said. The corner of the young woman's mouth twitched and she took his hand before her eyes darted to Vanessa. "Beau!" Vanessa barked. He glanced at her and reluctantly dropped the dancer's hand. He looked between the two woman for a moment and tried to keep his gaze up and off the stranger's tight, tanned stomach. "What?" He bit back. Vanessa huffed and a cackled cracked out of her throat. "You losing eyesight in your old age? That's Whitney. My little sister," she said, drawing out her words out like he was an idiot.

From what Harper tells me, you were very brave. I will find the person who did this, okay? They’ll never bother you again. I just need you to tell me whatever you remember about him so that I can find him.” Heidi’s little button nose wrinkled. “Well —” “What did he look like?” Martina interrupted. “Tall? Short?” “He was tall,” said Robbie. “He had broad shoulders.” Heidi nodded. “He —” “What about his hair?” said Martina. “Blond? Red? Brown? Black?” Heidi opened her mouth to answer, but Robbie beat her to it. “He had a buzzcut.” “Did he tell you his name?” Knox asked Heidi. “Yes,” she replied. “He said it was —” “He won’t have given her his real name,” Robbie scoffed. “He could be anyone. I’ve never seen him before.” Heidi did a cute little growl. “Will someone please let me talk? Jeez.” Harper bit her lip, stifling a smile. “They don’t mean to talk over you, Heidi-ho, they’re just anxious. Now what is it you’d like to say?” “He said his name was Dean. I don’t know if it’s true. Check.” She pulled a brown leather wallet out of her pocket and handed it to Knox. Jolene framed her face with her hands, smiling. “You fabulous little girl!” Levi grinned and tugged on one of her ringlets. “You told him he was really tall in that shaky voice to make him bend down so you could rob him, didn’t you?” She grinned back at him. “Uh-huh.

There’s an unexpected lull in the traffic about two-thirds of the way to Darmstadt, and I make the mistake of breathing a sigh of relief. The respite is short-lived. One moment I’m driving along a seemingly empty road, bouncing from side to side on the Smart’s town-car suspension as the hairdryersized engine howls its guts out beneath my buttocks, and the next instant the dashboard in front of me lights up like a flashbulb. I twitch spasmodically, jerking my head up so hard I nearly dent the thin plastic roof. Behind me the eyes of Hell are open, two blinding beacons like the landing lights on an off-course 747. Whoever they are, they’re standing on their brakes so hard they must be smoking. There’s a roar, and then a squat, red Audi sports coupe pulls out and squeezes past my flank close enough to touch, its blonde female driver gesticulating angrily at me. At least I think she’s blonde and female. It’s hard to tell because everything is gray, my heart is trying to exit through my rib cage, and I’m frantically wrestling with the steering wheel to keep the roller skate from toppling over. A fraction of a second later she’s gone, pulling back into the slow lane ahead of me to light off her afterburners. I swear I see red sparks shooting out of her two huge exhaust tubes as she vanishes into the distance, taking about ten years of my life with her.

The girls seemed unconcerned and went about their days, each as lovely in their own way as the flowers they tended. Sorrel's black hair became streaked with premature white, which gave her an exotic air, although the elegance was somewhat ruined by the muddy jeans and shorts she practically lived in. Nettie, on the other hand, had a head of baby-fine blonde hair that she wore short, thinking, wrongly, that it would look less childlike. Nettie wouldn't dream of being caught in dirty jeans and was always crisply turned out in khaki capris or a skirt and a white shirt. She considered her legs to be her finest feature. She was not wrong. Patience was the sole Sparrow redhead, although her hair had deepened from its childhood ginger and was now closer to the color of a chestnut. It was heavy and glossy as a horse's mane, and she paid absolutely no attention to it or to much else about her appearance, nor did she have to. In the summer her wide-legged linen trousers and cut-off shorts were speckled with dirt and greenery, her camisoles tatty and damp. The broad-brimmed hat she wore to pick was most often dangling from a cord down her back. As a result, the freckles that feathered across her shoulders and chest were the color of caramel and resistant to her own buttermilk lotion (Nettie smoothed it on Patience whenever she could make her stand still). When it was terribly hot, Patience wore the sundresses she'd found packed away in the attic. She knew they were her mother's, and she liked to imagine how happy Honor had been in them.

Delbert was the only Bumpus kid in my grade, but they infested Warren G. Harding like termites in an outhouse. There was Ima Jean, short and muscular, who was in the sixth grade, when she showed up, but spent most of her time hanging around the poolroom. There was a lanky, blue-jowled customer they called Jamie, who ran the still and was the only one who ever wore shoes. He and his brother Ace, who wore a brown fedora and blue work shirts, sat on the front steps at home on the Fourth of July, sucking at a jug and pretending to light sticks of dynamite with their cigars when little old ladies walked by. There were also several red-faced girls who spent most of their time dumping dishwater out of windows. Babies of various sizes and sexes crawled about the back yard, fraternizing indiscriminately with the livestock. They all wore limp, battleship-gray T-shirts and nothing else. They cried day and night. We thought that was all of them—until one day a truck stopped in front of the house and out stepped a girl who made Daisy Mae look like Little Orphan Annie. My father was sprinkling the lawn at the time; he wound up watering the windows. Ace and Emil came running out onto the porch, whooping and hollering. The girl carried a cardboard suitcase—in which she must have kept all her underwear, if she owned any—and wore her blonde hair piled high on her head; it gleamed in the midday sun. Her short muslin dress strained and bulged. The truck roared off. Ace rushed out to greet her, bellowing over his shoulder as he ran: “MAH GAWD! HEY, MAW, IT’S CASSIE! SHE’S HOME FROM THE REFORMATORY!” Emil

Legs? Check. I am five foot seven, after all. They’re slender but not too skinny. I run every morning, so my legs have always been slightly muscled, but in a feminine way — at least I hope they look feminine; bulky is not a word I’d want someone to use. I think the not too short, but short enough to still be very stylish, pleated and thickly cuffed navy blue shorts show my legs off nicely. My cork and white wedges with a cute little bow at each ankle are the perfect finishing touch. A simple dove-gray ribbed tank completes the outfit and hugs my curves. Maybe there is something to Mel’s theory after all.  My golden-blonde hair is sun-kissed in the summer, and its soft waves cascade to the middle of my back. I usually have it up, but tonight Melanie insisted that I leave it down and wavy. I let her play Barbie, and I can’t say I hate it. The real show-stopper, though, is my eyes. They’re a bright, vibrant green. They look almost fake, but as I lean into the mirror to get a closer look, I catch small little flecks of gold around the outside that I know no contact lens could replicate. I have always loved my eyes. I have my mother’s eyes. I’ve seen them in the few pictures I have from my childhood. Even if my eyes were the murkiest, dingiest, dullest brown, I still would have loved them, as long as they were my mother’s. It’s really the only thing I have left of her.  I gave in on the hair and let Melanie have a field day, but I insisted on keeping my makeup simple — a soft pale pink blush, clear lip gloss, and a light dusting of gold eye shadow is all I need. A quick swipe of some mascara, and the look is complete.

I turned and there he stood, wearing a loose T-shirt and sweatpants. A modest shapechanger, how refreshing. You wouldn’t even know that he had changed, save for the glistening sheen of dampness on his skin. He looked me over slowly, judging, taking my measure. I could blush demurely or I could do the same to him. I chose not to blush. A couple of inches taller than me, the Beast Lord gave an impression of coiled power. Easy, balanced stance. Blond hair, cut too short to grab. At first glance he looked to be in his early to mid-twenties, but his build betrayed him. His shoulders strained his T-shirt. His back was broad and corded with muscle, showing the power and strength a man developed in his early thirties. “What kind of a woman greets the Beast Lord with ‘here, kitty, kitty’?” he asked. “One of a kind.” I murmured the obvious reply. Eventually I had to look him in the eye. Better sooner than later. The Beast Lord had a strong square jaw. His nose was narrow with a misshapen bridge, as though it had been broken more than once and hadn’t healed right. Considering the regenerative powers of the shapechangers, someone must’ve pounded his face with a sledgehammer. Our stares met. Little golden sparks danced in his gray eyes. His gaze made me want to bow my head and look away. He regarded me as if I was an interesting new snack. “I’m the lord of the Free Beasts,” he said. “I figured.” Perhaps he expected me to curtsy. He leaned forward a little, puzzling over me as if I were an odd-looking insect. “Why would a knight-protector hire a no-name merc to investigate the death of his diviner?” I gave him my best cryptic smile.

Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside. There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor. At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, ‘Goodbye, Daddy!’ and I frowned, and said in reply, ‘Hold your shoulders back!’ Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive – and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father! Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. ‘What is it you want?’ I snapped. You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs. Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding – this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years. And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed! It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: ‘He is nothing but a boy – a little boy!’ I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much. Instead of condemning people, let’s try to understand them. Let’s try to figure out why they do what they do. That’s a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. ‘To know all is to forgive all.

She sits with shoulders slumped, staring at the wall, waiting for an answer, waiting to feel some joy. She's holding her breath without knowing it, listening to her body like a pregnant woman, listening, bending down deep into herself. But nothing stirs, everything is silent and empty like a forest when no birds are singing. She tries harder, this twenty-eight-year-old woman, to remember what it is to be happy, and with alarm she realizes that she no longer knows, that it's like a foreign language she learned in childhood but has now forgotten, remembering only that she knew it once. When was the last time I was happy? She thinks hard, and two little lines are etched in her bowed forehead. Gradually it comes to her: an image as though from a dim mirror, a thin-legged blond girl, her schoolbag swinging above her short cotton skirt. A dozen other girls are swirling about her: it's a game of rounders in a park in suburban Vienna. A surge of laughter, a bright trill of high spirits following the ball into the air, now she remembers how light, how free that laughter felt, it was never far away, it tickled under her skin, it swirled through her blood; one shake and it would spill out over her lips, it was so free, almost too free: on the school bench you had to hug yourself and bite your lip to keep from laughing at some funny remark or silliness in French class. Any little thing would set off waves of that effervescent girlish laughter. A teacher who stammered, a funny face in the mirror, a cat chasing its tail, a look from an officer on the street, any little thing, any tiny, senseless bit of nonsense, you were so full of laughter that anything could bring it out. It was always there and ready to erupt, that free, tomboyish laughter, and even when she was asleep, its high-spirited arabesque was traced on her young mouth.

There was a man in the garden with the little girl. He was turning over the soil in a garden bed. He had obviously heard the car, because he raised his hand in greeting, but then he had gone back to his work. He had actually turned his back on the car. Tina thought she knew what that meant. The man had not wanted to see Pete the policeman. Maybe he thought Pete was bringing bad news. Tina smiled. Here was good news. Finally, here was good news for this family. The man dug the garden fork into the soil with a little bit of effort. He was deliberately not looking at Pete. The little girl walked down the driveway towards them. Pete said quietly, ‘No real way to prepare them. You go ahead, Lockie.’ Lockie squeezed Tina’s hand. ‘Go on, Lockie, it’s your dad. He’s been looking for you for a long time. Go on.’ She pulled her hand slowly out of Lockie’s grip. She wanted to save him from his fear, but she had saved him once. Lockie would have to do this by himself. The little girl who was surely Sammy looked back at her father, but he was still concentrating on his work. She smiled in Pete’s direction and then she focused on Lockie. She stared at him, as if trying to work out exactly who he was. Lockie pushed his hood back, exposing his short blond hair. He stood, and Tina could sense him holding his breath, waiting for his sister to see him. To really see him. Sammy stared hard at Lockie now, frowning. And then Tina saw recognition light up her face. She looked at her father who had still not looked up. She looked back at Lockie. She started jumping up and down. ‘Lockie!’ she screamed. ‘Lockie, Lockie, Lockie!’ Lockie smiled.The man jerked upright and dropped the garden fork. ‘Stop that, Samantha,’ he whispered angrily. ‘Jesus, stop that! Be quiet. Stop that.’ ‘Lockie, Lockie, Lockie!’ The little girl flew down the driveway and launched herself at her brother, who went, ‘Oof,’ but he steadied himself and wrapped his arms around her. ‘Lockie, Lockie, Lockie,’ she repeated, as if to make the moment real for herself. The man stood and stared at his children, still without realising that he was indeed looking at both his children. He started walking down the driveway. He began with an angry quick stride but the closer he got the more unsure his steps became. He was a big man in charge of a big farm but his steps became small and faltering. Tina could see the disbelief spreading across his face. Sammy let go of Lockie and took his hand. She started pulling him up the driveway. ‘It’s Lockie, Dad. Look, it’s Lockie, come look, Dad, Lockie’s home. He’s home, Dad. I knew he home. He’s home, Dad. I knew he would come home. I told you, Dad. Look its Lockie. Lockie, Lockie, Lockie’s home. Lockie’s home.’ The man stopped a few feet away from Lockie. His mouth was open. He moved it once or twice, but no words came out, and then came a sound that Tina had never heard before. It was a moaning, keening sound, but rough with the depth of his voice. It was four months of agony and the ecstasy of this moment all rolled into one. It was his heart right out there in the open for everyone to see. He opened his arms and dropped to his knees. Lockie let go of Sammy’s hand and continued alone up the driveway towards his father. He was twisting his hands and pulling at his jumper. He walked into his father’s arms and was completely surrounded by the large man. ‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, Dad, I’m sorry.’ At the bottom of the driveway Tina watched Lockie and his father. Lockie’s voice was muffled by his father’s arms, but Tina could still hear him repeating, ‘I’m sorry.’ Say it, Tina begged the man silently. Please, please, just say it. ‘Oh, Lockie,’ said the man through his tears, his large shoulders heaving. ‘It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault. I’m sorry, Lockie. I’m sorry. I’ve been looking for you, Lockie. Where did you go, mate? Where did you go?

Do you remember that I said I have something to show you?" Back when they were entering the house. Before she'd seen Hugh. Before their argument. "Yes?" He pushed open the door to her bedroom. "Look." She went inside and saw Valente sitting on the floor in front of her fireplace with a basket. He had a silly grin on his face. She glanced over her shoulder to Raphael. "What-?" Her husband tilted his chin toward Valente and the basket. "Go and see." At the same time she heard an animal whimper. Her lips parted and she picked up her skirts to hurry to the basket. It was lined with a soft blanket and inside was the sweetest little blond puppy, looking very sorry for itself. Iris stared, torn. Did Raphael think a 'puppy' would be an adequate substitution for him? The moment the puppy saw her it began whimpering and yipping, trying to climb from its wicker prison, but its legs were too short to make the attempt and it ended by falling backward, revealing that it was female. It was hardly the puppy's fault that she was angry with Raphael. "Oh," Iris breathed, sinking to her knees on the carpet opposite Valente. "She's perfect." Somehow the words made tears start in her eyes again. She picked up the puppy, which wriggled in Iris's hands until she held the small animal against her chest. The puppy promptly began licking Iris's chin with a tiny pink tongue. Iris looked up at Raphael through her tears. "What is her name?" He shook his head. "She has none that I know of. You must give her one." Iris stood, cradling the still-squirming puppy carefully, and went to her husband. "Thank you." She stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the lips, trying to convey all she'd said before. All he'd pushed aside. 'Stay. Stay. Stay.' Raphael took her arms gently and kissed her, angling his face over hers. He embraced her as if she were a lifeline. As if he wished to remain with her forever. The puppy yelped and he took a step back, breaking the kiss. Drawing away from her without effort. He walked out of the bedroom. Iris closed her eyes to keep her sorrow and tears in. She kissed the top of the puppy's silky head and whispered in her ear, "Tansy.

Just above Tommy’s face were the Maiden and the Troll, two of his oldest wall people. The troll lived in a cave deep in the woods. He was big (Tommy knew the troll was even bigger than his daddy, and if the troll told his daddy to sit down and shut up, he would in a second), and he looked scary, with his little eyes and crooked teeth like fangs, but he had a secret. The secret was that he wasn’t scary at all. He liked to read, and play chess by mail with a gnome from over by the closet wall, and he never killed anything. The troll was a good troll, but everyone judged him by his looks. And that, Tommy knew, was a mean thing to do, though everyone did it. The maiden was very beautiful. Even more beautiful than Tommy’s mommy. She had long blonde hair that fell in heavy curls to her waist, and big blue eyes, and she always smiled even though her family was poor. She came into the woods near the troll’s cave to get water from a spring, for her family. The spring bubbled out of Tommy’s wall right next to where his hand lay when he was asleep. Sometimes she only came and filled her jug and left. But other times she would sit awhile, and sing songs of love lost, and sailing ships, and the kings and queens of Elfland. And the troll, so hideous and so kind, would listen to her soft voice from the shadows just inside the entrance of his cave, which sat just below the shelf where Tommy kept his favorite toys and books. Tommy felt bad for the troll. He loved the maiden who came to his spring, but she would never love him. He knew from listening to his parents and the stuff they watched on television when he was supposed to be asleep that beautiful people didn’t love ugly people. Ugly people were either to laugh at or to be frightened of. That was how the whole world worked. Tommy rolled over on his side, just a small seven year old boy in tan cargo shorts and a plain white T-shirt. He let his eyes drift over the bedroom wall, which was lumpy in some places and just gone in others. There was a part of the wall down near the floor where he could see the yellow light of the naked bulb down in the basement, and sometimes he wondered what might live down there. Nothing good, of that he was sure.

Now Janie ordered a drink and glanced at the bar menu, choosing the goat curry because she'd never had it before. "You sure about that?" the barman said. He was a boy, really, no more than twenty, with a slim body and huge, laughing eyes. "It's spicy." "I can take it," she said, smiling at him, wondering if she might pull an adventure out of her hat on her next-to-last night, and what it would be like to touch another body again. But the boy simply nodded and brought her the dish a short time later, not even watching to see how she fared with it. The goat curry roared in her mouth. "I'm impressed. I don't think I could eat that stuff," remarked the man sitting two seats down from her. He was somewhere in the midst of middle age, a bust of a man, all chest and shoulders, with a ring of blond, bristling hair circling his head like the laurels of Julius Caesar and a boxer's nose beneath bold, undefeated eyes. He was the only other guest that wasn't with the wedding party. She'd seen him around the hotel and on the beach and had been uninspired by his business magazines, his wedding ring. She nodded back at him and took an especially large spoonful of curry, feeling the heat oozing from every pore. "Is it good?" "It is, actually," she admitted, "in a crazy, burn-your-mouth-out kind of way." She took a sip of the rum and Coke she'd ordered; it was cold and startling after all that fire. "Yeah?" He looked from her plate to her face. The tops of his cheeks and his head were bright pink, as if he'd flown right up to the sun and gotten away with it. "Mind if I have a taste?" She stared at him, a bit nonplussed, and shrugged. What the hell. "Be my guest." He moved quickly over to the seat next to hers. He picked up her spoon and she watched as it hovered over her plate and then dove down and scooped a mouthful of her curry, depositing between his lips. "Jee-sus," he said. He downed a glass of water. "Jee-sus Christ." But he was laughing as he said it, and his brown eyes were admiring her frankly over the rim of his water glass. He'd probably noticed her smiling at the bar boy and decided she was up for something. But was she? She looked at him and saw it all instantaneously: the interest in his eyes, the smooth, easy way he moved his left hand slightly behind the roti basket, temporarily obscuring the finger with the wedding ring.

Engine room fire alarm’?” Rusty said. There was a moment of confusion before it kicked in. “ENGINE ROOM FIRE ALARM?” * * * “What the hell is that sound?” Harvey Tharpe said, rubbing his eyes as he opened the cabin door. Being on this yacht was better than being on the lifeboat but not much. They were packed in like sardines. There was food but being woken up in the middle of the night by a blaring “Squeee! Squeee! ” was not his idea of fun. The former businessman had been “robust” before being cast adrift on a lifeboat in a zombie apocalypse. He still had his height and some solidity. So he was more than a bit surprised when the short, blonde skipper of the boat, wearing not much more than a camisole and panties smashed him out of the way like an NFL linebacker on her way aft. “MOVE PEOPLE!” the boat captain shouted, continuing to hammer her way through the crowd of refugees. * * * “Fuck a freaking duck,” Sophia said, opening the door to the engine compartment. The smoke wasn’t so bad she needed a respirator but it was bad. And they were dead in the water. All the power except the shrieking alarm was out. She threw the main battery disconnect, then picked up one of the industrial fire extinguishers and played it over the exterior of the main breakers which were the source of the fire. “Skipper?” Paula said, picking another one up. “We need to get it open before we use them all up,” Sophia said, putting her hand on the extinguisher. “Get Rusty to get all the passengers up, out and on the sundeck.” She slid one hand into a rubber glove and popped open the main breaker panel. The whole thing was smoldering so she played the rest of the fire extinguisher over it until it was cold. A tick checker showed that the whole thing was electrically cold as well. Now if only the batteries hadn’t discharged their whole load into the panel and killed themselves as well. “What can I do, Skipper?” Patrick said groggily. The “engineer” was wearing not much more than the skipper. “Get a hand-held,” Sophia said. “See if there’s a sub in range. Tell them we had a major electrical fire. Fire is under control. No power at this time. May be repairable but we may need assistance. Don’t at this time but may. Got it? Do not call mayday or PON-PON. Do not.” “Got it, Skipper,” Patrick said. “And get these people the HELL OUT OF MY ENGINE COMPARTENT!

Thomas (his middle name) is a fifth-grader at the highly competitive P.S. 334, the Anderson School on West 84th in New York City. Slim as they get, Thomas recently had his long sandy-blond hair cut short to look like the new James Bond (he took a photo of Daniel Craig to the barber). Unlike Bond, he prefers a uniform of cargo pants and a T-shirt emblazoned with a photo of one of his heroes: Frank Zappa. Thomas hangs out with five friends from the Anderson School. They are “the smart kids.” Thomas is one of them, and he likes belonging. Since Thomas could walk, he has constantly heard that he’s smart. Not just from his parents but from any adult who has come in contact with this precocious child. When he applied to Anderson for kindergarten, his intelligence was statistically confirmed. The school is reserved for the top 1 percent of all applicants, and an IQ test is required. Thomas didn’t just score in the top 1 percent. He scored in the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent. But as Thomas has progressed through school, this self-awareness that he’s smart hasn’t always translated into fearless confidence when attacking his schoolwork. In fact, Thomas’s father noticed just the opposite. “Thomas didn’t want to try things he wouldn’t be successful at,” his father says. “Some things came very quickly to him, but when they didn’t, he gave up almost immediately, concluding, ‘I’m not good at this.’ ” With no more than a glance, Thomas was dividing the world into two—things he was naturally good at and things he wasn’t. For instance, in the early grades, Thomas wasn’t very good at spelling, so he simply demurred from spelling out loud. When Thomas took his first look at fractions, he balked. The biggest hurdle came in third grade. He was supposed to learn cursive penmanship, but he wouldn’t even try for weeks. By then, his teacher was demanding homework be completed in cursive. Rather than play catch-up on his penmanship, Thomas refused outright. Thomas’s father tried to reason with him. “Look, just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you don’t have to put out some effort.” (Eventually, Thomas mastered cursive, but not without a lot of cajoling from his father.) Why does this child, who is measurably at the very top of the charts, lack confidence about his ability to tackle routine school challenges? Thomas is not alone. For a few decades, it’s been noted that a large percentage of all gifted students (those who score in the top 10 percent on aptitude tests) severely underestimate their own abilities. Those afflicted with this lack of perceived competence adopt lower standards for success and expect less of themselves. They underrate the importance of effort, and they overrate how much help they need from a parent.

Lark wrapped an arm around me and started to speak until Bailey’s startled voice interrupted us. A huge football player had her pinned against the wall and she was yelling for him to back off. Instead, he crowded her more while playing with her blonde hair. “Hey!” I yelled as Lark and I rushed over. Six four and wide shouldered, the guy was wasted and angry at the interruption. “Fuck off, bitches,” he muttered. Bailey clawed at his neck, but he had her pinned in a weird way, so she couldn’t get any leverage. While I was ready to jump on him in a weak attempt to save my friend, someone shoved the football player off Bailey. I hadn’t even seen the guy appear, but he stood between Bailey and the pissed jerk. “Fuck off, man,” the asshole said. “She’s mine.” “Nick,” Bailey mumbled, looking ready to cry. “He humped my leg. Crush his skull, will ya?” Nick frowned at Bailey who was leaning on him now. The football player was an inch or two bigger than Nick and outweighed him by probably fifty pounds. Feeling the fight would be short, the asshole reached for Bailey’s arm and Nick nailed the guy in the face. To my shock, the giant asshole collapsed on the ground. “My hero,” Bailey said, looking ready to puke. She caressed Nick’s biceps and asked, “Do you work out?” Running his hands through his dark wavy hair, Nick laughed. “You’re so wasted.” “And you’re like the Energizer Bunny,” she cooed. “My bro said you took a punch, yet kept on ticking.” Nick started to speak then heard the asshole’s friends riled up. I was too drunk to know if everything happened really quickly or if my brain just took awhile to catch up. The guys rushed Nick who dodged most of them and hit another. The room emptied out except for Nick, the guys, and us. I grabbed a beer bottle and threw it at one of the guys shoving Nick. When the bottle hit him in the back, the bastard glared at me. “You want to fight, bitch?” “Leave her alone,” Nick said, kicking one guy into the jerk looking to hit me. As impressive as Nick was against six guys, he was just one guy against six. A losing bet, he took a shot to the face then the gut. Lark grabbed a folding chair and went WWE on one guy. I was tossing beers in the roundabout direction of the other guys. Yet, Bailey was the one who ended the fight by pulling out a gun. “Back the fuck off or I’ll burn this motherfucking house to the ground!” she screamed then fired at a lamp. Everyone stopped and stared at her. When she noticed me wide-eyed, Bailey frowned. “Too much?” Grinning, I followed Lark to the door. Nick followed us while the assholes seemed ready to piss themselves. Well, except for an idiot who looked ready to go for Bailey’s gun. "Dude,” Nick muttered, “that’s Bailey Fucking Johansson. Unless you want to end up in a shallow grave, back the fuck off.” “What he said!” Bailey yelled, waving her gun around before I hurried her out of the door. The cold air sobered up Bailey enough for her to return the gun to her purse. She was still drunk enough to laugh hysterically as we reached the SUV. “Did you see me kill that lamp?” “You did good,” I said, groggy as my adrenaline shifted to nausea and the alcohol threatened to come back up on me. Nick walked us to the SUV. “Next time, you might want to wave the gun around before you get drunk and dance.” “Don’t tell me what to do,” Bailey growled, crawling into the backseat. Then, realizing he saved her, she crawled back to face him. “You were so brave. I should totally get you off as a thank you." “Maybe another time,” he said, laughing as she batted her eyes at him. “Are you guys safe to drive?” Lark nodded. “I’m sober enough to remember everything tomorrow. Trust me that there’ll be mocking.

The opponent seemed to shift slightly in the seat. His index finger tapped a card, just a couple strokes. There it was the card that ruined his hand. Her hazel eyes release the player across from her to steal a glance registering the emotion of observers around the table then to her best friend. Sophie looks like a Nervous Nelly-she, always worries. She knows the girl will put too much emphasis on a lost hand. The striking man with his lusty brown eyes tries to draw Sophie closer. Now that he has folded and left the game, he is unnecessary, and the seasoned flirt easily escapes his reach. He leaves with a scowl; Sophie turns and issues knowing wink. Ell’s focus is now unfettered, freeing her again to bring down the last player. When she wins this hand, she will smile sweetly, thank the boys for their indulgence, and walk away $700 ahead. The men never suspected her; she’s no high roller. She realizes she and Sophie will have to stay just a bit. Mill around and pay homage to the boy’s egos. The real trick will be leaving this joint alone without one of them trying to tag along. Her opponent is taking his time; he is still undecided as to what card to keep—tap, tap. He may not know, but she has an idea which one he will choose. He attempts to appear nonchalant, but she knows she has him cornered. She makes a quick glance for Mr. Lusty Brown-eyes; he has found a new dame who is much more receptive than Sophie had been. Good, that small problem resolved itself for them. She returns her focuses on the cards once more and notes, her opponent’s eyes have dilated a bit. She has him, but she cannot let the gathering of onlookers know. She wants them to believe this was just a lucky night for a pretty girl. Her mirth finds her eyes as she accepts his bid. From a back table, there is a ruckus indicating the crowd’s appreciation of a well-played game as it ends. Reggie knew a table was freeing up, and just in time, he did not want to waste this evening on the painted and perfumed blonde dish vying for his attention. He glances the way of the table that slowly broke up. He recognizes most of the players and searches out the winner amongst them. He likes to take on the victor, and through the crowd, he catches a glimpse of his goal, surprised that he had not noticed her before. The women who frequent the back poker rooms in speakeasies all dress to compete – loud colors, low bodices, jewelry which flashes in the low light. This dame faded into the backdrop nicely, wearing a deep gray understated yet flirty gown. The minx deliberately blended into the room filled with dark men’s suits. He chuckles, thinking she is just as unassuming as can be playing the room as she just played those patsies at the table. He bet she had sat down all wide-eyed with some story about how she always wanted to play cards. He imagined she offered up a stake that wouldn’t be large but at the same time, substantial enough. Gauging her demeanor, she would have been bold enough to have the money tucked in her bodice. Those boys would be eager after she teased them by retrieving her stake. He smiled a slow smile; he would not mind watching that himself. He knew gamblers; this one was careful not to call in the hard players, just a couple of marks, which would keep the pit bosses off her. He wants to play her; however, before he can reach his goal, the skirt slips away again, using her gray camouflage to aid her. Hell, it is just as well, Reggie considered she would only serve as a distraction and what he really needs is the mental challenge of the game not the hot release of some dame–good or not. Off in a corner, the pit boss takes out a worn notepad, his meaty hands deftly use a stub of a pencil to enter the notation. The date and short description of the two broads quickly jotted down for his boss Mr. Deluca. He has seen the pair before, and they are winning too often for it to be accidental or to be healthy.

Short blonde hair, big rectangular forehead, like Frankenstein made a second monster, and that monster loved death metal and Twinkies.

The Black Echo (1992) Harry Bosch Series #1 The Black Ice (1993) Harry Bosch Series #2 The Concrete Blonde (1994) Harry Bosch Series #3 The Last Coyote (1995) Harry Bosch Series #4 Trunk Music (1997)

Monday. Cassandra Jones ignored the butterflies in her stomach as she entered her fifth-grade classroom. The weekend had been rather emotional. For the first time since moving to Arkansas, she’d spent the night at a friend Riley Isabel’s house. By the time she went home, she and Riley were no longer friends, all because of a stupid fight over a dog. Her Sunday School teacher had encouraged Cassie to forgive and forget. Cassie waited in the bathroom during break and cornered Riley as soon as she came out of the stall. Riley hesitated, something like fear flashing across her face before her green eyes hardened. “What do you want?” She lifted her chin, the short strawberry-blond hair just grazing her neck. “I wanted to apologize,