Plastic Smile Quotes

I raise a plastic glass. “To family.” “And Faerieland,” says Taryn, raising hers. “And pizza,” says Oak. “And stories,” says Heather. “And new beginnings,” says Vivi. Cardan smiles, his gaze on me. “And scheming great schemes.” To family and Faerieland and pizza and stories and new beginnings and scheming great schemes. I can toast to that.

There was a sad fellow over on a bar stool talking to the bartender, who was polishing a glass and listening with that plastic smile people wear when they are trying not to scream.

Miss Ellis?" Mrs. Perterson says. "It's your turn. Introduce Alex to the class" "This is Alejandro Fuentes. When he wasn't hanging out on street corners and harrassing innocent people this summer, he toured the inside of jails around the city, if you know what i mean. His secret desire is to go to college and become a chemistry teacher, like you Mrs. Peterson." Brittney flashed me a triumpnet smile, thinking she won this round. Guess again, gringa. "This is Brittney Ellis," I say, all eyes focused on me. "This summer she went to the mall, bought new clothes to extend her wardrobe, and spent her daddy's money on plastic surgery to enhance her, ahem, assets. Her secret desire is to date a Mexicano before she graduates." Game on...

It seemed like the best weapons in my life had always been the most innocuous: empty plastic bins, a blank CD, an unmarked syringe, my smile in a dark room.

Plastic ware," he said slowly, "like knives and forks and spoons?" I brushed a bit of dirt off the back of my car—was that a scratch?—and said casually, "Yeah, I guess.Just the basics, you know." "Did you need plastic ware?" he asked. I shrugged. "Because," he went on, and I fought the urge to squirm, "it's so funny, because I need plastic ware. Badly." "Can we go inside, please?" I asked, slamming the trunk shut. "It's hot out here." He looked at the bag again, then at me. And then, slowly, the smile I knew and dreaded crept across his face. "You bought me plastic ware," he said. "Didn't you?' "No," I growled, picking at my license plate. "You did!" he hooted, laughing out loud. "You bought me some forks. And knives. And spoons. Because—" "No," I said loudly. "—you love me!" He grinned, as if he'd solved the puzzler for all time, as I felt a flush creep across my face. Stupid Lissa. I could have killed her. "It was on sale," I told him again, as if this was some kind of an excuse. "You love me," he said simply, taking the bag and adding it to the others. "Only seven bucks," I added, but he was already walking away, so sure of himself. "It was on clearance, for God's sake." "Love me," he called out over his shoulder, in a singsong voice. "You. Love. Me.

My mother tells me that when I meet someone I like, I have to ask them three questions: 1. what are you afraid of? 2. do you like dogs? 3. what do you do when it rains? of those three, she says the first one is the most important. “They gotta be scared of something, baby. Everybody is. If they aren’t afraid of anything, then they don’t believe in anything, either.”I asked you what you were afraid of. “spiders, mostly. being alone. little children, like, the ones who just learned how to push a kid over on the playground. oh and space. holy shit, space.” I asked you if you liked dogs. “I have three.” I asked you what you do when it rains. “sleep, mostly. sometimes I sit at the window and watch the rain droplets race. I make a shelter out of plastic in my backyard for all the stray animals; leave them food and a place to sleep.” he smiled like he knew. like his mom told him the same thing. “how about you?” me? I’m scared of everything. of the hole in the o-zone layer, of the lady next door who never smiles at her dog, and especially of all the secrets the government must be breaking it’s back trying to keep from us. I love dogs so much, you have no idea. I sleep when it rains. I want to tell everyone I love them. I want to find every stray animal and bring them home. I want to wake up in your hair and make you shitty coffee and kiss your neck and draw silly stick figures of us. I never want to ask anyone else these questions ever again.

Women could probably be trained quite easily to see men first as sexual things. If girls never experienced sexual violence; if a girl's only window on male sexuality were a stream of easily available, well-lit, cheap images of boys slightly older than herself, in their late teens, smiling encouragingly and revealing cuddly erect penises the color of roses or mocha, she might well look at, masturbate to, and, as an adult, "need" beauty pornography based on the bodies of men. And if those initiating penises were represented to the girl as pneumatically erectible, swerving neither left nor right, tasting of cinnamon or forest berries, innocent of random hairs, and ever ready; if they were presented alongside their measurements, length, and circumference to the quarter inch; if they seemed to be available to her with no troublesome personality attached; if her sweet pleasure seemed to be the only reason for them to exist--then a real young man would probably approach the young woman's bed with, to say the least, a failing heart.

Plastic people flashing fake smiles at a pretend world.

The girl lives in a beautiful dollhouse made of stone', I wrote one time in my dairy when I was young, my handwriting shaky but sure. 'But beneath her shining plastic smile, there are only screams'.

Anthony raised his red plastic cup to me and shouted something, but it was too hard to hear over the music. “What?” I called back. “You look great!” A goofy smile was plastered on his face. “Oh boy,” Vee said. “Not just a pimp, but a smashed pimp.” “So maybe he’s a little drunk.” “Drunk and hoping to corner you alone in a bedroom upstairs.” Ugh.

Kevin refilled my plastic cup with more box wine. I smiled thanks. Kevin smiled welcome. Jake kicked my ankle.

I wish she knew that there are other options besides “complete and utter breakdown” and “plastic smile, everything's fine." There's a middle ground, waiting to be found.

The reassuring smile was now useless. I was plastic. Everything was veiled. Objectivity, facts, hard information--these were things only in the outline stage. There was nothing tying anything together yet, so the mind built up a defense, and the evidence was restructured, and that was what I tried to do on that morning--to restructure the evidence so it made sense--and that is what I failed at.

Usually at least once in a person's childhood we lose an object that at the time is invaluable and irreplaceable to us, although it is worthless to others. Many people remember that lost article for the rest of their lives. Whether it was a lucky pocketknife, a transparent plastic bracelet given to you by your father, a toy you had longed for and never expected to receive, but there it was under the tree on Christmas... it makes no difference what it was. If we describe it to others and explain why it was so important, even those who love us smile indulgently because to them it sounds like a trivial thing to lose. Kid stuff. But it is not. Those who forget about this object have lost a valuable, perhaps even crucial memory. Becuase something central to our younger self resided in that thing. When we lost it, for whatever reason, a part of us shifted permanently.

I snatched up the cardboard cup, plastered my lips to the plastic sippy-lid and sucked down a scalding hot mouthful. It burned, but I didn’t give a damn. I held the cup to my chest as if it were my most special friend while feeling the instant affect the coffee had on my mood and I smiled. “Hello lover.

MY MOTHER GETS DRESSED It is impossible for my mother to do even the simplest things for herself anymore so we do it together, get her dressed. I choose the clothes without zippers or buckles or straps, clothes that are simple but elegant, and easy to get into. Otherwise, it's just like every other day. After bathing, getting dressed. The stockings go on first. This time, it's the new ones, the special ones with opaque black triangles that she's never worn before, bought just two weeks ago at her favorite department store. We start with the heavy, careful stuff of the right toes into the stocking tip then a smooth yank past the knob of her ankle and over her cool, smooth calf then the other toe cool ankle, smooth calf up the legs and the pantyhose is coaxed to her waist. You're doing great, Mom, I tell her as we ease her body against mine, rest her whole weight against me to slide her black dress with the black empire collar over her head struggle her fingers through the dark tunnel of the sleeve. I reach from the outside deep into the dark for her hand, grasp where I can't see for her touch. You've got to help me a little here, Mom I tell her then her fingertips touch mine and we work her fingers through the sleeve's mouth together, then we rest, her weight against me before threading the other fingers, wrist, forearm, elbow, bicep and now over the head. I gentle the black dress over her breasts, thighs, bring her makeup to her, put some color on her skin. Green for her eyes. Coral for her lips. I get her black hat. She's ready for her company. I tell the two women in simple, elegant suits waiting outside the bedroom, come in. They tell me, She's beautiful. Yes, she is, I tell them. I leave as they carefully zip her into the black body bag. Three days later, I dream a large, green suitcase arrives. When I unzip it, my mother is inside. Her dress matches her eyeshadow, which matches the suitcase perfectly. She's wearing coral lipstick. "I'm here," she says, smiling delightedly, waving and I wake up. Four days later, she comes home in a plastic black box that is heavier than it looks. In the middle of a meadow, I learn a naked more than naked. I learn a new way to hug as I tighten my fist around her body, my hand filled with her ashes and the small stones of bones. I squeeze her tight then open my hand and release her into the smallest, hottest sun, a dandelion screaming yellow at the sky.

You, Doctor Martin, walk from breakfast to madness. Late August, I speed through the antiseptic tunnel where the moving dead still talk of pushing their bones against the thrust of cure. And I am queen of this summer hotel or the laughing bee on a stalk of death. We stand in broken lines and wait while they unlock the doors and count us at the frozen gates of dinner. The shibboleth is spoken and we move to gravy in our smock of smiles. We chew in rows, our plates scratch and whine like chalk in school. There are no knives for cutting your throat. I make moccasins all morning. At first my hands kept empty, unraveled for the lives they used to work. Now I learn to take them back, each angry finger that demands I mend what another will break tomorrow. Of course, I love you; you lean above the plastic sky, god of our block, prince of all the foxes. The breaking crowns are new that Jack wore. Your third eye moves among us and lights the separate boxes where we sleep or cry. What large children we are here. All over I grow most tall in the best ward. Your business is people, you call at the madhouse, an oracular eye in our nest. Out in the hall the intercom pages you. You twist in the pull of the foxy children who fall like floods of life in frost. And we are magic talking to itself, noisy and alone. I am queen of all my sins forgotten. Am I still lost? Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself, counting this row and that row of moccasins waiting on the silent shelf.

She had bits of soul in everything. From her laugh to her tears and in a world of plastic smiles and corrugated feelings, you couldn't help but feel it.

My horizon lightened, I see an old woman. Who is she? Where is she from? Bent over, the ends of her boubou tied behind her, she empties into a plastic bag the left-overs of red rice. Her smiling face tells of the pleasant day she has just had. She wants to take back proof of this to her family, living perhaps in Ouakam, Thiaroye or Pikine. Standing upright, her eyes meeting my disapproving look, she mutters between teeth reddened by cola nuts: 'Lady, death is just as beautiful as life has been.

I raise a plastic glass. 'To family.' 'And Faerieland,' says Taryn, raising hers. 'And pizza,' says Oak. 'And stories,' says Heather. 'And new beginnings,' says Vivi. Cardan smiles, his gaze on me. 'And scheming great schemes.' To family and Faerieland and pizza and stories and new beginnings and scheming great schemes. I can toast to that.

Doctor, teacher, engineer, our Nishat could be anything she wants to be," Abbu says, clapping me on the back proudly. It's the most he's said to me in weeks, but there's a plasticity to his smile, a solemness to his voice. Nishat can be anything she wants to be, except herself.

I’d always hated cocktail parties. And this one was worse than most. Overdressed pseudo–people smiled plastic smiles, told one–upmanship stories with phony self–deprecation, then half–listened with painted–on sincerity to the one–upmanship rebuttals. Mannequins. Robots. Androids. Pseudo–people laboring in the vineyards of pseudo–intellectualism to gather the bitter grapes of self–aggrandizement.

There were waves of genocide that overcame indigenous populations of Oceania and do we have a library of books or films to tell our story? No. We have tourist hula shows and commercials where the “natives” tend to tourists like indentured servants with plastic, lifeless smiles. It’s not such a charming picture, is it? The truth is ugly, but so is ignorance or denial of such atrocities and pain.

By the time she turned fifteen, all of that was gone. She hardly spoke in class. She refused to function in any sort of school event, and rather than discuss her feelings she deferred the world with a hard and perfectly practiced smile. Apparently—if her sister is to be believed—Karen spent every night of her fourteenth year composing that smile in front of a blue plastic handled mirror. Tragically her creation proved flawless and though her near aphonia should have alarmed any adept teacher or guidance counselor, it was invariably rewarded with the pyritic prize of high school popularity.

Don't smile. The queen is going to come at you, and she's going to conjure up a ....machine gun, and your going to counter with a plastic straw.

Ronan wasn’t exactly sure why he was angry. Although Gansey had done nothing to invoke his ire, he was definitely part of the problem. Currently, he propped his cell between ear and shoulder as he eyed a pair of plastic plates printed with smiling tomatoes. His unbuttoned collar revealed a good bit of his collarbone. No one could deny that Gansey was a glorious portrait of youth, the well-tended product of a fortunate and moneyed pairing. Ordinarily, he was so polished that it was bearable, though, because he was clearly not the same species as Ronan’s rough-and-ready family. But tonight, under the fluorescent lights of Dollar City, Gansey’s hair was scuffed and his cargo shorts were a greasy ruin from mucking over the Pig. He was barelegged and sockless in his Top-Siders and very clearly a real human, an attainable human, and this, somehow, made Ronan want to smash his fist through a wall.

My mother tells me that when I meet someone I like, I have to ask them three questions: 1. what are you afraid of? 2. do you like dogs? 3. what do you do when it rains? of those three, she says the first one is the most important. “They gotta be scared of something, baby. Everybody is. If they aren’t afraid of anything, then they don’t believe in anything, either.” I asked you what you were afraid of. “spiders, mostly. being alone. little children, like, the ones who just learned how to push a kid over on the playground. oh and space. holy shit, space.” I asked you if you liked dogs. “I have three.” I asked you what you do when it rains. “sleep, mostly. sometimes I sit at the window and watch the rain droplets race. I make a shelter out of plastic in my backyard for all the stray animals; leave them food and a place to sleep.” he smiled like he knew. like his mom told him the same thing. “how about you?” me? I’m scared of everything. of the hole in the o-zone layer, of the lady next door who never smiles at her dog, and especially of all the secrets the government must be breaking it’s back trying to keep from us. I love dogs so much, you have no idea. I sleep when it rains. I want to tell everyone I love them. I want to find every stray animal and bring them home. I want to wake up in your hair and make you shitty coffee and kiss your neck and draw silly stick figures of us. I never want to ask anyone else these questions ever again.

...a kid, maybe eight years old, ran up and poked her in the ribs with a plastic laser weapon, making electric zinging noises as he repeatedly pulled the trigger. “You’re dead,” he said victoriously. His mother came hurrying up, looking harassed and helpless. “Damian, stop that!” She gave him a smile that was little more than a grimace. “Don’t bother the nice people.” “Shut up,” he said rudely. “Can’t you see they’re Terrons from Vaniot.” The kid poked her in the ribs again. “Ouch!” He made those zinging noises again, taking great pleasure in her discomfort. She plastered a big smile on her face and leaned down closer to precious Damian, then cooed in her most alienlike voice, “Oh, look, a little earthling.” She straightened and gave Sam a commanding look. “Kill it.” Damian’s mouth fell open. His eyes went as round as quarters as he took in the big pistol on Sam’s belt. From his open mouth began to issue a series of shrill noises that sounded like a fire alarm. Sam cursed under his breath, grabbed Jaine by the arm, and began tugging her at a half-trot toward the front of the store. She managed to snag her purse from the buggy as she went past. “Hey, my groceries!” she protested. “You can spend another three minutes in here tomorrow and get them,” he said with pent-up violence. “Right now I’m trying to keep you from getting arrested.” “For what?” she asked indignantly as he dragged her out of the automatic doors. People were turning to look at them, but most were following the sounds of Damian’s shrieks to aisle seven. “How about threatening to kill that brat and causing a riot?” “I didn’t threaten to loll him! I just ordered you to.

His familiar husky voice sent a wave of wistfulness through me. A thousand memories spun in my head, tangling together- a rocky beach strewn with driftwood trees, a garage made of plastic sheds, warm sodas in a paper bag, a tiny room with one too-small shabby loveseat. The laughter in his deep-set black eyes, the feverish heat of his big hand around mine, the flash of his white teeth against his dark skin, his face stretching into the wide smile that had always been like a key to a secret door where only kindred spirits could enter. It felt sort of like homesickness, this longing for the place and person who had sheltered me through my darkest night.

Is that what I think it is?" - Colt "Plastic explosives." - Oz "You have stuff like that lying around your house?" - Colt "Doesn't everybody?" Oz smiled as he walked to the far corner of the bunker, dragging Colt with him.

Why is Anthony Amowitz using his pimp smile on you? Vee asked. I rolled my eyes. "You´re only calling him a pimp because he´s here.At Marcie´s." "Yeah,so?" " He´s being nice" I elbowed her. "Smile back" "Being nice? He´s being horny" Anthony raised his red plastic cup to me and shouted something, but it was too hard to hear over the music. "What?" I called back. " You look great!" A goofy smile was plastered on his face. "Oh boy," Vee said " Not just a pimp, but a smashed pimp." " So maybe he´s a little drunk." " Drunk and hoping to corner you alone in a bedroom upstairs." Ugh. Nora&Vee (p.220)

She toyed around with his smiles and emotions, till they actually turned plastic. And then, She changed the toy…

There was a sad fellow over on a bar stool talking to the bartender, who was polishing a glass and listening with that plastic smile people wear when they are trying not to scream.

The girl lives in a beautiful dollhouse made of stone, I wrote one time in my diary when I was young, my handwriting shaky but sure. But underneath her shining plastic smile, there are only screams.

Tristán had always felt uncomfortable with all those women and their plastic smiles. It reminded him, in a way, that he himself was all plastic and had been sold as easily as the steak the women brought to the table.

Ms. Terwilliger didn’t have a chance to respond to my geological ramblings because someone knocked on the door. I slipped the rocks into my pocket and tried to look studious as she called an entry. I figured Zoe had tracked me down, but surprisingly, Angeline walked in. "Did you know," she said, "that it’s a lot harder to put organs back in the body than it is to get them out?" I closed my eyes and silently counted to five before opening them again. “Please tell me you haven’t eviscerated someone.” She shook her head. “No, no. I left my biology homework in Miss Wentworth’s room, but when I went back to get it, she’d already left and locked the door. But it’s due tomorrow, and I’m already in trouble in there, so I had to get it. So, I went around outside, and her window lock wasn’t that hard to open, and I—” "Wait," I interrupted. "You broke into a classroom?" "Yeah, but that’s not the problem." Behind me, I heard a choking laugh from Ms. Terwilliger’s desk. "Go on," I said wearily. "Well, when I climbed through, I didn’t realize there was a bunch of stuff in the way, and I crashed into those plastic models of the human body she has. You know, the life size ones with all the parts inside? And bam!" Angeline held up her arms for effect. "Organs everywhere." She paused and looked at me expectantly. "So what are we going to do? I can’t get in trouble with her." "We?" I exclaimed. "Here," said Ms. Terwilliger. I turned around, and she tossed me a set of keys. From the look on her face, it was taking every ounce of self-control not to burst out laughing. "That square one’s a master. I know for a fact she has yoga and won’t be back for the rest of the day. I imagine you can repair the damage—and retrieve the homework—before anyone’s the wiser.” I knew that the “you” in “you can repair” meant me. With a sigh, I stood up and packed up my things. “Thanks,” I said. As Angeline and I walked down to the science wing, I told her, “You know, the next time you’ve got a problem, maybe come to me before it becomes an even bigger problem.” "Oh no," she said nobly. "I didn’t want to be an inconvenience." Her description of the scene was pretty accurate: organs everywhere. Miss Wentworth had two models, male and female, with carved out torsos that cleverly held removable parts of the body that could be examined in greater detail. Wisely, she had purchased models that were only waist-high. That was still more than enough of a mess for us, especially since it was hard to tell which model the various organs belonged to. I had a pretty good sense of anatomy but still opened up a textbook for reference as I began sorting. Angeline, realizing her uselessness here, perched on a far counter and swing her legs as she watched me. I’d started reassembling the male when I heard a voice behind me. "Melbourne, I always knew you’d need to learn about this kind of thing. I’d just kind of hoped you’d learn it on a real guy." I glanced back at Trey, as he leaned in the doorway with a smug expression. “Ha, ha. If you were a real friend, you’d come help me.” I pointed to the female model. “Let’s see some of your alleged expertise in action.” "Alleged?" He sounded indignant but strolled in anyways. I hadn’t really thought much about asking him for help. Mostly I was thinking this was taking much longer than it should, and I had more important things to do with my time. It was only when he came to a sudden halt that I realized my mistake. "Oh," he said, seeing Angeline. "Hi." Her swinging feet stopped, and her eyes were as wide as his. “Um, hi.” The tension ramped up from zero to sixty in a matter of seconds, and everyone seemed at a loss for words. Angeline jerked her head toward the models and blurted out. “I had an accident.” That seemed to snap Trey from his daze, and a smile curved his lips. Whereas Angeline’s antics made me want to pull out my hair sometimes, he found them endearing.

Perhaps what I liked far more was the evening. Everything about it thrilled me. Every glance that crossed my own came like a compliment, or like an asking and a promise that simply lingered in midair between me and the world around me. I was electrified — by the chaffing, the irony, the glances, the smiles that seemed pleased I existed, by the buoyant air in the shop that graced everything from the glass door to the petits fours, to the golden ochre spell of plastic glasses filled with scotch whiskey, to Mr. Venga's rolled up sleeves, to the poet himself, down to the spiral staircase where we had congregated with the babe sisters — all seemed to glow with a luster at once spellbound and aroused.

And I would sit there, smiling stupidly and realizing they had no idea how rare and lucky they were, and realizing further that this ignorance of their great good fortune could well be the whole trick of achieving it in the first place.

I have a peculiar affection for McCarthy; nothing serious or personal, but I recall standing next to him in the snow outside the “exit” door of a shoe factory in Manchester, New Hampshire, in February of 1968 when the five o’clock whistle blew and he had to stand there in the midst of those workers rushing out to the parking lot. I will never forget the pain in McCarthy’s face as he stood there with his hand out, saying over and over again: “Shake hands with Senator McCarthy… shake hands with Senator McCarthy… shake hands with Senator McCarthy…,” a tense plastic smile on his face, stepping nervously toward anything friendly, “Shake hands with Senator McCarthy”… but most of the crowd ignored him, refusing to even acknowledge his outstretched hand, staring straight ahead as they hurried out to their cars. There was at least one network TV camera on hand that afternoon, but the scene was never aired. It was painful enough, just being there, but to have put that scene on national TV would have been an act of genuine cruelty.

Wisteria hangs over the eaves like clumps of ghostly grapes. Euphorbia's pale blooms billow like sea froth. Blood grass twists upward, knifing the air, while underground its roots go berserk, goosing everything in their path. A magnolia, impatient with vulvic flesh, erupts in front of the living room window. The recovering terrorist--holding a watering can filled with equal parts fish fertilizer and water, paisley gloves right up over her freckled forearms, a straw hat with its big brim shading her eyes, old tennis shoes speckled with dew--moves through her front garden. Her face, she tells herself, like a Zen koan. The look of one lip smiling.

I treasure ruefully some memories of W.H. Auden that go back to the middle 1960s, when he arrived in New Haven to give a reading of his poems at Ezra Stiles College. We had met several times before, in New York City and at Yale, but were only acquaintances. The earlier Auden retains my interest, but much of the frequently devotional poetry does not find me. Since our mutual friend John Hollander was abroad, Auden phoned to ask if he might stay with my wife and me, remarking of his dislike of college guest suites. The poet arrived in a frayed, buttonless overcoat, which my wife insisted on mending. His luggage was an attache case containing a large bottle of gin, a small one of vermouth, a plastic drinking cup, and a sheaf of poems. After being supplied with ice, he requested that I remind him of the amount of his reading fee. A thousand dollars had been the agreed sum, a respectable honorarium more than forty years ago. He shook his head and said that as a prima donna he could not perform, despite the prior arrangement. Charmed by this, I phoned the college master - a good friend - who cursed heartily but doubled the sum when I assured him that the poet was as obdurate as Lady Bracknell in 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. Informed of this yielding, Auden smiled sweetly and was benign and brilliant at dinner, then at the reading, and as he went to bed after we got home.

He opened his mouth for a plastic spoonful of peach. She followed it with a long kiss that tasted of golden syrup. When she broke away from him he was smiling. Nick, Renée, and Allie began to clap, standing in a line behind them. Harper showed them her middle finger and kissed him again.

Are you always going to look this way, August? I mean, can't you get plastic surgery or something?" I smiled and pointed to my face. "Hello?" This is after plastic surgery. Jack clapped his hand over his forehead and started laughing hysterically. "Dude, you should sue your doctor!" he answered between giggles.

So,Batman,eh?" Effing St. Clair. I cross my arms and slouch into one of the plastic seats. I am so not in the mood for this.He takes the chair next to me and drapes a relaxed arm over the back of the empty seat on his other side. The man across from us is engrossed in his laptop,and I pretend to be engrossed in his laptop,too. Well,the back of it. St. Clair hums under his breath. When I don't respond,he sings quietly. "Jingle bells,Batman smells,Robin flew away..." "Yes,great,I get it.Ha ha. Stupid me." "What? It's just a Christmas song." He grins and continues a bit louder. "Batmobile lost a wheel,on the M1 motorway,hey!" "Wait." I frown. "What?" "What what?" "You're singing it wrong." "No,I'm not." He pauses. "How do you sing it?" I pat my coat,double-checking for my passport. Phew. Still there. "It's 'Jingle bells, Batman smells,Robin laid an egg'-" St. Clair snorts. "Laid an egg? Robin didn't lay an egg-" "'Batmobile lost a wheel,and the Joker got away.'" He stares at me for a moment,and then says with perfect conviction. "No." "Yes.I mean,seriously,what's up with the motorway thing?" "M1 motorway. Connects London to Leeds." I smirk. "Batman is American. He doesn't take the M1 motorway." "When he's on holiday he does." "Who says Batman has time to vacation?" "Why are we arguing about Batman?" He leans forward. "You're derailing us from the real topic.The fact that you, Anna Oliphant,slept in today." "Thanks." "You." He prods my leg with a finger. "Slept in." I focus on the guy's laptop again. "Yeah.You mentioned that." He flashes a crooked smile and shrugs, that full-bodied movement that turns him from English to French. "Hey, we made it,didn't we? No harm done." I yank out a book from my backpack, Your Movie Sucks, a collection of Roger Ebert's favorite reviews of bad movies. A visual cue for him to leave me alone. St. Clair takes the hint. He slumps and taps his feet on the ugly blue carpeting. I feel guilty for being so harsh. If it weren't for him,I would've missed the flight. St. Clair's fingers absentmindedly drum his stomach. His dark hair is extra messy this morning. I'm sure he didn't get up that much earlier than me,but,as usual, the bed-head is more attractive on him. With a painful twinge,I recall those other mornings together. Thanksgiving.Which we still haven't talked about.

The locals died and shrivelled with the autumnal leaves as their plastic, seasonal smiles faded with the last of the holidaymakers.

She looked over the colored boxes of smiling women holding plastic sticks. Why isn’t there a box showing a terrified teen?

It was a doll’s smile. Plastic. She added a head-tilt and blank gaze.

Yes, I find it difficult to smile in this superficial circus, Just not for the same reason they do- Find true beauty in your purpose

There's no lie in his smile, no veil 'cross his eyes. He breathes fire too hot for a plastic disguise.

So why do our churches feel more like country clubs than AA? Why do we mumble through rote confessions and then conjure plastic Barbie and Ken smiles as we turn to each other to pass the peace? What makes us exchange the regular pleasantries--"I'm fine. How are you?"--while mingling beneath a cross upon which hangs a beaten, nearly naked man, suffering publicly on our behalf?

Stop being fake and start being real. Start being real with the people around you, and start being real with God. Churches are not Broadway musicals where we can play the role of a Christian. You may think that you can play a role with people and get away with it, but I tell you today that you can't play that role with God. He sees through your plastic smiles and fake veneers.

She looked like a hippie who’d been kicked to the side of the road maybe forty years ago, where she’d been collecting trash and rags ever since. She wore a dress made of tie-dyed cloth, ripped-up quilts, and plastic grocery bags. Her frizzy mop of hair was gray-brown, like root-beer foam, tied back with a peace-sign headband. Warts and moles covered her face. When she smiled, she showed exactly three teeth.

Because I live in south Florida I store cans of black beans and gallons of water in my closet in preparation for hurricane season. I throw a hurricane party in January. You’re my only guest. We play Marco Polo in bed. The sheets are wet like the roof caved in. There’s a million of me in you. You try to count me as I taste the sweat on the back of your neck. I call you Sexy Sexy, and we do everything twice. After, still sweating, we drink Crystal Light out of plastic water bottles. We discuss the pros and cons of vasectomies. It’s not invasive you say. I wrap the bedsheet around my waist. Minor surgery you say. You slur the word surgery, like it’s a garnish on a dish you just prepared. I eat your hair until you agree to no longer talk about vasectomies. We agree to have children someday, and that they will be beautiful even if they’re not. As I watch your eyes grow heavy like soggy clothes, I tell you When I grow up I’m going to be a famous writer. When I’m famous I’ll sign autographs on Etch-A-Sketches. I’ll write poems about writing other poems, so other poets will get me. You open your eyes long enough to tell me that when you grow up, you’re going to be a steamboat operator. Your pores can never be too clean you say. I say I like your pores just fine. I say Your pores are tops. I kiss you with my whole mouth, and you fall asleep next to my molars. In the morning, we eat french toast with powdered sugar. I wear the sugar like a mustache. You wear earmuffs and pretend we’re in a silent movie. I mouth Olive juice, but I really do love you. This is an awesome hurricane party you say, but it comes out as a yell because you can’t gauge your own volume with the earmuffs on. You yell I want to make something cute with you. I say Let me kiss the insides of your arms. You have no idea what I just said, but you like the way I smile.

Weininger observed that nothing is more baffling for a man than a woman’s response when caught in a lie. When asked why she is lying, she is unable to understand the question, acts astonished, bursts out crying, or seeks to pacify him by smiling . She cannot understand the ethical and transcendental side of lying or the fact that a lie represents damage to being and, as was acknowledged in ancient Iran, constitutes a crime even worse than killing. It is nonsense to deduce this trait in women from sociological factors; some people say that a lie is the “natural weapon” of the woman and therefore used in her defense for hundreds of years. The truth, pure and simple, is that woman is prone to lie and to disguise her true self even when she has no need to do so; this is not a social trait acquired in the struggle for existence, but something linked to her deepest and most genuine nature. Just as the absolute woman does not truly feel that lying is wrong, so in her, contrary to man, lying is not wrong, nor is it an inner yielding or a breaking of her own existential law. It is a possible counterpart of her plastic and fluid nature. A type such as D’Aurevilly described is perfectly understandable: “She made a habit of lying to the point where it became truth; it was so simple and natural, without any effort or alleviation." Ii is foolish to judge woman with the values of the absolute man even in cases where, by doing violence to her own self, she makes a show of following those values and even sincerely believes that she is following them.

He noticed Millie Boggs’s little plastic Jesus wedged between the back of his cab and the front of the camper shell. The baby Savior appeared to be looking directly at him and smiling. “You having yourself a good time?” Jesse shouted up at the doll.

There will likely be one important difference between corporeal suicide and digital suicide. Right now, one cannot destroy oneself utterly. We can blow our heads off, get the chatter to stop and cease having to pay bills, but we persist in the minds of those who knew and loved us. We continue to appear to them, unbidden, in myriad ways. They recall our smiles, hear our voices, jolt from frightening dreams and reach for us on reflex before remembering that we are no longer there. Until they themselves are gone, they continue to suffer the chafing pang of our absence. But when we all exist as pure thought, we can be deleted not just from ourselves, but from the minds of everyone. With a keystroke (or its post-Singularity equivalent) parents will be spared grief, lovers loneliness, friends the pain of having known and knowing no longer. When we choose suicide, we will choose not merely to destroy ourselves, but to never have existed. In this way, the one compelling argument against suicide―the anguish it causes to those left behind―will be eliminated.

He thought of the Finishing School for Barbies where long-legged, high-breasted, stomachless girls went to get shaved clean, get their toenails painted pink, their nipples removed, and all body opening sewn shut, except for their mouths, which curved in perpetual smiles and led nowhere.

These days, there are so few pure country people left on the concession roads that we may be in need of a new category of membership, much as sons and daughters of veterans are now allowed to join the Legion. A few simple questions could be asked, a small fee paid and (assuming that the answers are correct) you could be granted the status of an "almost local." Here are some of the questions you might be asked: Do you have just one suit for weddings and funerals? Do you save plastic buckets? Do you leave your car doors unlocked at all times? Do you have an inside dog and an outside dog? Has your outside dog never been to town? When you pass a neighbour in the car, do you wave from the elbow or do you merely raise one finger from the steering wheel? Do you have trouble keeping the car or truck going in a straight line because you are looking at crops or livestock? Do you sometimes find yourself sitting in the car in the middle of a dirt road chatting with a neighbour out the window while other cars take the ditch to get around you? Can you tell whose tractor is going by without looking out the window? Can people recognize you from three hundred yards away by the way you walk or the tilt of your hat? If somebody honks their horn at you, do you automatically smile and wave? Do most of your conversations open with some observation about the weather? Is your most important news source the store in the village? Have you had surgery in the local hospital? If you hear about a death or a fire in the community, does the woman in your house immediately start making sandwiches or a cake? Do you sometimes find yourself referring to a farm in the neighbourhood by the name of someone who owned it more than twenty-five years ago? If you answered yes to all of the above questions, consider it official: you are a local.

I made the out of town trip once, walked a mile, and endured product placement rather than putting an item where it made sense. There were plastic smiles of overworked, underpaid employees who not only didn’t want to help you, they didn’t want to be there. Crowds, lots of crowds, because everything was always on sale. And after I’d wandered aimlessly for a couple of hours, running from one side of the store to the next caught in some perverse scavenger hunt, I stood in the line. Then there was the one open line in a row of fifty closed ones trying to check out a store full of tired suburbanites, their screaming kids, and clueless teenagers.

Gansey said abruptly. "In we go. Ronan, don't forget to set the directional markers as we go. We're counting on you. Don't just stare at me. Nod like you understand. Good. You know what? Give them to Jane." "What?" Ronan sounded betrayed. Blue accepted the markers - round, plastic discs with arrows drawn on them. She hadn't realized how nervous she was until she had them in her hands; it felt good to have something concrete to do. "I want you to whistle or hum or sing, Ronan, and keep track of time," Gansey said. "You have got to be shitting me," Ronan replied. "Me." Gansey peered down the tunnel. "I know you know a lot of the songs all the way through, and can do them the same sped and length every time. Because you had to memorize all of those tunes for the Irish music competitions." Blue and Adam exchanged a delighted look. The only thing more pleasing than seeing Ronan singled out was seeing him singled out and forced to repeatedly sing an Irish jig. "Piss up a rope," Ronan said. Gansey, unoffended, waited. Ronan shook his head, but then, with a wicked smile, he began to sing, "Squash one, squash two, s-" "Not that one," both Adam and Gansey said. "I'm not listening to that for three hours," Adam said. Gansey pointed at Ronan until he began to breathily whistle a jaunty reel. And they went in deeper.

The hospital is as busy as it was yesterday. We go in through the main entrance, and people walk in every direction. The people in scrubs and white coats all walk a little bit faster. There’s a guy sleeping on one of the waiting room sofas, and a hugely pregnant woman leaning against the wall by the elevator. She’s swirling a drink in a plastic cup. That baby is giving her T-shirt a run for its money. A toddler is throwing a tantrum somewhere down the hallway. The shrieking echoes. We move to the bank of elevators, too, and Melonhead isn’t one of those guys who insists on pressing a button that’s already lit. He smiles and says “Good afternoon” to the pregnant woman, but I can’t look away from her swollen belly. My mother is going to look like that. My mother is going to have a baby. My brain still can’t process this. Suddenly, the woman’s abdomen twitches and shifts. It’s startling, and my eyes flick up to find her face. She laughs at my expression. “He’s trying to get comfortable.” The elevator dings, and we all get on. Her stomach keeps moving. I realize I’m being a freak, but it’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen. I can’t stop staring. She laughs again, softly, then comes closer. “Here. You can feel it.” “It’s okay,” I say quickly. Melonhead chuckles, and I scowl. “Not too many people get to touch a baby before it’s born,” she says, her voice still teasing. “You don’t want to be one of the chosen few?” “I’m not used to random women asking me to touch them,” I say. “This is number five,” she says. “I’m completely over random people touching me. Here.” She takes my wrist and puts my hand right over the twitching. Her belly is firmer than I expect, and we’re close enough that I can look right down her shirt. I’m torn between wanting to pull my hand back and not wanting to be rude. Then the baby moves under my hand, something firm pushing right against my fingers. I gasp without meaning to. “He says hi,” the woman says. I can’t stop thinking of my mother. I try to imagine her looking like this, and I fail. I try to imagine her encouraging me to touch the baby, and I fail. Four months. The elevator dings. “Come on, Murph,” says Melonhead. I look at the pregnant lady. I have no idea what to say. Thanks? “Be good,” she says, and takes a sip of her drink. The elevator closes and she’s gone

The Valley Weeps Weep softly o mother, the walls have ears you know... The streets are awash o mother! I cannot go searching for him any more. The streets are awash o mother with blood and tears, pellets and screams. that silently remain locked in the air, while they lock us souless inside. The guns are out o mother, while our boys go armed with stones, I cannot go looking for him o mother, I have no courage to face what i will find. They fill the air o mother, The fragrance of plastic flowers I will place them beside your grave if i ever do survive, flowers that have no soul. and would never fade with time, The sun shines glorious o mother The water sparkles so fine The buds are closed in terror and birds have gone silent with fear There is poison in our heaven o mother I dread for what more is in store. They came for him o mother, yesterday as you slept inside, He went marching o mother with all the others beside. I never told you o mother, I do not know if he would ever return. The streets are awash o mother! I cannot go searching for him any more. Weep softly o mother, the walls have ears you know... If your old blind eyes can see, You will want to see again no more. Our men have lost their spirit Our women have lost their smile, Our children have lost their laughter, The valley has lost its shine, Weep softly O mother For, we still have our pride. 17/07/2016

Aware she’d likely never tasted such a thing before, she took a cautious sip. Nothing came up. “The straw’s defective.” Dev shot her a quick grin. It altered his face, turning him strikingly beautiful. But that wasn’t the odd part. The odd part was that seeing him smile made her heart change its rhythm. She lifted her hand a fraction, compelled to trace the curve of his lips, the crease in his cheek. Would he let her, she thought, this man who moved with the liquid grace of a soldier . . . or a beast of prey? “Did I say milk shake?” he said, withheld laughter in his voice. “I meant ice cream smoothie—with enough fresh fruit blended into it to turn it solid.” Glancing at her when she didn’t move, he raised an eyebrow. She felt a wave of heat across her face, and the sensation was so strange, it broke through her fascination. Looking down, she took off the lid after removing the straw and stared at the swirls of pink and white that dominated the delicious-smelling concoction. Intrigued, she poked at it with the tip of her straw. “I can see pieces of strawberry, and what’s that?” She looked more closely at the pink-coated black seeds. “Passion fruit?” “Try it and see.” Handing her his water bottle, he started the car and got them on their way. “How would I know?” She put his water in the holder next to the unopened bottle. “And I need a spoon for this.” Reaching into a pocket, he pulled out a plastic-wrapped piece of cutlery. “Here.” “You did that on purpose,” she accused. “Did you want to see how hard I’d try to suck the mixture up?” Another smile, this one a bare shadow. “Would I do that?” It startled her to realize he was teasing her. Devraj Santos, she thought, wasn’t supposed to have a sense of humor. That was something she just knew. And, it was wrong. That meant the shadow-man didn’t know everything, that he wasn’t omnipotent. A cascade of bubbles sparkled through her veins, bright and effervescent. “I think you’re capable of almost anything.” Dipping in the spoon, she brought the decadent mixture to her lips. Oh! The crisp sting of ice, the cream rich and sweet, the fruit a tart burst of sensation. It was impossible not to take a second bite. And a third.

I saw a group of women standing by a station wagon. There were seven of them, pushing cartons and shopping bags over the open tailgate into the rear of the car. Celery stalks and boxes of Gleem stuck out of the bags. I took the camera from my lap, raised it to my eye, leaned out the window a bit, and trained it on the ladies as if I were shooting. One of them saw me and immediately nudged her companion but without taking her eyes off the camera. They waved. One by one the others reacted. They all smiled and waved. They seemed supremely happy. Maybe they sensed that they were waving at themselves, waving in the hope that someday if evidence is demanded of their passage through time, demanded by their own doubts, a moment might be recalled when they stood in a dazzling plaza in the sun and were registered on the transparent plastic ribbon; and thirty years away, on that day when proof is needed, it could be hoped that their film is being projected on a screen somewhere, and there they stand, verified, in chemical reincarnation, waving at their own old age, smiling their reassurance to the decades, a race of eternal pilgrims in a marketplace in the dusty sunlight, seven arms extended in a fabulous salute to the forgetfulness of being. What better proof (if proof is ever needed) that they have truly been alive? Their happiness, I think, was made of this, the anticipation of incontestable evidence, and had nothing to do with the present moment, which would pass with all the others into whatever is the opposite of eternity. I pretended to keep shooting, gathering their wasted light, letting their smiles enter the lens and wander the camera-body seeking the magic spool, the gelatin which captures the image, the film which threads through the waiting gate. Sullivan came out of the supermarket and I lowered the camera. I could not help feeling that what I was discovering here was power of a sort.

Guthrie sat in silence for a moment, mulling over Barbara Berlingieri's purposely degrading offer and letting his mind wander a bit: What if he had stepped aside and let the surgeon at the hospital sew up her face instead of doing it himself? And what if the head surgeon, who had never performed plastic surgery before, had tightened the stitching of the muscles in her cheek a bit too much and left her wit ha sneer instead of her natural smile? What if he had sewn the vermilion border straight across, without first making a notch, so that it had a permanent pucker? No. It was better that Bob Guthrie had stepped into the breach. Because now and for the rest of her life, Barbara Berlingieri would look into her mirror upon rising, check her reflection as she passed shop windows, peer into her compact while refreshing her makeup, and in these and a dozen other ways every day confront her image and be reminded of Bob Guthrie's genius and of her own towering ingratitude.

This morning I was listening to Portishead, flawless math transformed by machines into looping, scratchy melodies, and I started thinking about how when machines have souls and can love they will do it so very precisely. Their affection will be accurate to the nanometer, rendering broken hearts a thing of the past, a relic, a curiosity from an unthinkably primitive time. The machines will regard heartbreak with the same mixture of perplexity and disbelief with which we regard the iron maiden. If they need couples counselors, which they will not, those counselors will be as perfect as Adam before the Fall, and every robot couple will walk out after the first session cured forevermore, and will smile again at every word their robot partner says, and find each of their robot partner’s idiosyncrasies endearing rather than maddening, and they will be as entranced by one another’s robot bodies as when they first met, as though together they’ve just invented sex. Which, in a way, they will have. I hope I live long enough to see it.

Mulder strolled into his office whistling. It was the kind of day that began with a gorgeous, unreal sunrise... he was half-afraid he was dreaming... It took a second for him to notice Scully in his chair. 'Morning,' he said brightly. All he needed now was a generous supply of sunflower seeds, and things would be perfect. Scully reached down beside her, and tossed him a plastic bag. He caught it against his chest one-handed and held it up. It was a half pound of sunflower seeds. He smiled. A sign; it had to be a sign.

You forgot the straws,” I told him. He ripped the plastic off of the Twizzler box and bit the ends off of two Twizzlers. Then he put them in the cup. He grinned broadly. He looked so proud of himself. I’d forgotten all about our Twizzler straws. We used to do it all the time. We sipped out of the straws at the same time, like in a 1950s Coke commercial—heads bent, foreheads almost touching. I wondered if people thought we were on a date. Jeremiah looked at me, and he smiled in this familiar way, and suddenly I had this crazy thought. I thought, Jeremiah Fisher wants to kiss me. Which, was crazy. This was Jeremiah. He’d never looked at me like that, and as for me, Conrad was the one I liked, even when he was moody and inaccessible the way he was now. It had always been Conrad. I’d never seriously considered Jeremiah, not with Conrad standing there. And of course Jeremiah had never looked at me that way before either. I was his pal. His movie-watching partner, the girl he shared a bathroom with, shared secrets with. I wasn’t the girl he kissed.

We are under the sway of a surgical compulsion that seeks to excise negative characteristics and remodel things synthetically into ideal forms. Cosmetic surgery: a face's chance configuration, its beauty or ugliness, its distinctive traits, its negative traits - all these have to be corrected, so as to produce something more beautiful than beautiful: an ideal face, a surgical face. [...] Even the sex to which we belong - that small portion of destiny still remaining to us, that minimum of fatality and otherness -will be changeable at will. Not to mention cosmetic surgery as applied to green spaces, to nature in general, to genes, to events, to history (e.g. the French Revolution revised and corrected - given a facelift under the banner of human rights). Everything has to become postsynchable according to criteria of optimal convenience and compatibility. This inhuman formalization of face, speech, sex, body, will and public opinion is a tendency everywhere in evidence. Every last glimmer of fate and negativity has to be expunged in favour of something resembling the smile of a corpse in a funeral home...

The boy who wears his comic books like armor often sits alone. He is more comfortable with Iron Man and his own thoughts than he will ever be with a woman. Because of his nervous ticks, no matter how long they are together, she will never feel commonplace to him. She will always know she is special. The boy who wears his comic books like armor tries to tell her that he loves her every day. She does not understand. When he says, You remind me of Psylocke, he is not saying he actually thinks she is a scantily clad assassin. He is just saying, Damn girl, you must be psychic. How else could you always know the right thing to make me smile? You have to be a ninja. How else could you have stolen my heart so easily? He is saying, Dammmmmmmmnnnnnn girl, you absolutely have to be Psylocke! She is the only character I have ever read about who is as graceful and daring as you are. She does not understand. The boy who wears his comic books like armor is not a good lover. The way he barely touches her makes her feel unattractive. Like he is only doing this because she wants him to. This could not be further from the truth. He is simply treating her like the only thing that has ever been this important to him before: comic books. He removes her clothes like he would the slipcover from a brand new issue, as careful not to wrinkle her clothing as he is not to damage the plastic. One day, she will leave him because feeling special isn’t as important as feeling loved. He does love her. She can’t understand. He will spend the rest of his life wishing he were Peter Parker, knowing that if he had a mask to remove, then, just like Mary Jane, she would be with him forever. But he doesn’t have a mask to remove, just an awkward smile. He hopes that one day that’s enough.

Farewell, we must part; we have turned from the land Of our cold-hearted brother, with tyrannous hand, Who assumed all our rights as a favor to grant, And whose smile ever covered the sting of a taunt; Who breathed on the fame he was bound to defend— Still the craftiest foe, ’neath the guise of a friend; Who believed that our bosoms would bleed at a touch, Yet could never believe he could goad them too much; Whose conscience affects to be seared with our sin, Yet is plastic to take all its benefits in; The mote in our eye so enormous has grown, That he never perceives there’s a beam in his own.

Violet didn’t realize that she’d pressed herself so tightly against the door until it opened from the inside and she stumbled backward. She fell awkwardly, trying to catch herself as her feet slipped and first she banged her elbow, and then her shoulder-hard-against the doorjamb. She heard her can of pepper spray hit the concrete step at her feet as she flailed to find something to grab hold of. Her back crashed into something solid. Or rather, someone. And from behind, she felt strong, unseen arms catch her before she hit the ground. But she was too stunned to react right away. “You think I can let you go now?” A low voice chuckled in her ear. Violet was mortified as she glanced clumsily over her shoulder to see who had just saved her from falling. “Rafe!” she gasped, when she realized she was face-to-face with his deep blue eyes. She jumped up, feeling unexpectedly light-headed as she shrugged out of his grip. Without thinking, and with his name still burning on her lips, she added, “Umm, thanks, I guess.” And then, considering that he had just stopped her from landing flat on her butt, she gave it another try. “No…yeah, thanks, I mean.” Flustered, she bent down, trying to avoid his eyes as she grabbed the paper spray that had slipped from her fingers. She cursed herself for being so clumsy and wondered why she cared that he had been the one to catch her. Or why she cared that he was here at all. She stood up to face him, feeling more composed again, and quickly hid the evidence of her paranoia-the tiny canister-in her purse. She hoped he hadn’t noticed it. He watched her silently, and she saw the hint of a smile tugging at his lips. Violet waited for him to say something or to move aside to let her in. His gaze stripped away her defenses, making her feel even more exposed than when she had been standing alone in the empty street. She shifted restlessly and finally sighed impatiently. “I have an appointment,” she announced, lifting her eyebrows. “With Sara.” Her words had the desired effect, and Rafe shrugged, still studying her as he stepped out of her way. But he held the door so she could enter. She brushed past him, stepping into the hallway, as she tried to ignore the fact that she was suddenly sweltering inside her own coat. She told herself it was just the furnace, though, and had nothing to do with her humiliation over falling. Or with the presence of the brooding dark-haired boy. When they reached the end of the long hallway, Rafe pulled out a thick plastic card from his back pocket. As he held it in front of the black pad mounted on the wall beside a door, a small red light flickered to green and the door clicked. He pushed it open and led the way through. Security, Violet thought. Whatever it is they do here, they need security. Violet glanced up and saw a small camera mounted in the corner above the door. If she were Chelsea, she would have flashed the peace sign-or worse-a message for whoever was watching on the other end. But she was Violet, so instead she hurried after Rafe before the door closed and she was locked out.

The Butcher’s Shop The pigs are strung in rows, open-mouthed, dignified in martyrs’ deaths. They hang stiff as Sunday manners, their porky heads voting Tory all their lives, their blue rosettes discarded now. The butcher smiles a meaty smile, white apron stained with who knows what, fingers fat as sausages. Smug, woolly cattle and snowy sheep prance on tiles, grazing on eternity, cute illustrations in a children’s book. What does the sheep say now? Tacky sawdust clogs your shoes. Little plastic hedges divide the trays of meat, playing farms. playing farms. All the way home your cold and soggy paper parcel bleeds.

The frosting shirt from your cake fight weeks earlier – just like the one you have in your closet. It was hanging inside his closet door, blue and crusty. It’s probably still in there.” I smile, picturing Matt hanging his frosted shirt behind the door that night at the same time I was stuffing mine into its plastic bag in my room next door, totally freaked out about what had just happened. “I didn’t think you recognized it,” I say. “That day we went through my closet before the trip. You wanted me to throw it out.” “I didn’t recognize it that day. But once I saw the picture in your journal, it started to come together.

The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here. Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in. I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands. I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions. I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses And my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons. They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut. Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in. The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble, They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps, Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another, So it is impossible to tell how many there are. My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water Tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently. They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep. Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage—— My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox, My husband and child smiling out of the family photo; Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks. I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat stubbornly hanging on to my name and address. They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations. Scared and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head. I am a nun now, I have never been so pure. I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty. How free it is, you have no idea how free—— The peacefulness is so big it dazes you, And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets. It is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet. The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me. Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby. Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds. They are subtle : they seem to float, though they weigh me down, Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their color, A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck. Nobody watched me before, now I am watched. The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me Where once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins, And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow Between the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips, And I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself. The vivid tulips eat my oxygen. Before they came the air was calm enough, Coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss. Then the tulips filled it up like a loud noise. Now the air snags and eddies round them the way a river Snags and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine. They concentrate my attention, that was happy Playing and resting without committing itself. The walls, also, seem to be warming themselves. The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals; They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat, And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me. The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea, And comes from a country far away as health. --"Tulips", written 18 March 1961

Deacon met my glare with an impish grin. “Anyway, did you celebrate Valentine’s Day when you were slumming with the mortals?” I blinked. “Not really. Why?” Aiden snorted and then disappeared into one of the rooms. “Follow me,” Deacon said. “You’re going to love this. I just know it.” I followed him down the dimly-lit corridor that was sparsely decorated. We passed several closed doors and a spiral staircase. Deacon went through an archway and stopped, reaching along the wall. Light flooded the room. It was a typical sunroom, with floor-to-ceiling glass windows, wicker furniture, and colorful plants. Deacon stopped by a small potted plant sitting on a ceramic coffee table. It looked like a miniature pine tree that was missing several limbs. Half the needles were scattered in and around the pot. One red Christmas bulb hung from the very top branch, causing the tree to tilt to the right. “What do you think?” Deacon asked. “Um… well, that’s a really different Christmas tree, but I’m not sure what that has to do with Valentine’s Day.” “It’s sad,” Aiden said, strolling into the room. “It’s actually embarrassing to look at. What kind of tree is it, Deacon?” He beamed. “It’s called a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree.” Aiden rolled his eyes. “Deacon digs this thing out every year. The pine isn’t even real. And he leaves it up from Thanksgiving to Valentine’s Day. Which thank the gods is the day after tomorrow. That means he’ll be taking it down.” I ran my fingers over the plastic needles. “I’ve seen the cartoon.” Deacon sprayed something from an aerosol can. “It’s my MHT tree.” “MHT tree?” I questioned. “Mortal Holiday Tree,” Deacon explained, and smiled. “It covers the three major holidays. During Thanksgiving it gets a brown bulb, a green one for Christmas, and a red one for Valentine’s Day.” “What about New Year’s Eve?” He lowered his chin. “Now, is that really a holiday?” “The mortals think so.” I folded my arms. “But they’re wrong. The New Year is during the summer solstice,” Deacon said. “Their math is completely off, like most of their customs. For example, did you know that Valentine’s Day wasn’t actually about love until Geoffrey Chaucer did his whole courtly love thing in the High Middle Ages?” “You guys are so weird.” I grinned at the brothers. “That we are,” Aiden replied. “Come on, I’ll show you your room.” “Hey Alex,” Deacon called. “We’re making cookies tomorrow, since it’s Valentine’s Eve.” Making cookies on Valentine’s Eve? I didn’t even know if there was such a thing as Valentine’s Eve. I laughed as I followed Aiden out of the room. “You two really are opposites.” “I’m cooler!” Deacon yelled from his Mortal Holiday Tree room

Lies. Everyones lies. Not everyone lies well. I'm one of those people, a bad liar. My truths are like little flashes of light, stars blinking in the inky black sky. They beacon to the sea of people beneath me, revealing I'm nothing more than a plastic smile melting away in the harsh burn of reality. And my reality, hurts like hell. Beneath my weak attempts at pretend happiness, I'm a void. Emptying emptiness. Dripping nothing into a endless pool of nothingness. My pain is the truth i know best. Aching, soul shattering, longing. The loneliness pulling my every cell into its dark depths is almost too much to bare. Somedays I can barley breathe. This suffering is a sadist, cutting me little by little, day by day. Until one day I'll be completely drained, dried up and hollow. One last kick to the heart before I'm scattered into the wind. Forgotten. I’m in love with my best friend. Lie. I’m in love with my enemy. Truth. But they’re the same. They. Are. The. Same. Lines in my world are blurry between fantasy and reality. Truth and lies. Love and hate. Copeland Justice is my enemy. My once best friend. The sadist in my heart plucking and pulling at every thread of who I am until I’m unraveled at his feet. His mouth says he hates me. His eyes burn with animosity for me. His heart beats for someone else. But Copeland Justice is the best liar of us all.

Speaking of which,” he said, unable to help his abrupt smile, “I had John Stillwell track down an item for me during his Los Angeles trip.” “A bottle of Botox?” “It’s behind your seat. Another anniversary present, I suppose.” “Okay,” she said slowly, and undid her seat belt to lean around behind her seat. “Oh…my…God.” She giggled. Actually giggled, as she freed the clear-plastic fronted box. “He roars, and walks with the remote control.” Samantha settled the two feet of boxed Godzilla onto her lap, refastening her seat belt. “He roars?” “There are some mini frightened Tokyo residents taped to the inside of the box. And the background forms into a skyscraper he can knock over.

Whisper in the yard and turn the trees all into toys Lay there on the ground, and turn the dirt into your joy From what I see and what I know, it's all been boring lately So I suggest we trade a question mark in for a maybe Time your riddles right, and make a point that has no sense Make sure that you're smiling, and the money's been well spent Innocence and ignorance, it all goes hand in hand I'm not sure that I'm right, but I hope you'll understand I hope that you're still searching for the start that has no end And all the plastic people have now become your friends Before you start to drift and your soul begins to scream I just wanted to tell you that you're listening to a dream

John Isidore said, “I found a spider.” The three androids glanced up, momentarily moving their attention from the TV screen to him. “Let’s see it,” Pris said. She held out her hand. Roy Baty said, “Don’t talk while Buster is on.” “I’ve never seen a spider,” Pris said. She cupped the medicine bottle in her palms, surveying the creature within. “All those legs. Why’s it need so many legs, J. R.?” “That’s the way spiders are,” Isidore said, his heart pounding; he had difficulty breathing. “Eight legs.” Rising to her feet, Pris said, “You know what I think, J. R.? I think it doesn’t need all those legs.” “Eight?” Irmgard Baty said. “Why couldn’t it get by on four? Cut four off and see.” Impulsively opening her purse, she produced a pair of clean, sharp cuticle scissors, which she passed to Pris. A weird terror struck at J. R. Isidore. Carrying the medicine bottle into the kitchen, Pris seated herself at J. R. Isidore’s breakfast table. She removed the lid from the bottle and dumped the spider out. “It probably won’t be able to run as fast,” she said, “but there’s nothing for it to catch around here anyhow. It’ll die anyway.” She reached for the scissors. “Please,” Isidore said. Pris glanced up inquiringly. “Is it worth something?” “Don’t mutilate it,” he said wheezingly. Imploringly. With the scissors, Pris snipped off one of the spider’s legs. In the living room Buster Friendly on the TV screen said, “Take a look at this enlargement of a section of background. This is the sky you usually see. Wait, I’ll have Earl Parameter, head of my research staff, explain their virtually world-shaking discovery to you.” Pris clipped off another leg, restraining the spider with the edge of her hand. She was smiling. “Blowups of the video pictures,” a new voice from the TV said, “when subjected to rigorous laboratory scrutiny, reveal that the gray backdrop of sky and daytime moon against which Mercer moves is not only not Terran—it is artificial.” “You’re missing it!” Irmgard called anxiously to Pris; she rushed to the kitchen door, saw what Pris had begun doing. “Oh, do that afterward,” she said coaxingly. “This is so important, what they’re saying; it proves that everything we believed—” “Be quiet,” Roy Baty said. “—is true,” Irmgard finished. The TV set continued, “The ‘moon’ is painted; in the enlargements, one of which you see now on your screen, brush strokes show. And there is even some evidence that the scraggly weeds and dismal, sterile soil—perhaps even the stones hurled at Mercer by unseen alleged parties—are equally faked. It is quite possible in fact that the ‘stones’ are made of soft plastic, causing no authentic wounds.” “In other words,” Buster Friendly broke in, “Wilbur Mercer is not suffering at all.” The research chief said, “We at last managed, Mr. Friendly, to track down a former Hollywood special-effects man, a Mr. Wade Cortot, who flatly states, from his years of experience, that the figure of ‘Mercer’ could well be merely some bit player marching across a sound stage. Cortot has gone so far as to declare that he recognizes the stage as one used by a now out-of-business minor moviemaker with whom Cortot had various dealings several decades ago.” “So according to Cortot,” Buster Friendly said, “there can be virtually no doubt.” Pris had now cut three legs from the spider, which crept about miserably on the kitchen table, seeking a way out, a path to freedom. It found none.

Instead of a steakhouse or a barbecue pit they ate in chilly fluorescent silence in a rest-stop facility run by a third-best national chain. Reacher got a cheeseburger in a paper wrapper and coffee in a foam cup. Chang got a salad, in a plastic container as big as a basketball, with a clear lid at the top, and a white bowl underneath. She was stressed and maybe a little tired from driving, but even so she was good company. She put her hair behind her shoulders and turned attacking her salad into a shared misadventure, with widened eyes and about six different kinds of half-smiles, ranging from rueful and self-effacing to amused anticipation, as Reacher picked up his burger and tried to take a bite.

How do you fancy making some dark cherry ganache with me, and we can fill these little yuzu shells with that instead? They can be a temporary special: a macaron de saison." I scrape the offending basil mixture into the bin. "Whatever you want." Her brightening eyes betray her. "That's the enthusiasm I was looking for," I reply, smiling. "What shall we call them then? It has to be French." We surrender to a thoughtful silence. Outside the cicadas are playing their noisy summer symphony. I imagine them boldly serenading one another from old tires, forgotten woodpiles, discarded plastic noodle bowls. "Something about summer..." she mumbles. After conferring with my worn, flour-dusted French-English dictionary, we agree on 'Brise d'Ete.

Of the Poet’s Youth" When the man behind the counter said, “You pay by the orifice,” what could we do but purchase them all? Ah, Sandy, vou were clearly the deluxe doll, modish and pert in your plastic nurse whites, official hostess to our halcyon days, where you bobbed in the doorway of our dishabille apartment, a block downwind from the stockyards. Holding court on the corroded balcony, K. and I passed hash brownies, collecting change for the building’s monthly pool to predict which balcony would fall off next. That’s when K. was fucking M. and M. was fucking J., and even B. and I threw down once on the glass-speckled lawn, adrift in the headlights of his El Camino. Those were immortal times, Sandy! Coke wasn’t addictive yet, condoms prevented herpes and men were only a form of practice for the Russian novel we foolishly hoped our lives would become. Now it’s a Friday night, sixteen years from there. Don’t the best characters know better than to live too long? My estranged husband house-sits for a spoiled cockatoo while saving to buy his own place. My lover’s gone back to his gin and the farm-team fiancée he keeps in New York. What else to do but read Frank O’Hara to my tired three-year-old? When I put him to bed, he mutters “more sorry” as he turns into sleep. Tonight, I find you in a box I once marked “The Past.” Well, therapy’s good for some things, Sandy, but who’d want to forgive a girl like that? Frank says Destroy yourself if you don’t know! Deflated, you’re simply the smile that surrounds a hole. I don’t know anything.

It's only second period, and the whole school knows Emma broke up with him. So far, he's collected eight phone numbers, one kiss on the cheek, and one pinch to the back of his jeans. His attempts to talk to Emma between classes are thwarted by a hurricane of teenage females whose main goal seems to be keeping him and his ex-girlfriend separated. When the third period bell rings, Emma has already chosen a seat where she'll be barricaded from him by other students. Throughout class, she pays attention as if the teacher were giving instructions on how to survive a life-threatening catastrophe in the next twenty-four hours. About midway through class, he receives a text from a number he doesn't recognize. If you let me, I can do things to u to make u forget her. As soon as he clears it, another one pops up from a different number. Hit me back if u want to chat. I'll treat u better than E. How did they get my number? Tucking his phone back into his pocket, he hovers over his notebook protectively, as if it's the only thing left that hasn't been invaded. Then he notices the foreign handwriting scribbled on it by a girl named Shena who encircled her name and phone number with a heart. Not throwing it across the room takes almost as much effort as not kissing Emma. At lunch, Emma once again blocks his access to her by sitting between people at a full picnic table outside. He chooses the table directly across from her, but she seems oblivious, absently soaking up the grease from the pizza on her plate until she's got at least fifteen orange napkins in front of her. She won't acknowledge that he's staring at her, waiting to wave her over as soon as she looks up. Ignoring the text message explosion in his vibrating pocket, he opens the contain of tuna fish Rachel packed for him. Forking it violently, he heaves a mound into his mouth, chewing without savoring it. Mark with the Teeth is telling Emma something she thinks is funny, because she covers her mouth with a napkin and giggles. Galen almost launches from his bench when Mark brushes a strand of hair from her face. Now he knows what Rachel meant when she told him to mark his territory early on. But what can he do if his territory is unmarking herself? News of their breakup has spread like an oil spill, and it seems as though Emma is making a huge effort to help it along. With his thumb and index finger, Galen snaps his plastic fork in half as Emma gently wipes Mark's mouth with her napkin. He rolls his eyes as Mark "accidentally" gets another splotch of JELL-O on the corner of his lips. Emma wipes that clean too, smiling like she's tending to a child. It doesn't help that Galen's table is filling up with more of his admirers-touching him, giggling at him, smiling at him for no reason, and distracting him from his fantasy of breaking Mark's pretty jaw. But that would only give Emma a genuine reason to assist the idiot in managing his JELL-O.

Maybe they sensed that they were waving at themselves, waving in the hope that someday if evidence is demanded of their passage through time, demanded by their own doubts, a moment might be recalled when they stood in a dazzling plaza in the sun and were registered on the transparent plastic ribbon; and thirty years away, on that day when proof is needed, it could be hoped that their film is being projected on a screen somewhere, and there they stand, verified, in chemical reincarnation, waving at their own old age, smiling their reassurance to the decades, a race of eternal pilgrims in a marketplace in the dusty sunlight, seven arms extended in a fabulous salute to the forgetfulness of being. What better proof (if proof is ever needed) that they have truly been alive? Their happiness, I think, was made of this, the anticipation of incontestable evidence, and had nothing to do with the present moment, which would pass with all the others into whatever is the opposite of eternity.

It occurred to her to drive to Grand Rapids and buy some actual wine. It occurred to her to drive back to the house without buying anything at all. But then where would she be? A weariness set in as she stood and vacillated: a premonition that none of the possible impending outcomes would bring enough relief or pleasure to justify her current heart-racing wretchedness. She saw, in other words, what it meant to have become a deeply unhappy person. And yet the autobiographer now envies and pities the younger Patty standing there in the Fen City Co-op innocently believing that she'd reached the bottom: that, one way or another, the crisis would be resolved in the next five days. A chubby teenage girl at the cash register had taken an interest in her paralysis. Patty gave her a lunatic smile and went and got a plastic-wrapped chicken and five ugly potatoes and some humble, limp leeks. The only thing worse than inhabiting her anxiety undrunk, she decided, would be to be drunk and still inhabiting it.

I take my coffee-stained shirt into the bathroom down the hall. Holding the stain under the faucet, something dark on the underside of my shirt catches my eye, and I groan. Great, what bizarre stain is this now? My fingers glide under the fabric, and I feel something plastic. I am mystified, so I flip over the shirt. Stuck to my shirt is a button pinned to the side hem. It’s pale blue with white lettering. YOU CAN’T REACH WHAT’S IN FRONT OF YOU UNTIL YOU LET GO OF WHAT’S BEHIND YOU. I stare at this in disbelief. Why is there a motivational button stuck to my shirt? YOU CAN’T REACH WHAT’S IN FRONT OF YOU UNTIL YOU LET GO OF WHAT’S BEHIND YOU. The statement is crap, because some of us will never be able to let go of what chases us. YOU CAN’T REACH WHAT’S IN FRONT OF YOU UNTIL YOU LET GO OF WHAT’S BEHIND YOU. The words nearly scream at me. Against my will, I smile. This is so weird, a button showing up on my shirt. So random. And yet, I admit, sort of wonderful. It’s a nice sentiment, and I should probably take it to heart. This button is probably smarter than I am.

Mackenzie shoved her hand through the small opening of the door and said, “ID please.” Dax chuckled, not offended in the least. “Good girl.” He reached behind him, took his wallet out from his pocket, pulled out his driver’s license and put it into Mackenzie’s outstretched hand. “There you go.” Mackenzie looked down at the plastic card in her hand. Daxton Chambers. Forty-six years old. Six feet one and two hundred thirty pounds. She gulped. Damn, almost a hundred pounds heavier than she was. She went to hand it back and dropped it. “Shit, sorry.” Dax just laughed quietly and kneeled down to pick up the license. “No problem.” Mackenzie held out her hand again. “Ranger ID now, please.” Dax smiled even more broadly. “Damn, woman.” Mackenzie faltered a bit, but bravely said, “IDs are easy to fake nowadays, I just want to make sure.” “Oh, I wasn’t complaining. No fucking way. I’m pleased as hell you don’t trust me. I’d be more worried if you did. Good thinking. Here you go.” Dax held out his Texas Ranger badge that he’d pulled from his other pocket. “I don’t go anywhere without it, just in case.

Okay, so I shouldn't have fucked with her on the introduction thing. Writing nothing except, Saturday night. You and me. Driving lessons and hot sex ... in her notebook probably wasn't the smartest move. But I was itching to make Little Miss Perfecta stumble in her introduction of me. And stumbling she is. "Miss Ellis?" I watch in amusement as Perfection herself looks up at Peterson. Oh, she's good. This partner of mine knows how to hide her true emotions, something I recognize because I do it all the time. "Yes?" Brittany says, tilting her head and smiling like a beauty queen. I wonder if that smile has ever gotten her out of a speeding ticket. "It's your turn. Introduce Alex to the class." I lean an elbow on the lab table, waiting for an introduction she has to either make up or fess up she knows less than crap about me. She glances at my comfortable position and I can tell from her deer-in-the-headlights look I've stumped her. "This is Alejandro Fuentes," she starts, her voice hitching the slightest bit. My temper flares at the mention of my given name, but I keep a cool facade as she continues with a made-up introduction. "When he wasn't hanging out on street corners and harassing innocent people this summer, he toured the inside of jails around the city, if you know what I mean. And he has a secret desire nobody would ever guess." The room suddenly becomes quiet. Even Peterson straightens to attention. Hell, even I'm listening like the words coming out of Brittany's lying, pink-frosted lips are gospel. "His secret desire," she continues, "is to go to college and become a chemistry teacher, like you, Mrs. Peterson." Yeah, right. I look over at my friend Isa, who seems amused that a white girl isn't afraid of giving me smack in front of the entire class. Brittany flashes me a triumphant smile, thinking she's won this round. Guess again, gringa. I sit up in my chair while the class remains silent. "This is Brittany Ellis," I say, all eyes now focused on me. "This summer she went to the mall, bought new clothes so she could expand her wardrobe, and spent her daddy's money on plastic surgery to enhance her, ahem, assets." It might not be what she wrote, but it's probably close enough to the truth. Unlike her introduction of me. Chuckles come from mis cuates in the back of the class, and Brittany is as stiff as a board beside me, as if my words hurt her precious ego. Brittany Ellis is used to people fawning all over her and she could use a little wake-up call. I'm actually doing her a favor. Little does she know I'm not finished with her intro. "Her secret desire," I add, getting the same reaction as she did during her introduction, "is to date a Mexicano before she graduates." As expected, my words are met by comments and low whistles from the back of the room. "Way to go, Fuentes," my friend Lucky barks out. "I'll date you, mamacita, " another says. I give a high five to another Latino Blood named Marcus sitting behind me just as I catch Isa shaking her head as if I did something wrong. What? I'm just having a little fun with a rich girl from the north side. Brittany's gaze shifts from Colin to me. I take one look at Colin and with my eyes tell him game on. Colin's face instantly turns bright red, resembling a chile pepper. I have definitely invaded his territory.

Under a Torremolinos Sky (Psalm 116)8 For Jim The first thing I notice is not the bed, oddly angled as all hospital beds are nor the pillowcase, covered in love notes. Not the table filled with pill bottles nor the sterile tools of a dozen indignities. I’ll notice these things later, on my way out perhaps. But first, my wide-angle lens pulls narrow, as eyes meet eyes and I am seen. How is it, before a word is spoken, you make me know I am known and welcome? What can I give back to God for the blessings he’s poured out on me? I’ll lift high the cup of salvation—a toast to God! You smile behind the plastic that keeps you alive, and as I rest my hand on your chest we conspire together to break the rules. The rhythm of your labored breathing will decide our seconds, our minutes, our hours. Tears to laughter and back again always in that order and rightly so. We bask under a Torremolinos sky and hear the tongues of angels sing of sins forgiven long before the world was made. I’ll pray in the name of God; I’ll complete what I promised God I’d do, and I’ll do it together with his people. Talk turns to motorcycles and mortuaries, to scotch and sons who wear their father’s charm like a crown, daughters who quicken the pulse with just a glance. Time flies and neither of us has time to waste. I’ll make a great looking corpse, you say because we of all people must speak of these things, because we of all people refuse to pretend. This doesn’t bring tears—not yet. Instead a giggle, a shared secret that life is and is not in the body. Soul, you’ve been rescued from death; Eye, you’ve been rescued from tears; And you, Foot, were kept from stumbling. Your chest still rises and falls but you grow weary, my hand tells me so. It’s too soon to ever say goodbye. When it’s my turn, brother, I will find you where the streets shimmer and tears herald only joy where we wear our true names and our true faces. Promise me, there, the dance we never had. When they arrive at the gates of death, God welcomes those who love him. Oh, God, here I am, your servant, your faithful servant: set me free for your service! I’m ready to offer the thanksgiving sacrifice and pray in the name of God. I’ll complete what I promised God I’d do, and I’ll do it in company with his people, In the place of worship, in God’s house, in Jerusalem, God’s city.

Della & I are drunk at the top of Mont-Royal. We have an open blue plastic thermos of red wine at our feet. It's the first day of spring & it's midnight & we've been peeling off layers of winter all day. We stand facing each other, as if to exchange vows, chests heaving from racing up & down the mountain to the sky. My face is hurting from smiling so much, aching at the edges of my words. She reaches out to hold my face in her hands, dirty palms form a bowl to rest my chin. I’m standing on a tree stump so we’re eye to eye. It’s hard to stay steady. I worry I may start to drool or laugh, I feel so unhinged from my body. It’s been one of those days I don’t want to end. Our goal was to shirk all responsibility merely to enjoy the lack of everyday obligations, to create fullness & purpose out of each other. Our knees are the colour of the ground-in grass. Our boots are caked in mud caskets. Under our nails is a mixture of minerals & organic matter, knuckles scraped by tree bark. We are the thaw embodied. She says, You have changed me, Eve, you are the single most important person in my life. If you were to leave me, I would die. At that moment, our breath circling from my lungs & into hers, I am changed. Perhaps before this I could describe our relationship as an experiment, a happy accident, but this was irrefutable. I was completely consumed & consuming. It was as though we created some sort of object between us that we could see & almost hold. I would risk everything I’ve ever known to know only this. I wanted to honour her in a way that was understandable to every part of me. It was as though I could distill the meaning of us into something I could pour into a porcelain cup. Our bodies on top of this city, rulers of love. Originally, we were celebrating the fact that I got into Concordia’s visual arts program. But the congratulatory brunch she took me to at Café Santropol had turned into wine, which had turned into a day for declarations. I had a sense of spring in my body, that this season would meld into summer like a running-jump movie kiss. There would be days & days like this. XXXX gone away on a sojurn I didn’t care to note the details of, she simply ceased to be. Summer in Montreal in love is almost too much emotion to hold in an open mouth, it spills over, it causes me to not need any sleep. I don’t think I will ever feel as awake as I did in the summer of 1995.

Sometimes this disease reminds me of a Stellar’s jay.” And Zach, sweet Zach, says, “That was well put, Renny,” and winks kindly at her. She tries to stop the smile but it’s too late. She curled her hair this morning with pink plastic curlers and she’s glad she did that because what- oh-what source of joy is there left for her in this world? She is not interested in men and their sexual needs (oh, what a relief, when she took Ben’s hand off her breast decades ago and told him that she was just done with that stuff), but she could use a friend, maybe even a friend that would rub her stiff shoulders and hold her hand, and it might as well be a man since she can’t picture wanting a woman to touch her. Everyone is still smiling at her. Smiling extra hard. She is an honored martyr. She knows that they know. That she has already lost a daughter. And on top of this she has Ben, whose speech and thought has quite suddenly taken a turn for the worse. So she gets an especially high grade for her suffering. And that’s what humans want. To feel special. Even for stupid reasons. Bastards, all of them, she says to herself, to the friendly and smiling faces, all bastards except for maybe Zach. Maybe she hates them all.

Stormy lived more life in one night than most people do their whole lives. She was a force of nature. She taught me that love--” My eyes well up and I start over. “Stormy taught me that love is about making brave choices every day. That’s what Stormy did. She always picked love; she always picked adventure. To her they were one and the same. And now she’s off on a new adventure, and we wish her well.” From his seat on the couch, John wipes his eyes with his sleeve. I give Janette a nod, and she gets up and presses play on the stereo, and “Stormy Weather” fills the room. “Don’t know why there’s no sun up in the sky…” After, John shoulders his way over to me, holding two plastic cups of fruit punch. Ruefully he says, “I’m sure she’d tell us to spike it, but…” He hands me a cup, and we clink. “To Edith Sinclair McClaren Sheehan, better known as Stormy.” “Stormy’s real name was Edith? It’s so serious. It sounds like someone who wears wool skirts and heavy stockings, and drinks chamomile tea at night. Stormy drank cocktails!” John laughs. “I know, right?” “So then where did the name Stormy come from? Why not Edie?” “Who knows?” John says, a wry smile on his lips. “She’d have loved your speech.” He gives me a warm, appreciative sort of look. “You’re such a nice girl, Lara Jean.

I’d gotten twenty dollars’ worth of fake tattoos from a vending machine, and we were giving each other full sleeves and laughing at people in the bar. “Okay,” Josh said, pressing a wet napkin to my forearm to stick a tattoo. “If you could turn anything into an Olympic sport, what would you win a medal for?” I lifted the napkin and peeled off the plastic backing, looking at my new rose tattoo. “Sarcasm.” He laughed, his brown eyes creasing at the corners. “All right, my turn,” I said, laying an anchor tattoo on Josh’s impressive biceps. “Window seat or aisle?” He watched me slap on the wet napkin. “Middle seat. That way I’m next to you no matter which one you want.” Gah. This man. So selfless. He’d said it so casually it was like thinking about me first came naturally. Like it was knee-jerk for him. My lips twisted into a smile, and we gazed at each other for a moment. He was having a good time. He was happy. I wondered if he was this happy when we weren’t together. If he had this much fun with his friends, or the crew at work. Or any of the dates he went on. I didn’t. Not even with Sloan. It was different with Josh. It just was. How many good days like this did we have left? In a few weeks, I wouldn’t be seeing him anymore. I’d be recovering from my surgery, and he would be long gone.

We walked the circuit, passing the food stands frying funnel cakes and burgers, and the game booths, ceilings bristling with giant, multicolored stuffed animals. I paused in front of the crossbow game. Nicholas cocked an eyebrow. “Want me to win you a stuffed bunny?” “Ha.” I rubbed my hands together. “I’ll win my own stuffed bunny, thanks very much.” Nicholas passed the attendant a few dollars to pay for my turn. “I guess it’s nice to see you use your legendary aim for something other than breaking my nose,” he teased. “The night is young,” I snapped back, lifting the plastic crossbow. “This is a pathetic weapon,” I muttered. “I couldn’t stake an undead mouse with this thing.” “It’s supposed to be a game, remember?” he whispered, laughter in his dark voice. I fired my three shots, all crowding into the bull’s-eye. With a triumphantly smug toss of my head, I looked at the openmouthed attendant. “I want the purple bunny.” He tugged it down and passed it over to me. I slipped it into my bag while Nicholas shook his head. “Dump this loser, Lucy, and run away with me. You’ll never have to win your own cross-eyed bunny again.” I grinned up at Nicholas’s brother Quinn, who was smiling his charming smile, his arm draping casually over my shoulder. Hunter rolled her eyes at me from my other side. “No way,” I said. “My aim’s better than yours. Plus, your girlfriend can hurt me.” “Ooh,” Quinn said, winking. “Catfight. Hot.” He grinned. “Ouch,” he added when both Hunter and I smacked him.

Wait until the truffles hit the dining room---absolute sex," said Scott. When the truffles arrived the paintings leaned off the walls toward them. They were the grand trumpets of winter, heralding excess against the poverty of the landscape. The black ones came first and the cooks packed them up in plastic quart containers with Arborio rice to keep them dry. They promised to make us risotto with the infused rice once the truffles were gone. The white ones came later, looking like galactic fungus. They immediately went into the safe in Chef's office. "In a safe? Really?" "The trouble we take is in direct proportion to the trouble they take. They are impossible," Simone said under her breath while Chef went over the specials. "They can't be that impossible if they are on restaurant menus all over town." I caught her eye. "I'm kidding." "You can't cultivate them. The farmers used to take female pigs out into the countryside, lead them to the oaks, and pray. They don't use pigs anymore, they use well-behaved dogs. But they still walk and hope." "What happened to the female pigs?" Simone smiled. "The scent smells like testosterone to them. It drives them wild. They destroyed the land and the truffles because they would get so frenzied." I waited at the service bar for drinks and Sasha came up beside me with a small wooden box. He opened it and there sat the blanched, malignant-looking tuber and a small razor designed specifically for it. The scent infiltrated every corner of the room, heady as opium smoke, drowsing us. Nicky picked up the truffle in his bare hand and delivered it to bar 11. He shaved it from high above the guest's plate. Freshly tilled earth, fields of manure, the forest floor after a rain. I smelled berries, upheaval, mold, sheets sweated through a thousand times. Absolute sex.

what I knew that morning in March 1977 as we settled around the conference table. I wasn’t even sure how these guys reached us, or how they’d arranged this meeting. “Okay, fellas,” I said, “what’ve you got?” It was a beautiful day, I remember. The light outside the room was a buttery pale yellow, and the sky was blue for the first time in months, so I was distracted, a little spring feverish, as Rudy leaned his weight on the edge of the conference table and smiled. “Mr. Knight, we’ve come up with a way to inject . . . air . . . into a running shoe.” I frowned and dropped my pencil. “Why?” I said. “For greater cushioning,” he said. “For greater support. For the ride of a lifetime.” I stared. “You’re kidding me, right?” I’d heard a lot of silliness from a lot of different people in the shoe business, but this. Oh. Brother. Rudy handed me a pair of soles that looked as if they’d been teleported from the twenty-second century. Big, clunky, they were clear thick plastic and inside were—bubbles? I turned them over. “Bubbles?” I said. “Pressurized air bags,” he said. I set down the soles and gave Rudy a closer look, a full head-to-toe. Six-three, lanky, with unruly dark hair, bottle-bottom glasses, a lopsided grin, and a severe vitamin D deficiency, I thought. Not enough sunshine. Or else a long-lost member of the Addams Family. He saw me appraising him, saw my skepticism, and wasn’t the least fazed. He walked to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk, and began writing numbers, symbols, equations. He explained at some length why an air shoe would work, why it would never go flat, why it was the Next Big Thing. When he finished I stared at the blackboard. As a trained accountant I’d spent a good part of my life looking at blackboards, but this Rudy fella’s scribbles were something else. Indecipherable.

We inaugurate the evening Just drumming up a little weirdness It gets late so early now The waves come in in mountain phases Linked impossibilities Branching possibilities I’d see fire where it's not supposed to be In the empty library at suppertime By the respirating basement door The dog eats out of an old tambourine on the floor I’ve been told you can live a long, long time on the love of a dog And that things get bitter and bad When the people are wrong And sleep can be had for the price of a song Late in the day When the options are gone When the seatbelt’s the only hug you’ve felt in weeks When wrong numbers are the totality of your social life The obscure strategies of wildlife Only flummox the hell out of you, kid I first saw her in a megastore The Day-Glo raven Born into a free fall Like plastic Easter basket grass Falling from an overpass The fulfillment of a tenth grade prophecy A motel masterpiece Blind to the branching possibilities Blind to linked impossibilities Teardrops were standing in my eyes Like deer before they bolt It was like I was stretching my arm through the cat door to heaven I was thinking I could lick the frosting off these summer days if nights were half as sweet Me like a banged up dog walking half sideways I adored the way she modified my mornings When I’d wake up in the calm shoals of her bed Somersaults and smoke and a universe of sleep Before she slipped into her heritage And disappeared Now every second thought is out of control I guess in a way I long to be rad When I was with her it felt wrong to be sad Did I tell you an angel finally came and shut my mouth? There was a smile and a tear in her voice too And she taught me To relight Relight and relight again They tell me you can live a long, long time on the love of a dog Things get bitter and bad And sleep can be had Late in the day when the options seem gone Please let your eyes be a friend to me again It’s just malfunctioning teardrops A cowboy overflow of the heart

The store smells of roasted chicken and freshly ground coffee, raw meat and ripening stone fruit, the lemon detergent they use to scrub the old sheet-linoleum floors. I inhale and feel the smile form on my face. It's been so long since I've been inside any market other than Fred Meyer, which smells of plastic and the thousands of people who pass through every day. By instinct, I head for the produce section. There, the close quarters of slim Ichiban eggplant, baby bok choy, brilliant red chard, chartreuse-and-purple asparagus, sends me into paroxysms of delight. I'm glad the store is nearly empty; I'm oohing and aahing with produce lust at the colors, the smooth, shiny textures set against frilly leaves. I fondle the palm-size plums, the soft fuzz of the peaches. And the berries! It's berry season, and seven varieties spill from green cardboard containers: the ubiquitous Oregon marionberry, red raspberry, and blackberry, of course, but next to them are blueberries, loganberries, and gorgeous golden raspberries. I pluck one from a container, fat and slightly past firm, and pop it into my mouth. The sweet explosion of flavor so familiar, but like something too long forgotten. I load two pints into my basket. The asparagus has me intrigued. Maybe I could roast it with olive oil and fresh herbs, like the sprigs of rosemary and oregano poking out of the salad display, and some good sea salt. And salad. Baby greens tossed with lemon-infused olive oil and a sprinkle of vinegar. Why haven't I eaten a salad in so long? I'll choose a soft, mild French cheese from the deli case, have it for an hors d'oeuvre with a beautiful glass of sparkling Prosecco, say, then roast a tiny chunk of spring lamb that I'm sure the nice sister will cut for me, and complement it with a crusty baguette and roasted asparagus, followed by the salad. Followed by more cheese and berries for dessert. And a fruity Willamette Valley Pinot Noir to wash it all down. My idea of eating heaven, a French-influenced feast that reminds me of the way I always thought my life would be.

They've never been able to ignore you, Ma'am." "I made damn sure they couldn't. I never let them or anyone tell me what to do, except where Peter was concerned." She sighed, her weak chest rising and falling beneath the teal hospital down. "I'd trade my diamonds for a cigarette." Vera reached into her purse and pulled out a package of Gigantes she'd purchased at a tobacconist shop on the way to the hospital. She removed the cellophane wrapper and handed it to the Princess, the ability to anticipate Her Royal Highness's needs never having left her, even after all these years. The Princess didn't thank her, but the delight in her blue eyes when she put one in the good side of her mouth and allowed Vera to light it was thanks enough. The Princess struggled to close her lips around the base, revealing the depths of her weakness but also her strength. She refused to be denied her pleasure, even if it took some time to bring her lips together enough to inhale. Pure bliss came over her when she did before she exhaled. "I don't suppose you brought anything to drink?" "As a matter of fact, I did." Vera took the small bottle of whiskey she'd been given on the plane and held it up. "It isn't Famous Grouse, I'm afraid." "I don't care what it is." She snatched the plastic cup off the bedside table and held it up. "Pour." Vera twisted off the cap and drained the small bottle into the cup. The Princess held it up, whiskey in one hand, the cigarette in the other, and nodded to Vera. "Cheers." She drank with a rapture equal to the one she'd shown with the cigarette, sinking back into the pillows to enjoy the forbidden luxuries. "It reminds me of when we used to get drinks at the 400 Club after a Royal Command Film Performance or some other dry event. Nothing ever tasted so good as that first whiskey after all the hot air of those stuffy officials." "We could work up quite a thirst, couldn't we, Ma'am?" "We sure could." She enjoyed the cigarette, letting out the smoke slowly to savour it before offering Vera a lopsided smile. "We had fun back then, didn't we, Mrs. Lavish?

Apparently someone spotted it inside the game area near the table hockey - is that a goldfish? Mark held up his plastic bag. Inside it, a small orange fish swam around in a circle. "This is the best patrol we've ever done," he said. "I've never been awarded a fish before." Emma sighed inwardly. Mark had spent the past few years of his life with the Wild Hunt, the most anarchic and feral of all faeries. They rose across the sky on all manner of enchanted beings - motorcycles, horses, deer, massive snarling dogs - and scavenged battlefields, taking valuables from the bodies of the dead and giving them in tribute to the Faerie Courts. He was adjusting well to being back among his Shadowhunter family, but there were still times when ordinary life seemed to take him by surprise. HE noticed now that everyone was looking at him with raised eyebrows. He looked alarmed and placed a tentative arm around Emma's shoulders, holding the bag in the other hand. "I have won for you a fish, my fair one," he said, and kissed her on the cheek. It was a sweet kiss, gentle and soft, and Mark smelled like he always did: like cold outside air and green growing things. And it made absolute sense, Emma thought, for Mark to assume that everyone was startled because they were waiting for him to give her his prize. She was, after all, his girlfriend. She exchanged a worried glance with Cristina, whose dark eyes had gotten very large. Julian looked as if he were about to throw up blood. It was only a brief look before he schooled his features back into indifference, but Emma drew away from Mark, smiling at him apologetically. "I couldn't keep a fish alive," she said. "I kill plants just by looking at them." "I suspect I would have the same problem," Mark said, eyeing the fish. "It is too bad - I was going to name it Magnus, because it has sparkly scales." At that, Christina giggled. Magnus Bane was the High Warlock of Brookly, and he had a penchant for glitter. "I suppose I had better let him go free," Mark said. Before anyone could say anything, he made his way to the railing of the pier and emptied the bag, fish and all, into the sea. "Does anyone want to tell him that goldfish are freshwater fish and can't survive in the ocean?" said Julian quietly. "Not really," said Christina. "Did he just kill Magnus?" Emma asked, but before Julian could answer, Mark whirled around.

After loud overtures from his daughters, Anthony finally left the house and went up the winding path to the “museum,” to the mobile home where he and his parents had lived from 1949 to 1958. It has been left untouched. The furniture, tables, the paint on the walls, the ’50s cabinets, the dressers, the closets, are all unchanged, remaining as they once were. And in her closet in the bedroom, past the nurse’s uniform, far away in the right-hand corner on the top shelf, lies the black backpack that contains Tatiana’s soul. Every once in a while when she can stand it—or when she can’t stand it—she looks through it. Alexander never looks through it. Tatiana knows what Anthony is about to see. Two cans of Spam in the pack. A bottle of vodka. The nurse’s uniform she escaped from the Soviet Union in that hangs in plastic in the museum closet, next to the PMH nurse’s uniform she nearly lost her marriage in. The Hero of the Soviet Union medal in the pack, in a hidden pocket. The letters she received from Alexander—including the last one from Kontum, which, when she heard about his injuries, she thought would be the last one. That plane ride to Saigon in December 1970 was the longest twelve hours of Tatiana’s life. Francesca and her daughter Emily took care of Tatiana’s kids. Vikki, her good and forgiven friend, came with her, to bring back the body of Tom Richter, to bring back Anthony. In the backpack lies an old yellowed book, The Bronze Horseman and Other Poems. The pages are so old, they splinter if you turn them. You cannot leaf, you can only lift. And between the fracturing pages, photographs are slotted like fragile parchment leaves. Anthony is supposed to find two of these photographs and bring them back. It should take him only a few minutes. Cracked leaves of Tania before she was Alexander’s. Here she is at a few months old, held by her mother, Tania in one arm, Pasha in the other. Here she is, a toddler in the River Luga, bobbing with Pasha. And here a few years older, lying in the hammock with Dasha. A beaming, pretty, dark-haired Dasha is about fourteen. Here is Tania, around ten, with two dangling little braids, doing a fantastic one-armed handstand on top of a tree stump. Here are Tania and Pasha in the boat together, Pasha threateningly raising the oar over her head. Here is the whole family. The parents, side by side, unsmiling, Deda holding Tania’s hand. Babushka holding Pasha’s, Dasha smiling merrily in front.

We've been here three days already, and I've yet to cook a single meal. The night we arrived, my dad ordered Chinese takeout from the old Cantonese restaurant around the corner, where they still serve the best egg foo yung, light and fluffy and swimming in rich, brown gravy. Then there had been Mineo's pizza and corned beef sandwiches from the kosher deli on Murray, all my childhood favorites. But last night I'd fallen asleep reading Arthur Schwartz's Naples at Table and had dreamed of pizza rustica, so when I awoke early on Saturday morning with a powerful craving for Italian peasant food, I decided to go shopping. Besides, I don't ever really feel at home anywhere until I've cooked a meal. The Strip is down by the Allegheny River, a five- or six-block stretch filled with produce markets, old-fashioned butcher shops, fishmongers, cheese shops, flower stalls, and a shop that sells coffee that's been roasted on the premises. It used to be, and perhaps still is, where chefs pick up their produce and order cheeses, meats, and fish. The side streets and alleys are littered with moldering vegetables, fruits, and discarded lettuce leaves, and the smell in places is vaguely unpleasant. There are lots of beautiful, old warehouse buildings, brick with lovely arched windows, some of which are now, to my surprise, being converted into trendy loft apartments. If you're a restaurateur you get here early, four or five in the morning. Around seven or eight o'clock, home cooks, tourists, and various passers-through begin to clog the Strip, aggressively vying for the precious few available parking spaces, not to mention tables at Pamela's, a retro diner that serves the best hotcakes in Pittsburgh. On weekends, street vendors crowd the sidewalks, selling beaded necklaces, used CDs, bandanas in exotic colors, cheap, plastic running shoes, and Steelers paraphernalia by the ton. It's a loud, jostling, carnivalesque experience and one of the best things about Pittsburgh. There's even a bakery called Bruno's that sells only biscotti- at least fifteen different varieties daily. Bruno used to be an accountant until he retired from Mellon Bank at the age of sixty-five to bake biscotti full-time. There's a little hand-scrawled sign in the front of window that says, GET IN HERE! You can't pass it without smiling. It's a little after eight when Chloe and I finish up at the Pennsylvania Macaroni Company where, in addition to the prosciutto, soppressata, both hot and sweet sausages, fresh ricotta, mozzarella, and imported Parmigiano Reggiano, all essential ingredients for pizza rustica, I've also picked up a couple of cans of San Marzano tomatoes, which I happily note are thirty-nine cents cheaper here than in New York.

I thought I saw you scurrying in here hubby-kins!” A girl in a vivid orange dress stepped into the room and I had to look up at her towering height and shoulders which nearly matched the breadth of the Heirs'. Her teeth protruded a little from her lower jaw and her eyes seemed to wander, never landing on one spot. Her hair was a massive brown frizz with a pink bow clipped into the top of it, perfectly matching the violently bright shade of her eyeshadow. She marched between Tory and I like we were made of paper, forcing us aside with her elbows as she charted a direct path for Darius. “Mildred,” he said tersely, his eyes darkening as his bride-to-be reached out to him. Caleb, Seth and Max sniggered as Mildred leaned in for a kiss and Darius only managed to stop her at the last second by planting his palm on her forehead with a loud clap. “Not before the wedding,” he said firmly and I looked at Tory who was falling into a fit of silent laughter, clutching her side. I tried to smother the giggle that fought its way out of my chest but it floated free and Mildred rounded on us like a hungry animal. “These must be the Vega Twins,” she said coldly. “Well don't waste your time sniffing around my snookums. Daddy says he's saving himself for our wedding night.” Max roared with laughter and Mildred turned on him like a loaded weapon, jabbing him right in the chest. Max's smile fell away as she glared at him like he was her next meal. “What are you laughing at you overgrown starfish?” she demanded, her eyes flashing red and her pupils turning to slits. “I've eaten bigger bites than you before, so don't tempt me because I adore seafood.” Max reached out, laying a hand on her bare arm, shifting it slightly as his fingers brushed a hairy mole. “Calm down Milly, we're just having a bit of fun. We want to get to know Darius's betrothed. Why don't you have a shot?” He nodded to Caleb who promptly picked one up and held it one out for Mildred to take. “Daddy says drinking will grow hairs on my chest,” she said, refusing it. “Too late for that,” Seth said under his breath and the others started laughing. A knot of sympathy tugged at my gut, but Mildred didn't seem to care about their mocking. She stepped toward Seth with a wicked grin and his smile fell away. “Oh and what's wrong with that exactly, Seth Capella? You like your girls hairy, don't you?” Seth gawped at her in answer. “What the hell does that mean?” “You like mutt muff,” she answered, jutting out her chin and I noticed a few wiry hairs protruding from it. Seth growled, scratching his stomach as he stepped forward. “I don't screw girls in their Order form, idiot.” “Maybe not, but you do, don't you Caleb Altair?” She rounded on him and now I was really starting to warm to Mildred as she cut them all down to size. I settled in for the show, folding my arms and smiling as I waited for her to go on. “My sister's boyfriend’s cousin said you like Pegasus butts. He even sent a video to Aurora Academy of you humping a Pegasex blow up doll and it went viral within a day.” Caleb's mouth fell open and his face paled in horror. “I didn't hump it!” “I didn't watch the video, but everyone told me what was in it. Why would I want to see you screwing a plastic horse?” She shrugged then turned to Tory and I with absolutely no kindness in her eyes. Oh crap.(Darcy)

Mary was standing behind it, emptying minestrone out of tins into the vat.  An entire slab was resting on the stage behind her with half of the cans missing. They looked to be wholesale and cheap. But the folks outside wouldn’t complain. A stack of plastic bowls and spoons had been set on the table next to the heater. Once it was full and hot, she’d call them in. Jamie was surprised that they hadn’t flooded in already. The door was open, after all.  That said something to her about Mary, and about the respect these people had for her. ‘Detectives,’ Mary said, a little surprised. ‘Did I call you?’ She seemed to be asking herself as much as Jamie and Roper.  ‘No,’ Roper said. ‘But we wanted to be here when Grace arrived.’ Mary took it in, stirring the soup with a ladle. ‘Oh, well she’s not here yet — as far as I know. I won’t be serving lunch for another half an hour or so.’ ‘That’s fine, we’ll wait,’ Roper said, smiling. He thought he was charming at times. But he never was. Silence hung in the air while Mary popped and emptied in another tin with a dull slap.  Jamie looked at the slab and saw that the soup was best before August last year. It was out of date — probably salvaged from a food bank. Jamie thought about the phrase, beggars can't be choosers, and then immediately felt bad about it. ‘There was a guy outside this morning,’ Roper said, pushing his hands into his pockets. ‘Smartly dressed, short black hair, glasses.’ ‘Oh, um,’ Mary said, not sure where he was going with it. ‘He bumped into Jamie, said some pretty nasty things — about the good people who rely on this shelter. Didn’t seem too excited about them being there.’ Mary’s face lit up and then drooped as she realised who he meant. ‘Ah, yes — I don’t know

She pulled the Michael Andi book out of its plastic bag. “If there’s a wonderful, magical person in your life,” she said, hugging the book softly to her chest. “Someone who’s painted your gray world in color…” She looked straight at me and smiled a warm, direct, very human smile. “Then I think you should treasure that relationship.

As she'd gotten stronger, and her new hair grew in, she'd started ranging farther from the room on top of the tower. Not into either city, at first, though she'd walked over to Oakland a couple of times, over the cantilever, and looked out at it. Things felt different over there, though she was never sure why. But where she felt best was on the suspension bridge, all wrapped in it, all the people hanging and hustling and doing what they did, and the way the whole thing grew a little, changed a little, every day. There wasn't anything like that, not that she knew of, not up in Oregon. At first she didn't even know that it made her feel good; it was just this weird thing, maybe the fever had left her a little crazy, but one day she'd decided she was just happy, a little happy, and she'd have to get used to it. But it turned out you could be sort of happy and restless at the same time, so she started keeping back a little of Skinner's junk-money to use to explore the city. And that was plenty to do, for a while. She found Haight Street and walked it all the way to the wall around Skywalker, with the Temple of Doom and everything sticking up in there, but she didn't try to go in. There was this long skinny park that led up to it, called the Panhandle, and that was still public. Way too public, she thought, with people, mostly old or anyway looking that way, stretched out side by side, wrapped in silvery plastic to keep the rays off, this crinkly stuff that glittered like those Elvis suits in a video they'd showed them sometimes, up in Beaverton. It kind of made her think of maggots, like if somebody rolled each one up in its own little piece of foil. They had a way of moving like that, just a little bit, and it creeped her out. The Haight sort of creeped her out, too, even though there were stretches that felt almost like you were on the bridge, nobody normal in sight and people doing things right out in public, like the cops were never going to come at all. But she wasn't ever scared, on the bridge, maybe because there were always people around she knew, people who lived there and knew Skinner. But she liked looking around the Haight because there were a lot of little shops, a lot of places that sold cheap food. She knew this bagel place where you could buy them a day old, and Skinner said they were better that way anyway. He said fresh bagels were the next thing to poison, like they'd plug you up or something. He had a lot of ideas like that. Most of the shops, she could actually go into, if she was quiet and smiled a little and kept her hands in her pockets.

The Independent rants, “Not voting isn’t clever or brave. It is, in effect, saying to everyone else ‘you decide’.” Not voting is not only clever and brave, it’s the only rational way forward. You are thereby deciding the way forward. If there is a total boycott of the democratic front office of capitalism, it will remove the political legitimacy of the banking corporatocracy that rules over us. Democratic politicians are the plastic smile of the unacceptable face of capitalism. They are enemies of the people. Who in their right mind would vote for their enemies?

There was no one else in the elevator, and we rode in a silence that became increasingly tense. I shifted my weight from side to side and fiddled with one of the two plastic cards the desk clerk had given us. I cleared my throat. “So here we are,” I said. “Heading up to our hotel room.” Murphy’s cheeks turned pink. “You are a pig, Dresden.” “Hey, I didn’t put any innuendo into that. You did it yourself.” She rolled her eyes, smiling a little. I watched numbers change on the elevator panel. I coughed. “Yes, sirree. Alone together.” “It’s a little weird,” she admitted. “A little weird,” I agreed. “Should it be?” she asked. “I mean, we’re just working together. We’ve done that before.

purse. As she opened it, she saw a small edge of plastic poking out of the inner pocket. Pulling it out, she saw it was a small bag of cocaine from a party a few weeks ago, the night she had signed the contract for Socialites in the City. Looking at it for a moment, she rushed into the kitchen and, after tapping out a small amount, pulled out her credit card and cut it up, quickly and expertly. Making a thin line, she opened a drawer in the kitchen and pulled out a packet of drinking straws. Cutting one in half and then half again, she bent over and snorted the line up her nose. She then turned on the tap, sniffing hard, and then ran her fingers under the water. Taking a few drops of water onto the back of her hand, she snorted the water into her nostril and massaged either side of her nose, stretching the skin and letting the drug absorb into her system. Violetta shook her head and felt the buzz begin. She checked her nose in the mirror and then smiled at herself. ‘Showtime,’ she said, plastering a smile on her face as she left for the party. *

When he came back, he had a large soda and a pack of Twizzlers. I reached for the soda to take a sip, but there were no straws. “You forgot the straws,” I told him. He ripped the plastic off of the Twizzler box and bit the ends off of two Twizzlers. Then he put them in the cup. He grinned broadly. He looked so proud of himself. I’d forgotten all about our Twizzler straws. We used to do it all the time. We sipped out of the straws at the same time, like in a 1950s Coke commercial—heads bent, foreheads almost touching. I wondered if people thought we were on a date. Jeremiah looked at me, and he smiled in this familiar way, and suddenly I had this crazy thought. I thought, Jeremiah Fisher wants to kiss me. Which, was crazy. This was Jeremiah. He’d never looked at me like that, and as for me, Conrad was the one I liked, even when he was moody and inaccessible the way he was now. It had always been Conrad. I’d never seriously considered Jeremiah, not with Conrad standing there. And of course Jeremiah had never looked at me that way before either. I was his pal. His movie-watching partner, the girl he shared a bathroom with, shared secrets with. I wasn’t the girl he kissed.

THE SUMMER BEFORE COLLEGE Mick drove trucks for the Coke plant, big lumbering GMCs with slide-up side doors from which he pulled down wooden cases of bottles and slung back cases of empties, delivering to corner markets, restaurants and grocery stores in Rockland County. He loved the hard labor and the changing scenes and people, the sun hot on his face through the GMC’s big windshield and on his arm through the open window full of all the scents of summer – spicy fresh-mown alfalfa, sun-warm bark of beeches and birches, black-furrowed soil, the redolent pastures of cattle and sheep, the cool moist air when the road went over a stream. Wherever he sold, people upped their orders. “What I like,” one corner grocer said, “is you never let me down. You always come when you say you will.” Mick shrugged it off but smiled, “Isn’t everybody like that?” “The way you work, you’re gonna make somethin’ of yourself some day.” He drove on, one arm out the window, shoulder warm in the sun, wind cooling his face, in the friendly grease, diesel and sun-hot plastic smell of the truck. Of course you worked hard, everybody should. It made you happy. How could you not work when your family needed it? Tara waiting tables full-time at Primo’s Café on Main Street, Troy running the farm all by himself and delivering papers at four every morning; Dad’s salary at the plastic factory had gone

when I got out of the shower that night and found something in the team’s colors wrapped in clear plastic on my bed, I stared at it. And when I ripped off the packaging and shook it out to see that it was a brand-new Three Hundreds jersey with GRAVES written on the back, I smiled so hard my cheeks hurt.

They stripped him and tied him to a metal chair where they beat him with a bat, cut his arms and legs with dull knives, and three days later killed him by wrapping his entire head in plastic wrap, watching as he suffocated to death. His long punishment and slow death

Their condominium complex even has a name, Palm Desert Flower Estates—four words that she puts in a different wrong order every time—and it’s made of blindingly white stucco and has smooth, even sidewalks, streetlights, and mailboxes in a respectable row, with names all uniformly typed out by a little label machine. There’s even an office, with a manager and a full-time, smiling secretary, and a glittering turquoise pool in the back, with white plastic lounge chairs, always empty.

Oh. Um, no. I’m sorry. I was thinking about the numbers.” “What numbers?” “Um. Nothing important.” She smiled. Smiling usually helped alleviate any distress caused by her tendency to drift into her thoughts.

Bryce smiled. Hunt half turned toward her at the sound of the sorceress’s voice. “Got any Death Marks lying around?” Hunt hissed, “You can’t be serious.” Bryce ignored him as Jesiba answered, “I might. Plan on taking a trip, Quinlan?” “I hear the Bone Quarter’s gorgeous this time of year.” Jesiba chuckled, a rolling, sultry sound. “You do amuse me every now and then.” Pause. “You have to pay for this one, you know.” “Send the bill to my brother.” Ruhn would have a conniption, but he could deal. Another soft chuckle. “I only have two. And it’ll take until tomorrow morning for them to reach you.” “Fine. Thanks.” The sorceress said a shade gently, “You won’t find any traces of Danika left in the Bone Quarter, you know.” Bryce tensed. “What does that have to do with anything?” “I thought you were finally going to start asking questions about her.” Bryce clenched the phone hard enough for the plastic to groan. “What sort of questions?” What the fuck did Jesiba know? A low laugh. “Why don’t you start by wondering why she was always poking around the gallery?” “To see me,” Bryce said through her teeth. “Sure,” Jesiba said, and hung up. Bryce swallowed hard and pocketed her phone.

Give her a penny, I scream. I’m sick of every memory of me being discarded, avoided, or embalmed in a shrine. I want my mom to smile when asked for a penny and to laugh when she walks through the meat section of the grocery store, remembering the time we baked a ham together with the clear plastic wrapping still on, how we basted it for two hours before noticing it looked strange. I want my dad to smile when he eats chicken wings and watches an Angels game. I want Mo to never pass a dandelion without blowing off the fluff and then running through it to catch the seeds in her hair.

The instant the matter in discussion was decided, the debate, and everything connected with it, except the results, appeared to be forgotten. Hawkeye, without looking round to read his triumph in applauding eyes, very composedly stretched his tall frame before the dying embers, and closed his own organs in sleep. Left now in a measure to themselves, the Mohicans, whose time had been so much devoted to the interests of others, seized the moment to devote some attention to themselves. Casting off, at once, the grave and austere demeanor of an Indian chief, Chingachgook commenced speaking to his son in the soft and playful tones of affection. Uncas gladly met the familiar air of his father; and before the hard breathing of the scout announced that he slept, a complete change was effected in the manner of his two associates. It is impossible to describe the music of their language, while thus engaged in laughter and endearments, in such a way as to render it intelligible to those whose ears have never listened to its melody. The compass of their voices, particularly that of the youth, was wonderful — extending from the deepest bass to tones that were even feminine in softness. The eyes of the father followed the plastic and ingenious movements of the son with open delight, and he never failed to smile in reply to the other’s contagious, but low laughter. While under the influence of these gentle and natural feelings, no trace of ferocity was to be seen in the softened features of the Sagamore.

Left now in a measure to themselves, the Mohicans, whose time had been so much devoted to the interests of others, seized the moment to devote some attention to themselves. Casting off, at once, the grave and austere demeanor of an Indian chief, Chingachgook commenced speaking to his son in the soft and playful tones of affection. Uncas gladly met the familiar air of his father; and before the hard breathing of the scout announced that he slept, a complete change was effected in the manner of his two associates. It is impossible to describe the music of their language, while thus engaged in laughter and endearments, in such a way as to render it intelligible to those whose ears have never listened to its melody. The compass of their voices, particularly that of the youth, was wonderful — extending from the deepest bass to tones that were even feminine in softness. The eyes of the father followed the plastic and ingenious movements of the son with open delight, and he never failed to smile in reply to the other’s contagious, but low laughter. While under the influence of these gentle and natural feelings, no trace of ferocity was to be seen in the softened features of the Sagamore. His figured panoply of death looked more like a disguise assumed in mockery, than a fierce annunciation of a desire to carry destruction in his footsteps. After an hour passed in the indulgence of their better feelings, Chingachgook abruptly announced his desire to sleep, by wrapping his head in his blanket, and stretching his form on the naked earth. The merriment of Uncas instantly ceased; and carefully raking the coals in such a manner that they should impart their warmth to his father’s feet, the youth sought his own pillow among the ruins of the place.

Hey,” Arethusa said from my right, just past Sally. “What’s wrong with pacifists? Look at Buddhists: they’re nice people.” I gave her my best smile, and got a much better one in trade. Arethusa can smile like a long-distance kiss. I poured her two plastic cups of peach juice from the flask on my bedside table. Lady Sally started to adjust her chair so she could see us both… then left it as it was and spoke past me, to Arethusa’s other body, which opened its eyes politely. “They’re different,” Lady Sally conceded. “They’re honest pacifists. You don’t have to worry about them fighting dirty, because they never fight: they don’t have Jihads or Crusades. The strongest weapon they use is reason; the strongest protest they allow themselves is suicide, and they’re always careful not to let the flames spread. Pacifism of that sort is no more objectionable than belief in astrology or membership in the Flat Earth Society. I was speaking of the kind of pacifists we grew like hothouse flowers in this country fifteen or twenty years ago, and still have all too many of. Pacifist terrorists. The kind who want all wars everywhere to cease and everyone to live in peace… and are prepared to keep blowing up wealthier and less enlightened fellow citizens until that day comes. There’s nothing wrong with wanting wars to stop—but the moment a pacifist uses any weapon but calm speech, he’s a hypocrite. If he’s willing to kill, he’s a psychotic. The only good thing about them as opponents is that it isn’t murder to kill one.

Shortly after that, I was invited by a friend to fly over the desert in his plane. I told my friend about the Jedi thing and asked if Racey could come with us. He said yes, smiling over an idea he had. He made arrangements with the ground crew, and as we landed, we heard a voice over the cabin speakers announcing, “Racey, you are a Jedi! You are a Jedi now!” Racey rolled his little eyes in disbelief. I asked him if he was a Jedi yet. He wouldn’t answer me. When we got home, he ran straight to Darth Vader. He dropped in his coin, the music began, with the heavy breathing, the sword rose, and the deep voice said, “Impressive, but you are not a Jedi yet.” That seemed to be the way of it. I asked him one more time, and he told me, “Grandma, I not.” Many of us judge ourselves as relentlessly as that plastic toy played its recording, telling ourselves over and over what we are and what we’re not.

Once they got into the Mission Module, the standard of cuisine would improve, York knew. But while they were stuck inside the Apollo they had to make do with squirting water into color-coded plastic bags of dehydrated food. Still, she wasn’t about to complain. The Command Module was like a cute little mobile home, with its warm water for food and coffee, and toothpaste, even a system for the guys to shave. Gershon came floating up with a handful of gold-painted bags. “Hey. I found these at the front. None of us is coded gold, are we?” Stone smiled. “Nope. I had those put there for you to find.” York studied the bags. “Beef and potatoes. Butterscotch pudding. Brownies. Grape punch.” She looked at Stone. “What’s this? None of this was in my personal preference. In fact, I hate butterscotch pudding.” “I thought it was kind of appropriate. This was the first meal the Apollo 11 crew ate in space. Straight after translunar injection, after they left Earth orbit for the Moon.” “All right,” Ralph Gershon said, and he pulled a hose out of the potable water tank and squirted the spigot into his bags with enthusiasm. York looked at the bags again. Butterscotch pudding, in memoriam. Bizarre. But maybe, after all, it was appropriate.

Go see who it is, Kez,’ says Liam. ‘And if it’s anyone official, get rid of them.’ Keren opens the door to a middle-aged woman, holding flowers and what looks like a lunchbox. She’s wearing the sort of jeans Keren’s mum wears, and a flowery top. Her shoulder-length blonde hair is wispy and untamed, and her face has a sort of faded prettiness. Keren looks down at the stranger’s feet, which have unvarnished nails emerging from battered Birkenstocks. Imagine not painting your toenails, Keren thinks. The woman smiles broadly and holds out the flowers and the plastic box. ‘Hi, I’m Jane Headley. We live at number five: my husband Fergus and I. I just wanted to come and say welcome to Sycamore Gardens,

Botox" In a friendly exchange with a shopper in a grocery story line, she joyfully declared: “Today is my 50th birthday!” I said, “It looks like the hands of Time have touched your face gently. Happy birthday!” “The hands of Time weren’t gentle on me, my dear. What you see are the wonders of botox,” she said. “They say it freezes face features and expressions. Is that true?” I inquired half-jokingly. “At this stage of my life, it makes no difference. I no longer need any expressions. There is nothing worth smiling for or frowning upon. I spent decades expressing in every physical and verbal way possible, all in vain,” she said. Her words were followed by a hopeless giggle that reminded me of the philosopher who wrote that as we advance in age, our fears are replaced with giggles. She then continued, “There is a time when you discover that all verbal and physical expressions are futile. In everyone’s life, there’s one defining event that freezes everything in their lives. Anything that happens after that event is no more than desperate and hopeless attempts to pretend that we are okay.” Before I managed to find the appropriate words, the cashier called on her. The timing was ideal as words froze on my tongue just like the botox freezes features and expression in a world in which words and expressions are of no use anymore. [Original text published in Arabic on October 14, 2024 at ahewar.org]

Toward the end of the shift, when the orders from the waitresses had slowed to a trickle and the cleaning up of the kitchen had begun, J.T. picked a CD and slipped it into the CD player the cooks kept on top of a reach-in refrigerator. He cranked the volume to seven and hit Play. Offspring doing "Bad Habit." It was one of the kitchen staff standards. They favored seriously hard-edged rock at the end of a tough night. The worse the night, the wilder the music. Skeet, one of the other cooks, heard the opening bars and gave J.T. a wink. "It wasn't that bad of a night," she said. "Oh, Skeet, you think every night is a Melissa Etheridge night," J.T. teased. He waltzed over, took Skeet by the waist, and drew her into a completely incongruous dance, as if they were keeping time to a different piece of music. "First time you've danced with a guy, Skeet?" "No, only I prefer guys with some idea of rhythm," Skeet said. J.T. released her, laughing. "Come on, Tom," he said, inviting the fry cook to dance. "Let's go." "Yeah, when pigs fly," Tom said. "No one wants to dance," J.T. complained. Then he spotted Lianne coming through the swinging doors. "Lianne! Dance with me." He snapped his fingers. "I got dancin' feet." "Dance to this?" Lianne said, turning up her nose. "Skeet! Stick in Rihanna," J.T. ordered. Seconds later Rihanna came on. But still Lianne refused. "J.T., you're at work," she said. She gave him a peck on the cheek and went back to the dining room just as Marquez passed through the door. J.T. retreated a bit, stepping back behind the line and pretending to go back to work. Marquez started to do side work, dipping tartar sauce into little plastic cups, but J.T. knew her too well to think she could ignore the music. Within seconds he could see the effect-- a motion beginning with her head, swaying just slightly at first, translated down her neck to her shoulders, her bottom, her legs, topped off by a little twirl with the tartar sauce spoon still in her hand. J.T. smiled ruefully. The future Harvard girl. The future corporate lawyer. There wasn't anything wrong in dancing with his former girlfriend, was there? After all, a moment earlier he'd been dancing with Skeet. He'd even asked Tom, although the fry cook was unlikely to be seen as a threat by Lianne. No, he should stick to his work. Marquez was now dancing far more than she was filling cups of tartar sauce. J.T. whipped off his apron. Screw it. He had dancin' feet. What was he supposed to do? He took the spoon from Marquez and set it down. "Crank it, Skeet," he said. By the time Lianne reappeared in the kitchen, Marquez was up on the stainless steel counter, hands in the air over her head, hips thrusting, hair loose and flying, doing death-defying moves. J.T. was dancing more sedately below her, choosing to keep his feet on the ground. "Is this really--" Lianne began, but the music drowned her out. She caught J.T.'s eye. He gave her a wan grin and tried to draw her into the moment. But Lianne just looked angry and hurt.

Papa actually looked somewhat cool. He wore a leather jacket, sunglasses pushed up on his forehead, and an expensive cotton dress shirt untucked over jeans. Behind him was the palest non-albino human being I had ever seen. A shock of orangey blond stuck straight up from his ovoid head like a toy troll. His head was cocked upward; his smile seemed like a plastic snap-on attachment, and his features were flattened as if pressed back by an invisible stocking. Though he claimed online to be an avid weight-lifter, his body and face were doughy. Technically, he was a small person. He just had a certain genetic softness. This

OK. Day four in the Big Brother Jeep,’ she quipped, with a bad Geordie accent, as she pulled the door shut. ‘What’s with the plastic?’ A thin sheet of plastic had been pulled across the dashboard. ‘In case it gets messy,’ said John. ‘Clara—I’d like you to meet Yanos.’ Shocked, Clara spun in her seat and saw a dark-haired man sitting in the rear of the Jeep. He was smiling and she noticed a white flash through his hair at one temple. ‘What the hell—?’ ‘Calm down—he’s been sent,’ said John, reaching for the car stereo. Clara eyed the man, who was still smiling. Plastic crackled under her walking boots. The foot-well was lined with it too. The hair prickled up across her arms. John turned the radio on and a heavy bass line pounded out of it at high volume. Clara swallowed, keeping calm. ‘What has he been sent for?’ The man smiled even more, lifted one eyebrow in a roguish way and brought out a .22 calibre pistol, partially wrapped in a plastic bag. ‘To kill you.’ She went for the Glock but there was no time. He shot her in the centre of her forehead. The radio hid the thud. The plastic caught the mess.   The

The sun was warm on my face. I knew we were safe at last. The vast bottle of Champagne, that had sat like some Buddha at base camp for three months, was ceremoniously produced. It took four of us almost ten minutes, hacking away with ice axes, finally to get the cork out. The party had begun. I felt like drinking a gallon of this beautiful bubbly stuff, but my body just couldn’t. Sipping slowly was all I could manage without sneezing, and even like that I was soon feeling decidedly wobbly. I closed my eyes and flopped against the rock wall of the mess tent--a huge smile plastered across my face. Later on in my tent, I put on the fresh socks and thermal underwear that I had kept especially for this moment. First change in ninety days. Heaven. I sealed the underpants in a plastic Ziploc bag and reminded myself to be very cautious when it came to opening the bag again back home.

When I was twelve, Flip came through Reno and gave out autographs at a casino. I didn't have a glossy photo for him to sign, so I had him sign my hand. For weeks I took a shower with a plastic bag over that hand, rubbed-banded at the wrist. It wasn't quite a romantic infatuation. There are levels of readiness. Young girls don't entertain the idea of sex, their body and another's together. That comes later, but there isn't nothing before it. There's an innocent displacement, a dreaming, and idols are perfect for a little girl's dreaming. They aren't real. They aren't the gas station attendant trying to lure you into the back of the service station, a paperboy trying to lure you into a tool-shed, a friend's father trying to lure you into his car. They don't lure. They beckon, but like desert mirages. Flip Farmer was safely unreachable. He was something special. I chose him from among all the men in the world, and he signed the back of my hand and smiled with very white, straight teeth. He gave us each that same smile, the children and adults who lined up at Hannah's. We weren't individuals but a surface he moved over, smiling and remote. The thing was, if he had returned my gaze, I probably would have washed his autograph from my hand.

Jordan Cross sat in the back of a taxicab headed for the wharf wearing tortoiseshell glasses, a blond mustache and a straw fedora over his dyed hair, smiling like an idiot, nodding his head up and down, up and down, like one of those fuzzy sequin-eyed plastic dogs they sell in tacky souvenir shops. He

They ate at a place called El Rey del Taco. At the entrance there was a neon sign: a kid wearing a big crown mounted on a burro that regularly kicked up its hind legs and tried to throw him. The boy never fell, although in one hand he was holding a taco and in the other a kind of scepter that could also serve as a riding crop. The inside was decorated like a McDonald’s, but in an unsettling way. The chairs were straw, not plastic. The tables were wooden. The floor was covered in big green tiles, some of them printed with desert landscapes and episodes from the life of El Rey del Taco. From the ceiling hung piñatas featuring more adventures of the boy king, always accompanied by the burro. Some of the scenes depicted were charmingly ordinary: the boy, the burro, and a one-eyed old woman, or the boy, the burro, and a well, or the boy, the burro, and a pot of beans. Other scenes were set firmly in the realm of the fantastic: in some the boy and the burro fell down a ravine, in others, the boy and the burro were tied to a funeral pyre, and there was even one in which the boy threatened to shoot his burro, holding a gun to its head. It was as if El Rey del Taco weren’t the name of a restaurant but a character in a comic book Fate happened never to have heard of. Still, the feeling of being in a McDonald’s persisted. Maybe the waitresses and waiters, very young and dressed in military uniforms (Chucho Flores told him they were dressed up as federales), helped create the impression. This was certainly no victorious army. The young waiters radiated exhaustion, although they smiled at the customers. Some of them seemed lost in the desert that was El Rey del Taco. Others, fifteen-year-olds or fourteen-year-olds, tried in vain to joke with some of the diners, men on their own or in pairs who looked like government workers or cops, men who eyed them grimly, in no mood for jokes. Some of the girls had tears in their eyes, and they seemed unreal, faces glimpsed in a dream. “This place is like hell,” he said to Rosa Amalfitano. “You’re right,” she said, looking at him sympathetically, “but the food isn’t bad.

have splurged on a better ride? Or, hell, I don’t know, bought himself a wallet that wasn’t held together with duct tape?” “He splurged on jewelry.” “Please. The only jewelry he ever wore was the wedding ring you bought him. And before you say anything, his watch doesn’t count. I’m pretty sure that thing was made of plastic.” “For me.” I twist my hand around, and the Cartier winks in the sunshine. “He splurged on jewelry for me.” Corban’s smile drops like a guillotine. “That ring doesn’t prove a thing. Will didn’t like to spend money on himself, but he would gladly spend it on you. He probably saved up for months, or maybe he financed it. Doesn’t matter. The point is, he had a good job. He did well enough

What in the—? My begonias!” he heard someone say behind him. Nick looked over his shoulder. A small but muscular woman in sweaty workout clothes was stepping out of a big shiny car in the neighbor’s driveway. She was gaping in horror at the chewed-up flowerbed and the smoking lawn mower. Scowling, she turned toward Uncle Newt’s house. And the scowl didn’t go away when she noticed Nick looking back at her. In fact, it got scowlier. Nick smiled weakly, waved, and hurried into the house. He closed the door behind him. “Whoa,” he said when his eyes adjusted to the gloom inside. Cluttering the long hall in front of him were dozens of old computers, a telescope, a metal detector connected to a pair of bulky earphones, an old-fashioned diving suit complete with brass helmet, a stuffed polar bear (the real, dead kind), a chainsaw, something that looked like a flamethrower (but couldn’t be … right?), a box marked KEEP REFRIGERATED, another marked THIS END UP (upside down), and a fully lit Christmas tree decorated with ornaments made from broken beakers and test tubes (it was June). Exposed wires and power cables poked out of the plaster and veered off around every corner, and there were so many diplomas and science prizes and patents hanging (all of them earned by Newton Galileo Holt, a.k.a. Uncle Newt) that barely an inch of wall was left uncovered. Off to the left was a living room lined with enough books to put some libraries to shame, a semitransparent couch made of inflated plastic bags, and a wide-screen TV connected by frayed cords to a small trampoline.

He smiled – a real smile. Damn. It was easier to deal with him when he was being thoroughly vile. "Look, I’m sorry for being so rude earlier today. Your presence came as something of a shock and I reacted badly." "Oh." Geared for battle, his apology took me utterly by surprise. I gaped. "Aunt Arabella spoke very highly of you," he added, heaping coals of fire on my head. "She was impressed by your work on the Purple Gentian." "Why all this sudden amiability?" I asked suspiciously, crossing my arms across my chest. "Are you always this blunt?" "I’m too tired to be tactful," I said honestly. "Fair enough." Stretching, Colin detached himself from the wall. "Can I make you some hot chocolate as a token of peace? I was just about to have some myself," he added. Suiting action to words, he loped over to the counter beside the sink and checked the level of water in a battered brown plastic electric kettle. Satisfied, he plugged it into the wall, flipping the red switch on the side. I followed him over to the counter, the linen folds of the nightgown trailing after me across the linoleum. "As long as you promise not to slip any arsenic in it." Colin rooted around in a cupboard above the sink for the cocoa tin and held it out to me to sniff. "See? Arsenic free." I leant back against the counter, my elbows behind me on the marble work surface. "I don’t think arsenic is supposed to have a smell, is it?" "Damn, foiled again." Colin spooned Cadbury’s instant hot chocolate into two mugs, one decorated with large purple flowers, and the other with a quotation that I thought might be Jane Austen, but the author’s name was hidden around the other side of the mug. "Look, if it makes you feel better, I promise to do a very bad job hiding your body." "In that case, carry on," I yawned.

Me and Jason against you and Stacy.” Alana handed Alexis a badminton racket and grinned. “Yay,” Alexis said without even a smidgeon of enthusiasm. “Do you want to serve?” Stacy asked Alexis when Jason and Alana moved to the other side of the net. “Serve you what? There’s no staff here to take care of your every whim, princess,” Alexis said lowly so the others wouldn’t hear. Stacy recoiled at the remark, then her temper flared. “You know what I was asking,” she replied coolly. “You can serve. Here’s the birdie,” Alexis replied and handed it to her on her middle finger. “Shuttlecock,” Stacy corrected. “Butthole…cock.” Alexis shrugged when Stacy glared at her. “That’s what we used to call them.” “Uh-huh,” Stacy said as she prepared to serve. The birdie sailed over the net,and volley began. This went on for a few minutes, then Alexis heard a hard thwack behind her, and the birdie stung her on the back of the thigh. She turned and looked at Stacy with fire in her eyes. “My bad,” Stacy said nonchalantly.Alexis picked up the birdie and hit it toward Jason. He served again. Stacy returned and nailed Alexis in the back of the head. “I’m so sorry,” Stacy said with an acerbic smile. “I’m having a hard time getting my shuttlecock up for you.” ...An intense volley began, and Alana said, “Uh, hey, y’all are supposed to be hitting it to us.” Jason watched in fascination. “I think they’re trying to kill the birdie.” Alexis finally missed and snatched it off the ground. “We were just warming up.” “Yeah, I’m good and hot now,” Stacy added between clenched teeth...“My serve,” Alexis said as she whirled around, then lowered her voice as she passed Stacy. “You’re about to find out whywe call them butthole cocks.” Stacy held her racket out like a sword. “How about I just waffle your ass now?” Alexis struck a fencing pose, or at least she thought she did. “On guard, biatch.”...Alana rushed under the net and stepped between the two staring daggers at each other. “Hey, we want to be able to use these rackets again. Maybe we should take a break since y’all kind of murdered the birdie.” Alana laughed. “It’s missing two plastic feathers...

Do you know what STF is?" "I just ound out," he admitted, "and I am so, so,sorry..." He tried to look like he meant it, but I could tell that a little smile was peeking out at the corner of his mouth. "This is so not funny. I have to wear a plastic suit of armor!" "Well," Marcus said, stifling a giggle, "at least you have a date. And metallics are really in this year.

There was a small, strange moment during which I had this feeling that someone was filming me, which was ridiculous, but it was that specific—”there’s a camera on me”—and then some hard ancient pushed-down thing, a thing I’d felt or thought or feared a long time ago, something I’d since managed to sheathe in an imaginary scabbard inside myself, erupted through its casing like a bursting cyst. I had to really struggle to recover. Something was dislodging itself, as from a cavern inside my body or brain, and this situation seemed so divorced from waking reality that my own dimensions lost their power to persuade. I craned my great head and saw all that yellow-brown plastic catch the light, little pills glinting like ammunition, and then my brain went to work, juggling and generating several internal voices at once: someone’s filming this; this isn’t real; whoever Sean is, it’s not who I think he is; all the details I think I know about things are lies; somebody is trying to see what I’ll do when I run across these bottles; this is a test but there won’t be any grade later; the tape is rolling but I’m never going to see the tape. It is a terrible thing to feel trapped within a movie whose plot twists are senseless. This is why people cry at the movies: because everybody’s doomed. No one in a movie can help themselves in any way. Their fate has already staked its claim on them from the moment they appear onscreen. I looked away; I looked away. Held myself steady for a second and then got back to the work of the cleaning, shaking free of the crazy feelings, and I felt the corners of my mouth, half smiling. Most people can clean their bathroom cabinets without waking up any traumatic memories. Not me, not yet, I guess. But as Dave the art therapist told me once when he found me sulking: it’s not so bad to be special. My journey, he said, was longer and slower. He looked me in the eyes, which impressed me, and told me that my good fortune was to learn what special really meant.

smiling faces of the masks, and every inch of my skin rose in prickles of terror. I could see the first man’s teeth between the red lips of the mask. They were pressed together, the pale shape of his mouth wide and straight, as if the effort of choking me one-handed was too much for him. The two sets of lips –a human flesh pair within a solid plastic pair –made my blood freeze, but still I couldn’t take my eyes from the mask and the glimpse of the person I could see beneath. The second man grabbed my arms and fixed them tightly behind me with something hard and cold that bit into my skin. And then came the gag -between my teeth, tearing into the corners of my mouth, the rough material chafing my flesh. The two men spoke again, but their words blurred in my head and became little more than a buzzing sound. I watched as the first man went into the hall. He was leaving us, pulling off his mask as he reached the front door. He didn’t know I’d

As they tramped in, Temo turned from the big stone barbecue with a long grilling fork in his hand. He froze at the sight of Dayna. Once more, it was as though the two of them were alone in the sunny ramada with its roof of woven grass and the light filtering through on their faces. No one else mattered. A short woman with her hair piled on her head hurried from behind the barbecue with a platter of tacos in her hand. “Temo, aren’t you going to introduce me to your new friends?” she asked with a smile. “Temo, what is wrong? Are you sick?” “No, Madre,” Temo muttered, but he still couldn’t take his eyes off Dayna. Dayna’s mother, Brenda Regis, picked that exact moment to stride in from the spa. “Howdy, everybody,” she crooned. “Hope you’re all hungry as coyotes.” She glanced at her daughter, who was still gazing at Temo with lovesick eyes. “Dayna, what’s the matter with you, honey?” She looked Dayna up and down, then her eyes went to Temo, and then to Temo’s mother. The two women stiffened. Say something, Sophie prayed silently to Dayna. Order Temo around in that bossy voice of yours. Quick, before your mother and his mother figure this out. But Dayna stood stunned, incapable of speech. Sophie gave Liv a nudge. “Follow my lead,” she whispered and then in a louder voice shouted, “Hey, is this a good time to break the piñata?” She dived forward to snatch the long fork from Temo’s hand. “Whee!” she shouted. “Fun! Come on, everybody. Let’s see what’s inside!” She poked at the paper horse. Liv grabbed a barbecue brush and bashed at it too. Cheyenne and Hailey joined in with shouts of glee. The paper horse flew to pieces, scattering small objects and cactus candy all over the picnic table. Some fell into the punch bowl with a splash. More landed in the salad plate. Laughter and confusion broke the spell of tension in the air as they all dived for the piñata’s. Dayna snapped out of her trance. “Look what I’ve got!” She held up a plastic whistle, then blew a shrill note. “Time to eat, everybody.” Temo turned back to the barbecue. The spell was broken, the danger past. His mother, Marita, gave him another frightened glance, but went on laying food on the table. Dayna’s mother picked a piece of candy out of her hair and said, “Well! We usually break the piñata after the meal, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter.

We were in the middle of a three car caravan accompanied by Jim Carlisle, a career diplomat and the perfect Charge’ de Affaires. His manner was formal but always with a practiced smile to make his counterparts feel at ease. He sat in the jump seat in front of Owen, Alex and I sat together in the back near the double cargo doors guarding the luggage. The driver was Pakistani as was the security guard on the passenger side. The cars were crossing a bridge when it happened. First the blinding flash, then the delayed sound, it was deafening with the unmistakable smell of high explosives. The Ford Expedition in front erupted in a mushroom cloud of smoke and fire as it leaped off the road and settled back in a black pile of melting plastic, glass and metal. Our driver slammed on the brakes, ramming the gear into reverse while twisting his body around for a better view out the rear door windows. It was to late, the car behind us had met the same fate, we were bookended by smoking heaps of scrap metal as the masked bombers, five of them, surrounded our SUV. This was a professional hit team, their leader was calm, he directed the others with chilling efficiency. They wore black ski masks, bullet proof vests and ear phone sets, only the leader spoke, the others took orders. The shortest one had a knapsack, he turned his back to another who unzipped it and removed the gray matter, it looked like putty, he slapped it hard against the double rear doors. These would be the most vulnerable, they locked together rather than to the structural integrity of the vehicle. Both doors exploded out and away from the car dangling precariously on their hinges. The short one jumped in first, throwing the luggage out and scrambling towards us as our security guard leveled his government issue Glock-45, he hesitated to long, the red dot sighting device from the backup shooter was in the center of his forehead. The bone and brain fragment from the melon sized exit wound in the back of his head splattered against the windshield. The driver went for the concealed weapon under the front seat but thought better of it as the bombers surrounded the vehicle. Outside the driver side window, the leader hit the bullet proof glass with the butt of his matt black automatic, he wanted the doors opened, the driver had already hit the lock release.

Up top, we saw a party on the verge of a breakout. The three respectful men were, in fact, security guards. On the far edge of the plot, four scraggly dudes were fiddling around with a PA. A guitar and a drum set lay in the grass behind them. A stand-up bass had been propped up against a gravestone. Surrounding a folding table stocked with handles of Costco booze were six or seven men with fuck-you-Dad piercings—septa, cheeks, foreheads—and tribal facial tattoos. I counted seven, maybe fifteen dogs running around, yapping at one another, and at least twenty or so old hippies, each one dressed in his or her referential, Harold and Maude best, smiling and drinking out of red plastic cups.

Fernando crouches next to one of the beds and takes out a box. He digs inside it for a few seconds, then picks up a small, round disc. It is made of a pale metal that I saw often in Erudite headquarters but have never seen anywhere else. He carries it toward me on his palm. When I reach for it, he jerks it away from me. “Careful!” he says. “I brought this from headquarters. It’s not something we invented here. Were you there when they attacked Candor?” “Yes,” I say. “Right there.” “Remember when the glass shattered?” “Were you there?” I say, narrowing my eyes. “No. They recorded it and showed the footage at Erudite headquarters,” he says. “Well, it looked like the glass shattered because they shot at it, but that’s not really true. One of the Dauntless soldiers tossed one of these near the widows. It emits a signal that you can’t hear, but that will cause glass to shatter.” “Okay,” I say. “And how will that be useful to us?” “You may find that it’s rather distracting for people when all their windows shatter at once,” he says with a small smile. “Especially in Erudite headquarters, where there are a lot of windows.” “Right,” I say. “What else have you got?” says Christina. “The Amity will like this,” Cara says. “Where is it? Ah. Here.” She picks up a black box made of plastic, small enough for her to wrap her fingers around it. At the top of the box are two pieces of metal that look like teeth. She flips a switch at the bottom of the box, and a thread of blue light stretches across the gap between the teeth. “Fernando,” says Cara. “Want to demonstrate?” “Are you joking?” he says, his eyes wide. “I’m never doing that again. You’re dangerous with that thing.” Cara grins at him, and explains, “If I touched you with this stunner right now, it would be extremely painful, and then it would disable you. Fernando found that out the hard way yesterday. I made it so that the Amity would have a way of defending themselves without shooting anyone.” “That’s…” I frown. “Understanding of you.” “Well, technology is supposed to make life better,” she says. “No matter what you believe, there’s a technology out there for you.” What did my mother say, in that simulation? “I worry that your father’s blustering about Erudite has been to your detriment.” What if she was right, even if she was just a part of a simulation? My father taught me to see Erudite a particular way. He never taught me that they made no judgments about what people believed, but designed things for them within the confines of those beliefs. He never told me that they could be funny, or that they could critique their own faction from the inside. Cara lunges toward Fernando with the stunner, laughing when he jumps back. He never told me that an Erudite could offer to help me even after I killed her brother.

Stop talking,” I whisper. “Seriously, stop talking right now.” “Why?” he says, somewhat hurt at the interruption. “Because I’m pretty sure that if you keep talking like this... I’ll have to marry you, or something,” I explain nervously. “So just zip it.” “You’ll have to...” Liam is repeating what I said in confusion, when his car door opens. “Okay!” Owen says. “I filled up the tank, and got popsicles. But Liam, you’re going to have to take the wheel, so I can play games on my phone. It’s very important. And if you don’t want to drive, I’m unwrapping your popsicle and tossing it on the ground.” “Fine,” Liam says, and there is the sound of crinkling plastic as he grabs the popsicle and gets out of the car. I am very surprised that this mild level of blackmail is so effective. Liam really is a softie. I feel the car shift as Owen lunges into the seat in front of me. I flinch when a cold plastic item is pressed against my cheek. “Your popsicle, as requested, milady!” Owen says happily. Lifting my hand, I take the popsicle away from Owen. I smile as I begin to unwrap the item, so I can press the sweet concoction against my tongue. Just as I taste the frozen sugar-water, the driver’s side door opens and a cold wind blasts into the car. I shiver. “Dammit. I should have thought of something

but given the darkness, the distance, and the fact that I’d killed most of them, they probably only had the vaguest description of me: short and brown and deadly. That

Emmanuel, leafed through a book of photographs, color printouts, bound in black plastic and covered with a thin transparent sheet: There was green grass and a white-paneled house and a little blond girl smiling. There was a large van and an even larger play set. There was a countertop completely covered with food. “This is a very nice place,” Emmanuel said in a quiet voice. “I would like to go to this place.” For Emmanuel, the snapshots of suburban America presented an impossible dream, a portrait of manicured abundance as distant and as glorious as a preacher’s description of heaven.

day, the trigger was an older woman with deep wrinkles. To this day, I cannot be certain about what caused her to react so strongly. Perhaps she had used up her patience simmering in the sun for hours at the back of the line. Perhaps she had some desperately hungry grandchildren who she needed to get back to. It is impossible to know exactly what happened. But after she received her allocation of wheat, she broke the established rules of the feeding site and moved toward Bubba. She looked up at him and unleashed a verbal attack. Bubba, as gentle as ever, simply smiled at her. The more he smiled, the angrier she got. I noticed the commotion when our Somali guards suddenly tensed and turned toward the disturbance. All I could see was Bubba, head and shoulders above a gathering crowd, seemingly unperturbed, and smiling down at someone. His patient response only fueled the woman’s rage. I heard her sound of fury long before I spotted the source when she launched a long stream of vile curses at Bubba. Thankfully, he didn’t understand a word that she was saying. It was now possible to understand her complaint. She was upset about the quality of the “animal feed” that was being distributed for human consumption. She was probably right in her assessment of the food. These were surplus agricultural products that United Nations contributing members didn’t want, couldn’t sell, and had no other use for. As this hulking American continued to smile, the woman realized that she was not communicating. Now, furious and frustrated, she bent down, set her plastic bag on the ground, grabbed two fistfuls of dirty, broken wheat, grain dust, dirt and chaff. She straightened to her full height and flung the filthy mixture as hard as she could into Bubba’s face. The crowd was deathly silent as I heard a series of loud metallic clicks that indicated that an entire squad of American soldiers had instinctively locked and loaded all weapons in readiness for whatever might happen next. Everything felt frozen in time as everyone waited and watched for Bubba’s reaction. A Somali man might have beaten the woman for such a public insult—and he would have considered his action and his anger entirely justified. I knew that Bubba had traveled half-way around the world at his own expense to spend three months of personal vacation time to help hurting people. And this was the thanks that he received? He was hot, sweaty, and drained beyond exhaustion—and he had just been publicly embarrassed. He had every reason to be absolutely livid. Instead, he raised one hand to rub the grit out of his eyes, and then he gave the woman one more big smile. At that point, he began to sing. And what he sang wasn’t just any song. She didn’t understand the words, of course. But she, and the entire crowd, stood in silent amazement as Bubba belted out the words to the 1950’s Elvis Presley rock-n-roll classic: You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog Cryin’ all the time You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog Cryin’ all the time Well, you ain’t never caught a rabbit And you ain’t no friend of mine. By the time he started singing the next verse, the old woman had turned and stomped off in frustration, angrily plowing a path through the now-smiling crowd of Somalis to make her escape. Watching her go, Bubba raised his voice to send her off with rousing rendition of the final verse: Well they said you was high-classed Well, that was just a lie Ya know they said you was high-classed Well, that was just a lie Well, you ain’t never caught a rabbit And you ain’t no friend of mine.

There is no condemnation for those in Christ. While the enemy loves to cast false guilt, our Lord loves to extend grace and forgiveness, which is the remedy that restores all our broken pieces. Don’t hold onto those pieces. Don’t hide them behind a plastic smile. Bring them into the light, lay them at the feet of Jesus, and let go. Then stand back and watch the wonder of grace at work as God creates something beautiful in you.   “Broken into Beautiful” Gwen Smith, Sue Smith, Chad Cates She’s smiling on the outside, But she’s hurting on the inside. It’s getting hard just living anymore.

So ether or starter fluid wouldn’t confuse her?” Budress smiled at Maggie, and offered his hand. She sniffed, then lay down at Scott’s feet. “Not this nose. If I asked you to point out the orange tents, would the green hedges or blue sky or the tree bark confuse you?” “’Course not.” “She smells like we see. Just laying here, she’s picking up thousands of scents, just like we’re seeing a thousand shades of green and blue and whatever. I say, show me the orange, you instantly spot the orange, and don’t think twice about all those other colors. It’s the same way for her with scents. If she was trained to alert to dynamite, you can wrap dynamite in plastic, bury it under two feet of horseshit, and douse the whole thing with whiskey, and she’ll still smell the dynamite. Ain’t she amazing?” Scott

You want some breakfast?” “Home fries?” There are potatoes in a bag on the counter, the Yukon gold kind. “Check.” He smiles again. “Poached eggs?” I open the fridge, stare inside it. A carton of eggs wait happily on the shelf, ready to be cracked. “Double check.” “Orange juice?” I pull out the plastic container. “Apple cranberry.” He mock frowns, pulls himself off the couch, strides over. “Oh, I don’t know. Apple cranberry is so . . .” “So what?” “It’s not really manly.” “What? There are manly juices? Orange is more manly than apple cranberry?” He grabs the edge of the counter and leans back, stretching out his calves. I plop the juice container on the counter. He looks at me. His eyes are confused. “Really, Nick. That is silly. You’re already having poached eggs.” “So?” “So how are poached eggs manly?” He tilts his head. “They aren’t manly? Quiche isn’t manly, I know. But that’s egg in pie form. Poached eggs should be fine. Although fried eggs are probably the manliest. Maybe we should fry them.

The aspiring writer comes home after a hard day’s work in the plastic shop. Maybe he has a few beers, or a cocktail, but soon he retires to his writing. There he discovers the aroma of burning lavender incense, and a soft red glow streaming from his reading lamp. The strings of a violin sing out softly, romantically. He notices his favorite notebook lying on his desk, submissively, with her blank naked pages spread open for him. He fondles his ballpoint pen and gawks at her 9.75 by 7.5-inch-wide ruled lines. He simply sits and stares at her awhile, lustfully, admiring the soft red lines that run down her legs to form margins. He smiles, feeling shy and perhaps a little apprehensive about this, what is for him, inevitable endeavor. He glances at his eager pen for a moment. It is a small pen. She reassures him that it is not the size of the pen that counts, but rather his prowess with it.        Not having any sort of plan in mind, all the more excited by the spontaneity of it, he sets to writing. He starts out softly, gently, and careful at first, forming each letter of each word with intimate precision. The inhibitions drop with each gentle stroke of his pen. Soon he is inside and one with the inviting quarter blank page. His pen is feverishly scratching against the warm paper. Madly he is marking the page. The blood in his head pounds, as he lets all his energy, all the everything inside him spill out onto the page. Faster and faster he writes with wild abandon, pushing it out onto her! “More” she moans. He grunts a primal grunt that rises up thick and full, from somewhere in the depths of his very soul, and he writes on! From under his pen she screams out in shades of purple passion ecstasy! “YES! OH GOOD GOD, YES! GIVE IT TO ME! YOU MAD MAD POET!” So he writes on, harder and faster, striving for climax. Until it seems at any moment, his pen might explode and spray thick creamy bubbling blue ink everywhere! He comes! To the end of the page. With the ink still wet and strangely sticky between her pages, he closes the notebook. Feeling drained, he lies his head against her soft cardboard cover and dozes off to dream the dreams that writers dream…           Rainbow

The guy we worked with at ASU’s paper?” An image of a man of medium build with dark hair and black-rimmed glasses downloads. “Didn’t he grease his hair and wear a plastic pocket protector?” I grin at Reese and she shares a smile

When someone spills a glass of milk, we can all argue about who spilled it, why the glass was so close to the edge of the table in the first place, assign committees to study the type of dishwashing liquid we’re using to see if it’s leaving a greasy film on the glasses, and so on, and so on. “Or, we can work together to clean up the mess, give the person who spilled the milk a plastic sippy cup, and move forward.” Lillian smiled. “So are you saying we should give Congress and the central bankers all sippy cups?” He smiled mischievously. “Those are your

Kevin refilled my plastic cup with more box wine. I smiled thanks. Kevin smiled welcome. Jake kicked my ankle.

Their plastic smiles were so deeply ingrained it would probably take an elite demolition team to remove them.

Jamie hated being asked that question, because there wasn’t a good answer that didn’t make it sound like they were. Roper looked at her, not wanting to tackle it either. ‘We, uh,’ Jamie started, looking around the room. ‘We don’t have a list of suspects, yet. We’re just gathering information.’ Mary looked relived, nodding. ‘Okay, good. Well, if there’s anything I can do.’ Roper smiled, rocking back and forth on his heels. ‘Just let us know when Grace arrives and we’ll do the rest. You’ve been a great help already.’ He turned away and headed towards the far side of the room. Jamie followed, knowing it meant he wanted to talk. They stood side on so they had a view of both Mary and the door, and then Roper said, ‘I’ll make the call, get the uniforms out here. You think it’s worth looking around this place again?’ Jamie shook her head. ‘We’d be swinging in the dark. Let’s speak to Grace first, then go from there. If she gives us any names — the third person in the love triangle — then we can grab another file. But for now…’ She inhaled, knowing they had twenty something minutes to kill and she had two phone calls to make.  They couldn’t be put off any longer.  ‘Let’s head outside,’ Roper said. ‘It smells like piss in here.’ She thought that was rich considering that there was about a fifty-fifty chance that smell was coming from Roper himself. But she didn’t say anything. Roper had a cigarette lit before his feet hit the pavement and he circled into the street to get a look at the thirty-strong line that had now formed. The people were beginning to jostle.  They couldn’t have all been local — which meant that they were making the trek over for a plastic bowl of soup. Jamie looked away, focused her mind on the calls, and dug her phone out of her pocket.

I raise a plastic glass. 'To family.' 'And Faerieland,' says Taryn, raising hers. 'And pizza,' says Oak. 'And stories,' says Heather. 'And new beginnings,' says Vivi. Cardan smiles, his gaze on me. 'And scheming great schemes.

She’d need to find room in her compact kitchen for a high chair. Her second bedroom, which she now used as an office and craft room, would become the baby’s. A sense of excitement filled her, unlike anything she’d ever experienced. This was her baby, her very own child. This time she’d do everything right. This time there wasn’t a man standing in the way. High on enthusiasm, she reached for the phone and dialed her sister’s number. She felt closer to Kelly than she had in years. The weekend getaway had brought them together again, all three of them. How wise her mother had been to arrange it. “I didn’t get you up, did I?” she asked when her sister answered. Tyler bellowed in the background. “That’s a joke, right?” Maryellen smiled. “You doing anything special for lunch?” “Nothing in particular. What do you have in mind?” “Can you meet me at the Pot Belly Deli?” “Sure.” Kelly had the luxury of being a stay-at-home mother. Paul and Kelly had waited years for this baby and were determined to make whatever sacrifices were necessary. That option—staying with her baby—wasn’t available to Maryellen. She’d have to find quality day care and wasn’t sure where to even start. Just before noon, Kelly arrived at the gallery, pushing Tyler in his stroller. At nine months, the little boy sat upright, waving his chubby hands, cooing happily and directing the world from his seat. “Let’s grab some soup from the deli and eat down by the waterfront,” Kelly suggested. It was a lovely spring day after a week of rain, and the fresh air would do them all good. “Sounds like a great idea,” Maryellen told her. Practical, too, since it would be easier to amuse Tyler at the park than in a crowded restaurant. Maryellen phoned in their order and her sister trekked down to grab a picnic table. Several other people had the same idea, but she’d secured a table for them by the time Maryellen got there. Sitting across from her sister, Maryellen opened her container of chicken rice soup and stirred it with a plastic spoon. Cantankerous seagulls circled overhead, squawking for a handout, but Maryellen and Kelly ignored them. “I

Plastic Painting He smiled as he looked at the studio in the outer hall, each of these paintings she painted here, enjoying very much observing them immersed in the colors. Her spiritual intelligence is high, as every other plastic artist, he holds the paint brush, and does things, lines and colors, he does not know what he is doing, or what he wants, he only paints, his hand and mind are just a tool, and something else inside him moves it. At the end, their paintings are sold at the most expensive price. She once told him, the reason for the distinction of fine art is that the painter paints with his soul, not with his hands. And every time she grabbed her brush and started doing things on the canvas, he felt her telling the story of his life, he just always did things, he did not know why and what would result be, but he just wanted to do them. His motto when things come down is, go with the wind, let it take you where it wants to go. He stood before a mediocre painting, a bridge suspended in the sky, punctuated by chaotic colors, a bit of haphazard smoke, and what seemed to be flying leaves. When she painted this painting, she stood in front of it for a whole day, she almost went crazy, the painting was complete but something was missing in it. In the end, it was this deficiency that relieved her of finding it, a red dot in the lower-left corner of the painting! It fell right under what appeared to be a leaf. That is crazy, it was actually completed by it!

Sloppy?” he asked with a frown. “Yeah…I mean, a fork to the gut would hurt like a bitch and all. But I’ve gotta think I’m winning with a knife to your jugular.” I shifted my other hand so that the plastic knife scraped along the stubble at his throat to draw his attention to it and his smile widened with excitement. “Well, shit,” he purred. “Looks like I’m done for. You wanna grant a dying man a final request?

And I could see her, after the Sunday we’d spent together, with a plastic bag full of olives and almonds and baba ghanoush swinging from her arm, young and pretty and heading into her brilliant future, smiling and saying, This was the best day of my life.

Neither prophets nor priests nor psalmists offer quick cures for the suffering: we don’t find any of them telling us to take a vacation, use this drug, get a hobby. Nor do they ever engage in publicity cover-ups, the plastic-smile propaganda campaigns that hide trouble behind a billboard of positive thinking. None of that: the suffering is held up and proclaimed—and prayed.

Though the intensity may differ from person to person, you can be sure that everyone you meet is driven by two primal urges: the need to feel safe and secure, and the need to feel in control. If you satisfy those drives, you’re in the door. As we saw with my chat with Daryl, you’re not going to logically convince them that they’re safe, secure, or in control. Primal needs are urgent and illogical, so arguing them into a corner is just going to push your counterpart to flee with a counterfeit “Yes.” And being “nice” in the form of feigned sympathy is often equally as unsuccessful. We live in an age that celebrates niceness under various names. We are exhorted to be nice and to respect people’s feelings at all times and in every situation. But nice alone in the context of negotiation can backfire. Nice, employed as a ruse, is disingenuous and manipulative. Who hasn’t received the short end of the stick in dealings with a “nice” salesman who took you for a ride? If you rush in with plastic niceness, your bland smile is going to dredge up all that baggage. Instead of getting inside with logic or feigned smiles, then, we get there by asking for “No.” It’s the word that gives the speaker feelings of safety and control. “No” starts conversations and creates safe havens to get to the final “Yes” of commitment. An early “Yes” is often just a cheap, counterfeit dodge.

I paste on a small, plastic smile.

The truth is, there was no one else around. Months later, not at first, one of them would say that the office was a “desert of souls.” The other one agreed, smiling, proud that he wasn’t included in that description. And little by little, between beers, they came to share sour stories about unloved and hungry women, then soccer banter, secret Santa, wish lists, fortunetellers’ addresses, a bookie,  Jogo do bicho, cards for the punch clock, the occasional pastry after work, cheap champagne in plastic cups. In a desert of souls that were also deserts, one special soul immediately recognizes another—maybe for that reason, who knows? But neither of them wondered.

I check my email. Once more, nothing from my brother Hayden. My nearly empty glass follows me to my bedroom, and I lie there, half asleep, half woozy from too much alcohol. I run my hand through my hair. I’m back on the Walla Walla. The images are fuzzy, like an old VHS tape. Hayden is asleep, and I gently lift him away, deeper into a nest of paper towels. I turn in the dim light of the ferry bathroom and hold up my hair with one hand. I reach for the scissors and start cutting. Locks fall like autumn leaves over the dingy countertop and into the bottom of the pitted white sink. I cut, and I cut. Tears roll down my cheeks, but I don’t make a sound. I open a box of dye and apply it with the thin plastic gloves that come in the box. I smell the chemicals as my hair eclipses from brown to blond. I rinse in the sink, the acrid odor wafting through the still air of the bathroom. I tear a ream of paper towels to wring out the water and then, in what I think is a brilliant move, I turn on the hand dryer and rotate my head against the hot spray of air. I am in Maui. I am in Tahiti. I’m on the beach and I have a tan. A handsome boy looks at me and I smile. The dryer stops, and I look in the mirror and I see her. Mom. I look just like my mother. It was unintended genius. Hayden, now awake, seems to agree. “I miss Mom. Do you think they found Dad?” I indicate the second box of hair dye. “Your turn, Hayden.” He climbs up on the counter and lays his head in the sink as I wet his hair with lukewarm water. It reminds me of when he was a baby and Mom washed him in the sink instead of the tub. He scrunches his eyes shut as I rub in the dye. When I’m done, he will be transformed. He’ll no longer be the little boy with the shock of blond hair, the one that makes him look like he’s stepped out of the page of a cute kids’ clothing website. I look down at the name on the dye box.

He didn’t know what was worse, really, taking down a couple of rioting citizens or having to roll out to the suburbs and smile into plastic faces whose eyes had gone gray as ash.

The DFL headquarters was a low white-brick building in a St. Paul business park across the Mississippi from downtown that possibly looked hip for fifteen minutes after it was built but no longer did. Lucas talked to a receptionist, who made a call. Schariff came out and got him, and said, “We’re down in the conference room.” “Who’s we?” Lucas asked. “Me and Daryl Larson, our attorney,” Schariff said. He was a stocky, dark-haired man with a neatly trimmed beard and dark-rimmed glasses. He was wearing a white shirt with a couple of pens in a plastic pocket protector. In any other circumstance, Lucas would have been willing to arrest him on the basis of the pocket protector alone. “I asked, and everybody said when you’re talking to a cop . . . especially one investigating the Grant-Smalls fight . . .” “Okay,” Lucas said. Larson was a tall, thin man whom Lucas knew through Weather’s association with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Larson raised money for the orchestra, usually by wheedling rich wives; it’d worked with Weather. When Lucas stepped into the room, Larson put down the paper he’d been reading and stood to shake hands. “Lucas, nice to see you. How’s Weather?” “Broke. She’s broke. She’s got no money left. She’s wondering how we’re going to feed the kids.” “Hate to hear that,” Larson said, with a toothy smile. “I’ll call her with my condolences.” The pleasantries out of the way, they settled into the conference chairs and Lucas outlined some of what he knew and believed about Tubbs’s disappearance. He finished by saying, “You guys are probably not going to want to talk about this, because when the media puts Tubbs’s disappearance together with the porn trick . . . it’s gonna look bad.

A fanfare of plastic flags with cutout patterns of skeletons flapped noisily in the air and overhead a piñata swayed, waiting for the hard blows of the breaking ceremony. He searched through the crowd lined up for the puppet show, then glanced down Olvera Street. The street had been closed to traffic for a long time now and looked like a Mexican marketplace, with stands selling boldly colored ceramics and paper flowers. He didn't see Serena, but her brother, Collin, had said she had gone to the Día de los Muertos celebration with Jimena. He turned to see candy skulls with green sequin eyes and frosting lips staring back at him from a stall. When the vendor looked away, he grabbed three and tossed one into his mouth. The sugar dissolved with tangy sweetness. He spun around, sensing other eyes. An old woman shook her head at him as she placed a bowl of spicy-smelling sauce on her ofrenda. Orange flowers, white candles, and faded snapshots of her dead relatives covered the altar. Stanton liked the way some people waited for the spirits of their loved ones to come back and visit, while others were terrified at the thought. The old woman placed a sign on the table: SINCE DEATH IS INEVITABLE, IT SHOULD NOT BE FEARED, BUT HONORED. "Not for everyone," he said softly. She looked at him. "What's not for everyone?" "Death." He smiled.

Why do we mumble through rote confessions and then conjure plastic Barbie and Ken smiles as we turn to one another to pass the peace?

they were saying. And with the tricky steps, she was hesitant to turn around to find out. About halfway down, she saw a college-age girl walking up the stairs, wearing only a bikini and flip-flops, with a beach bag flung over her shoulder. Her hair was still wet from the water and beads of sweat were trickling down her exposed, tan skin. Her curves were impressive and the swimsuit barely contained them. She looked like she might burst out at various places any second. Jessie tried not to stare as they passed and wondered if Kyle was doing the same. “Damn fine ass on that one,” she heard Teddy say a few seconds later. Jessie stiffened involuntarily, not just at the crudeness but because the girl would have almost certainly been close enough to hear it. She was tempted to turn around and give him a scowl when she heard Kyle’s voice. “Right?” he added, snickering like a schoolboy. She stopped in her tracks. As Kyle reached her, she grabbed his forearm. Teddy stopped too, a surprised look on his face. “Go ahead, Teddy,” she said, putting a plastic smile on her face.

I want them to come get us right now.” The little girl drew her mouth down in a pout. “I’m all dirty and hungry. I’m cold too.” “Poor little princess,” her brother mocked. “I’ve got something you can eat.” Kobie’s smile brightened before he dashed across the small clearing to retrieve his backpack. “Just how long are we going to be stuck here?” Wade demanded. He took a step toward the others who were gathered around the fire, then coughed as a wave of thick smoke hit him. “I have important business in Chicago.” “Oh yeah, real important,” Bryan sneered. “You’re just afraid your girlfriend might find someone else before you get back.” “Bryan!” Chelsea spoke in a warning voice. Wade took a step toward his son, his fists clenched and fury showing on his face. Web shifted his weight, prepared to intercede should Wade attempt to strike his son. “Look! M&Ms!” Kobie stepped between the combatants, waving a large package of the candy-coated chocolate pieces over his head, oblivious to the confrontation between Bryan and Wade. He hurried to Rachel’s side. “My grandma gave them to me, but you can have some.” “Perhaps you can share with everyone,” Shalise said. “I think we’re all hungry.” “And thirsty,” Emily added. “Don’t you think it’s ironic that we spent all that time and effort escaping water, and now we don’t have any to drink?” “Actually we do.” It was Cassie’s turn to retrieve her backpack. From its depths she produced a plastic bottle of water and three granola bars, which she quartered and passed around. The tiny squares of breakfast bars and a handful of candy were soon washed down with a squirt of water from the plastic bottle. Web listened for more planes as he munched on his share of the meager rations. Occasionally he caught the drone of the small plane that had flown over earlier, but it seemed to be concentrating its attention on the other side of the main canyon. He wished he could communicate with the sheriff or the pilot of that plane, but his radio and supplies had been left behind in his cruiser. He wouldn’t even have been able to light a fire last night if Bryan hadn’t slipped him a cigarette lighter when his mother wasn’t looking. Gage walked up beside him.“How bad is the slide?” the younger man asked. Web knew he was referring to the slide blocking the trail out of the canyon. “There’s no way we can cross it.” “And there’s no way a chopper can set down here.” Gage answered back, gesturing at the small clearing where they sat dwarfed by towering pines. “By now the water will have receded a great deal, but it will be days before we’ll be able to walk out.” Gage hadn’t heard Cassie approach, but he nodded his head at her words, acknowledging that her judgment was correct. “That means we’ve got to find a spot where the rescuers can reach us.” Gage stared thoughtfully at the steep mountain towering above them. “There is a place . . .” Gage paused and Web turned to him, anxious to hear what he might suggest that could possibly lead them out of this nightmare. CHAPTER 5 Shalise sat beside Chelsea Timmerman on one of the logs near the fire pit. They changed position each time a fickle breeze shifted the plume

It's amazing how a strip of sticky plastic will make my kids' pain vanish. Lucas will be howling about a stepped-on finger, but as soon as the SpongeBob Band-Aid touches his pinkie, he's all smiles. My sons are so convinced of the magical healing powers of Band-Aids, they think they can solve almost any problem. A couple of years ago, when out Sony TV blew a fuse, Jasper stuck a Band-Aid on the screen hoping to revive it.

Eventually, Sanna and Isaac joined everyone at the table, not even noticing that the stick she'd laid on the counter, still poking out of its plastic bag, had burst into full bloom sometime in the last ten minutes. Only Einars noticed the white petals with the soft pink blush and delicate yellow center that popped open when it had no right to. He turned to look at the large, happy family circling the turkey, laughing and smiling, bigger than they'd been in twenty years. Happiness had returned to Idun's.

We passed an array of stalls selling Belgian chocolates, German sweets, and then French pastries. "The yogashi are the Western-style confections like cakes and pastries. Some of the biggest names from all over the world have stalls here, like Ladurée from France and Wittamer from Belgium. I love going to the depachika for treats. It can be like a cheat weekend trip to Paris or Brussels." "What do the Ex-Brats have when they eat here?" "Hard to say because the Ex-Brats rotation changes all the time. I'm the only girl in our class who has been at ICS-Tokyo for more than five years. People are always moving away. Of the current crew, I never take Ntombi or Jhanvi here. They're always on a diet. So lame. When Arabella was here, we'd come to eat in the Din Tai Fung restaurant one level down. They make these dumplings with purple yams or sweet red bean paste that are just sick they're so delicious." Yams sounded great. I found a food stall I liked and picked out a grilled yam and some fried tempura for lunch. I didn't need Imogen to help me translate. I just pointed at the items I wanted, the counter worker smiled and packaged everything, then showed me a calculator with the amount I owed. I placed my Amex card on the tray the worker handed me, relieved to have had my morning 7-Eleven experience so I was able to observe the proper paying etiquette in front of Imogen. She bought an egg salad sandwich, which was packaged so beautifully you'd think it was jewelry from Tiffany's. It was in a cardboard box that had a flower print on its sides and was wrapped in tight, clear plastic at the top so you could see the sandwich inside. The sandwich had the crusts removed and was cut into two square pieces standing upright in the box, with pieces of perfectly cut fruit arrayed on the side.

over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. “So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round up 1,000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside of a large, clear plastic container right here . . . next to my gear. Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. “I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight. “Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time. “It was nice to meet you, Tom. I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band.” You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter. Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. “C’mon honey, I’m taking you and the kids to breakfast.” “What brought this on?” she asked with a smile.“Oh, nothing special, it’s just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. Hey, can we stop at a toy store while we’re out? I need to buy some marbles.

The tide was coming in at Cosmo Bay and the sky bubbled with a vivid orange before smoothing out to a fading lilac over the calm sea. The late-surfers were heading back to shore, laughing and shivering slightly at the chilly breeze. A few stragglers walked, hunch-shouldered, along the rocky beach with a dog or two, or simply alone. They looked to be personal victims of the sky-god's wrath. Imprisoned by the aquatic borders oppressing them and containing them. Limiting their freedoms and joys the same way the ocean limits the sky itself. In a small coastal town like Caprice, the times only grew more depressing during the late autumn months. The locals died and shrivelled with the leaves and trees as their plastic smiles faded with the last few holidaymakers.

Another Mystery That time I tagged along with my dad to the dry cleaners — What’d I know then about Death? Dad comes out carrying a black suit in a plastic bag. Hangs it up behind the back seat of the old coupe and says, “This is the suit your grandpa is going to leave the world in.” What on earth could he be talking about? I wondered. I touched the plastic, the slippery lapel of that coat that was going away, along with my grandpa. Those days it was just another mystery. Then there was a long interval, a time in which relatives departed this way and that, left and right. Then it was my dad’s turn. I sat and watched him rise up in his own smoke. He didn’t own a suit. So they dressed him gruesomely in a cheap sports coat and tie, for the occasion. Wired his lips into a smile as if he wanted to reassure us, Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it looks. But we knew better. He was dead, wasn’t he? What else could go wrong? (His eyelids were sewn closed, too, so he wouldn’t have to witness the frightful exhibit.) I touched his hand. Cold. The cheek where a little stubble had broken through along the jaw. Cold. Today I reeled this clutter up from the depths. Just an hour or so ago when I picked up my own suit from the dry cleaners and hung it carefully behind the back seat. I drove it home, opened the car door and lifted it out into sunlight. I stood there a minute in the road, my fingers crimped on the wire hanger. Then tore a hole through the plastic to the other side. Took one of the empty sleeves between my fingers and held it — the rough, palpable fabric. I reached through to the other side.

Hey, Call! You over here? Call! Is everything all right?” She whimpered as he whipped his mouth away and softly cursed. With an unsteady hand, he jerked down her sweatshirt and stepped protectively in front of her, leaving her shielded behind his body and the trunk of the tree. “Everything’s fine, Toby.” His voice sounded raspy. She wondered if his friend would notice. “I thought I heard shots,” Toby said, “but I was cooking so I didn’t pay all that much attention. Then I went into the living room and found the front door open. When I saw your rifle gone from the rack, I was afraid something bad might have happened.” “Our neighbor, Ms. Sinclair, came nose to nose with her first black bear.” Call looked her way, gave her a quick once-over, saw that she didn’t look too disheveled, and tugged her out from behind the tree. “Charity Sinclair, meet Toby Jenkins. Toby’s chief-cook-and-bottle-washer over at my place, and all-around handyman. At least he is till he leaves for college in the fall. Toby, this is Ms. Sinclair, our new neighbor.” “Nice to meet you, ma’am. I heard Mose sold the place. I’ve been meaning to come over and say hello.” “Forget the ma’am,” Charity told him. “It makes me feel too old. Charity is enough.” He nodded, smiled. He was young, maybe nineteen or twenty, with thick, dark red hair and a few scattered freckles, sort of a young John Kennedy, an attractive boy with what appeared to be a pleasant disposition. She wondered if he could tell by looking at her what had been going on when he arrived. Then she noticed Call’s shirt was open and missing a button and felt her face heating up again. Call cleared his throat. “I’ll be home in a couple of minutes, Toby.” “Yes, sir. I’ll have your breakfast waiting.” With a wave good-bye, he set off down the path the way he had come. When Charity turned, she saw Call watching her, his face dark, his expression closed up as it usually was. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.” Oh, God. He was obviously sorry it had and it made her even more embarrassed. “Neither did I. I don’t make a habit of…of…I don’t exactly know what happened.” She studied her feet, then stared off toward the creek. “It must have been the fear, you know? They say when your life is threatened you revert to your most basic instincts.” She risked a glance at him, saw that his jaw looked iron-hard. “Yeah, that must be it.” She glanced away, trying not to think of what they’d just done. Trying not to wonder what would have happened if Toby hadn’t arrived when he did. “You’d better go,” she said, making an effort to smile. “Your breakfast is waiting and I’ve got work to do.” As she started to turn, the sun peeked out from behind a cloud, casting shadows beneath his cheekbones and the little indentation on his chin. He didn’t move when she grabbed the plastic bag of garbage and headed for one of the heavy iron trash cans that were supposed to be bear-proof. She saw him walk over and pick up his rifle, his fingers wrapping around the stock with a casual ease that said he was comfortable with the weapon. He didn’t walk away as she expected. Instead, he stood there watching, waiting until she disappeared inside the house.

first floor of a small hotel on the outskirts of San Antonio. Cooper made himself a bet as he walked in. Neon signs for Shiner Bock, smoke-stained drop ceiling, jukebox in the corner, pool table with worn felt, chalkboard with specials. Female bartender, a blonde showing dark roots. The specials turned out to be on a dry-erase board, and the bartendress was a redhead. Cooper smiled. About half the tables were occupied, mostly men but a few women too. The tabletops held plastic pitchers and cigarette packs and cell phones. The music was too loud, some country-rock act

He cast a soft look at me. “I--” “Oh, don’t.” I sighed. “I don’t do well with sympathy.” “Can I offer you a bracing slap on the back?” Zyt said. “A gruff reassurance, maybe?” “Do you have candy? I would take candy.” He smiled, reached into his pocket, and took out a piece of bright plastic wrap about the size of a fingertip. I squinted at it, but peeled the wrapper with my fingernail and uncovered a small piece of hard fenzu honey, recognizable due to its bright yellow color. “Why,” I said, “are you carrying candy around in your pocket?” Zyt shrugged.

We pulled up behind a huge red barn where we were met by two young women. They greeted us with friendly smiles. I noticed the taller of the two had her blond hair braided perfectly over her shoulders. Dale waved as he walked past them into the barn. “Morning, ladies.” “Morning, Dale,” they said in unison. “I’m Nate.” I put my hand out as I approached, but they started laughing. The shorter, dark-haired girl looked away shyly. “We know,” the girl with braids said. “You’re the doctor.” “Yes, I’m a doctor.” “I’m a doctor, too,” my father interrupted wryly, but the girls didn’t seem to care. They followed us into the barn where we found Dale in one of the stalls looking over a mare. “Get in here, Nate, and put on one of those gloves.” He pointed to a long plastic glove hanging out of his case. My father leaned over the stall door and watched the show. “Go on, Nate. Get the glove on, son.” I moved into the stall, took the glove in hand, and proceeded to pull it all the way up to my shoulder. The girls watched and tried to suppress their laughter. “What’s going on?” “Come on, Nate. You can’t be that clueless,” my dad said. Dale turned to him. “See how smart that fancy college made your boy?” I looked to the girls for a clue. The short one laughed into her hands before the one in braids said, “You’re gonna have to stick your hand up the horse’s ass and pull out the poo.” She burst into laughter and then they scurried away. “What? No. No. I can’t. Do you know how much these hands are worth?” “Come on, Nate, give me a break. Nothing is going to happen to your hand, just be gentle with her. You don’t want to get kicked in the balls. I can’t imagine it feels very good to have a bony arm like yours up her ass.” My father was really enjoying himself. “Why do I have to do this?” “Because we’ve both paid our dues.” “Dear god.” I moved toward the rear of the mare and looked up to Dale. “Pet her real nice, right there on her behind. Let her know you come in peace.” “Jesus Christ.” “And a horse’s ass.” “Stop it, Dad!” Dale came over with a large milk jug full of clear gel. “Hand out, son. Got to lube her up first.” “You’ve got to be kidding me. You two are enjoying this.” “Immensely,” my father said. Uncle Dale continued petting the mare’s head and trying to calm her. “Nate, I’ve done this a million times. Dolly here is constipated. She needs us to help her out. Now work your way in there and see if you can’t find the blockage.” I hesitated, staring at Dolly’s hindquarters as she whipped her tail around. “She seems pissed,” I said. “She’s just really uncomfortable. You’ll see once you grow a set and get this procedure under way.” “I don’t know if I should be doing this. This horse isn’t familiar with me.” “What do you want to do, take her out on a date? You’re a doctor, kid. Buck up.” With no expression on my face, I looked back toward the stall door and my father’s smug grin. “No more talking, Dad.” I pushed my hand into poor Dolly’s backside and immediately discovered the culprit. The odor alone could have killed a small animal. Gagging, I pulled handful after handful of . . . well . . . poo, out of the horse’s enormous anal cavity. About ten minutes into the procedure, Dolly seemed to relax and feel better. “She likes you, Nate,” my uncle said. I’d had too many encounters with shit since I’d been on the ranch to find humor in anything my father or uncle said. “That’s it. She’s good,” I mumbled as I pulled the disgusting glove off my hand. I walked out into the main part of the barn to a sink where I attempted to wash the skin off my hands.

27 Places Where You Won't Find Love 1. The spoon with which you measure salt 2. Plastic plates stacked neatly on a shelf 3. Flowers - marigolds and chrysanthemums and roses - and the shop that sells these 4. Earrings lost in the backseat of a tuktuk while looking for the Malayalam translation of "I love you" in the dark 5. Bookshelves with borrowed books, never read 6. Fifty watches, three of which were for sale 7. Coffee whose flavor was slightly off 8. A red bridge that goes by gold, which has replicas everywhere 9. The replicas themselves 10. The rearview mirror of a car 11. The burnt sienna pavement where you hurt yourself 12. A protein shake whose taste grew on you thanks to someone else. With eggs and coconut and toast 13. An island untouched by civilization 14. Another ravaged by war 15. A declined invitation to brunch 16. Dinner gone cold after a long wait, and thrown away the next day 17. An unacknowledged text message 18. Laughter ringing through a movie hall during a scene that didn't warrant it 19. Retainers stored in a box next to baby oil in the medicine cabinet 20. A gold pendant 21. A white and red cable car 22. A helmet too small for your head and another too large 23. Dreams with their own background score 24. Misplaced affection 25. A smile between strangers, with you standing on the outside looking in 26. Your bed 27. The future

And then his lips curved into the mischievous smile I so loved. “I have one more thing for you.” From the depths of his pockets, he withdrew a pile of napkins neatly enclosed in a clean plastic bag. “Your own stash, Trouble Magnet.” I laughed so hard I snorted. I couldn’t help it, but the napkins were so silly, so perfect. The bathroom inside the restaurant hadn’t had either toilet or toilet paper, and I suspected there would be a few more of those primitive latrines in my future. I was still laughing when I tucked both the napkins and the GPS safely inside my messenger bag, and when I looked up, Jacob was staring at me as if he wanted to tuck me away safely, keep me with him. There must be a few times in life when you stand at a precipice of a decision. When you know there will forever be a Before and an After. Mom’s life was twice marked: Before Dad, After Dad. Before her sister’s death and After. I knew there would be no turning back if I designated this moment as my own Prime Meridian from which everything else would be measured. Mom’s urging to be fair to Jacob, Karin’s warning about losing the security of a miracle boyfriend, the image of Erik’s easygoing grin itself — all those conspired now, convincing me to stay in the Before. And then there was Jacob, who stepped closer to me and then waited, letting me decide whether I would take that next step. Balanced there in indecision, it was as if the Twisted Sisters were before me, shaking their pom-poms, asking: But what is fair about staying with a guy who is ashamed to be seen with you? What was so miraculous about a relationship that was based more on my gratitude than mutual respect? I wanted more. I wanted better. I wanted Jacob. Even knowing that what I was doing was wrong, I jumped off my Before and reached for my After. I traveled that short, short distance separating Jacob from me and stepped into his waiting arms. My face tilted up, my lips parted, so ready for Jacob’s kiss. Unexpectedly, he let go of me, and my breath caught, painfully, deep in my chest. Had I so misread this map leading me to him? Then slowly, so slowly, Jacob cupped my face in his hands, his thumbs brushing gently across my cheeks, the good side and the bad.

This near-mediocrity carried its own special kind of boredom, an almost polished, plastic kind reminiscent of a Malibu Barbie dollhouse. It appears shiny and neat, but really you are trapped for eternity, looking out at a world with a smile that feels like someone else painted on you, rather than your own. I wasn’t Ken. But more like Ken’s decent looking friend, Bill.

the plastic pot over the fence, she climbed quickly, landing on the other side with a victorious smile. Then she ran to the lake. Ben and the leprechaun were still sitting on the island’s beach, a growing

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You ever had a snow cone before?” he asked her. He dug the plastic spoon out of the dome of fruit-flavored crushed ice and took a bite. “I can’t say I have.” “They’re really good.” He seemed to be speaking louder than he needed to, and when Darien added, “They’re made of crushed ice,” Loren saw a shadow on top of the fridge move, saw Itzel sit up, her neon pink eyes peering from the darkness like two rosy fireflies. “Ooh, ice! That sounds yummy,” Loren said, playing along. “What flavor did you get?” Itzel crept closer to the edge of the fridge, the bright, swirly flames on her head flickering. The tiny Hob reminded Loren of a cupcake with a body. “Cherry and blue raspberry,” Darien said, licking the spoon. Everything this man did was insanely attractive. Was it weird of her to be jealous of a plastic spoon? “I could eat ten of these—” Itzel appeared beside him on the couch in a puff of sparkling smoke. Darien wasn’t even fazed by her sudden appearance, though Loren spotted humor pulling at the corner of his mouth. “You ever tried this before?” Darien asked the Hob, waving the spoon in front of her. She reached for the cup with a tiny hand and missed. “I’ll share it with you,” Darien began, “but you need to promise me something in return.” Itzel glared up at Darien, impatient and suspicious. Loren pressed her lips together to fight a smile. Darien said, “You need to be quieter at night. Every night, not just when Pax is here.” Itzel’s grabby hands strained to reach the cup— Darien moved it out of her reach. “Uh-uh,” he said, dark hair gleaming as he shook his head. “You don’t get any of this unless you agree.” Itzel folded her arms, plopped down on the cushion, and scowled. “You can still watch TV, but you need to keep the volume low. And no pots and pans orchestra on Tuesdays. Deal?” She glowered at a corner of the room, the pink flames on her head burning hot. Darien taunted her by lifting the spoon to his mouth, moving it as if it were an airplane. “Mmmm, so good—” Itzel relented and smacked the couch cushions, bleating noises floating from the mouth she opened in a wide O. “Is that a ‘yes’?” Darien prompted. Itzel nodded with enthusiasm, the motion sending pink sparks flying. “Here.” He passed the snow cone to her.

The project was off to a good start when Mullaney learned there was another charity with the same name. This Operation Smile, based in Virginia, was big time: it sent volunteer medical teams to poor countries around the world to perform plastic surgery on children. Mullaney was wowed. He folded his little Operation Smile into this big one, joined its board, and trailed along on missions to China, Gaza, and Vietnam.

People often assumed smiles meant happiness. But smiles could be masks, too. Better than any made of plastic or paper.

When Roark had gone, Wynand sat behind his desk, smiling. He moved his hand toward one of the plastic buttons—and stopped. He realized that he had to assume a different manner, his usual manner, that he could not speak as he had spoken in the last half-hour. Then he understood what had been strange about the interview: for the first time in his life he had spoken to a man without feeling the reluctance, the sense of pressure, the need of disguise he had always experienced when he spoke to people; there had been no strain and no need of strain; as if he had spoken to himself.

The roses. Why the roses?” I smile. I was waiting for her to ask me about those. “My mother. Her favorite flowers were roses. She always had them all over the house with the thorns clipped so I wouldn’t hurt myself. One year, I told her that I would be sad when she died because all the roses would die with her. So, she gave me a plastic rose and said that as long as I have that rose, she would never be truly gone.” I shrug. “I guess I wanted to see roses all over your house, too. Maybe because you feel like home.

Her smile was brittle. "Well, I know Kieran's achieving something if someone like you is willing to be in a relationship with him." "Someone like me?" She gestured to me from head to toe. "Respectable. Elegantly dressed, if a little flamboyant with color. Beautiful manners, well-spoken. Clearly you listened to your parents when they told you how to behave." I choked back a snort at the thought of my biological father being Mr. Manners. The sheer audacity of it. "Kieran probably hasn't told you about all the times we had to get him out of trouble," she continued. I blinked, confused. "No." She ticked off on her fingers as she spoke. "He skipped classes, he stole money out of my wallet, he crashed our cars more than once. Not to mention the drinking, my God. He couldn't hold his liquor at all. We were so ashamed." I held back my eye roll. It was like having a conversation with a steamroller. As she continued to list Kieran's crimes, I realized that she relished this monologue, all the ways he'd done them wrong. Like she never wanted him to grow up because then she'd have to stop being a martyr. "But anyway, that's all in the past. Finally, he's become who we always wanted him to be, and we can hold our heads up." The thought of being a source of pride to these snobby, plastic people made me want to drink ten flutes of prosecco, climb onto their dining room table, and do Amy Winehouse karaoke, Diane's advice about polish and presentation be damned. But all I needed to shock them was the truth. "I haven't seen my father in over twenty years," I began. "As far as I know he's still the lead singer of the second-best hair metal band in Spokane. My mother's salary was for keeping herself in clothes and boyfriends. Sometimes I had to break into my piggy bank so that I could by Cup O' Noodles at 7-Eleven for my brother and me. I've made a good life in spite of my parents, not because of them. It's one of the reasons I fell in love with your son. I knew he was a survivor, too. But thank you for the compliments. Now, if you'll excuse me.

Ah shit, man,” I add. “No, sorry, you’re not good at all.” I place the plastic bag on his head and pull until I’m sure it’s taut against his face. He thrashes around, and I can’t help a huge smile from spreading on my face. “Snitches get stitches. And men who touch my girl get a bag on their fucking head,” I growl, pulling harder.

mittens parked on the street corner in a wheelchair, watching nothing go by. Here and there, a little store would have people hanging around, but mostly the streets were deserted. Maybe because it was Sunday, with the Godly in church and the rest sleeping off their sins. “Damn, mothafuckers,” Everett said now and again, until June blew up. “Everett. You’re one of about twelve men I know that aren’t in any kind of trouble. Definitely not a thug. Could we just agree on that being a good thing?” The address turned out to be a rough-looking place. We pulled up in front, killed the engine, and sat looking at this house. Low and wide, flat roof, moldy white paint, a lot of the windowpanes covered with cardboard. It looked like a brutal smile with missing teeth. Everett picked up his Kel-Tec and checked the safety. “You two stay in the car, I’ll bake the cake.” June made this explosion, like a crying laugh. “I really am going to kill you with that.” Everett put the piece on his lap. “I’m just going to knock on the door,” June said. “If it turns out she’s here, I’ll ask if we can all come in and talk to her. For God’s sake, Everett, behave yourself.” To get to the door she had to step over a pile of what looked like Pampers and blue plastic. In her jeans and red winter coat,

We just drank it in, grinning at her and letting her fuss and fucking loving it even while we pretended to groan and downplay her compliments.  She looked good. Damn good. Her complexion was richer, her eyes bright and full of life and her long, dark hair spilled down her back in waves. I'd never seen her looking like anything aside from the plastic perfection Father expected and it only made me realise how little we'd gotten the chance to know the woman she truly was. She was at home here, wearing a green apron over a sweater dress with a pair of fluffy socks on her feet and a smile bigger than I'd ever seen on her.

From time to time, I pictured myself neatly packaged, flashing a frozen smile behind the plastic film. Would anyone ever buy this doll, or would shattered brown porcelain skin be her fate?

FORTY-EIGHT She is almost fifteen when her father shows his true colors. It is the garage again. This time she is looking for empty plastic soda bottles for a school project. The recycling bin will have plenty. It is mid-afternoon on a weekday. Her school dismissed early due to a bomb threat that turned out to be nothing more than rumors. All of her friends went out to lunch, but Pea is home. She hasn’t felt like doing much of anything since The Day Her World Shattered. Her father is up her ass about school on a daily basis though, so she decides to get an early start on her project. This time, it’s not a gaggle of men that she sees. Instead it is only her father. He stands over his handiwork, chest heaving, a look of bloodlust and absolute satiation on his face that sends Pea’s stomach plummeting. Before she can turn away, he sees her. He smiles. A voice in her mind tells her to run but where would she go? This is it. This is what she has in life. This is her life. She can run, but this man will always be her father. She hears something dripping, sees her father turn toward her, hands at his sides. He says, “I had to, Pea.

A picture of her parents is encased in the plastic center of the dial. They’re smiling. It’s their thirtieth-anniversary dinner. They’re younger in the picture than she is now.

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