Table Always Turn Quotes

Cakes have gotten a bad rap. People equate virtue with turning down dessert. There is always one person at the table who holds up her hand when I serve the cake. No, really, I couldn’t she says, and then gives her flat stomach a conspiratorial little pat. Everyone who is pressing a fork into that first tender layer looks at the person who declined the plate, and they all think, That person is better than I am. That person has discipline. But that isn’t a person with discipline; that is a person who has completely lost touch with joy. A slice of cake never made anybody fat. You don’t eat the whole cake. You don’t eat a cake every day of your life. You take the cake when it is offered because the cake is delicious. You have a slice of cake and what it reminds you of is someplace that’s safe, uncomplicated, without stress. A cake is a party, a birthday, a wedding. A cake is what’s served on the happiest days of your life. This is a story of how my life was saved by cake, so, of course, if sides are to be taken, I will always take the side of cake.

My belief is that when you're telling the truth, you're close to God. If you say to God, "I am exhausted and depressed beyond words, and I don't like You at all right now, and I recoil from most people who believe in You," that might be the most honest thing you've ever said. If you told me you had said to God, "It is all hopeless, and I don't have a clue if You exist, but I could use a hand," it would almost bring tears to my eyes, tears of pride in you, for the courage it takes to get real-really real. It would make me want to sit next to you at the dinner table. So prayer is our sometimes real selves trying to communicate with the Real, with Truth, with the Light. It is us reaching out to be heard, hoping to be found by a light and warmth in the world, instead of darkness and cold. Even mushrooms respond to light - I suppose they blink their mushroomy eyes, like the rest of us. Light reveals us to ourselves, which is not always so great if you find yourself in a big disgusting mess, possibly of your own creation. But like sunflowers we turn toward light. Light warms, and in most cases it draws us to itself. And in this light, we can see beyond our modest receptors, to what is way beyond us, and deep inside.

We gather here today,” said Robert, reaching out his arms expansively, “to honor my son, Alexander Gideon Lightwood, who has single-handedly destroyed the forces of the Endarkened and who defeated in battle the son of Valentine Morgenstern. Alec saved the life of our third son, Max. Along with his parabatai, Jace Herondale, I am proud to say that my son is one of the greatest warriors I have ever known.” He turned and smiled at Alec and Magnus. “It takes more than a strong arm to make a great warrior,” he went on. “It takes a great mind and a great heart. My son has both. He is strong in courage, and strong in love. Which is why I also wanted to share our other good news with you. As of yesterday, my son became engaged to be married to his partner, Magnus Bane—” A chorus of cheers broke out. Magnus accepted them with a modest wave of his fork. Alec slid down in his chair, his cheeks burning. Jace looked at him meditatively. “Congratulations,” he said. “I kind of feel like I missed an opportunity.” “W-what?” Alec stammered. Jace shrugged. “I always knew you had a crush on me, and I kind of had a crush on you, too. I thought you should know.” “What?” Alec said again. Clary sat up straight. “You know,” she said, “do you think there’s any chance that you two could ...” She gestured between Jace and Alec. “It would be kind of hot.” “No,” Magnus said. “I am a very jealous warlock.” “We’re parabatai,” Alec said, regaining his voice. “The Clave would—I mean—it’s illegal.” “Oh, come on,” said Jace. “The Clave would let you do anything you wanted. Look, everyone loves you.” He gestured out at the room full of Shadowhunters. They were all cheering as Robert spoke, some of them wiping away tears. A girl at one of the smaller tables held up a sign that said, ALEC LIGHTWOOD, WE LOVE YOU.

There was a tiny box left on the table by the window- a box the Mor lifted, squinted and the name tag, and said, "Az, this one's for you." The shadowsinger's brows lifted, but his scarred hand extended to take the present. Elain turned from where she'd been speaking to Nesta. "Oh, that's from me." Azriel's face didn't so much as shift at the words. Not even a smile as he opened the present and revealed- "I had Madja make it for me," Elain explained. Azreil's brows narrowed at the mention of the family's preferred healer. "It's a powder to mix in with any drink." Silence. Elain bit her lip and then smiled sheepishly. "It's for the headaches everyone always gives you. Since you rub your temples so often." Silence again. Then Azriel tipped his head back and laughted.

Loss invites reflection and reformulating and a change of strategies. Loss hurts and bleeds and aches. Loss is always ready to call out your name in the night. Loss follows you home and taunts you at the breakfast table, follows you to work in the morning. You have to make accommodations and broker deals to soften the rabbit punches that loss brings to your daily life. You have to take the word "loser" and add it to your resume and walk around with it on your name tag as it hand-feeds you your own shit in dosages too large for even great beasts to swallow. The word "loser" follows you, bird-dogs you, sniffs you out of whatever fields you hide in because you have to face things clearly and you cannot turn away from what is true.

Cakes have gotten a bad rap. People equate virtue with turning down dessert. There is always a person at the table...No, really, I couldn't...Everyone who is pressing a fork into that first tender layer looks at the person who declined the plate, and they all think, That person is better than I am. That person has discipline. But that isn't a person with discipline, that is a person who has completely lost touch with joy.

There's a choice, when you know your fate's to be hunted and gobbled up and used. You can give in like it's inevitable or you can turn the tables. I was raised for a kind of slaughter. But I grew into a huntress instead. One who always hits her target. No matter what.

To most people, I guess, turning twenty-one is all about booze. To me, turning twenty-one was all about coconut. Booze is nice, but coconut is chewable, and when push comes to shove, I will always like eating better than drinking. Everyone has their priorities.

I like how you call homosexuality an abomination." "I don't say homosexuality's an abomination, Mr. President, the bible does." "Yes it does. Leviticus-" "18:22" "Chapter in verse. I wanted to ask you a couple questions while I had you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that can I ask another? My chief of staff, Leo Mcgary,insists on working on the sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it ok to call the police? Here's one that's really important, cause we've got a lot of sports fans in this town. Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean, Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Red Skins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads?

That in turn made him think of some poem or other, one about how you could spend years running, but in the end you always wound up facing yourself in a hotel room, with a naked bulb hanging overhead and a revolver on the table.

His shoulders were starting to stop hunching. "It's called sitting down together," he said, dragging the words out exaggeratedly. "At a table. In chairs. Most people can get through lunch without turning it into an act of war." "I'm not most people," I said. "Also, the seating arrangements are an act of war, and if you haven't noticed, that's just embarrassing. Do you think that everyone is always trying to sit with you for your amazing personality or something?" "I guess you're just immune," he said. "Bloody well right I am," I said, but he was grinning at me a little from under his overgrown hair, tentatively, and apparently I was lying.

You know, people always seem overwhelmed by their lives, while You, somehow You’ve turned the tables on life, and it’s You who seem to be on top. Voilà. I don’t know else how to put it. Would You like a lemon sherbet?

I don't care what they say, we are only to love those who deserve our love and love them to the degree that they deserve it! You see, we are not God. Only God can love people undeserving without spoiling them. Us, on the other hand, can love someone so undeserving, and actually turn the person into someone so vile who is convinced that they were always entitled to every bit of it! Mamma mia! And what about giving? Yes, they all want us to give and expect nothing in return, they all have many scriptures to lay on our tables when it is they who are at the receiving end! But when the tables are turned and we are the ones at the receiving end, suddenly all the scriptures mean something else! And all the times they were on our end and we gave to them- suddenly are all forgotten!

It is your brain that decides to get you out of bed in the morning to exercise, to give you a stronger, leaner body, or to cause you to hit the snooze button and procrastinate your workout. It is your brain that pushes you away from the table telling you that you have had enough, or that gives you permission to have the second bowl of Rocky Road ice cream, making you look and feel like a blob. It is your brain that manages the stress in your life and relaxes you so that you look vibrant, or, when left unchecked, sends stress signals to the rest of your body and wrinkles your skin. And it is your brain that turns away cigarettes, too much caffeine, and alcohol, helping you look and feel healthy, or that gives you permission to smoke, to have that third cup of coffee, or to drink that third glass of wine, thus making every system in your body look and feel older.Your brain is the command and control center of your body. If you want a better body, the first place to ALWAYS start is by having a better brain.

I nod and tap my fingers against my knees. “What to do with a girlfriend while I work my hours at the TOG. Hmm…Can I really do this? Will I be able to pull it off? Will she be able to read at the snack bar tables without losing her mind,” I mumble. “Do you always talk to yourself?” “Yes. Bad habit. Does it bother you?” I walk back over to her side of the small stage. “No. It's interesting. I hate people knowing my thoughts. But yours just fall out of your head so easily.” She shrugs. “I never thought of it like that…but you're my girlfriend now…so who cares if you know what I think?” Her cheeks turn pink, and I laugh.

In two weeks it'll be the longest day in the year.' She looked at us all radiantly. 'Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.' 'We ought to plan something,' yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed. 'All right,' said Daisy. 'What'll we plan?' She turned to me helplessly. 'What do people plan?

It is awful to contemplate this sort of life, in which one would always be forced into motion by a variety of mysterious and powerful forces, never staying anywhere for long, never finding a safe place one could call home, never able to turn the tables for very long, just as the Baudelaire orphans found it awful to contemplate their own lives [...] just when it seemed they might break out of the tedious cycle of unfortunate events in which they found themselves trapped.

How could I forget. I was her ghost daughter, sitting at empty tables with crayons and pens while she worked on a poem, a girl malleable as white clay. Someone to shape, instruct in the ways of being her. She was always shaping me. She showed me an orange, a cluster of pine needles, a faceted quartz, and made me describe them to her. I couldn’t have been more than three or four. My words, that’s what she wanted. ”What’s this?” she kept asking. ”What’s this?” But how could I tell her? She’d taken all the words. The smell of tuberoses saturated the night air, and the wind clicked through the palms like thoughts through my sleepless mind. Who am I? I am a girl you don’t know, mother. The silent girl in the back row of the classroom, drawing in notebooks. Remember how they didn’t know if I even spoke English when we came back to the country? They tested me to find out if I was retarded or deaf. But you never asked why. You never thought, maybe I should have left Astrid some words. I thought of Yvonne in our room, asleep, thumb in mouth, wrapped around her baby like a top. ”I can see her,” you said. You could never see her, Mother. Not if you stood in that room all night. You could only see her plucked eyebrows, her bad teeth, the books that she read with the fainting women on the covers. You could never recognize the kindness in that girl, the depth of her needs, how desperately she wanted to belong, that’s why she was pregnant again. You could judge her as you judged everything else, inferior, but you could never see her. Things weren’t real to you. They were just raw material for you to reshape to tell a story you liked better. You could never just listen to a boy playing guitar, you’d have to turn it into a poem, make it all about you.

President Josiah Bartlet: Good. I like your show. I like how you call homosexuality an abomination. Dr. Jenna Jacobs: I don't say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr. President. The Bible does. President Josiah Bartlet: Yes, it does. Leviticus. Dr. Jenna Jacobs: 18:22. President Josiah Bartlet: Chapter and verse. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that, can I ask another? My Chief of Staff Leo McGarry insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or is it okay to call the police? Here's one that's really important 'cause we've got a lot of sports fans in this town: Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you? One last thing: While you may be mistaking this for your monthly meeting of the Ignorant Tight-Ass Club, in this building, when the President stands, nobody sits.

It was a good strategy but this is where I intended to turn her plans upside-down. In the courtroom there are three things for the lawyer to always consider: the knowns, the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns. Whether at the prosecution or defense table, it is the lawyer’s job to master the first two and always be prepared for the third.

She would stand around after she had set the table and listen to the family give, in unison, thanks to the long-haired man whose gaze always turned upward—probably because he couldn't bear to see the havoc wreaked in his name. Or maybe he just couldn't bother to look.

My skin burns under Maven's gaze, with the memory of one stolen kiss. It was him who saved me from Evangeline. Cal who saved me from escaping and bringing more pain upon myself. Cal who saved me from conscription. I've been too busy trying to save others to notice how much Cal saves me. How much he loves me. Suddenly it's very hard to breathe. Maven shakes his head. "He will always choose you." Farley scoffs. "You want me to pin my entire operation, the entire revolution, on some teenaged love story? I can't believe this." Across the table, a strange look crosses Kilorn's face. When Farley turns to him, looking for some kind of support, she fines none. "I can," he whispers, his eyes never leaving my face.

Will father be there?" she asked. John turned to her in astonishment. Your father is dead," he replied somberly. "Why should he go to Hades? You have it confused with another place that was abolished long ago." After supper they folded up the table-cloth and spread their blankets for the night. What a dream it was," Kismine sighed, gazing up at the stars. "How strange it seems to be here with one dress and a penniless fianc_! Under the stars," she repeated. "I never noticed the stars before. I always thought of them as great big diamonds that belonged to some one. Now they frighten me. They make me feel that it was all a dream, all my youth." It was a dream," said John quietly. "Everybody's youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness." How pleasant then to be insane!" So I'm told," said John gloomily. "I don't know any longer. At any rate, let us love for a while, for a year or so, you and me. That's a form of divine drunkenness that we can all try. There are only diamonds in the whole world, diamonds and perhaps the shabby gift of disillusion. Well, I have that last and I will make the usual nothing of it." He shivered. "Turn up your coat collar, little girl, the night's full of chill and you'll get pneumonia. His was a great sin who first invented consciousness. Let us lose it for a few hours." So wrapping himself in his blanket he fell off to sleep.

Again, I know that story is suspect in the high precincts of American fiction, but only because it brings entertainment and pleasure, the same responses that have always driven puritanical spirits at the dinner table wild when the talk turns to sexual intercourse and incontinence.

Goodbye, goodbye, to one place or another, to every mouth, to every sorrow, to the insolent moon, to weeks which wound in the days and disappeared, goodbye to this voice and that one stained with amaranth, and goodbye to the usual bed and plate, to the twilit setting of all goddbyes, to the chair that is part of the same twilight, to the way made by my shoes. I spread myself, no question; I turned over whole lives, changed skin, lamps, and hates, it was something I had to do, not by law or whim, more of a chain reaction; each new journey enchained me; I took pleasure in places, in all places. And, newly arrived, I promptly said goodbye with still newborn tenderness as if the bread were to open and suddenly flee from the world of the table. So I left behind all languages, repeated goodbyes like an old door, changed cinemas, reasons, and tombs, left everywhere for somewhere else; I went on being, and being always half undone with joy, a bridegroom among sadnesses, never knowing how or when, ready to return, never returning. It’s well known that he who returns never left, so I traced and retraced my life, changing clothes and planets, growing used to the company, to the great whirl of exile, to the great solitude of bells tolling." -"Goodbyes

Keep his mind on the inner life. He thinks his conversion is something inside him, and his attention is therefore chiefly turned at present to the state of his own mind--or rather to that very expurgated version of them which is all you should allow him to see. Encourage this. Keep his mind off the most elementary duties of directing it to the most advanced and spiritual ones. Aggravate the most useful human characteristics, the horror and neglect of the obvious. You must bring him to a condition in which he can practise self-examination for an hour without discovering any of those facts about himself which are perfectly clear to anyone who has ever lived in the same house with him or worked in the same office. 2. It is, no doubt, impossible to prevent his praying for his mother, but we have means of rendering the prayers innocuous. Make sure that they are always very 'spiritual', that is is always concerned with the state of her soul and never with her rhuematism. Two advantages will follow. In the first place, his attention will be kept on what he regards are her sins, by which, with a little guidance from you, he can be induced to mean any of her actions which are inconvenient or irritating to himself. Thus you can keep rubbing the wounds of the day a little sorer even while he is on his knees; the operation is not at all difficult and you will find it very entertaining. In the second place, since his ideas about her soul will be very crude and often erroneous, he will, in some degree, be praying for an imaginary person, and it will be your task to make that imaginary person daily less and less like the real mother--the sharp-tongued old lady at the breakfast table. In time you may get the cleavage so wide that no thought or feeling from his prayers for the imagined mother will ever flow over into his treatment of the real one. I have had patients of my own so well in hand that they could be turned at a moment's notice from impassioned prayer for a wife's or son's soul to beating or insulting the real wife or son without any qualm. 3. When two humans have lived together for many years it usually happens that each has tones of voice and expressions of face whice are almost unedurably irritating to the other. Work on that. Bring fully into the consciousness of your patient that particular lift of his mother's eyebrows which he learned to dislike in the nursery, and let him think how much he dislikes it. Let him assume that she knows how annoying it is and does it to annoy--if you know your job he will not notice the immense improbablity of the assumption. And, of course, never let him suspect that he has tones and looks which similarly annoy her. As he cannot see or hear himself, this is easily managed.

I will admit that I wanted to shout for standing on the top of a scaffold in front of a good new wall always goes to my head. It is a sensation something between that of an angel let out of his cage into a new sky and a drunkard turned loose in a royal cellar. And after all, what nobler elevation could you find in this world than the scaffold of a wall painter? No admiral on the bridge of a new battleship designed by the old navy, could feel more pleased with himself than Gulley, on two planks, forty feet above dirt level, with his palette table beside him, his brush in his hand, and the draught blowing up his trousers; cleared for action.

A Mystic And A Drunk The Universe turns on an axis. Let my soul circle around a table like a beggar, like a planet rolling in the vast, totally helpless and free. The knight and the castle move jaggedly about the chessboard, but they're actually centered on the king. They circle. If love is your center, a ring gets put on your finger. Something inside the moth is made of fire. A mystic touches the annihilating tip of pure nothing. A drunkard thinks peeing is absolution. Lord, take these impurities from me. The lord replies, First, understand the nature of impurity. If your key is bent, the lock will not open. I fall silent. King Shams has come. Always when I close, he opens.

Later, at the sink in our van, Mama rinsed the blue stain and the odd spiders, caterpillars, and stems from the bucket. "Not what we usually start with, but we can go again tomorrow. And this will set up nicely in about six, eight jars." The berries were beginning to simmer in the big pot on the back burner. Mama pushed her dark wooden spoon into the foaming berries and cicrcled the wall of the pot slowly. I leaned my hot arms on the table and said, "Iphy better not go tomorrow. She got tired today." I was smelling the berries and Mamaa's sweat, and watching the flex of the blue veins behind her knees. "Does them good. The twins always loved picking berries, even more than eating them. Though Elly likes her jam." "Elly doesn't like anything anymore." The knees stiffened and I looked up. The spoon was motionless. Mama stared at the pot. "Mama, Elly isn't there anymore. Iphy's changed. Everything's changed. This whole berry business, cooking big meals that nobody comes for, birthday cakes for Arty. It's dumb, Mama. Stop pretending. There isn't any family anymore, Mama." Then she cracked me with the big spoon. It smacked wet and hard across my ear, and the purple-black juice spayed across the table. She started at me, terrified, her mouth and eyes gaping with fear. I stared gaping at her. I broke and ran. I went to the generator truck and climbed up to sit by Grandpa. That's the only time Mama ever hit me and I knew I deserved it. I also knew that Mama was too far gone to understand why I deserved it. She'd swung that spoon in a tigerish reflex at blasphemy. But I believed that Arty had turned his back on us, that the twins were broken, that the Chick was lost, that Papa was weak and scared, that Mama was spinning fog, and that I was an adolescent crone sitting in the ruins, watching the beams crumble, and warming myself in the smoke from the funeral pyre. That was how I felt, and I wanted company. I hated Mama for refusing to see enough to be miserable with me. Maybe, too, enough of my child heart was still with me to think that if she would only open her eyes she could fix it all back up like a busted toy.

Conviction rates in the military are pathetic, with most offenders going free AND THERE IS NO RECOURSE FOR APPEAL! The military believes the Emperor has his clothes on, even when they are down around his ankles and he is coming in the woman's window with a knife! Military juries give low sentences or clear offender's altogether. Women can be heard to say “it's not just me” over and over. Men may get an Article 15, which is just a slap on the wrist, and doesn't even follow them in their career. This is hardly a deterrent. The perpetrator frequently stays in place to continue to intimidate their female victims, who are then treated like mental cases, who need to be discharged. Women find the tables turned, letters in their files, trumped up Women find the tables turned, letters in their files, trumped up charges; isolation and transfer are common, as are court ordered psychiatric referrals that label the women as lying or incompatible with military service because they are “Borderline Personality Disorders” or mentally unbalanced. I attended many of these women, after they were discharged, or were wives of abusers, from xxx Air Force Base, when I was a psychotherapist working in the private sector. That was always their diagnosis, yet retesting tended to show something different after stabilization, like PTSD.

He had already authenticated his experience by telling me things he could not otherwise have known. But now I had to square his answer, “three minutes,” with all the rest. I stared down at my Bible, lying open on the kitchen table, and turned over the possibilities in my mind. Three minutes. It wasn’t possible that Colton could have seen and done everything he’d described so far in just three minutes. Of course, he wasn’t old enough to tell time yet, so maybe his sense of three actual minutes wasn’t the same as an adult’s. Like most parents, I was pretty sure Sonja and I weren’t helping that issue, promising to be off the phone, for example, or finished talking in the yard with a neighbor, or done in the garage in “five more minutes,” then wrapping it up twenty minutes later. It was also possible that time in heaven doesn’t track with time on earth. The Bible says that with the Lord, “a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”1 Some interpret that as a literal exchange, as in, two days equals two thousand years. I’ve always taken it to mean that God operates outside of our understanding of time. Time on earth is keyed to a celestial clock, governed by the solar system. But the Bible says there is no sun in heaven because God is the light there. Maybe there is no time in heaven. At least not as we understand it.

I may not be able to play a harp again, or sing for the clan,” he said. “But I have found that this is my song. This is my music.” And he framed her face in his hands. “Months ago, I told you that I was a verse inspired by your chorus. I thought I knew what those words meant then, but now I fully understand the depth and the breadth of them. I want to write a ballad with you, not in notes but in our choices, in the simplicity and the routine of our life together. In waking up at your side every sunrise and falling asleep entwined with you every sunset. In kneeling beside you in the kail yard and leading a clan and overseeing trade and eating at our parents’ tables. In making mistakes, because I know that I’ll make them, and then restitution, because I’m better than I once ever hoped to be when I’m with you.” Adaira turned her face to kiss his palm, where his scar from their blood vow still shone. When she looked at him again, there were tears in her eyes. “What do you think, Heiress?” Jack whispered, because he was suddenly desperate to know her thoughts. To know what she was feeling. Adaira leaned forward, brushing his lips with hers. “I think that I want to make such music with you until my last day when the isle takes my bones. I think you are the song I was longing for, waiting for. And I will always be thankful that you returned to me.

She turned to look at Althea with eyes the color if brandy in firelight. "Can't you feel it?" she asked her in a whisper. "Look around you. We are on the cusp. We are a coin spinning in the toss, a card fluttering in the flip, a rune chip floating in stirred water. Possibilities swarm like bees. In this day, in a moment, in a breath, the future of the world will shift course by a notch, One way or another, the coin will land ringing, the card will settle to the table, the chip will bob to the surface, The face that shows uppermost will set our days, and children to come will say, "That is just the way it has always been.

I was about to tell him he was wrong to dwell on it, because it really didn't matter. But he cut me off and urged me one last time, drawing himself up to his full height and asking me if I believed in God. I said no. He sat down indignantly. He said it was impossible; all men believed in God, even those who turn their backs on him. That was his belief, and if he were ever to doubt it, his life would become meaningless. "Do you want my life to be meaningless?" he shouted. As far as I could see, it didn't have anything to do with me, and I told him so. But from across the table he had already thrust the crucifix in my face and was screaming irrationally, "I am a Christian. I ask Him to forgive you for sins. How can you not believe that He suffered for you?" I was struck by how sincere he seemed, but I had had enough. It was getting hotter and hotter. As always, whenever I want to get rid of someone I'm not really listening to, I made it appear as if I agreed. To my surprise, he acted triumphant. "You see, you see!" he said. "You do believe, don't you, and you're going to place your trust in Him, aren't you?" Obviously, I again said no. He fell back in his chair.

Sophie, what will you do to help Josh,to save him, to bring him back?" Tsagaglalal asked. "Anything. Everything." Perenelle leaned forward to place both forearms on the table. Her hands were tightly locked together, knuckles white with tension. "And Sophie, what do you think I will do to help my husband?" "Anything," Sophie said again. "Everything." "We will do anything-everything-to help those we love. That is what seperates the humani from the Next Generation of the Elders or those who came before them. That is what makes us human.That is why the race thrives; it is why the race will always survive." "But that type of love requires sacrifice," Tsagaglalal said slowly. "Sometimes extraordinary sacrifices..." The old woman's gray eyes suddenly swam with huge tears. And Sophie had a flickering memory of a woman-younger, so much younger, but with the same high cheekbones and gray eyes of Tsagaglalal-turning away from a tall golden statue. The woman stopped and looked back, and Sophie discovered that the statue's bright gray eyes were alive and were following the woman. Then Tsagaglalal turned and raced down endless glass stairs. She was clutching a book in both hands: the Codex. And her tears dripped onto the metal surface.

...though leaving him always to remark, portentously, on his probably having formed a relation, his probably enjoying a consciousness, unique in the experience of man. People enough, first and last, had been in terror of apparitions, but who had ever before so turned the tables and become himself, in the apparitional world, an incalculable terror? He might have found this sublime had he quite dared to think of it; but he didn't too much insist, truly, on that side of his privilege.

Hence, Orlando and Sasha, as he called her for short, and because it was the name of a white Russian fox he had had as a boy—a creature soft as snow, but with teeth of steel, which bit him so savagely that his father had it killed—hence they had the river to themselves. Hot with skating and with love they would throw themselves down in some solitary reach, where the yellow osiers fringed the bank, and wrapped in a great fur cloak Orlando would take her in his arms, and know, for the first time, he murmured, the delights of love. Then, when the ecstasy was over and they lay lulled in a swoon on the ice, he would tell her of his other loves, and how, compared with her, they had been of wood, of sackcloth, and of cinders. And laughing at his vehemence, she would turn once more in his arms and give him, for love’s sake, one more embrace. And then they would marvel that the ice did not melt with their heat, and pity the poor old woman who had no such natural means of thawing it, but must hack at it with a chopper of cold steel. And then, wrapped in their sables, they would talk of everything under the sun; of sights and travels; of Moor and Pagan; of this man’s beard and that woman’s skin; of a rat that fed from her hand at table; of the arras that moved always in the hall at home; of a face; of a feather. Nothing was too small for such converse, nothing was too great.

Cakes have gotten a bad rap. People equate virtue with turning down dessert. There is always one person at the table who holds up her hand when I serve the cake. No, really, I couldn't, she says, and then gives her flat stomach a conspiratorial little pat. Everyone who is pressing a fork into that first tender layer looks at the person who declined the plate, and they all think, That person is better than I am. That person has discipline. But that isn't a person with discipline, that is a person who has completely lost touch with joy.

You stare at anything long enough and suddenly it looks monstrous.” She had in fact turned away from him to stare at the bowl of flowers in the middle of the table. Old tea roses, falling to pieces amid the baby’s breath and fern and purple zinnias. And they did look absolutely alien, these things, the way that insects always do, and sort of horrible! What were these things, really?

As she watched while Gabriel sorted through the medicine spoons, she decided to take the bull by the horns. "You probably already know this," she said bluntly, "but I love you. In fact, I love you so much that I don't mind your monotonous handsomeness, your prejudice against certain root vegetables, or your strange preoccupation with spoon-feeding me. I'm never going to obey you. But I'm always going to love you." The declaration wasn't exactly poetic, but it seemed to be what he'd needed to hear. The spoons clattered on the table. In the next moment, he sat on the bed and gathered her against his chest. "Pandora," he said huskily, holding her against his violently thumping heart. "I love you more than I can bear. You're everything to me. You're the reason the earth turns and morning follows night. You're the meaning of primroses and why kissing was invented. You're the reason my heart beats. God help me, I'm not strong enough to survive without you. I need you too much... I need you...

Don’t be afraid of aging. As the saying goes, don’t be afraid of anything but fear itself. Find “your” perfume before you turn thirty. Wear it for the next thirty years. No one should ever see your gums when you talk or laugh. If you own only one sweater, make sure it’s cashmere. Wear a black bra under your white blouse, like two notes on a sheet of music. One must live with the opposite sex, not against them. Except when making love. Be unfaithful: cheat on your perfume, but only on cold days. Go to the theater, to museums, and to concerts as often as possible: it gives you a healthy glow. Be aware of your qualities and your faults. Cultivate them in private but don’t obsess. Make it look easy. Everything you do should seem effortless and graceful. Not too much makeup, too many colors, too many accessories …  Take a deep breath and keep it simple. Your look should always have one thing left undone—the devil is in the details. Be your own knight in shining armor. Cut your own hair or ask your sister to do it for you. Of course you know celebrity hairdressers, but only as friends. Always be fuckable: when standing in line at the bakery on a Sunday morning, buying champagne in the middle of the night, or even picking the kids up from school. You never know. Either go all gray or no gray hair. Salt and pepper is for the table.

Always lost, always striking out in the wrong direction, always going around in circles. You have suffered from a life-long inability to orient yourself in space, and even in New York, the easiest of cities to negotiate, the city where you have spent the better part of your adulthood, you often run into trouble. Whenever you take the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan (assuming you have boarded the correct train and are not traveling deeper into Brooklyn), you make a special point to stop for a moment to get your bearings once you have climbed the stairs to the street, and still you will head north instead of south, go east instead of west, and even when you try to outsmart yourself, knowing that your handicap will set you going the wrong way and therefore, to rectify the error, you do the opposite of what you were intending to do, go left instead of right, go right instead of left, and still you find yourself moving in the wrong direction, no matter how many adjustments you have made. Forget tramping alone in the woods. You are hopelessly lost within minutes, and even indoors, whenever you find yourself in an unfamiliar building, you will walk down the wrong corridor or take the wrong elevator, not to speak of smaller enclosed spaces such as restaurants, for whenever you go to the men’s room in a restaurant that has more than one dining area, you will inevitably make a wrong turn on your way back and wind up spending several minutes searching for your table. Most other people, your wife included, with her unerring inner compass, seem to be able to get around without difficulty. They know where they are, where they have been, and where they are going, but you know nothing, you are forever lost in the moment, in the void of each successive moment that engulfs you, with no idea where true north is, since the four cardinal points do not exist for you, have never existed for you. A minor infirmity until now, with no dramatic consequences to speak of, but that doesn’t mean a day won’t come when you accidentally walk off the edge of a cliff.

Frame the spiritual journey as a stark good-vs.-evil battle of warring sides long enough and you’ll eventually see the Church and those around you in the same way too. You’ll begin to filter the world through the lens of conflict. Everything becomes a threat to the family; everyone becomes a potential enemy. Fear becomes the engine that drives the whole thing. When this happens, your default response to people who are different or who challenge you can turn from compassion to contempt. You become less like God and more like the Godfather. In those times, instead of being a tool to fit your heart for invitation, faith can become a weapon to defend yourself against the encroaching sinners threatening God’s people—whom we conveniently always consider ourselves among. Religion becomes a cold, cruel distance maker, pushing from the table people who aren’t part of the brotherhood and don’t march in lockstep with the others.

I’m not sure how the ponies happened, though I have an inkling: “Can I get you anything?” I’ll say, getting up from a dinner table, “Coffee, tea, a pony?” People rarely laugh at this, especially if they’ve heard it before. “This party’s ‘sposed to be fun,” a friend will say. “Really? Will there be pony rides?” It’s a nervous tic and a cheap joke, cheapened further by the frequency with which I use it. For that same reason, it’s hard to weed it out of my speech – most of the time I don’t even realize I’m saying it. There are little elements in a person’s life, minor fibers that become unintentionally tangled with your personality. Sometimes it’s a patent phrase, sometimes it’s a perfume, sometimes it’s a wristwatch. For me, it is the constant referencing of ponies. I don’t even like ponies. If I made one of my throwaway equine requests and someone produced an actual pony, Juan-Valdez-style, I would run very fast in the other direction. During a few summers at camp, I rode a chronically dehydrated pony named Brandy who would jolt down without notice to lick the grass outside the corral and I would careen forward, my helmet tipping to cover my eyes. I do, however, like ponies on the abstract. Who doesn’t? It’s like those movies with the animated insects. Sure, the baby cockroach seems cute with CGI eyelashes, but how would you feel about fifty of her real-life counterparts living in your oven? And that’s precisely the manner in which the ponies clomped their way into my regular speech: abstractly. “I have something for you,” a guy will say on our first date. “Is it a pony?” No. It’s usually a movie ticket or his cell phone number. But on our second date, if I ask again, I’m pretty sure I’m getting a pony. And thus the Pony drawer came to be. It’s uncomfortable to admit, but almost every guy I have ever dated has unwittingly made a contribution to the stable. The retro pony from the ‘50s was from the most thoughtful guy I have ever known. The one with the glitter horseshoes was from a boy who would later turn out to be straight somehow, not gay. The one with the rainbow haunches was from a librarian, whom I broke up with because I felt the chemistry just wasn’t right, and the one with the price tag stuck on the back was given to me by a narcissist who was so impressed with his gift he forgot to remover the sticker. Each one of them marks the beginning of a new relationship. I don’t mean to hint. It’s not a hint, actually, it’s a flat out demand: I. Want. A. Pony. I think what happens is that young relationships are eager to build up a romantic repertoire of private jokes, especially in the city where there’s not always a great “how we met” story behind every great love affair. People meet at bars, through mutual friends, on dating sites, or because they work in the same industry. Just once a coworker of mine, asked me out between two stops on the N train. We were holding the same pole and he said, “I know this sounds completely insane, bean sprout, but would you like to go to a very public place with me and have a drink or something...?” I looked into his seemingly non-psycho-killing, rent-paying, Sunday Times-subscribing eyes and said, “Sure, why the hell not?” He never bought me a pony. But he didn’t have to, if you know what I mean.

The doors burst open, startling me awake. I nearly jumped out of bed. Tove groaned next to me, since I did this weird mind-slap thing whenever I woke up scared, and it always hit him the worst. I'd forgotten about it because it had been a few months since the last time it happened. "Good morning, good morning, good morning," Loki chirped, wheeling in a table covered with silver domes. "What are you doing?" I asked, squinting at him. He'd pulled up the shades. I was tired as hell, and I was not happy. "I thought you two lovebirds would like breakfast," Loki said. "So I had the chef whip you up something fantastic." As he set up the table in the sitting area, he looked over at us. "Although you two are sleeping awfully far apart for newlyweds." "Oh, my god." I groaned and pulled the covers over my head. "You know, I think you're being a dick," Tove told him as he got out of bed. "But I'm starving. So I'm willing to overlook it. This time." "A dick?" Loki pretended to be offended. "I'm merely worried about your health. If your bodies aren't used to strenuous activities, like a long night of lovemaking, you could waste away if you don't get plenty of protein and rehydrate. I'm concerned for you." "Yes, we both believe that's why you're here," Tove said sarcastically and took a glass of orange juice that Loki had poured for him. "What about you, Princess?" Loki's gaze cut to me as he filled another glass. "I'm not hungry." I sighed and sat up. "Oh, really?" Loki arched an eyebrow. "Does that mean that last night-" "It means that last night is none of your business," I snapped. I got up and hobbled over to Elora's satin robe, which had been left on a nearby chair. My feet and ankles ached from all the dancing I'd done the night before. "Don't cover up on my account," Loki said as I put on the robe. "You don't have anything I haven't seen." "Oh, I have plenty you haven't seen," I said and pulled the robe around me. "You should get married more often," Loki teased. "It makes you feisty." I rolled my eyes and went over to the table. Loki had set it all up, complete with a flower in a vase in the center, and he'd pulled off the domed lids to reveal a plentiful breakfast. I took a seat across from Tove, only to realize that Loki had pulled up a third chair for himself. "What are you doing?" I asked. "Well, I went to all the trouble of having someone prepare it, so I might as well eat it." Loki sat down and handed me a flute filled with orange liquid. "I made mimosas." "Thanks," I said, and I exchanged a look with Tove to see if it was okay if Loki stayed. "He's a dick," Tove said over a mouthful of food, and shrugged. "But I don't care." In all honesty, I think we both preferred having Loki there. He was a buffer between the two of us so we didn't have to deal with any awkward morning-after conversations. And though I'd never admit it aloud, Loki made me laugh, and right now I needed a little levity in my life. "So, how did everyone sleep last night?" Loki asked. There was a quick knock at the bedroom doors, but they opened before I could answer. Finn strode inside, and my stomach dropped. He was the last person I'd expected to see. I didn't even think he would be here anymore. After the other night I assumed he'd left, especially when I didn't see him at the wedding. "Princess, I'm sorry-" Finn started to say as he hurried in, but then he saw Loki and stopped abruptly. "Finn?" I asked, stunned. Finn looked appalled and pointed at Loki. "What are you doing here?" "I'm drinking a mimosa." Loki leaned back in his chair. "What are you doing here?" "What is he doing here?" Finn asked, turning his attention to me. "Never mind him." I waved it off. "What's going on?" "See, Finn, you should've told me when I asked," Loki said between sips of his drink.

When you realize that life can change in an instant—sickness, loss, unemployment, or anything unexpected—you learn to stay humble. Life’s unpredictability reminds us how quickly tables can turn. Always pray, remain humble, and be grateful.

I like the disaster of the night sky, stars spilling this way and that as if they were upturned from a glass. I like the way good madness feels. I like the way laughter always spills. That's the word for it. It never just comes, it spills. I like the word 'again'. Again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. I like the quiet sound a coffee cup makes when it's set down on a wooden table. So hushed. So inviting. Like morning light yawning through the window and stretching out onto the kitchen floor. I like the way girls' lips look like they're stained with berries. I like the way morning light breaks like a prism through the empty wine bottles on our dusty apartment floor. Glasses empty except for the midnight hour. I like the way blueberries stain my fingers during the summer. I like the way light hits your eyes and turns it into a color that doesn't exist anywhere else other than in this moment. I want it all. I want the breeze to call my name as it rushes down my street, looking for me. I want to feel grass underneath my bare feet and I want to feel the sun kiss freckles onto my cheeks. I want to hear you yell hello as you make your way towards me, not goodbye as you have to go. That's just a little bit about me.

The dealership had given him two keys for his new ride, and Andrew was giving the second one to Neil. When Neil took too long to take it from him, Andrew dropped it on the concrete between them. "A man can only have so many issues," Andrew said. "It is just a key." "You're a foster child. You know it isn't," Neil said. He didn't pick the key up but pressed two fingers to it, learning the shape and feel of this newest gift. "I've always had enough cash to live comfortably, but all the decent places ask too many questions. There are background checks and credit checks and references, things I can't provide on my own without leaving too much of a trail. I squatted in Millport. Before that I stayed in decrepit weekly hotels or broke into people's cars or found places that were happy being paid under the table. "It's always been 'go'," Neil said. He turned his hand palm-up and traced a key into his skin with his fingertip. He'd toyed with Andrew's house key so many times he knew every dip and ridge by heart. "It's always been 'lie' and 'hide' and 'disappear'. I've never belonged anywhere or had the right to call anything my own. But Coach gave me keys to the court, and you told me to stay. You gave me a key and called it home." Neil clenched his hand, imagining the bite of metal against his palm, and lifted his gaze to Andrew's face. "I haven't had a home since my parents died." Andrew dug a finger in Neil's cheek and forcibly turned his head away. "Don't look at me like that. I am not your answer, and you sure as fuck aren't mine.

But there's always time for hot chocolate, made with milk and grated nutmeg, vanilla, chili, brown sugar, cardamom, and 70 percent couverture chocolate- the only chocolate worth buying, she says- and it tastes rich and just slightly bitter on the back of the tongue, like caramel as it begins to turn. The chili gives it a touch of heat- never too much, just a taste- and the spices give it that churchy smell that reminds me of Lansquenet somehow, and of nights above the chocolate shop, just Maman and me, with Pantoufle sitting to one side and candles burning on the orange-box table.

As a matter of fact I don’t care two pins about accuracy. Who is accurate? Nobody nowadays. If a reporter writes that a beautiful girl of twenty-two dies by turning on the gas after looking out over the sea and kissing her favourite Labrador, Bob, goodbye, does anybody make a fuss because the girl was twenty-six, the room faced inland, and the dog was a Sealyham terrier called Bonnie? If a journalist can do that sort of thing I don’t see that it matters if I mix up police ranks and say a revolver when I mean an automatic and a dictograph when I mean a phonograph, and use a poison that just allows you to gasp one dying sentence and no more. What really matters is plenty of bodies! If the thing’s getting a little dull, some more blood cheers it up. Somebody is going to tell something – and then they’re killed first! That always goes down well. It comes in all my books – camouflaged different ways of course. And people like untraceable poisons, and idiotic police inspectors and girls tied up in cellars with sewer gas or water pouring in (such a troublesome way of killing anyone really) and a hero who can dispose of anything from three to seven villains singlehanded.

He always kept three books at hand—one scientific, one of classical literature or history, one light fiction—which he took up in turn, giving each exactly twenty minutes according to a pocket watch placed on the table beside his chair. In this fashion, he said, he was able to remember what he read.

Are broken windows a new decorating theme around here?” Archer asked, coming up behind Jenna and me and poking his head into the parlor. “So it would seem,” I said. I was still looking outside when a faint light appeared in the gloom. It took me a minute to realize that it was from Cal’s cabin. Was someone out there? Was Cal out there? But just as quickly as it had appeared, the light went out again. Frowning, I turned from the doorway, and I went to slip my arm through Archer’s. Then I remembered what Nausicaa had said earlier. Now wasn’t exactly the best time for PDA, probably. The three of us trailed behind everyone else into the ballroom. Here, at least, things looked more or less the same. Of course, the ballroom had always been one of the more bizarre rooms at Hex Hall, so that didn’t say much. Still, I was relieved to see the familiar jumble of tables and chairs and not, like, tree stumps or whatever.

Silver mining in the United States didn’t start, like hard-core, until the mid-1850s,” Louis said. “And only really got big when the Comstock Lode was discovered in 1859 in California.” “It was bad work. Dangerous. Like any mining. But silver also lets out fumes when it’s mined. Even Pliny the Elder wrote about how harmful the fumes were, especially to animals. You know Pliny the Elder?” “The problem with the silver fumes,” Louis continued, “is that, over time, they gave the miners delusions. Bad enough that they had to stop mining. Their health deteriorated. And a bunch of them even died.” Hard to make fun of something like that, so Pepper didn’t. “Do you know what people would say, in these mining towns, when they saw one of these miners falling apart? Walking through town muttering and swinging at phantoms? They said the Devil in Silver got them. It became shorthand. Like someone might say, ‘What happened to Mike?’ And the answer was always the same. ‘The Devil in Silver got him.’ ” Louis sat straight and crossed his arms and surveyed the table. “Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?” “You’re saying we’re just making this thing up,” Pepper said quietly. Louis seemed disappointed. He dropped his hands into his lap and folded them there. He looked at his sister and Pepper. He turned his head to take in the other patients gathered with their family members there in the hospital. “I’m saying they were dying,” Louis said. “They definitely weren’t making that up. But it wasn’t a monster that was killing them. It was the mine.

Our chambers were always full of chemicals and of criminal relics which had a way of wandering into unlikely positions, and of turning up in the butter-dish or in even less desirable places. But his papers were my great crux. He had a horror of destroying documents, especially those which were connected with his past cases, and yet it was only once in every year or two that he would muster energy to docket and arrange them; for, as I have mentioned somewhere in these incoherent memoirs, the outbursts of passionate energy when he performed the remarkable feats with which his name is associated were followed by reactions of lethargy during which he would lie about with his violin and his books, hardly moving save from the sofa to the table. Thus month after month his papers accumulated, until every corner of the room was stacked with bundles of manuscript which were on no account to be burned, and which could not be put away save by their owner. One winter's night, as we sat together by the fire, I ventured to suggest to him that, as he had finished pasting extracts into his common-place book, he might employ the next two hours in making our room a little more habitable. He could not deny the justice of my request, so with a rather rueful face he went off to his bedroom, from which he returned presently pulling a large tin box behind him. This he placed in the middle of the floor and, squatting down upon a stool in front of it, he threw back the lid. I could see that it was already a third full of bundles of paper tied up with red tape into separate packages.

To Himself" So you've come to me now without knowing why; Nor why you sit in the ruby plush of an ugly chair, the sly Revealing angle of light turning your hair a silver gray; Nor why you have chosen this moment to set the writing of years Against the writing of nothing; you who narrowed your eyes, Peering into the polished air of the hallway mirror, and said You were mine, all mine; who begged me to write, but always Of course to you, without ever saying what it was for; Who used to whisper in my ear only the things You wanted to hear; who comes to me now and says That it's late, that the trees are bending under the wind, That night will fall; as if there were something You wanted to know, but for years had forgotten to ask, Something to do with sunlight slanting over a table And chair, an arm rising, a face turning, and far In the distance a car disappearing over the hill. Mark Strand, Collected Poems. (Knopf; First Edition edition September 30, 2014)

Gator, go wake that woman of yours. I need some answers. We need her to run the computers for us.” “Tonight, Boss?” Gator complained. “I had other ideas.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “We all did. Hop to it.” “What about Sam?” Tucker asked. “His woman is the one who got us into this.” “I’m wounded.” Sam clutched his abdomen dramatically and staggered with quick, long strides so that he made it to the doorway in three quick steps. Jonas coughed, sounding suspiciously like he’d muttered “bullshit” under his breath. Kyle threw a peanut at him and Jeff surfed across the table in his bare socks to try to catch him before he bolted. “He’s in love, boys, let him go. He’ll probably just get laughed at,” Tucker said. “Do you really think Azami’s brothers are going to allow her to hook up with Sam? She’s fine and he’s . . . well . . . klutzy.” “That hurt,” Sam said, turning back. “Did you get a good look at those boys? I thought Japanese men were supposed to be on the short side, but Daiki was tall and all muscle. His brother moves like a fucking fighter,” Tucker added. “They might just decide to give you a good beating for having the audacity to even think you could date their sister, let alone marry her.” “Fat help you are,” Sam accused. “I could use a little confidence here.” Kyle snorted. “You don’t have a chance, buddy.” “Goin’ to meet your maker,” Gator added solemnly. Jeff crossed himself as he hung five toes off the edge of the table. “Sorry, old son, you don’t have a prayer. You’re about to meet up with a couple of hungry sharks.” “Have you ever actually used a sword before?” Kadan asked, all innocent. Jonas drew his knife and began to sharpen it. “Funny thing about blade men, they always like to go for the throat.” He grinned up at Sam. “Just a little tip. Keep your chin down.” “You’re all a big help,” Sam said and stepped out into the hall. This was the biggest moment of his life. If they turned him down, he was lost.

This was why love was so dangerous. Love turned the world into a garden, so beguiling it was easy to forget that rose petals sails appeared charmed. They blazed red in the day and silver at night, like a magician’s cloak, hinting at mysteries concealed beneath, which Tella planned to uncover that night. Drunken laughter floated above her as Tella delved deeper into the ship’s underbelly in search of Nigel the Fortune-teller. Her first evening on the vessel she’d made the mistake of sleeping, not realizing until the following day that Legend’s performers had switched their waking hours to prepare for the next Caraval. They slumbered in the day and woke after sunset. All Tella had learned her first day aboard La Esmeralda was that Nigel was on the ship, but she had yet to actually see him. The creaking halls beneath decks were like the bridges of Caraval, leading different places at different hours and making it difficult to know who stayed in which room. Tella wondered if Legend had designed it that way, or if it was just the unpredictable nature of magic. She imagined Legend in his top hat, laughing at the question and at the idea that magic had more control than he did. For many, Legend was the definition of magic. When she had first arrived on Isla de los Sueños, Tella suspected everyone could be Legend. Julian had so many secrets that she’d questioned if Legend’s identity was one of them, up until he’d briefly died. Caspar, with his sparkling eyes and rich laugh, had played the role of Legend in the last game, and at times he’d been so convincing Tella wondered if he was actually acting. At first sight, Dante, who was almost too beautiful to be real, looked like the Legend she’d always imagined. Tella could picture Dante’s wide shoulders filling out a black tailcoat while a velvet top hat shadowed his head. But the more Tella thought about Legend, the more she wondered if he even ever wore a top hat. If maybe the symbol was another thing to throw people off. Perhaps Legend was more magic than man and Tella had never met him in the flesh at all. The boat rocked and an actual laugh pierced the quiet. Tella froze. The laughter ceased but the air in the thin corridor shifted. What had smelled of salt and wood and damp turned thick and velvet-sweet. The scent of roses. Tella’s skin prickled; gooseflesh rose on her bare arms. At her feet a puddle of petals formed a seductive trail of red. Tella might not have known Legend’s true name, but she knew he favored red and roses and games. Was this his way of toying with her? Did he know what she was up to? The bumps on her arms crawled up to her neck and into her scalp as her newest pair of slippers crushed the tender petals. If Legend knew what she was after, Tella couldn’t imagine he would guide her in the correct direction, and yet the trail of petals was too tempting to avoid. They led to a door that glowed copper around the edges. She turned the knob. And her world transformed into a garden, a paradise made of blossoming flowers and bewitching romance. The walls were formed of moonlight. The ceiling was made of roses that dripped down toward the table in the center of the room, covered with plates of cakes and candlelight and sparkling honey wine. But none of it was for Tella. It was all for Scarlett. Tella had stumbled into her sister’s love story and it was so romantic it was painful to watch. Scarlett stood across the chamber. Her full ruby gown bloomed brighter than any flowers, and her glowing skin rivaled the moon as she gazed up at Julian. They touched nothing except each other. While Scarlett pressed her lips to Julian’s, his arms wrapped around her as if he’d found the one thing he never wanted to let go of. This was why love was so dangerous. Love turned the world into a garden, so beguiling it was easy to forget that rose petals were as ephemeral as feelings, eventually they would wilt and die, leaving nothing but the thorns.

Thinking back, ladies, looking back, gentlemen, thinking and looking back on my European tour, I feel a heavy sadness descend upon me. Of course, it is partly nostalgia, looking back at that younger me, bustling around Europe, having adventures and overcoming obstacles that, at the time, seemed so overwhelming, but now seem like just the building blocks of a harmless story. But here is the truth of nostalgia: we don’t feel it for who we were, but who we weren’t. We feel it for all the possibilities that were open to us, but that we didn’t take. Time is like wax, dripping from a candle flame. In the moment, it is molten and falling, with the capability to transform into any shape. Then the moment passes, and the wax hits the table top and solidifies into the shape it will always be. It becomes the past, a solid single record of what happened, still holding in its wild curves and contours the potential of every shape it could have held. It is impossible - no matter how blessed you are by luck or the government or some remote, invisible deity gently steering your life with hands made of moonlight and wind - it is impossible not to feel a little sad, looking at that bit of wax. That bit of the past. It is impossible not to think of all the wild forms that wax now will never take. The village, glimpsed from a train window, beautiful and impossible and impossibly beautiful on a mountaintop, and you wonder what it would be if you stepped off the train and walked up the trail to its quiet streets and lived there for the rest of your life. The beautiful face of that young man from Luftknarp, with his gaping mouth and ashy skin, last seen already half-turned away as you boarded the bus, already turning towards a future without you in it, where this thing between you that seemed so possible now already and forever never was. All variety of lost opportunity spied from the windows of public transportation, really. It can be overwhelming, this splattered, inert wax recording every turn not taken. ‘What’s the point?’ you ask. ’Why bother?’ you say. ’Oh, Cecil,’ you cry. ’Oh, Cecil.’ But then you remember - I remember! - that we are even now in another bit of molten wax. We are in a moment that is still falling, still volatile, and we will never be anywhere else. We will always be in that most dangerous, most exciting, most possible time of all: the Now. Where we never can know what shape the next moment will take. Stay tuned next for, well, let’s just find out together, shall we?

When the gypsy chief reached this point in his story, someone came to tell him that his presence was required for business concerning his band. As soon as he left, Velásquez spoke and said, ‘I have tried in vain to concentrate all my attention on the gypsy chief’s words but I am unable to discover any coherence whatsoever in them. I do not know who is speaking and who is listening. Sometimes the Marqués de Val Florida is telling the story of his life to his daughter, sometimes it is she who is relating it to the gypsy chief, who in turn is repeating it to us. It is a veritable labyrinth. I had always thought that novels and other works of that kind should be written in several columns like chronological tables.

Is it always this awkward?" Sara asked. Her voice was hushed. Derek turned to look at her, his gaze falling to the white rose in her hands. She had taken it from the arrangement of hothouse flowers. Nervously her fingers ruffled the fragile petals. Self-consciously Sara sniffed the pale blossom and began to insert it back into the huge vase. "It's nice to have roses in January," she murmured. "Nothing in the world has such a lovely scent." She was so innocently beautiful, with the disordered waves of her hair falling around her face. His muscles tightened in response. He would like to have her painted this way, standing by the table with her head turned toward him, the white flower caught in her fingers. "Bring it here," he said. She obeyed, coming to him and handing him the rose. He closed his fingers around the plump head of the flower and pulled gently, freeing the petals from their tenuous moorings. Tossing aside the desecrated stem, he opened his hand over the bed. The petals scattered in a fragrant shower. Sara drew in a quick breath, staring at him as if mesmerized.

There will always be difficult people for us to face—the chronically insecure, the hopelessly stubborn, the hysterical complainers. Your ability to disarm these people will prove an invaluable skill. You do have to be careful, though: if you are passive they will run all over you; if assertive you will make their monstrous qualities worse. Seduction and charm are the most effective counterweapons. Outwardly, be gracious. Adapt to their every mood. Enter their spirit. Inwardly, calculate and wait: your surrender is a strategy, not a way of life. When the time comes, and it inevitably will, the tables will turn. Their aggression will land them in trouble, and that will put you in a position to rescue them, regaining superiority.

Wylan—and the obliging Kuwei—will get the weevil working,” Kaz continued. “Once we have Inej, we can move on Van Eck’s silos.” Nina rolled her eyes. “Good thing this is all about getting our money and not about saving Inej. Definitely not about that.” “If you don’t care about money, Nina dear, call it by its other names.” “Kruge? Scrub? Kaz’s one true love?” “Freedom, security, retribution.” “You can’t put a price on those things.” “No? I bet Jesper can. It’s the price of the lien on his father’s farm.” The sharpshooter looked at the toes of his boots. “What about you, Wylan? Can you put a price on the chance to walk away from Ketterdam and live your own life? And Nina, I suspect you and your Fjerdan may want something more to subsist on than patriotism and longing glances. Inej might have a number in mind too. It’s the price of a future, and it’s Van Eck’s turn to pay.” Matthias was not fooled. Kaz always spoke logic, but that didn’t mean he always told truth. “The Wraith’s life is worth more than that,” said Matthias. “To all of us.” “We get Inej. We get our money. It’s as simple as that.” “Simple as that,” said Nina. “Did you know I’m next in line for the Fjerdan throne? They call me Princess Ilse of Engelsberg.” “There is no princess of Engelsberg,” said Matthias. “It’s a fishing town.” Nina shrugged. “If we’re going to lie to ourselves, we might as well be grand about it.” Kaz ignored her, spreading a map of the city over the table, and Matthias heard Wylan murmur to Jesper, “Why won’t he just say he wants her back?” “You’ve met Kaz, right?” “But she’s one of us.” Jesper’s brows rose again. “One of us? Does that mean she knows the secret handshake? Does that mean you’re ready to get a tattoo?” He ran a finger up Wylan’s forearm, and Wylan flushed a vibrant pink. Matthias couldn’t help but sympathize with the boy. He knew what it was to be out of your depth, and he sometimes suspected they could forgo all of Kaz’s planning and simply let Jesper and Nina flirt the entirety of Ketterdam into submission. Wylan pulled his sleeve down self-consciously. “Inej is part of the crew.” “Just don’t push it.” “Why not?” “Because the practical thing would be for Kaz to auction Kuwei to the highest bidder and forget about Inej entirely.” “He wouldn’t—” Wylan broke off abruptly, doubt creeping over his features. None of them really knew what Kaz would or wouldn’t do. Sometimes Matthias wondered if even Kaz was sure. “Okay, Kaz,” said Nina, slipping off her shoes and wiggling her toes. “Since this is about the almighty plan, how about you stop meditating over that map and tell us just what we’re in for.

This is how my day usually goes. I leave the faucet open and know what it’s like to have my fingers around a minuscule whirlpool, and I cry, hoping if I do it for hours the water will end up tasting like the ocean, just so I could get myself half-drowning. I don’t know how to float on water. This is the closest thing I will ever get to breathing without forcing my lungs to turn into a garbage truck, or a car alarm, or anything that can get my neighbors out of their doors. Maybe if I blink my eyes as fast as I can, I will end up having lightning for tears because that’s how much they hurt. There is the constant banging on my door. On my bedside table is an empty mug that was once made with everything close to tasting like beautiful and patient and calm. And I am not. I am stepping on my own leash. my skin has purple circles, my eyes has been spending too many hours pretending to be an Olympic pool, when it’s too little to even be a sink. Last night, I realized, the tap water will never taste like tears, no matter how many hours I spent bending. The banging on my bedroom door will never stop. I wonder how long I can keep this up until I remember that there’s always a limit to pain, and none to love.

It kind of freaked me out. Because I don’t know if I’m ready for that kind of thing yet.” Or maybe the problem was that I wasn’t prepared for how ready I was… “Ready for-?” He broke off, and then frowned as if it had all become clear. “Wait.” He dropped his arms from around my waist and took a step away from me. “You think I spent the night wit you?” “Didn’t you?” I blinked back at him. “There’s only the one bed. And…well, you were in it when I woke up.” Thunder boomed overhead. It wasn’t as loud as the violent cracks that had occurred in my dream. Although the rumbles were long enough-and intense enough-that the silverware on the table began to make an eerie tinkling sound. And my bird, who’d been calmly cleaning herself on the back of my chair, suddenly took off, seeing shelter on the highest bookshelf against the far wall. I realized I’d just insulted my host, and no joke was going to get me out of it this time. “For your information, Pierce,” John said, his tone almost disturbingly calm-but his eyes flashed the same shade as the stone around my neck, which had gone the color of the metal studs at his wrists-“I spent most of last night on the couch. Until one point early this morning, when I heard you call my name. You were crying in your sleep.” The salt water I’d tasted on my lips. Not due to rain from a violent hurricane, but from the tears I’d shed, watching him die in front of me. “Oh,” I said uncomfortably. “John, I’m so-“ It turned out he wasn’t finished. “I put my arms around you to try to comfort you, because I know what this place can be like, at least at first. It’s not exactly hell, but it’s the next closest place to it. You wouldn’t let go of me. You held on to me like you were drowning, and I was your only lifeline.” I swallowed, astonished at how close he’d come to describing my dream…except it had been the other way around. I’d been his lifeline; only he’d let go of me, sacrificing himself so that I could live. “Right,” I said. “Of course. I’m sorry.” I couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been, especially since my mother had always worried so much about my talking in my sleep. On the other hand, I had been upfront with him about my lack of experience when it came to men. “But this is good, see?” I reached out to take his hand. “I told you I could never hate you-“ He pulled his hand away, exactly like in my dream. Well, not exactly, because he wasn’t being sucked from my grasp by a giant ocean swell. Instead, he’d dropped my fingers because he was leaving to go sort the souls of the dead. “You will,” he assured me, bitterly. “You’re already regretting your decision to-what was it you called it? Oh, right-cohabitate with me.” “No,” I insisted. “I’m not. All I said was that I want to take things more slowly-“ That had nothing to do with him-it had to do with me and my fear of not being able to control myself when he was kissing me. It was too humiliating to admit that out loud, however.

Her pretty name of Adina seemed to me to have somehow a mystic fitness to her personality. Behind a cold shyness, there seemed to lurk a tremulous promise to be franker when she knew you better. Adina is a strange child; she is fanciful without being capricious. She was stout and fresh-coloured, she laughed and talked rather loud, and generally, in galleries and temples, caused a good many stiff British necks to turn round. She had a mania for excursions, and at Frascati and Tivoli she inflicted her good-humoured ponderosity on diminutive donkeys with a relish which seemed to prove that a passion for scenery, like all our passions, is capable of making the best of us pitiless. Adina may not have the shoulders of the Venus of Milo...but I hope it will take more than a bauble like this to make her stoop. Adina espied the first violet of the year glimmering at the root of a cypress. She made haste to rise and gather it, and then wandered further, in the hope of giving it a few companions. Scrope sat and watched her as she moved slowly away, trailing her long shadow on the grass and drooping her head from side to side in her charming quest. It was not, I know, that he felt no impulse to join her; but that he was in love, for the moment, with looking at her from where he sat. Her search carried her some distance and at last she passed out of sight behind a bend in the villa wall. I don't pretend to be sure that I was particularly struck, from this time forward, with something strange in our quiet Adina. She had always seemed to me vaguely, innocently strange; it was part of her charm that in the daily noiseless movement of her life a mystic undertone seemed to murmur "You don't half know me! Perhaps we three prosaic mortals were not quite worthy to know her: yet I believe that if a practised man of the world had whispered to me, one day, over his wine, after Miss Waddington had rustled away from the table, that there was a young lady who, sooner or later, would treat her friends to a first class surprise, I should have laid my finger on his sleeve and told him with a smile that he phrased my own thought. .."That beautiful girl," I said, "seems to me agitated and preoccupied." "That beautiful girl is a puzzle. I don't know what's the matter with her; it's all very painful; she's a very strange creature. I never dreamed there was an obstacle to our happiness--to our union. She has never protested and promised; it's not her way, nor her nature; she is always humble, passive, gentle; but always extremely grateful for every sign of tenderness. Till within three or four days ago, she seemed to me more so than ever; her habitual gentleness took the form of a sort of shrinking, almost suffering, deprecation of my attentions, my petits soins, my lovers nonsense. It was as if they oppressed and mortified her--and she would have liked me to bear more lightly. I did not see directly that it was not the excess of my devotion, but my devotion itself--the very fact of my love and her engagement that pained her. When I did it was a blow in the face. I don't know what under heaven I've done! Women are fathomless creatures. And yet Adina is not capricious, in the common sense... .So these are peines d'amour?" he went on, after brooding a moment. "I didn't know how fiercely I was in love!" Scrope stood staring at her as she thrust out the crumpled note: that she meant that Adina--that Adina had left us in the night--was too large a horror for his unprepared sense...."Good-bye to everything! Think me crazy if you will. I could never explain. Only forget me and believe that I am happy, happy, happy! Adina Beati."... Love is said to be par excellence the egotistical passion; if so Adina was far gone. "I can't promise to forget you," I said; "you and my friend here deserve to be remembered!

She is shocked, and also afraid to look at him. As he turns the page, he's describing a dessert whose name he cannot remember but which arrived at the table in flames. She feels utterly bewildered. This is who her father is: someone tickled by the existence of sushi. Someone who takes pictures inside a restaurant. Her father is cheesy. Even his handsomeness, she thinks, looking at one of the few photos in which he appears, is of a certain harmlessly generic sort, the handsomeness of a middle-aged male model in the department-store insert of the Sunday Inquirer. Has she only imagined him as a monster? His essential lesson, she always believed, was this: There are many ways for you to transgress, and most you will not recognize until after committing them. But is it she who invented this lesson? At the least, she met him halfway, she bought in to it. Not just as a child but all through adolescence and into adulthood--until this very moment. She realized now that Allison does not buy in to it, that she must not have for years, and that's why Allison doesn't fight with their father or refuse to talk to him for long stretches. Why bother? Hannah always assumed Allison was bullied into her paternal devotion, but no--it is Hannah who has seen his anger as much bigger than it ever was.

The Misunderstood Social Butterfly   Like manipulative mothers, scheming co-workers act nice toward their intended target and present themselves as a victim. These schemers make themselves seem misunderstood and victimized to gain their target’s trust. The unwitting target then makes it his or her job to cover for the “victim,” making sure that the “victim” is protected from others.   This forms an exclusive bond between the two parties, with the manipulator effectively cutting off the target’s contact with other employees by painting them in a bad light. The target then becomes the manipulator’s personal pep squad, leaving the employee emotionally and mentally drained.   Typically, the person being manipulated in this type of relationship at work is someone who is hard working, trusting, and unfortunately, often times easy prey to a manipulator. The manipulator sees the victim as the person who is always working late and the person who always “tries to do the right thing”. The manipulator, conversely, often times is the one leaving early, skating by day-to-day, but occasionally has enough “golden opportunities” with the boss to make themselves the “favored employees”. Nearly always a gregarious and outgoing person, these manipulative people can be true terrors to those whom they manipulate.

Here," Trey says, fumbling for his cell phone on the bedside table. "You should call me. Ben turns and looks at him, a small smile still playing around his lips. "Oh, should I? What's your number?" Trey tells him, and Ben enters it into is phone, and then he takes Trey's and enters his number. "Okay," Ben says a little cautiously, "well, we'd love to have you come for a meeting. Are you seriously considering U of C? Even after what happened?" "Oh yeah. I totally am. "What's your name again?" Ben laughs and tells him. I frown. Trey knows U of C is a private school. Mucho big bucks. But hey... there's always the power of morphine to make you forget about the minor details of your life, like living above a restaurant that struggles monthly to pay bills, and considering returning to the place where some lunatic outsider came in and fucking shot you because you're gay.

Remembering his creative exposition on the subject of purple-spotted dingy-dippers, Lillian gave a little huff of amusement. She had always considered Westcliff an utterly humorless man…and in that, she had misjudged him. “I thought you never lied,” she said. His lips twitched. “Given the options of seeing you become ill at the dinner table, or lying to get you out of there quickly, I chose the lesser of two evils. Do you feel better now?” “Better…yes.” Lillian realized that she was resting in the crook of his arm, her skirts draped partially over one of his thighs. His body was solid and warm, perfectly matched to hers. Glancing downward, she saw that the fabric of his trousers had molded firmly around his muscular thighs. Unladylike curiosity awakened inside her, and she clenched her fingers against the urge to slide her palm over his leg. “The part about the dingy-dipper was clever,” she said, dragging her gaze up to his face. “But inventing a Latin name for it was positively inspired.” Westcliff grinned. “I always hoped my Latin would be good for something.” Shifting her a little, he reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and glanced at his watch. “We’ll return to the dining hall in approximately a quarter hour. By that time the calves’ heads should be removed.” Lillian made a face. “I hate English food,” she exclaimed. “All those jellies and blobs, and wiggly puddings, and the game that is aged until by the time it’s served, it is older than I am, and—” She felt a tremor of amusement run through him, and she turned in the half circle of his arm. “What is so amusing?” “You’re making me afraid to go back to my own dinner table.” “You should be!” she replied emphatically, and he could no longer restrain a deep laugh.

Coyote was inside the belly of the giant, and he didn’t even know it. He was completely unaware that he was trapped. I think that’s what grandma was trying to say.” “You could also argue that Coyote was the only one who wasn’t trapped.” I shrugged, knowing that Samuel’s grandmother’s interpretation of the legend had reminded him of me. My stomach twisted at the knowledge, and I was suddenly eager to turn the tables on him. “Coyote had no trouble getting out – but he knew he couldn’t leave everyone else behind.” “Hmm. I should have known you’d see it that way.” Samuel reached out and brushed his fingertips down my cheek. “I feel like I’m back on the bus, trying to keep up. You were always two steps ahead of me.” “Would it make you feel better if we arm wrestled?” I poked at him, “I’m sure I wouldn’t stand a chance.” I was relieved to turn the conversation in a different direction. Samuel laughed out loud

One day when I was talking on the telephone in his office I mindlessly turned the pages of the dictionary that he had always left open on the table by the desk. When I realized what I had done I was stricken: what word had he last looked up, what had he been thinking? By turning the pages had I lost the message? Or had the message been lost before I touched the dictionary? Had I refused to hear the message? I tell you that I shall not live two days, Gawain said.

Cakes have gotten a bad rap. People equate virtue with turning down dessert. There is always one person at the table who holds up her hand when I serve the cake. No, really, I couldn’t, she says, and then gives her flat stomach a conspiratorial little pat. Everyone who is pressing a fork into that first tender layer looks at the person who declined the plate, and they all think, That person is better than I am. That person has discipline. But that isn’t a person with discipline, that is a person who has completely lost touch with joy. A slice of cake never made anybody fat. You don’t eat the whole cake. You don’t eat a cake every day of your life. You take the cake when it is offered because the cake is delicious. You have a slice of cake and what it reminds you of is someplace that’s safe, uncomplicated, without stress. A cake is a party, a birthday, a wedding. A cake is what’s served on the happiest days of your life.

I turn to Peter and say, “I can’t believe you did this.” “I baked that cake myself,” he brags. “Box, but still.” He takes off his jacket and pulls a lighter out of his jacket pocket and starts lighting the candles. Gabe pulls out a lit candle and helps him. Then Peter hops his butt on the table and sits down, his legs hanging off the edge. “Come on.” I look around. “Um…” That’s when I hear the opening notes of “If You Were Here” by the Thompson Twins. My hands fly to my cheeks. I can’t believe it. Peter’s recreating the end scene from Sixteen Candles, when Molly Ringwald and Jake Ryan sit on a table with a birthday cake in between them. When we watched the movie a few months ago, I said it was the most romantic thing I’d ever seen. And now he’s doing it for me. “Hurry up and get up there before all the candles melt, Lara Jean,” Chris calls out. Darrell and Gabe help hoist me onto the table, careful not to set my dress on fire. Peter says, “Okay, now you look at me adoringly, and I lean forward like this.” Chris comes forward and puffs out my skirt a bit. “Roll up your sleeve a little higher,” she instructs Peter, looking from her phone to us. Peter obeys, and she nods. “Looks good, looks good.” Then she runs back to her spot and starts to snap. It takes no effort on my part at all to look at Peter adoringly tonight. When I blow out the candles and make my wish, I wish that I will always feel for Peter the way I do right now.

You have a life stretching out in front of you with a million possibilities,” Gat says. “It—it grates on me when you ask for sympathy, that’s all.” Gat, my Gat. He is right. He is. But he also doesn’t understand. “I know no one’s beating me,” I say, feeling defensive all of a sudden. “I know I have plenty of money and a good education. Food on the table. I’m not dying of cancer. Lots of people have it much worse than I. And I do know I was lucky to go to Europe. I shouldn’t complain about it or be ungrateful.” “Okay, then.” “But listen. You have no idea what it feels like to have headaches like this. No idea. It hurts,” I say—and I realize tears are running down my face, though I’m not sobbing. “It makes it hard to be alive, some days. A lot of times I wish I were dead, I truly do, just to make the pain stop.” “You do not,” he says harshly. “You do not wish you were dead. Don’t say that.” “I just want the pain to be over,” I say. “On the days the pills don’t work. I want it to end and I would do anything—really, anything—if I knew for sure it would end the pain.” There is a silence. He walks down to the bottom edge of the roof, facing away from me. “What do you do then? When it’s like that?” “Nothing. I lie there and wait, and remind myself over and over that it doesn’t last forever. That there will be another day and after that, yet another day. One of those days, I’ll get up and eat breakfast and feel okay.” “Another day.” “Yes.” Now he turns and bounds up the roof in a couple steps. Suddenly his arms are around me, and we are clinging to each other. He is shivering slightly and he kisses my neck with cold lips. We stay like that, enfolded in each other’s arms, for a minute or two and it feels like the universe is reorganizing itself, and I know any anger we felt has disappeared. Gat kisses me on the lips, and touches my cheek. I love him. I have always loved him. We stay up there on the roof for a very, very long time. Forever.

The plane banked, and he pressed his face against the cold window. The ocean tilted up to meet him, its dark surface studded with points of light that looked like constellations, fallen stars. The tourist sitting next to him asked him what they were. Nathan explained that the bright lights marked the boundaries of the ocean cemeteries. The lights that were fainter were memory buoys. They were the equivalent of tombstones on land: they marked the actual graves. While he was talking he noticed scratch-marks on the water, hundreds of white gashes, and suddenly the captain's voice, crackling over the intercom, interrupted him. The ships they could see on the right side of the aircraft were returning from a rehearsal for the service of remembrance that was held on the ocean every year. Towards the end of the week, in case they hadn't realised, a unique festival was due to take place in Moon Beach. It was known as the Day of the Dead... ...When he was young, it had been one of the days he most looked forward to. Yvonne would come and stay, and she'd always bring a fish with her, a huge fish freshly caught on the ocean, and she'd gut it on the kitchen table. Fish should be eaten, she'd said, because fish were the guardians of the soul, and she was so powerful in her belief that nobody dared to disagree. He remembered how the fish lay gaping on its bed of newspaper, the flesh dark-red and subtly ribbed where it was split in half, and Yvonne with her sleeves rolled back and her wrists dipped in blood that smelt of tin. It was a day that abounded in peculiar traditions. Pass any candy store in the city and there'd be marzipan skulls and sugar fish and little white chocolate bones for 5 cents each. Pass any bakery and you'd see cakes slathered in blue icing, cakes sprinkled with sea-salt.If you made a Day of the Dead cake at home you always hid a coin in it, and the person who found it was supposed to live forever. Once, when she was four, Georgia had swallowed the coin and almost choked. It was still one of her favourite stories about herself. In the afternoon, there'd be costume parties. You dressed up as Lazarus or Frankenstein, or you went as one of your dead relations. Or, if you couldn't think of anything else, you just wore something blue because that was the colour you went when you were buried at the bottom of the ocean. And everywhere there were bowls of candy and slices of special home-made Day of the Dead cake. Nobody's mother ever got it right. You always had to spit it out and shove it down the back of some chair. Later, when it grew dark, a fleet of ships would set sail for the ocean cemeteries, and the remembrance service would be held. Lying awake in his room, he'd imagine the boats rocking the the priest's voice pushed and pulled by the wind. And then, later still, after the boats had gone, the dead would rise from the ocean bed and walk on the water. They gathered the flowers that had been left as offerings, they blew the floating candles out. Smoke that smelt of churches poured from the wicks, drifted over the slowly heaving ocean, hid their feet. It was a night of strange occurrences. It was the night that everyone was Jesus... ...Thousands drove in for the celebrations. All Friday night the streets would be packed with people dressed head to toe in blue. Sometimes they painted their hands and faces too. Sometimes they dyed their hair. That was what you did in Moon Beach. Turned blue once a year. And then, sooner or later, you turned blue forever.

XII No one wants to be the person who drives slow past a flower shop on valentine’s day while their lover sleeps even if I know the flower petals will fold in on themselves and turn to rust before they expand into the sun beautiful things die every day and we still stare while they are living or set them in the middle of a wooden table passed down from a wilting grandmother who only remembers your face on tuesdays it makes sense to declare love with something that makes no promises about how long it will stay living something that we know will be dead in a week I tell myself that while gently pressing my fingers into the dark leather of another pair of sneakers while all of the other men scramble for chocolate I try on another beautiful thing that may live to see me forgiven for walking through the door holding it close to my chest nothing else in my hands I understand that I should always come bearing flowers it is good to hold a slow funeral in your palms it is good to know when something will leave

Danger cups us under its hand, and we can do nothing but stand witness to the turning of the world. Here we walk on the balancing line between futures. Humanity always believes it decides the fate of the whole world, and so it does, but never in the moment that it thinks it does. The future of thousands ripples like a serpent through the water, and the destiny of a ship becomes the destination of the world.’ She turned to look at Althea with eyes the colour of brandy in firelight. ‘Can’t you feel it?’ she asked in a whisper. ‘We are on the cusp. We are a coin spinning in the toss, a card fluttering in the flip, a rune chip floating in stirred water. Possibilities swarm like bees. In this day, in a moment, in a breath, the future of the world will shift course by a notch. One way or another, the coin will land ringing, the card will settle to the table, the chip will bob to the surface. The face that shows uppermost will set our days, and children to come will say, “That is just the way it has always been.

My Fellow Non-American Blacks: In America, You Are Black, Baby Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I’m Jamaican or I’m Ghanaian. America doesn’t care. So what if you weren’t “black” in your country? You’re in America now. We all have our moments of initiation into the Society of Former Negroes. Mine was in a class in undergrad when I was asked to give the black perspective, only I had no idea what that was. So I just made something up. And admit it—you say “I’m not black” only because you know black is at the bottom of America’s race ladder. And you want none of that. Don’t deny now. What if being black had all the privileges of being white? Would you still say “Don’t call me black, I’m from Trinidad”? I didn’t think so. So you’re black, baby. And here’s the deal with becoming black: You must show that you are offended when such words as “watermelon” or “tar baby” are used in jokes, even if you don’t know what the hell is being talked about—and since you are a Non-American Black, the chances are that you won’t know. (In undergrad a white classmate asks if I like watermelon, I say yes, and another classmate says, Oh my God that is so racist, and I’m confused. “Wait, how?”) You must nod back when a black person nods at you in a heavily white area. It is called the black nod. It is a way for black people to say “You are not alone, I am here too.” In describing black women you admire, always use the word “STRONG” because that is what black women are supposed to be in America. If you are a woman, please do not speak your mind as you are used to doing in your country. Because in America, strong-minded black women are SCARY. And if you are a man, be hyper-mellow, never get too excited, or somebody will worry that you’re about to pull a gun. When you watch television and hear that a “racist slur” was used, you must immediately become offended. Even though you are thinking “But why won’t they tell me exactly what was said?” Even though you would like to be able to decide for yourself how offended to be, or whether to be offended at all, you must nevertheless be very offended. When a crime is reported, pray that it was not committed by a black person, and if it turns out to have been committed by a black person, stay well away from the crime area for weeks, or you might be stopped for fitting the profile. If a black cashier gives poor service to the non-black person in front of you, compliment that person’s shoes or something, to make up for the bad service, because you’re just as guilty for the cashier’s crimes. If you are in an Ivy League college and a Young Republican tells you that you got in only because of Affirmative Action, do not whip out your perfect grades from high school. Instead, gently point out that the biggest beneficiaries of Affirmative Action are white women. If you go to eat in a restaurant, please tip generously. Otherwise the next black person who comes in will get awful service, because waiters groan when they get a black table. You see, black people have a gene that makes them not tip, so please overpower that gene. If you’re telling a non-black person about something racist that happened to you, make sure you are not bitter. Don’t complain. Be forgiving. If possible, make it funny. Most of all, do not be angry. Black people are not supposed to be angry about racism. Otherwise you get no sympathy. This applies only for white liberals, by the way. Don’t even bother telling a white conservative about anything racist that happened to you. Because the conservative will tell you that YOU are the real racist and your mouth will hang open in confusion.

We walk inside, and I stop short. Our booth, the one we always sit in, has pale pink balloons tied around it. There’s a round cake in the center of the table, tons of candles, pink frosting with sprinkles and Happy Birthday, Lara Jean scrawled in white frosting. Suddenly I see people’s heads pop up from under the booths and from behind menus--all of our friends, still in their prom finery: Lucas, Gabe, Gabe’s date Keisha, Darrell, Pammy, Chris. “Surprise!” everyone screams. I spin around. “Oh my God, Peter!” He’s still grinning. He looks at his watch. “It’s midnight. Happy birthday, Lara Jean.” I leap up and hug him. “This is just exactly what I wanted to do on my prom night birthday and I didn’t even know it.” Then I let go of him and run over to the booth. Everyone gets out and hugs me. “I didn’t even know people knew it was my birthday tomorrow! I mean today!” I say. “Of course we knew it was your birthday,” Lucas says. Darrell says, “My boy’s been planning this for weeks.” “It was so endearing,” Pammy says. “We called me to ask what kind of pan he should use for the cake.” Chris says, “He called me, too. I was like, how the hell should I know?” “And you!” I hit Chris on the arm. “I thought you were leaving to go clubbing!” “I still might after I steal some fries. My night’s just getting started, babe.” She pulls me in for a hug and gives me a kiss on the cheek. “Happy birthday, girl.” I turn to Peter and say, “I can’t believe you did this.” “I baked that cake myself,” he brags. “Box, but still.” He takes off his jacket and pulls a lighter out of his jacket pocket and starts lighting the candles. Gabe pulls out a lit candle and helps him. Then Peter hops his butt on the table and sits down, his legs hanging off the edge. “Come on.” I look around. “Um…” That’s when I hear the opening notes of “If You Were Here” by the Thompson Twins. My hands fly to my cheeks. I can’t believe it. Peter’s recreating the end scene from Sixteen Candles, when Molly Ringwald and Jake Ryan sit on a table with a birthday cake in between them. When we watched the movie a few months ago, I said it was the most romantic thing I’d ever seen. And now he’s doing it for me.

It’s about to rain forks and knives,” Winterborne reported, water drops glittering on his hair and the shoulders of his coat. He reached for a glass of champagne from a silver tray on the table, and raised it in Tom’s direction. “Good luck it is, for the wedding day.” “Why is that, exactly?” Tom asked, disgruntled. “A wet knot is harder to untie,” Winterborne said. “The marriage bond will be tight and long lasting.” Ethan Ransom volunteered, “Mam always said rain on a wedding day washed away the sadness of the past.” “Not only are superstitions irrational,” Tom said, “they’re inconvenient. If you believe in one, you have to believe them all, which necessitates a thousand pointless rituals.” Not being allowed to see the bride before the ceremony, for example. He hadn’t had so much as a glimpse of Cassandra that morning, and he was chafing to find out how she was feeling, if she’d slept well, if there was something she needed. West came into the room with his arms full of folded umbrellas. Justin, dressed in a little velveteen suit, was at his heels. “Aren’t you supposed to be upstairs in the nursery with your little brother?” St. Vincent asked his five-year-old nephew. “Dad needed my help,” Justin said self-importantly, bringing an umbrella to him. “We’re about to have a soaker,” West said briskly. “We’ll have to take everyone out to the chapel as soon as possible, before the ground turns to mud. Don’t open one of these indoors: It’s bad luck.” “I didn’t think you were superstitious,” Tom protested. “You believe in science.” West grinned at him. “I’m a farmer, Severin. When it comes to superstitions, farmers lead the pack. Incidentally, the locals say rain on the wedding day means fertility.” Devon commented dryly, “To a Hampshireman, nearly everything is a sign of fertility. It’s a preoccupation around here.” “What’s fertility?” Justin asked. In the sudden silence, all gazes went to West, who asked defensively, “Why is everyone looking at me?” “As Justin’s new father,” St. Vincent replied, making no effort to hide his enjoyment, “that question is in your province.” West looked down into Justin’s expectant face. “Let’s ask your mother later,” he suggested. The child looked mildly concerned. “Don’t you know, Dad?

Stop provoking him,” Ava said. “I can’t always save you.” “I’m not provoking him. It’s a compliment. Your man can get anything done.” When Ava turned away, Jules leaned in and whispered, “He’s totally whipped. Watch.” She raised her voice to a panicked level. “Oh my God! Ava, are you bleeding?” Alex’s head snapped up. Less than five seconds later, he ended his call and crossed the room to a confused-looking Ava, whose hand froze halfway to the scones on the table. “I’m fine,” Ava said as Alex searched her for injuries. She glared at Jules. “What did I just say?” “I can’t help it.” Jules’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “It’s so much fun. It’s like playing with a windup toy.” “Until the toy comes alive and kills you,” Stella murmured loud enough for everyone to hear. Alex stared at Jules with displeasure scrawled all over his face. “Pray you and Ava stay friends forever,” Alex said, icy enough to elicit a rash of goosebumps on my arms. Jules didn’t appear fazed by the implied threat. “First of all, Ava and I will be friends forever. Second of all, bring it on, Volkov.” Ava sighed. “Do you see what you left me in D.C. with?” she muttered to me.

The term ‘inequality’ is a way of framing social problems appropriate to an age of technocratic reformers, who assume from the outset that no real vision of social transformation is even on the table. Debating inequality allows one to tinker with the numbers, argue about Gini coefficients and thresholds of dysfunction, readjust tax regimes or social welfare mechanisms, even shock the public with figures showing just how bad things have become (‘Can you imagine? The richest 1 per cent of the world’s population own 44 per cent of the world’s wealth!’) – but it also allows one to do all this without addressing any of the factors that people actually object to about such ‘unequal’ social arrangements: for instance, that some manage to turn their wealth into power over others; or that other people end up being told their needs are not important, and their lives have no intrinsic worth. The last, we are supposed to believe, is just the inevitable effect of inequality; and inequality, the inevitable result of living in any large, complex, urban, technologically sophisticated society. Presumably it will always be with us. It’s just a matter of degree.

night.” “Sometimes, yes,” Meggie had said. “But it only works for children.” Which made Mo tweak her nose. Mo. Meggie had never called her father anything else. That night—when so much began and so many things changed forever—Meggie had one of her favorite books under her pillow, and since the rain wouldn’t let her sleep she sat up, rubbed the drowsiness from her eyes, and took it out. Its pages rustled promisingly when she opened it. Meggie thought this first whisper sounded a little different from one book to another, depending on whether or not she already knew the story it was going to tell her. But she needed light. She had a box of matches hidden in the drawer of her bedside table. Mo had forbidden her to light candles at night. He didn’t like fire. “Fire devours books,” he always said, but she was twelve years old, she surely could be trusted to keep an eye on a couple of candle flames. Meggie loved to read by candlelight. She had five candlesticks on the windowsill, and she was just holding the lighted match to one of the black wicks when she heard footsteps outside. She blew out the match in alarm—oh, how well she remembered it, even many years later—and knelt to look out of the window, which was wet with rain. Then she saw him. The rain cast a kind of pallor on the darkness, and the stranger was little more than a shadow. Only his face gleamed white as he looked up at Meggie. His hair clung to his wet forehead. The rain was falling on him, but he ignored it. He stood there motionless, arms crossed over his chest as if that might at least warm him a little. And he kept on staring at the house. I must go and wake Mo, thought Meggie. But she stayed put, her heart thudding, and went on gazing out into the night as if the stranger’s stillness had infected her. Suddenly, he turned his head, and Meggie felt as if he were looking straight into her eyes. She shot off the bed so fast the open book fell to the floor, and she ran barefoot out into the dark corridor. This was the end of May, but it was chilly in the old house. There was still a light on in Mo’s room. He often stayed up reading late into the night. Meggie had inherited her love of books from her father. When she took refuge from a bad dream with him, nothing could lull her to sleep better than Mo’s calm breathing beside her and the sound of the pages turning. Nothing chased nightmares away faster than

There was a man in Florence, a friar, Fra Savonarola, he induced all the people to think beauty was a sin. Some people think he was a magician and they fell under his spell for a season, they made fires in the streets and they threw in everything they liked, everything they had made or worked to buy, bolts of silk, and linen their mothers had embroidered for their marriage beds, books of poems written in the poet's hand, bonds and wills, rent-rolls, title deeds, dogs and cats, the shirts from their backs, the rings from their fingers, women their veils, and do you know what was worst, Johane – they threw in their mirrors. So then they couldn't see their faces and know how they were different from the beasts in the field and the creatures screaming on the pyre. And when they had melted their mirrors they went home to their empty houses, and lay on the floor because they had burned their beds, and when they got up next day they were aching from the hard floor and there was no table for their breakfast because they'd used the table to feed the bonfire, and no stool to sit on because they'd chopped it into splinters, and there was no bread to eat because the bakers had thrown into the flames the basins and the yeast and the flour and the scales. And you know the worst of it? They were sober. Last night they took their wine-skins …’ He turns his arm, in a mime of a man lobbing something into a fire. ‘So they were sober and their heads were clear, but they looked around and they had nothing to eat, nothing to drink and nothing to sit on.’ ‘But that wasn't the worst. You said the mirrors were the worst. Not to be able to look at yourself.’ ‘Yes. Well, so I think. I hope I can always look myself in the face. And you, Johane, you should always have a fine glass to see yourself. As you're a woman worth looking at.’ You

It was a pattern the Sisterhood had long recognized: the inevitable failure of slavery and peonage. You created a reservoir of hate. Implacable enemies. If you had no hope of exterminating all of these enemies, you dared not try. Temper your efforts by the sure awareness that oppression will make your enemies strong. The oppressed will have their day and heaven help the oppressor when that day comes. It was a two-edged blade. The oppressed always learned from and copied the oppressor. When the tables were turned, the stage was set for another round of revenge and violence—rotes reversed. And reversed and reversed ad nauseam.

Physical beauty is a subject that many skirt around and almost everyone attempts to down-play thereby demonstrating some sound moral stance, but it remains one of the glories of human existence. Of course, there are many people who are attractive without being beautiful just as there are beauties who bore, and the danger of beauty in the very young is that it can make the business of life seem deceptively easy. All this I am fully aware of. I know too, however, that of the four great gifts that the fairies may or may not bring to the christening – Brains, Birth, Beauty and Money – it is Beauty that makes locked doors spring open at a touch. Whether it is for a job interview, a place at a dining table, a brilliant promotion or a lift on the motorway, everyone, regardless of their sex or their sexual proclivity, would always rather deal with a good-looking face. And no one is more aware of this than the Beauties themselves. They have a power they simultaneously respect and take for granted. Despite the moralists who tut about its transience, it is generally a power that is never completely lost. One can usually trace in the wrinkled lines of a nonagenarian, stooped and leaning on a stick, the style and confidence that turned heads in a ballroom in 1929.

Harriet groaned as Adam turned around and revealed what he had just bought at the bar. “I said one more drink, not one more pitcher,” she called across to him. “We’re expected home already!” “Listen to yourself, woman!” Adam said incredulously, reaching the table and putting the jug of Snakebite down. “They’re not our parents!” “Yeah, but – its board game night, ‘The Game of Life’…” Harriet said, stupid with her share of the two jugs of Snakebite they’d imbibed already. “Fuck ‘The Game of Life’,” Adam replied, with great delight, refilling their pint glasses with a clumsy slosh from the pitcher. “I always get the shit jobs anyway.

You'll make a good First Lady, Shelby Campbell." Shelby's fingers tightened on her wineglass, an involuntary gesture noticed only by Alan and his mother. "Perhaps," she returned calmly. "if it were one of my ambitions." "Ambitions or not,it's fate when you're paired with this one," Daniel stabbed his fork toward Alan. "You're a little premature." Alan cut cleanly through his meat, swearing fluidly in his mind only. "I haven't decided to run for president, and Shelby hasn't agreed to marry me." "Haven't decided? Hah!" Daniel silled down wine. "Hasn't agreed?" He set down the glass with a bang. "The girl doesn't look like a fool to me, Campbell or no," he continued. "She's good Scottish stock,no matter what her clan.This one'll breed true MacGregors." "He'd still like me to change my name," Justin commented, deliberately trying to shift the attention onto himself. "It's been done to ensure the line before," Daniel told him. "but Rena's babe'll be as much MacGregor as not. As will Caine's when he's a mind to remember his duty and start making one." He sent his younger son a lowered-brow look that was met with an insolent grin. "But Alan's the firstborn, duty-bound to marry and produce and sire..." Alan turned, intending on putting an end to the topic,when he caught Shelby's grin. She'd folded her arms on the table,forgetting her dinner in the pure enjoyment of watching Daniel MacGregor on a roll. "Having fun?" Alan muttered near her ear. "Wouldn't miss it.Is he always like this?" Alan glanced over, watching his father gesture with his lecture. "Yes." Shelby sighed. "I think I'm in love. Daniel..." She interrupted his flow of words by tugging sharply on his sleeve. "No offense to Alan,or to your wife,but I think if I were going to marry a MacGregor,he'd have to be you." Still caught up in his own diatribe, Daniel stared at her.Abruptly his features shifted and his laugh rang out. "You're a pistol,you are, Shelby Campbell.Here..." He lifted a bottle of wine. "Your glass is empty.

remembered him coming home after long shifts and immediately sitting down at the kitchen table, forcing my mother to listen to his complaints about all his difficult colleagues and the maître d’s, not to mention the diners he had to put up with. I never heard him accept responsibility for any tricky situation that had arisen; it was always the other person who had been in the wrong. When I was a child, I thought my father was an amazing man who never made any mistakes, but as time went on I realised that of course he was simply blaming someone else. That was also why he burdened himself with what sometimes seemed like a bottomless sorrow over a life that had turned out to be a failure.

Biff noted this. He was thinking that in nearly every person there was some special physical part kept always guarded. With the mute his hands. The kid Mick picked at the front of her blouse to keep the cloth from rubbing the new, tender nipples beginning to come out on her breast. With Alice it was her hair; she used never to let him sleep with her when he rubbed oil in his scalp. And with himself? Lingeringly Biff turned the ring on his little finger. Anyway he knew what it was not. Not. Any more. A sharp line cut into his forehead. His hand in his pocket moved nervously toward his genitals. He began whistling a song and got up from the table. Funny to spot it in other people, though.

Grace studied her hands as they moved across the meat. They looked much like any others the same age - veined, lined, the backs stained with tea-coloured spots. But they'd felt their way through the past seventy years in unique ways. Much of their work had been to the benefit of others, some not. She'd known them as still, listening hands, but also as hands that moved with urgency and madness. For a while they'd been careful nurse's hands. Then hands that cradled three babies and clapped, tickled and taught in turn. She'd bruised, burnt and cut them; some scars suggested badly. They'd dismissed, beckoned, pleaded over the years, and not always successfully. Their goodbyes were too many to recall.

Carl picked me up right on time. He has always been prompt. He has also always been mysterious. He didn’t give me any kind of hint as to where we were going, so I didn’t know how to dress or anything. As we drove along, I was trying to see what part of town we were heading for to get some clue as to what was up. I was surprised when we pulled into the driveway of a private home. Carl walked me to the door and opened it. Inside, his mother was just putting supper on the table. Without any other word of introduction Carl said to his mother, “Fix this girl a plate. She’s the one I’m going to marry.” With a nervous laugh I tried to acknowledge that he had made a little joke. But something in his voice told me he hadn’t. In all my life, I have never felt such an odd combination of emotions. First, I was shocked that he wanted to marry me, since he had never given me any indication that he cared that much for me. Second, I was astounded. I remember thinking, “Who the hell does this guy think he is?” I felt flattered, outraged, touched, turned on, scared to death, and completely confused. The boy back home who had bought the house was not even this presumptuous. At least he had said he loved me at some point. There I was, feeling as mixed up as a road lizard in a spin dryer, and having to act sociable while trying to keep my dinner down. I somehow got through the meal and worked things out in my own mind enough to keep seeing Carl.

She turned to look at Althea with eyes the color if brandy in firelight. "Can't you feel it?" she asked her in a whisper. "Look around you. We are on the cusp. We are a coin spinning in the toss, a card fluttering in the flip, a rune chip floating in stirred water. Possibilities swarm like bees. In this day, in a moment, in a breath, the future of the world will shift course by a notch. One way or another, the coin will land ringing, the card will settle to the table, the chip will bob to the surface. The face that shows uppermost will set our days, and children to come will say, ‘That is just the way it has always been.’” Her voice dwindled away, but Althea had the sense of the wind carrying the words around the world. Her scalp prickled. “Amber? You’re frightening me.” Amber had turned a slow and beatific smile on her. “Am I? Then you grow wise.

It is appalling how complicated it can be to make oatmeal in the jungle. First, I had to make two trips to the river to haul the water, Next, I had to prime my kerosene stove with alcohol to get it burning, a tricky procedure when you are trying to mix powdered milk and fill a coffee pot at the same time. The alcohol prime always burned out before I could turn the kerosene on, and I would have to start all over. Or, I would turn the kerosene on, optimistically hoping that the Coleman element was still hot enough to vaporize the fuel, and start a small fire in my palm-thatched hut as the liquid kerosene squirted all over the table and walls and then ignited. Many amused Yanomamo onlookers quickly learned the English phrase “Oh, shit!” and, once they discovered that the phrase offended and irritated the missionaries, they used it as often as they could in their presence.

Another thing you will notice about the puppeteer and neurosurgeon examples in the literature on free will is that the intervention is always—always—secret. Why should this be? Because it is only when we are unwittingly being caused to act or choose by some other, secret agent that the intuitions flood in to the effect that our will is not free. The reason for this is not far to seek, and harks back to the insight that inaugurated game theory: when an agent knows about the attempted manipulation by another agent, it thereupon seeks countermeasures, and at the very least adjusts its behavior to better cope with this discovery. The competitive interactions between the two agents involve multiple levels of feedback, and hence diminishing control by the would-be manipulator. And if the intervention is not only secretive, but requested by the"puppet,” the tables are turned completely.

Kell poured himself a drink. “This place is horrible,” he mused. “Well …” said Rhy, emptying his own glass in one swallow and setting it down with a click on the table, “we could always leave.” And there it was, in Rhy’s eye, that glint, and Kell suddenly understood the prince’s outfit. Rhy wasn’t dressed for Splendor because it wasn’t his true destination. “You chose this place on purpose.” A languorous smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “You chose it because you knew I would be miserable here and more likely to cave when you offered to take me someplace else.” “And?” “And you greatly underestimate my capacity for suffering.” “Suit yourself,” said the prince, rising to his feet with his usual lazy grace. “I’m going to take a turn around the room.” Kell glowered but did not rise. He watched Rhy go, trying to emulate the prince’s practiced nonchalance as he sat back with his glass.

I also suspect that he loves you." Trying to suppress the anguished hope that flared in her heart, Lauren turned her face to the stained-glass window near their table. "What makes you think so?" "To begin with, he isn't treating you the way he normally treats the women in his life." "I know that. He's nice to the others," Lauren said bitterly. "Exactly!" Mary agreed. "He's always treated his women with an attitude of amused indulgence...of tolerant indifference. While an affair lasts he's attentive and charming. When a woman begins to bore him he courteously but firmly dismisses her from his life. Not once to my knowledge has any woman touched an emotion in him deeper than affection or desire. I've seen them try in the most inventive ways to make him jealous,yet he has reacted with nothing stronger than amusement, or occasionally exasperation. Which brings us to you." Lauren blushed at being correctly categorized with the other woen Nick had taken to bed,but she knew it was useless to deny it. "You," Mary continued quietly, "have evoked genuine anger in him.He is furious with you and with himself. Yet he doesn't dismiss you fro his life; he doesn't even send you downstairs. Doesn't it seem odd to you that he won't let you work for Jim,and simply have you come upstairs to act as translator when Rossi's call finally comes through?" "I think he's keeping me up there for revenge," Lauren said grimly. "i think he is too.Perhaps he's trying to get back at you for what you're making him feel.Or possibly he's trying to find fault with you,so that he won't feel the way he does any longer. I don't know. Nick is a complex man. Jim, Ericka and I are all very close to him, and yet he keeps each one of us at a slight distance. There's a part of himself that he will not share with others, not even us.

Most of the time this is something people say when their houses are immaculate, and the idea is you say, ‘Oh, you should see mine,’ or something similar. In this case it really was a mess, and Nina found it enormously relaxing. She counted two more dogs, older and less enthusiastic, who nonetheless waved their tails at her from their sleeping stations on the sofa and floor. Several cats were watching her cautiously, or sarcastically—it’s always hard to tell with cats—and the whole place was covered with a fine patina of fur. There was a vague smell of woodsmoke and the inside of dogs’ ears. Nina and Peter followed Becky through the living room into what turned out to be the kitchen, which was marginally cleaner, at least in places. An older man was sitting at the table, deseeding an acorn squash. “Hi there,” he said. “I’m John. I’m Peter’s stepdad.” He waved his sticky hands at her. “Welcome to chaos central.

The milk is long since out of date, the bread all has mold and I think you could start a bacterial plague with what’s in the crisper here…” “Order a pizza,” he suggested. “There’s a place down on the corner that still owes me ten pizzas, paid for in advance.” “You can’t eat pizza for breakfast!” “Why can’t I? I’ve been doing it for a week.” “You can cook,” she said accusingly. “When I’m sober,” he agreed. She glowered at him and went back to her chore. “Well, the eggs are still edible, barely, and there’s an unopened pound of bacon. I’ll make an omelet.” He collapsed into the chair at the kitchen table while she made a fresh pot of coffee and set about breaking eggs. “You look very domesticated like that,” he pointed out with a faint smile. “After we have breakfast, why don’t you come to bed with me?” She gave him a shocked glance. “I’m pregnant,” she reminded him. He nodded and laughed softly. “Yes, I know. It’s an incredible turn-on.” Her hand stopped, poised in midair with a spoon in it. “Wh…What?” “The eggs are burning,” he said pleasantly. She stirred them quickly and turned the bacon, which was frying in another pan. He thought her condition was sexy? She couldn’t believe he was serious. But apparently he was, because he watched her so intently over breakfast that she doubted if he knew what he was eating. “Mr. Hutton told the curator of the museum in Tennessee that I wasn’t coming back, and he paid off the rent on my house there,” she said. “I don’t even have a home to go to…” “Yes, you do,” he said quietly. “I’m your home. I always have been.” She averted her eyes to her plate and hated the quick tears that her condition prompted. Her fists clenched. “And here we are again,” she said huskily. “Where?” he asked. She drew in a harsh breath. “You’re taking responsibility for me, out of duty.” He leaned back in his chair. The robe came away from his broad, bronzed chest as he stared at her. “Not this time,” he replied with a voice so tender that it made ripples right through her heart. “This time, it’s out of love, Cecily.” Cecily doubted her own ears. She couldn’t have heard Tate saying that he wanted to take care of her because he loved her. He wasn’t teasing. His face was almost grim. “I know,” he said. “You don’t believe it. But it’s true, just the same.” He searched her soft, shocked green eyes. “I loved you when you were seventeen, Cecily, but I thought I had nothing to offer you except an affair.” He sighed heavily. “It was never completely for the reasons I told you, that I didn’t want to get married. It was my mother’s marriage. It warped me. It’s taken this whole scandal to make me realize that a good marriage is nothing like the one I grew up watching. I had to see my mother and Matt together before I understood what marriage could be.

We can withstand a siege for some time,” Arin said. “The city walls are strong. They’re Valorian-built.” “Which means that we will know how to bring them down.” Arin swirled his glass, watching the water’s clear spin. “Care to bet? I have matches. I hear they make very fine stakes.” There was the quirk of a smile. “We aren’t playing at Bite and Sting.” “But if we were, and I kept raising the stakes higher to the point where you couldn’t bear to lose, what would you do? Maybe you’d give up the game. Herran’s only hope of winning against the empire is to become too painful to retake. To mire the Valorians in an unending siege when they’d rather be fighting the east. To force them to conquer the countryside again, piece by piece, spending money and lives. Someday, the empire will decide we’re not worth the fight.” Kestrel shook her head. “Herran will always be worth it.” Arin looked at her, his hands resting on the table. He, too, had no knife. Kestrel knew that this was to make it less obvious that she wasn’t to be trusted with one. Instead, it became more. “You’re missing a button,” he said abruptly. “What?” He reached across the table and touched the cloth at her wrist, on the spot of an open seam. His fingertip brushed the frayed thread. Kestrel forgot that she had been troubled. She had been thinking about knives, she remembered, and now they were talking about buttons, but what one had to do with the other, she couldn’t say. “Why don’t you mend it?” he said. She recovered herself. “That is a silly question.” “Kestrel, do you not know how to sew a button?” She refused to answer. “Wait here,” he said. Arin returned with a sewing kit and button. He threaded a needle, bit it between his teeth, and took her wrist with both hands. Her blood turned to wine. “This is how you do it,” he said. He took the needle from his mouth and pierced it through the cloth.

I am in love with Darcy Vega, heir to the throne of Solaria, daughter of the Savage King – who by the way was tricked by Lionel Acrux into being an evil sonuvabitch. And I know you all think I’m a complete waste of oxygen.” He kicked a bread roll into Justin Masters’ face and it bounced off his forehead as he tried not to react. “That my shame is infectious and you don’t want it anywhere near you, let alone your precious princess.” He leapt from one table to another, making his way towards us and I got up, a smile nearly splitting my cheeks open. “But it turns out she wants me anyway. And I’m done making decisions for a girl who has always made better ones than I do. So if this is what she wants, then she can have it. Because she owns me right down to my black heart.” He leapt forward again, a round of cursing and outrage sounding as he landed on my table, looking down at me and holding out his hand with a piece of paper folded inside it.

The animal soul, the intelligent soul, and two kinds of knowing There's a part of us that's like an itch. Call it the animal soul, a foolishness that, when we're in it, makes hundreds of others around us itchy. And there is an intelligent soul with another desire, more like sweet basil or the feel of a breeze. Listen and be thankful even for scolding that comes from the intelligent soul. It flows out close to where you flowed out. But that itchiness wants to put food in our mouths that will make us sick, feverish with the aftertaste of kissing a donkey's rump. It's like blackening your robe against a kettle without being anywhere near a table of companionship. The truth of being human is an empty table made of soul intelligence. Gradually reduce what you give your animal soul, the bread that after all overflows from sunlight. The animal soul itself spilled out and sprouted from the other. Taste more often what nourishes your clear light, and you'll have less use for the smoky oven. You'll bury that baking equipment in the ground! There are two kinds of knowing: one acquired, as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts from books and from what the teacher says, collecting information from the traditional sciences as well as the new sciences. With such intelligence you rise in the world. You get ranked ahead or behind others with regard to your competence in retaining information. YOu stroll with this intelligence in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more marks on your tablets. There is another kind of tablet, one already completed inside you. A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness in the center of your chest. This intelligence does not turn yellow or stagnate. It's fluid, and it doesn't move from outside to inside through the conduits of plumbing-learning. This second knowing is a fountainhead from within you moving out. Drink from there!

What about the Valorian children?” she demanded. “What have you done with them? Have they been poisoned, too?” “No. Kestrel, no, of course not. They will be cared for. In comfort. By their nurses. This was always part of the plan. Do you think we’re monsters?” “I think you are.” Arin’s fingers curled against the door. He shoved it open. He led her to the dressing room, opened the wardrobe, and riffled through her clothes. He pulled out a black tunic, leggings, and jacket and thrust them at Kestrel. Coolly she said, “This is a ceremonial fighting uniform. Do you expect me to fight a duel on the docks?” “You’re too noticeable.” There was something strange about his voice. “In the dark. You…you look like an open flame.” He found another black tunic and tore it between his hands. “Here. Wrap this around your hair.” Kestrel stood still, the black cloth limp in her arms as she remembered the last time she had worn such clothes. “Get dressed,” said Arin. “Get out.” He shook his head. “I won’t look.” “That’s right. You won’t, because you are going to get out.” “I can’t leave you alone.” “Don’t be absurd. What am I going to do, take back the city single-handedly from the comfort of my dressing room?” Arin dragged a hand through his hair. “You might kill yourself.” Bitterly, she said, “I should think it was clear from the way I let you and your friend push me around that I want to stay alive.” “You might change your mind.” “And do what, exactly?” “You could hang yourself with your dagger belt.” “So take it away.” “You’ll use clothes. The leggings.” “Hanging is an undignified way to die.” “You’ll break the mirror to your dressing table and cut yourself.” Again Arin’s voice seemed foreign. “Kestrel, I won’t look.” She realized why his words sounded rough. She had switched, at some point, to speaking in Valorian, and he had followed her. It was his accent that she heard. “I promise,” he said. “Your promises are worth nothing.” Kestrel turned and began to undress.

At one point, I ran out of books to read at the school library and the neighborhood library,” Musk said. “This is maybe the third or fourth grade. I tried to convince the librarian to order books for me. So then, I started to read the Encyclopaedia Britannica. That was so helpful. You don’t know what you don’t know. You realize there are all these things out there.” Elon, in fact, churned through two sets of encyclopedias—a feat that did little to help him make friends. The boy had a photographic memory, and the encyclopedias turned him into a fact factory. He came off as a classic know-it-all. At the dinner table, Tosca would wonder aloud about the distance from Earth to the Moon. Elon would spit out the exact measurement at perigee and apogee. “If we had a question, Tosca would always say, ‘Just ask genius boy,’” Maye said. “We could ask him about anything. He just remembered it.” Elon cemented his bookworm reputation through his clumsy ways. “He’s not very sporty,” said Maye.

And so he persevered: through the fevers, the despondency, the feeling of worthlessness, the darkened room, his mother’s anxiety, his father’s disappointment. Most of all, he persevered through the sense of time wasted, time passing without his life making any difference. No battles won, no orphans and widows protected, no dragons slain. The Round Table had become a rectangle, a bed on which he tossed and turned and feared he would lose sight of the Quest, the call to serve the good pleasure of a lord, or maybe even a King. ...................... A gull screamed where he stood lost in memory on the bank of the darkening Tiber, the brothers around him thinking him lost in prayer. Or was this really prayer, after all, this reverie that led him always to fall on his knees in thanksgiving for the Lord and King whom his longing for knighthood had led him to, this Lord of all, who filled him still with awe and gratitude and love which no earthly lord could possibly have engendered in his heart?

You’re just pushing your food around, aren’t you? You’ve barely taken two bites. I thought you loved Lou’s Cornish hens.” “I do. I’m sorry. All I can think about is that English project due this week.” I look over at Ryder with a faux scowl. “We’re already way behind--you’ve always got some excuse. We should probably work on it tonight.” “Probably so,” Ryder says with an exasperated-sounding sigh. “That’s the third project the two of you have been paired up on,” Mama says, shaking her head. “I hope you two can behave well enough to get your work done properly. No more arguing like the last time.” We’d pretended to fight over a calculus project. Yes, a calculus project. Is there really any such thing? “We’re trying really hard to behave,” I say, shooting Ryder a sidelong glance. “Right?” His cheeks pinken deliciously at the innuendo. I love it when Ryder blushes. Totally adorable. “Right,” he mumbles, his gaze fixed on his lap. Laura Grace gives us both a pointed look. “You two better learn to get along, you hear? You’re going to be spending a lot of time together for the next four years.” Four years. Just the two of us--away from our meddling mamas. I have to bite my lip to force back the smile that’s threatening to give us away. “She’s right,” Mama says, nodding. “The only way I’m allowing Jemma to go to NYU is if she promises not to go off campus without Ryder to escort her.” Escort me? What is it, the 1950s or something? Besides, I don’t think she realizes that NYU isn’t a traditional campus. There’s no fences or gates or anything like that. I guess she’ll find out when she comes to visit over Thanksgiving, but by then it’ll be too late. That’s what she gets for not looking over the application materials I gave her. “Fine,” I say, trying to sound slightly annoyed. “I promise.” Beneath the table, Ryder releases my hand and lays it open in my lap, palm up. And then I feel him tracing letters on my palm with his fingertip. I. L. O. V. E. Y.O.U. I can’t help myself--I shiver. I shiver a lot when Ryder’s around, it turns out. He seems to have that effect on me.

Please tidy your room this instant!” Gertrude’s mother would plead. The poor lady was in torment. She prided herself on keeping the rest of her house utterly spotless. If a single biscuit crumb dropped on to the carpet, Mother would get the vacuum cleaner out. The grubbiness of Gertrude’s bedroom was absolutely horrifying to her. How had she, a lady who always kept a vase of fresh flowers on the dining table, given birth to a child who chose to live in a… swamp? “BOG OFF!” Gertrude would reply with a laugh. She knew that her mother (always immaculately turned out with her hair in a swirl and a string of pearls round her neck) loathed her saying the word ‘BOG’. So Gertrude always, always, always made sure she used it when speaking to her. “Daughter! I forbid you from using that foul word!” Mother would wail. “What?‘BOG’?” Gertrude would answer mischievously. “Yes. It’s a frightful word that has no place in my otherwise delightful home. Now, young lady, I need you to tidy your room this instant!”“BOG OFF!” Gertrude would shout back. 135

The table is in the presence of the enemies because God wants you to know that you'll always have enough for every moment, every struggle. He'll sustain you in every dark night. And God wants the enemies to watch you shine. Why? Because in time they will stop gawking at you and turn their attention to the One who has the ability to keep your face beaming (Romans 14:11; Philippians 2:10-11). Lastly, the table is in the presence of your enemies so they can hear your song. With your eyes locked on Jesus, your worship will be uninterrupted. And your worship will become your weapon. Not only will God be exalted, but chains will break as you fight with this declaration: It may look like I'm surrounded, but I'm surrounded by You, Jesus. Everything shifts when you exchange a teacup-sized knowledge of God for an oceanic understanding of who He is. It will be hard for the Enemy to crowd in on your newfound relationshipw with God. How do you win the battle for your mind? Keep your mind on Christ. Period. There's no way the Enemy will get a seat at your table.

For the second day running you have burnt my toast!” Let me explain this ludicrous remark. You were this particular prefect’s fag. That meant you were his servant, and one of your many duties was to make toast for him every day at teatime. For this, you used a long three-pronged toasting fork, and you stuck the bread on the end of it and held it up before an open fire, first one side, then the other. But the only fire where toasting was allowed was in the library, and as teatime approached, there were never less than a dozen wretched fags all jostling for position in front of the tiny grate. I was no good at this. I usually held it too close and the toast got burnt. But as we were never allowed to ask for a second slice and start again, the only thing to do was to scrape the burnt bits off with a knife. You seldom got away with this. The prefects were expert at detecting scraped toast. You would see your own tormentor sitting up there at the top table, picking up his toast, turning it over, examining it closely as though it were a small and very valuable painting. Then he would frown, and you knew you were for it. So now it was night-time and you were down in the changing room in your dressing gown and pajamas, and the one whose toast you had burnt was telling you about your crime. “I don’t like burnt toast.” “I held it too close. I’m sorry.” “Which do you want? Four with the dressing gown on, or three with it off.” “Four with it on,” I said. It was traditional to ask this question. The victim was always given a choice. But my own dressing gown was made of thick brown camel’s hair, and there was never any question in my mind that this was the better choice. To be beaten in pajamas only was a very painful experience, and your skin nearly always got broken. But my lovely dressing gown stopped that from happening. The prefect knew, of course, all about this, and therefore whenever you chose to take an extra stroke and kept the dressing gown on, he beat you with every ounce of his strength. Sometimes he would take a little run, three or four neat steps on his toes, to gain momentum and thrust, but either way, it was a savage business.

But it is just as useless for a man to want first of all to decide the externals and after that the fundamentals as it is for a cosmic body, thinking to form itself, first of all to decide the nature of its surface, to what bodies it should turn its light, to which its dark side, without first letting the harmony of centrifugal and centripetal forces realize [*realisere*] its existence [*Existents*] and letting the rest come of itself. One must learn first to know himself before knowing anything else (γνῶθι σε αυτόν). Not until a man has inwardly understood himself and then sees the course he is to take does his life gain peace and meaning; only then is he free of the irksome, sinister traveling companion―that irony of life which manifests itself in the sphere of knowledge and invites true knowing to begin with a not-knowing (Socrates), just as God created the world from nothing. But in the waters of morality it is especially at home to those who still have not entered the tradewinds of virtue. Here it tumbles a person about in a horrible way, for a time lets him feel happy and content in his resolve to go ahead along the right path, then hurls him into the abyss of despair. Often it lulls a man to sleep with the thought, "After all, things cannot be otherwise," only to awaken him suddenly to a rigorous interrogation. Frequently it seems to let a veil of forgetfulness fall over the past, only to make every single trifle appear in a strong light again. When he struggles along the right path, rejoicing in having overcome temptation's power, there may come at almost the same time, right on the heels of perfect victory, an apparently insignificant external circumstance which pushes him down, like Sisyphus, from the height of the crag. Often when a person has concentrated on something, a minor external circumstance arises which destroys everything. (As in the case of a man who, weary of life, is about to throw himself into the Thames and at the crucial moment is halted by the sting of a mosquito). Frequently a person feels his very best when the illness is the worst, as in tuberculosis. In vain he tries to resist it but he has not sufficient strength, and it is no help to him that he has gone through the same thing many times; the kind of practice acquired in this way does not apply here. Just as no one who has been taught a great deal about swimming is able to keep afloat in a storm, but only the man who is intensely convinced and has experiences that he is actually lighter than water, so a person who lacks this inward point of poise is unable to keep afloat in life's storms.―Only when a man has understood himself in this way is he able to maintain an independent existence and thus avoid surrendering his own I. How often we see (in a period when we extol that Greek historian because he knows how to appropriate an unfamiliar style so delusively like the original author's, instead of censuring him, since the first prize always goes to an author for having his own style―that is, a mode of expression and presentation qualified by his own individuality)―how often we see people who either out of mental-spiritual laziness live on the crumbs that fall from another's table or for more egotistical reasons seek to identify themselves with others, until eventually they believe it all, just like the liar through frequent repetition of his stories.

Normally, Bentner would have beamed approvingly at the pretty portrait the girls made, but this morning, as he put out butter and jam, he had grim news to impart and a confession to make. As he swept the cover off the scones he gave his news and made his confession. “We had a guest last night,” he told Elizabeth. “I slammed the door on him.” “Who was it?” “A Mr. Ian Thornton.” Elizabeth stifled a horrified chuckle at the image that called to mind, but before she could comment Bentner said fiercely, “I regretted my actions afterward! I should have invited him inside, offered him refreshment, and slipped some of that purgative powder into his drink. He’d have had a bellyache that lasted a month!” “Bentner,” Alex sputtered, “you are a treasure!” “Do not encourage him in these fantasies,” Elizabeth warned wryly. “Bentner is so addicted to mystery novels that he occasionally forgets that what one does in a novel cannot always be done in real life. He actually did a similar thing to my uncle last year.” “Yes, and he didn’t return for six months,” Bentner told Alex proudly. “And when he does come,” Elizabeth reminded him with a frown to sound severe, “he refuses to eat or drink anything.” “Which is why he never stays long,” Bentner countered, undaunted. As was his habit whenever his mistress’s future was being discussed, as it was now, Bentner hung about to make suggestions as they occurred to him. Since Elizabeth had always seemed to appreciate his advice and assistance, he found nothing odd about a butler sitting down at the table and contributing to the conversation when the only guest was someone he’d known since she was a girl. “It’s that odious Belhaven we have to rid you of first,” Alexandra said, returning to their earlier conversation. “He hung about last night, glowering at anyone who might have approached you.” She shuddered. “And the way he ogles you. It’s revolting. It’s worse than that; he’s almost frightening.” Bentner heard that, and his elderly eyes grew thoughtful as he recalled something he’d read about in one of his novels. “As a solution it is a trifle extreme,” he said, “but as a last resort it could work.” Two pairs of eyes turned to him with interest, and he continued, “I read it in The Nefarious Gentleman. We would have Aaron abduct this Belhaven in our carriage and bring him straightaway to the docks, where we’ll sell him to the press gangs.” Shaking her head in amused affection, Elizabeth said, “I daresay he wouldn’t just meekly go along with Aaron.” “And I don’t think,” Alex added, her smiling gaze meeting Elizabeth’s, “a press gang would take him. They’re not that desperate.” “There’s always black magic,” Bentner continued. “In Deathly Endeavors there was a perpetrator of ancient rites who cast an evil spell. We would require some rats’ tails, as I recall, and tongues of-“ “No,” Elizabeth said with finality. “-lizards,” Bentner finished determinedly. “Absolutely not,” his mistress returned. “And fresh toad old, but procuring that might be tricky. The novel didn’t say how to tell fresh from-“ “Bentner!” Elizabeth exclaimed, laughing. “You’ll cast us all into a swoon if you don’t desist at once.” When Bentner had padded away to seek privacy for further contemplation of solutions, Elizabeth looked at Alex. “Rats’ tails and lizards’ tongues,” she said, chuckling. “No wonder Bentner insists on having a lighted candle in his room all night.” “He must be afraid to close his eyes after reading such things,” Alex agreed.

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.

You’re the only person who doesn’t see the advantage in such a match.” “That’s because I don’t believe in marriages of convenience. Given your family’s history, I’d think that you wouldn’t either.” She colored. “And why do assume it would be such a thing? Is it so hard to believe that a man might genuinely care for me? That he might actually want to marry me for myself?” “Why would anyone wish to marry the reckless Lady Celia, after all,” she went on in a choked voice, “if not for her fortune or to shore up his reputation?” “I didn’t mean any such thing,” he said sharply. But she’d worked herself up into a fine temper. “Of course you did. You kissed me last night only to make a point, and you couldn’t even bear to kiss me properly again today-“ “Now see here,” he said, grabbing her shoulders. “I didn’t kiss you ‘properly’ today because I was afraid if I did I might not stop.” That seemed to draw her up short. “Wh-What?” Sweet God, he shouldn’t have said that, but he couldn’t let her go on thinking she was some sort of pariah around men. “I knew that if I got his close, and I put my mouth on yours…” But now he was this close. And she was staring up at him with that mix of bewilderment and hurt pride, and he couldn’t help himself. Not anymore. He kissed her, to show her what she seemed blind to. That he wanted her. That even knowing it was wrong and could never work, he wanted to have her. She tore her lips from his. “Mr. Pinter-“ she began in a whisper. “Jackson,” he growled. “Let me hear you say my name.” Backing away from him, she cast him a wounded expression. “Y-you don’t have to pretend-“ “I’m not pretending anything, damn it!” Grabbing her by the sleeves, he dragged her close and kissed her again, with even more heat. How could she not see that he ached to take her? How could she not know what a temptation she was? Her lips intoxicated him, made him light-headed. Made him reckless enough to kiss her so impudently that any other woman of her rank would be insulted. When she pulled away a second time, he expected her to slap him. But all she did was utter a feeble protest. “Please, Mr. Pinter-“ “Jackson,” he ordered in a low, unsteady voice, emboldened by the melting look in her eyes. “Say my Christian name.” Her lush dark lashes lowered as a blush stained her cheeks. “Jackson…” His breath caught in his throat at the intimacy of it, and fire exploded in his brain. She wasn’t pushing him away, so to hell with trying to be a gentleman. He took her mouth savagely this time, plundering every part of its silky warmth as his blood pulsed high in his veins. She tasted of red wine and lemon cake, both tart and sweet at once. He wanted to eat her up. He wanted to take her, right here in this room. So when she pulled out of his arms to back away, he walked after her. She didn’t stop backing away, but neither did she turn tail and run. “Last night you claimed this wouldn’t happen again.” “I know. And yet it has.” Like someone in an opium den, he’d been craving her for months. And how that he’d suddenly had a taste of the very thing he craved, he had to have more. When she came up against the writing table, he caught her about the waist. She turned her head away before he could kiss her, so he settled for burying his face in her neck to nuzzle the tender throat he’d been coveting. With a shiver, she slid her hands up his chest. “Why are you doing this?” “Because I want you,” he admitted, damning himself. “Because I’ve always wanted you.” Then he covered her mouth with his once more.

And another thing that makes Moscow different from Chicago or Cleveland, or New York, is that in the cities at home Negroes--like me--must stay away from a great many places--hotels, clubs, parks, theatres, factories, offices, and union halls--because they are not white. And in Moscow, all the doors are open to us just the same of course, and I find myself forgetting that the Russians are white folks. They're too damn decent and polite. To walk into a big hotel without the doorman yelling at me (at my age), "Hey, boy, where're you going?" Or to sit at the table in any public restaurant and not be told, "We don't serve Negroes here." Or to have the right of seeking a job at any factory or in any office where I am qualified to work and never be turned down on account of color or a WHITE ONLY sign at the door. To dance with a white woman in the dining room of a fine restaurant and not be dragged out by the neck--is to wonder if you're really living in a city full of white folks (as is like Moscow). But then the papers of the other lands are always calling the Muscovites red. I guess it's the red that makes the difference. I'll be glad when Chicago gets that way, and Birmingham.

He insisted on clearing the table, and again devoted himself to his game of patience: piecing together the map of Paris, the bits of which he’d stuffed into the pocket of his raincoat, folded up any old how. I helped him. Then he asked me, straight out, ‘What would you say was the true centre of Paris?’ I was taken aback, wrong-footed. I thought this knowledge was part of a whole body of very rarefied and secret lore. Playing for time, I said, ‘The starting point of France’s roads . . . the brass plate on the parvis of Notre-Dame.’ He gave me a withering look. ‘Do you take for me a sap?’ The centre of Paris, a spiral with four centres, each completely self-contained, independent of the other three. But you don’t reveal this to just anybody. I suppose - I hope - it was in complete good faith that Alexandre Arnoux mentioned the lamp behind the apse of St-Germain-l’Auxerrois. I wouldn’t have created that precedent. My turn now to let the children play with the lock. ‘The centre, as you must be thinking of it, is the well of St-Julien-le-Pauvre. The “Well of Truth” as it’s been known since the eleventh century.’ He was delighted. I’d delivered. He said, ‘You know, you and I could do great things together. It’s a pity I’m already “beyond redemption”, even at this very moment.’ His unhibited display of brotherly affection was of childlike spontaneity. But he was still pursuing his line of thought: he dashed out to the nearby stationery shop and came back with a little basic pair of compasses made of tin. ‘Look. The Vieux-Chene, the Well. The Well, the Arbre-a-Liege On either side of the Seine, adhering closely to the line he’d drawn, the age-old tavern signs were at pretty much the same distance from the magic well. ‘Well, now, you see, it’s always been the case that whenever something bad happens at the Vieux-Chene, a month later — a lunar month, that is, just twenty-eight days — the same thing happens at old La Frite’s place, but less serious. A kind of repeat performance. An echo Then he listed, and pointed out on the map, the most notable of those key sites whose power he or his friends had experienced. In conclusion he said, ‘I’m the biggest swindler there is, I’m prepared to be swindled myself, that’s fair enough. But not just anywhere. There are places where, if you lie, or think ill, it’s Paris you disrespect. And that upsets me. That’s when I lose my cool: I hit back. It’s as if that’s what I was there for.

Perhaps Calpurnia sensed that my day had been a grim one: she let me watch her fix supper. “Shut your eyes and open your mouth and I’ll give you a surprise,” she said. It was not often that she made crackling bread, she said she never had time, but with both of us at school today had been an easy one for her. She knew I loved crackling bread. “I missed you today,” she said. “The house got so lonesome ’long about two o’clock I had to turn on the radio.” “Why? Jem’n me ain’t ever in the house unless it’s rainin’.” “I know,” she said, “but one of you’s always in callin’ distance. I wonder how much of the day I spend just callin’ after you. Well,” she said, getting up from the kitchen chair, “it’s enough time to make a pan of cracklin’ bread, I reckon. You run along now and let me get supper on the table.” Calpurnia bent down and kissed me. I ran along, wondering what had come over her. She had wanted to make up with me, that was it. She had always been too hard on me, she had at last seen the error of her fractious ways, she was sorry and too stubborn to say so. I was weary from the day’s crimes. After supper, Atticus sat down with the paper and called, “Scout, ready to read?” The Lord sent me more than I could bear, and I went to the front porch. Atticus followed me. “Something

And don’t tell me again that you were ten years old. Your age has nothing to do with what I’m talking about. There are no big changes between ten and twenty—or ten and eighty, for that matter. You still can’t love a Jesus as much as you’d like to who did and said a couple of things he was at least reported to have said or done—and you know it. You’re constitutionally unable to love or understand any son of God who throws tables around. And you’re constitutionally unable to love or understand any son of God who says a human being, any human being—even a Professor Tupper—is more valuable to God than any soft, helpless Easter chick.” Franny was now facing directly into the sound of Zooey’s voice, sitting bolt upright, a wad of Kleenex clenched in one hand. Bloomberg was no longer in her lap. “I suppose you can,” she said, shrilling. “It’s beside the point whether I can or not. But, yes, as a matter of fact, I can. I don’t feel like going into it, but at least I’ve never tried, consciously or otherwise, to turn Jesus into St. Francis of Assisi to make him more ‘lovable’—which is exactly what ninety-eight per cent of the Christian world has always insisted on doing. Not that it’s to my credit. I don’t happen to be attracted to the St. Francis of Assisi type. But you are. And, in my opinion, that’s one of the reasons why you’re having this little nervous breakdown.

From Tomorrow to Yesterday The tree trunks move in time with the rhythm of her rubber soles on the wet path, where the air is still cool after the night rain. The woodland floor is white with anemones; in one place, growing close to the roots of an ancient tree, they make her think of an old, wrinkled hand. She could go on and on without getting tired, without meeting anyone or thinking of anything in particular, and without coming to the edge of the woods. As if the town did not begin just behind the trees, the leafy suburb with its peaceful roads and its houses hidden behind close-trimmed hedges. She doesn't want to think about anything, and almost succeeds; her body is no more than a porous, pulsating machine. The sun breaks through the clouds as she runs back, its light diffused on the gravel drive and the magnolia in front of the kitchen window. His car is no longer parked beside hers, he must have left while she was in the woods. He hadn't stirred when she rose, and she'd already been in bed when he came home late last night. She lay with her back turned, eyes closed, as he undressed, taking care not to wake her. She leans against one of the pillars of the garage and stretches, before emptying the mailbox and letting herself into the house. She puts the mail on the kitchen table. The little light on the coffeemaker is on; she switches it off. Not so long ago, she would have felt a stab of irritation or a touch of tenderness, depending on her mood. He always forgets to turn off that machine. She puts the kettle on, sprinkles tea leaves into the pot, and goes over to the kitchen window. She observes the magnolia blossoms, already starting to open. They'll have to talk about it, of course, but neither of them seems able to find the right words, the right moment. She pauses on her way through the sitting room. She stands amid her furniture looking out over the lawn and the pond at the end of the garden. The canopies of the trees are dimly reflected in the shining water. She goes into the bathroom. The shower door is still spotted with little drops. As time went on they have come to make contact during the day only briefly, like passing strangers. But that's the way it has been since the children left home, nothing unusual in that. She takes off her clothes and stands in front of the mirror where a little while ago he stood shaving. She greets her reflection with a wry smile. She has never been able to view herself in a mirror without this moue, as if demonstrating a certain guardedness about what she sees. The dark green eyes and wavy black hair, the angularity of her features. She dyes her hair exactly the color it would have been if she hadn't begun to go gray in her thirties, but that's her only protest against age.

So you don’t trust me: the guy who taught you everything you know. I’m guessing if you have her”—he jerked his thumb at Rae—“that’s no accident. Luke’s buddies sent her to trap you, and she thought she was doing the right thing, because, duh, she’s already proven she’s kinda gullible that way.” “Hey!” Rae said. “You are. Own it. Fix it. Now, you guys have her, which means you escaped whoever sent her after you. You didn’t escape without a fight, given that bruise I see rising on Daniel’s jaw and the scrapes on Derek’s knuckles. But you escaped, and you came back here, and you captured me. Who taught you all that?” “Daniel and I had already started learning,” Maya said, “during those weeks you were chasing us.” “Trial by fire,” he said. “Followed by hardcore, hands-on tactical training. You got away scot-free from these guys because of my lessons. And yet now you don’t trust I’m on your side?” “Nope,” Derek said. “Sorry,” Daniel said. Maya crossed her arms and shook her head. I shrugged. Moreno broke into a grin. “You guys do me proud. I’d give you all a hug, if that wasn’t a little creepy. And if I was the hugging sort. But if you survive the rest of this, I’ll take you all out for beer and ice cream.” “You don’t need to be sarcastic,” Rae muttered. “Oh, but I’m not, and they know it. This is exactly what I trained them for. Trust no one except one another. Excluding you, kid, because I don’t know you, and you have a bad habit of screwing up. But these guys are doing the right thing. Next step?” Turn the tables,” I said. “Capture someone who’s behind this and get them to talk.” “Mmm, yes. That would work. But even better?” “Stop them,” Derek said. “Don’t just take down one. Take them all down.” “Without running to the Nasts for help,” Daniel said. “Because in another year, some of us will be off to college, and we need to be able to look after ourselves.” “Starting with proving we can look after ourselves,” Maya said. Moreno beamed. “You guys are ace. See, this is what I told Sean. The best time to train operatives is when they’re still young and malleable. None of that shit about waiting until they’re eighteen and legally old enough to consent.” Maya shook her head. “I suppose you’d also suggest he have the Cabal terrorize them for weeks first, so they’re properly motivated.” “Exactly. Personal rights and freedoms are vastly overrated. And there’s nothing wrong with a little PTSD. I’ve always found mine useful. Keeps me on my toes.” Rae stared at him. “I’m kidding,” he said to her. “Mostly. Don’t you joke around like this with your instructors? Oh, wait. You don’t have any. Which is why you got tricked—again. And got captured by these guys.” “Can we tie him up now?” Rae said. “And gag him?” “Doesn’t do any good,” Derek said. “We could try.

Domestic If, when studying road atlases while taking, as you call it, your morning dump, you shout down to me names like Miami City, Franconia, Cancún, as places for you to take me to from here, can I help it if all I can think is things that are stupid, like he loves me he loves me not? I don’t think so. No more than, some mornings, waking to your hands around me, and remembering these are the fingers, the hands I’ve over and over given myself to, I can stop myself from wondering does that mean they’re the same I’ll grow old with. Yesterday, in the café I keep meaning to show you, I thought this is how I’ll die maybe, alone, somewhere too far away from wherever you are then, my heart racing from espresso and too many cigarettes, my head down on the table’s cool marble, and the ceiling fan turning slowly above me, like fortune, the part of fortune that’s half-wished- for only—it did not seem the worst way. I thought this is another of those things I’m always forgetting to tell you, or don’t choose to tell you, or I tell you but only in the same way, each morning, I keep myself from saying too loud I love you until the moment you flush the toilet, then I say it, when the rumble of water running down through the house could mean anything: flood, your feet descending the stairs any moment; any moment the whole world, all I want of the world, coming down.

more than anything.” He turned to Jean Louise. “Seven-thirty tonight and no Landing. We’ll go to the show.” “Okay. Where’re you all going?” “Courthouse. Meeting.” “On Sunday?” “Yep.” “That’s right, I keep forgetting all the politicking’s done on Sunday in these parts.” Atticus called for Henry to come on. “Bye, baby,” he said. Jean Louise followed him into the livingroom. When the front door slammed behind her father and Henry, she went to her father’s chair to tidy up the papers he had left on the floor beside it. She picked them up, arranged them in sectional order, and put them on the sofa in a neat pile. She crossed the room again to straighten the stack of books on his lamp table, and was doing so when a pamphlet the size of a business envelope caught her eye. On its cover was a drawing of an anthropophagous Negro; above the drawing was printed The Black Plague. Its author was somebody with several academic degrees after his name. She opened the pamphlet, sat down in her father’s chair, and began reading. When she had finished, she took the pamphlet by one of its corners, held it like she would hold a dead rat by the tail, and walked into the kitchen. She held the pamphlet in front of her aunt. “What is this thing?” she said. Alexandra looked over her glasses at it. “Something of your father’s.” Jean Louise stepped on the garbage can trigger and threw the pamphlet in. “Don’t do that,” said Alexandra. “They’re hard to come by these days.” Jean Louise opened her mouth, shut it, and opened it again. “Aunty, have you read that thing? Do you know what’s in it?” “Certainly.” If Alexandra had uttered an obscenity in her face, Jean Louise would have been less surprised. “You—Aunty, do you know the stuff in that thing makes Dr. Goebbels look like a naive little country boy?” “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jean Louise. There are a lot of truths in that book.” “Yes indeedy,” said Jean Louise wryly. “I especially liked the part where the Negroes, bless their hearts, couldn’t help being inferior to the white race because their skulls are thicker and their brain-pans shallower—whatever that means—so we must all be very kind to them and not let them do anything to hurt themselves and keep them in their places. Good God, Aunty—” Alexandra was ramrod straight. “Well?” she said. Jean Louise said, “It’s just that I never knew you went in for salacious reading material, Aunty.” Her aunt was silent, and Jean Louise continued: “I was real impressed with the parable where since the dawn of history the rulers of the world have always been white, except Genghis Khan or somebody—the author was real fair about that—and he made a killin’ point about even the Pharaohs were white and their subjects were either black or Jews—” “That’s true, isn’t it?” “Sure, but what’s that got to do with the case?” When Jean Louise felt apprehensive, expectant, or on edge, especially when confronting her aunt, her brain clicked to the meter of Gilbertian tomfoolery. Three sprightly figures

Now of course, it would be easy for me to veer to the opposite extreme. I could say the secret of Julian's charm was that he latched on to young people who wanted to feel better than everybody else; that he had a strange gift for twisting feelings of inferiority into superiority and arrogance. I could also say that he did this not through altruistic motives but selfish ones, in order to fulfill some egotistic impulse of his own. And I could elaborate on this at some length and with, I believe, a fair degree of accuracy. But still that would explain the fundamental magic of his personality or why-even in the light of subsequent events-I still have an overwhelming wish to see him the way that I first saw him: as a wise old man who appeared to me out of nowhere on a desolate strip of road, with a bewitching offer to make all my dreams come true. But even in fairy tales, these kindly old gentlemen with their fascinating offers are not always what they seem to be. That should not be a particularly difficult truth for me to accept at this point but for some reason it is. More than anything I wish I could say that Julian's face crumbled when he heard what we had done. I wish I could say that he put his head on the table and wept, wept for Bunny, wept for us, wept for the wrong turns and the life wasted: wept for himself, for being so blind for having over and over again refused to see. And the thing is, I had a strong temptation to say he had done these things anyway, though it wasn't at all the truth.

My mother worked as a saleslady at the well-known Five Corner bakery in Journal Square during the day. Her orders were that I do at least one page of homework for every one of my subjects before she came home. It didn’t matter what my teachers would assign, those were her rules and I didn’t dare to violate them! However, I usually allowed others to make the rules and then decide whether I would follow them. Turning on our small Bakelite radio, I would ignore my mother’s rules and listen to my favorite adventure shows. “Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, Superman, who could leap tall buildings in a single bound, and Tom Mix were my favorite daily half-hour radio programs during the week. Tom Mix was forever solving some mystery that I could help him with, since I had a decoder badge that cost only 10 cents, along with a box top from a Ralston Purina’s “Wheat Chex” cereal box. Since it tasted like straw, wanting to get a decoder badge was the only way I would eat this blah cereal for breakfast. The radio shows were way too exciting, and my homework always took second place. When my mother finally came home and saw that I had not done my work, she would get quite upset and make me do twice as much, seated at the kitchen table where she could keep her eye on me. Being under her direct supervision wasn’t much fun, but I would sit there until she was satisfied that I had finished my assignments. My mother showed no mercy! If my father found out about my being lax, there would be hell to pay! For whatever reason, I never seemed to learn…. Oh, woe is me, woe is me…. I was in trouble again… No, I was still in trouble!

Helene was a person who had never been able to ask for help, and she couldn't ask for help now. She turned north and started walking toward her home, many miles away in San Rafael. It took her almost eight hours to reach there. After a short time her feet began to hurt, so she took off the heels and throw them away. As she walked on, her nylons tore and her feet began to bleed. She passed buildings that had collapsed, stumbled over rubble, waded through streets filled with filthy water from the fire-fighting efforts. Dirty, sweaty, and disheveled, she walked down the Marina to the Golden Gate Bridge and crossed it into the next county. She reached her home sometime after midnight and knocked on her own front door. It was opened by her fiance, who had never before seen her with her hair uncombed. Without a word, he took her into his arms, kicked the door closed, covered her dirty, tearstained face with kisses, and made love to her right there on the floor. Helene is a very intelligent person but she could not understand why she had never met this ardent lover before. When she asked him, he said simply, 'I was always afraid of smearing your lipstick.' She tells me that now when she begins to relapse into her former perfectionism, she remembers the look of love in her fiance's eyes when he opened the door. She had been looked at by men all of her life but she had never seen that expression in a man's eyes before. At the heart of any real intimacy is a certain vulnerability. It is hard to trust someone with your vulnerability unless you can see in them a matching vulnerability and know that you will not be judged. In some basic way it is our imperfections and even our pain that draws others close to us.

A soup dumpling is a little marvel of engineering. Called xiao long bao in Chinese, shōronpō in Japanese, and "soupies" by Iris, soup dumplings consist of silky dough wrapped around a minced pork or crab filling. The filling is mixed with chilled gelatinous broth which turns back into soup when the dumplings are steamed. Eating a soup dumpling requires practice. Pop the whole thing in your mouth and fry your tongue; bite it in the wrong place and watch the soup dribble onto your lap. The reason I thought about chocolate baklava is because Mago-chan pan-fries its soup dumplings. A steamed soup dumpling is perfect just the way it is. Must we pan-fry everything? Based on the available evidence, the answer is yes. Pan-fried soup dumplings are bigger and heartier than the steamed variety and more plump with hot soup. No, that's too understated. I'm exploding with love and soup and I have to tell the world: pan-fried soupies are amazing. The dumplings are served in groups of four, just enough for lunch for one adult or a growing eight-year-old. They're topped with a sprinkle of sesame and scallion. You can mix up a dipping sauce from the dispensers of soy sauce, black vinegar, and chile oil at the table, but I found it unnecessary. Like a slice of pizza, a pan-fried soup dumpling is a complete experience wrapped in dough. Lift a dumpling with your spoon, poke it with a chopstick, press your lips to the puncture wound, and slurp out the soup. (This will come in handy if I'm ever bitten by a soup snake.) No matter how much you extract, there always seems to be a little more broth pooling within as you eat your way through the meaty filling and crispy underside. Then you get to start again, until, too soon, your dumplings are gone.

For four hours, Andrew and I were presented with course after course of delightful creations, imaginative pairings, and, always, dramatic presentations. Little fillets of sturgeon arrived under a glass dome, after which it was lifted, applewood smoke billowed out across the table. Pretzel bread, cheese, and ale, meant to evoke a picnic in Central Park, was delivered in a picnic basket. But my favorite dish was the carrot tartare. The idea came, along with many of the menu's other courses, while researching reflecting upon New York's classic restaurants. From 21 Club to Four Seasons, once upon a time, every establishment offered a signature steak tartare. "What's our tartare?" Will and Daniel wondered. They kept playing with formulas and recipes and coming close to something special, but it never quite had the wow factor they were looking for. One day after Daniel returned from Paffenroth Gardens, a farm in the Hudson Valley with the rich muck soil that yields incredibly flavorful root vegetables, they had a moment. In his perfect Swiss accent, he said, "What if we used carrots?" Will remembers. And so carrot tartare, a sublime ode to the humble vegetable, was added to the Eleven Madison Park tasting course. "I love that moment when you clamp a meat grinder onto the table and people expect it to be meat, and it's not," Will gushes of the theatrical table side presentation. After the vibrant carrots are ground by the server, they're turned over to you along with a palette of ingredients with which to mix and play: pickled mustard seeds, quail egg yolk, pea mustard, smoked bluefish, spicy vinaigrette. It was one of the most enlightening yet simple dishes I've ever had. I didn't know exactly which combination of ingredients I mixed, adding a little of this and a little of that, but every bite I created was fresh, bright, and ringing with flavor. Carrots- who knew?

The terrible thing happened when the Board of Regents were being shown through the campus. The Regents were the supreme rulers of the University; they were bankers and manufacturers and pastors of large churches; to them even the president was humble. Nothing gave them more interesting thrills than the dissecting-room of the medical school. The preachers spoke morally of the effect of alcohol on paupers, and the bankers of the disrespect for savings-accounts which is always to be seen in the kind of men who insist on becoming cadavers. In the midst of the tour, led by Dr. Stout and the umbrella-carrying secretary of the University, the plumpest and most educational of all the bankers stopped near Clif Clawson's dissecting-table, with his derby hat reverently held behind him, and into that hat Clif dropped a pancreas. Now a pancreas is a damp and disgusting thing to find in your new hat, and when the banker did so find one, he threw down the hat and said that the students of Winnemac had gone to the devil. Dr. Stout and the secretary comforted him; they cleaned the derby and assured him that vengeance should be done on the man who could put a pancreas in a banker's hat. Dr. Stout summoned Clif, as president of the Freshmen. Clif was pained. He assembled the class, he lamented that any Winnemac Man could place a pancreas in a banker's hat, and he demanded that the criminal be manly enough to stand up and confess. Unfortunately the Reverend Ira Hinkley, who sat between Martin and Angus Duer, had seen Clif drop the pancreas. He growled, "This is outrageous! I'm going to expose Clawson, even if he is a frat-brother of mine." Martin protested, "Cut it out. You don't want to get him fired?" "He ought to be!" Angus Duer turned in his seat, looked at Ira, and suggested, "Will you kindly shut up?" and, as Ira subsided, Angus became to Martin more admirable and more hateful than ever.

I always had trouble with the feet of Jón the First, or Pre-Jón, as I called him later. He would frequently put them in front of me in the evening and tell me to take off his socks and rub his toes, soles, heels and calves. It was quite impossible for me to love these Icelandic men's feet that were shaped like birch stumps, hard and chunky, and screaming white as the wood when the bark is stripped from it. Yes, and as cold and damp, too. The toes had horny nails that resembled dead buds in a frosty spring. Nor can I forget the smell, for malodorous feet were very common in the post-war years when men wore nylon socks and practically slept in their shoes. How was it possible to love these Icelandic men? Who belched at the meal table and farted constantly. After four Icelandic husbands and a whole load of casual lovers I had become a vrai connaisseur of flatulence, could describe its species and varieties in the way that a wine-taster knows his wines. The howling backfire, the load, the gas bomb and the Luftwaffe were names I used most. The coffee belch and the silencer were also well-known quantities, but the worst were the date farts, a speciality of Bæring of Westfjord. Icelandic men don’t know how to behave: they never have and never will, but they are generally good fun. At least, Icelandic women think so. They seem to come with this inner emergency box, filled with humour and irony, which they always carry around with them and can open for useful items if things get too rough, and it must be a hereditary gift of the generations. Anyone who loses their way in the mountains and gets snowed in or spends the whole weekend stuck in a lift can always open this special Icelandic emergency box and get out of the situation with a good story. After wandering the world and living on the Continent I had long tired of well-behaved, fart-free gentlemen who opened the door and paid the bills but never had a story to tell and were either completely asexual or demanded skin-burning action until the morning light. Swiss watch salesmen who only knew of “sechs” as their wake-up hour, or hairy French apes who always required their twelve rounds of screwing after the six-course meal. I suppose I liked German men the best. They were a suitable mixture of belching northerner and cultivated southerner, of orderly westerner and crazy easterner, but in the post-war years they were of course broken men. There was little you could do with them except try to put them right first. And who had the time for that? Londoners are positive and jolly, but their famous irony struck me as mechanical and wearisome in the long run. As if that irony machine had eaten away their real essence. The French machine, on the other hand, is fuelled by seriousness alone, and the Frogs can drive you beyond the limit when they get going with their philosophical noun-dropping. The Italian worships every woman like a queen until he gets her home, when she suddenly turns into a slut. The Yank is one hell of a guy who thinks big: he always wants to take you the moon. At the same time, however, he is as smug and petty as the meanest seamstress, and has a fit if someone eats his peanut butter sandwich aboard the space shuttle. I found Russians interesting. In fact they were the most Icelandic of all: drank every glass to the bottom and threw themselves into any jollity, knew countless stories and never talked seriously unless at the bottom of the bottle, when they began to wail for their mother who lived a thousand miles away but came on foot to bring them their clean laundry once a month. They were completely crazy and were better athletes in bed than my dear countrymen, but in the end I had enough of all their pommel-horse routines. Nordic men are all as tactless as Icelanders. They get drunk over dinner, laugh loudly and fart, eventually start “singing” even in public restaurants where people have paid to escape the tumult of

The mood at the table is convivial throughout the meal. A dried-sausage and prosciutto plate gives way to briny sardines, which give way to truffle-covered gnocchi topped with a plethora of herbs. Richness cut with acidity, herbaceousness and cool breezes at every turn. A simple ricotta and lemon fettuccine topped with sharp pecorino is the perfect counterpoint. I am not driving, and apparently Anjana isn't, either, so we both order a Cynar and soda. "How can we digest all the pasta without another digestif?" we exclaim to the waiter, giddily. Meat, carbs, sunshine, and lingering music coming from across the plaza have stirred us up, and soon our dessert--- some sort of chocolate cake with walnuts--- arrives. It's dense in that fudgey way a flourless concoction can be, like it has molded itself into the perfection of pure chocolate. The crunch of the walnuts is a counterweight, drawing me deeper into the flavor. I haven't been inspired by food like this in a long time, despite spending so much time thinking about food. The atmosphere at work has sucked so much of the joy out of thinking about recipes, but I find myself taking little notes on my phone for recipe experimentation when I get home. The realization jolts me. I've always felt like I have the perfect job for a creative who happens to also be left-brained. Recipes are an intriguing puzzle every single time. Today's fettuccine is the perfect example. The tartness of the lemon paired with the smooth pasta and pillowy ricotta is the no-brainer part. But the trickier puzzle piece--- the one that is necessary to connect the rest of the puzzle to the whole--- is the light grating of the pecorino on top. That tang, that edge, that cutting spice works in tangent with the lemon to give the dish its power. Lemon alone wouldn't have been enough. Pecorino alone wouldn't have been enough. The dish is so simple, but it has to fit together perfectly to work. These little moments, these exciting eurekas, are the elation I normally get in my job.

Tom often met Winterborne for a quick lunch at one of the cook shops or chop houses between their respective offices. It was on one of these occasions that Winterborne revealed West Ravenel had just become engaged to marry Phoebe, Lady Clare, a young widow with two small sons, Justin and Stephen. “I suspected he would,” Tom said, pleased by the revelation. “I went to Jenner’s Club with him the night before last, and she was all he wanted to talk about.” “I heard about that,” Winterborne commented. “It seems you and Ravenel encountered a bit of trouble.” Tom rolled his eyes. “Lady Clare’s former suitor came to the table with a pistol in hand. It wasn’t nearly as interesting as it sounds. He was soon disarmed and hauled off by a night porter.” He leaned back in his seat as the barmaid set plates of chilled crab salad and celery in front of them. “But before that happened, Ravenel was rambling on about Lady Clare, and how he wasn’t good enough for her because of his disreputable past, and how he was worried about setting a bad example for her children.” Winterborne’s black eyes were keen with interest. “What did you say?” Tom shrugged. “The match is to his advantage, and what else matters? Lady Clare is wealthy, beautiful, and the daughter of a duke. As for her sons … no matter what example you set, children insist on turning out how they will.” Tom took a swallow of ale before continuing. “Scruples always complicate a decision unnecessarily. They’re like those extra body parts none of us need.” Winterborne paused in the act of lifting a forkful of dressed crab to his lips. “What extra body parts?” “Things like the appendix. Male nipples. The external ears.” “I need my ears.” “Only the inner parts. The outer ear structure is superfluous in humans.” Winterborne looked sardonic. “I need them to hold up my hat.” Tom grinned and shrugged, conceding the point. “In any case, Ravenel has managed to win the hand of a fine woman. Good for him.” They lifted their glasses and clinked them in a toast.

Beneath the table, Ryder releases my hand and lays it open in my lap, palm up. And then I feel him tracing letters on my palm with his fingertip. I. L. O. V. E. Y.O.U. I can’t help myself--I shiver. I shiver a lot when Ryder’s around, it turns out. He seems to have that effect on me. “Are you cold, Jemma?” Laura Grace asks me. “Ryder, go get her a sweatshirt or something. You two are done eating, anyway. Go on. Take her into the living room and light the fire.” “Nah, I’m fine,” I say, just because I know the old Jemma would have argued. “Well, go work on your project, then. It’s warmer in the den.” “My room’s like an oven,” Ryder deadpans, and I have to stifle a laugh, pretending to cough instead. “Take her up there, then, before she catches cold. Go. Scoot.” Laura Grace waves her hands in our direction. We rise from the table in unison, both of us trying to look as unhappy about it as possible. Silently, I follow him out. As soon as the door swings shut behind us, he reaches for my hand and pulls me close. “Shh, listen,” I say, cocking my head toward the door. “I still can’t believe it,” comes Laura Grace’s muffled voice. “The both of them, going off to school together, just like we always hoped they would. They’ll find their way into each other’s hearts eventually, just you wait and see.” I hear my mom’s tinkling laughter. “I guess their plan to escape each other didn’t work out so well after all, did it, now? I’m sure they never even imagined--” “I just hope they don’t kill each other,” Daddy interrupts. “They’ll be fine,” Mr. Marsden answers. “Well, I guess we won this round, didn’t we?” Mama says, her voice full of obvious delight. I glance up at Ryder, dressed for Sunday dinner--khakis, plaid button-down with a T-shirt beneath. His spiky hair is sticking up haphazardly, his dimples wide as he smiles down at me with so much love in those deep, dark chocolate eyes of his that it lights up his whole face. And me? I’m so happy when I’m with him that Nan says I glow, that a bright, shining light seems to radiate off the pair of us wherever we go. Despite their gloating, it’s easy to see that they didn’t win, our parents. Nope. We won.

What good part?" Kylie asked. Miranda's grin spread into the perfect smile-one that could be used to sell teeth-whitening strips. "Pleeeassse. You were there, in the dark, late at night, for several hours, and alone with Lucas. Who happens to be the hottest werewolf alive. I mean, I'm so not into werewolves, but even I can see it. He's like a god. So..." She held out her two palms. "What happened? And don't you dare tell me nothing. Because I will totally, completely lose faith in romance if nothing happened." Kylie opened her mouth to answer and then saw Della leaning forward, turning her head slightly, as if to listen to Kylie's heartbeat to see if she attempted to lie. "The little witch has a point," Della said. "This might be the good part." Kylie frowned at Della. For a girl who always kept secrets, she sure didn't give anyone else a break. Then Kylie looked at Miranda, who held her breath in anticipation of Kylie baring her soul. "Sorry," she said. "Nothing happened." "Ugh." Miranda dropped her arms on the table and sank into them. Della stared, and Kylie knew the vamp was listening to her heartbeat and checking for lies again. Frankly, Kylie wasn't sure what Della would hear. It wasn't actually a lie. Nothing happened. Except ... She'd felt so safe when Lucas had held her, except that she'd turned into Wonder Woman when she'd heard the rogue hurting Lucas. What did that mean? Kylie wasn't sure. So how could she explain it? Miranda lifted her head off the table. "See what I mean? You're Mother Teresa. Pure. Without lust." "No," Kylie snapped, not wanting to be viewed as a saint. "I ... lust." Della and Miranda shared a pensive stare. "Sorry," Della said. "When it walks like a saint, and quacks like saint-it's a quacking saint." "He held me," Kylie said. "Held me close. And I fell asleep on his shoulder. It was nice. And kind of ... He was hot." Though she meant temperature hot, she didn't mind if they drew their own conclusions. "Yes!" Miranda smiled extra big again."Did he kiss you? Like the awesome kiss he gave you at the creek when you first got here?" "No," Kylie said. Her two friends met each other's gazes again. "Mother Teresa," they said in unison.

He was reading a little shiny book with covers mottled like a plover’s egg. Now and again, as they hung about in that horrid calm, he turned a page. And James felt that each page was turned with a peculiar gesture aimed at him: now assertively, now commandingly; now with the intention of making people pity him; and all the time, as his father read and turned one after another of those little pages, James kept dreading the moment when he would look up and speak sharply to him about something or other. Why were they lagging about here? he would demand, or something quite unreasonable like that. And if he does, James thought, then I shall take a knife and strike him to the heart. He had always kept this old symbol of taking a knife and striking his father to the heart. Only now, as he grew older, and sat staring at his father in an impotent rage, it was not him, that old man reading, whom he wanted to kill, but it was the thing that descended on him—without his knowing it perhaps: that fierce sudden black-winged harpy, with its talons and its beak all cold and hard, that struck and struck at you (he could feel the beak on his bare legs, where it had struck when he was a child) and then made off, and there he was again, an old man, very sad, reading his book. That he would kill, that he would strike to the heart. Whatever he did—(and he might do anything, he felt, looking at the Lighthouse and the distant shore) whether he was in a business, in a bank, a barrister, a man at the head of some enterprise, that he would fight, that he would track down and stamp out—tyranny, despotism, he called it—making people do what they did not want to do, cutting off their right to speak. How could any of them say, But I won’t, when he said, Come to the Lighthouse. Do this. Fetch me that. The black wings spread, and the hard beak tore. And then next moment, there he sat reading his book; and he might look up—one never knew—quite reasonably. He might talk to the Macalisters. He might be pressing a sovereign into some frozen old woman’s hand in the street, James thought; he might be shouting out at some fisherman’s sports; he might be waving his arms in the air with excitement. Or he might sit at the head of the table dead silent from one end of dinner to the other.

I glanced across the room at Thaddeus seated at a long table within a group of shop keepers, and I contemplated him strongly. My heart leaped in my chest at the mere sight of him. I felt myself overcome. The acts of kindness and sweet attention and gratifying moments of passion afforded me by this man since the day of our marriage were purely pleasing. To be loved was a desirous affair! It was the aim of every beating heart! I nearly cast aside my concerns and allowed myself to be consumed by these agreeable sentiments except for one thing: I could not forget how stripped of power and dignity I had felt that very morning. Thaddeus had essentially commanded me to sit and stay like a dog. And I had heeded my master without so much as a growl! This was not me. No one stayed me. I watched those at the table grow more intensely involved in the details of a trade agreement I cared nothing about. Such business bartering was always selfishly motivated. When it appeared that my husband’s attention was engrossed on a point of aggressive negotiation, I excused myself from the weaving party and slipped out the back door. I turned down the alleyway and hurried to a crumbling chimney flue that was easy enough to climb. Almost immediately, a fit of anxiety gripped at my chest, and I felt as if a war was being waged in my gut—a battle between my desire to protect what harmony existed in my marriage and the selfish want to reclaim an ounce of the independence I had lost. This painful struggle nearly persuaded me to reconsider my childish act of defiance. Why was I stupidly jeopardizing my marriage? For what purpose? To stand upon a rooftop in sheer rebellion? Was I really that needy? That proud? I could hear my husband’s command echoing in my mind—no kind persuasion, but a strict order to keep my feet on the ground. I understood his cautious reasoning, and I didn’t doubt he was acting out of concern for my safety, but I was not some fragile, incapable, defenseless creature in need of a controlling overseer. What irked me most was how my natural defenses had failed me. And the only way I could see to restore my confidence was to prove I had not lost the courage and ability to make my own choices and carry them out. Perhaps this act of defiance was childish, but it was remedial as well.

Isn't Jack, like, your best friend?" "No," Sam said. "You aren't in touch with him?" Nell said. "Why would I be?" Sam said. "The guy's a loser." Emmi hated that word. It was a bully's word. She took a sip of her beer and looked away. "Loser?" Nell said. "Seriously? What happened? The four of you were inseparable." Sam shifted in his chair. "Drew's such a sweet guy," Nell went on. "Rosie's brilliant, and Jack---" "Drew's got zero frizz, and Rosie's basic," Becca said. "Girl needs a makeover." Emmi had always thought her English was pretty decent, but her lack of comprehension around people her own age made her feel like a beginner. Nell ignored Becca. "I figured you were upset when Jack got expelled," she said. Sam's face had turned red. Emmi saw him swallow. "Upset?" Becca said with a laugh. "Sam's the one who showed me the list. And I showed it to Cynthia, and her mom went absolutely ballistic---" "You?" Nell said to Sam. "You're the one who got Jack in trouble?" "He thought I should know what that asshole was saying about me and all of us," Becca said. She leaned over and kissed Sam. "He's my hero." Nell rolled her eyes. "I don't buy it," she said. "Jack was my lab partner in bio all junior year, and he was always so decent to me. No one becomes an asshole overnight." Emmi was intrigued; Jack had a defender in this girl. "It's pretty simple actually," said Sam. "Jack is bitter because he's never had a girlfriend." Nell was shaking her head. "He never came across like an angry guy. He was always nice." "Maybe you should date him then," Sam said. "I'm not saying I want to date him," Nell said. "It's just confusing to hear you talk bad about him." "According to Jack's list," Becca said, "I'm worth a small Mercedes while you're worth, like, a Starbucks Frappuccino. You're the one who should be the most pissed off at him." "And yet I'm the one telling you," Nell said, her voice strong, "Jack liked me. We got along." "The only good thing about Jack Holt," Becca said, "is that he's the reason Sam and I got together." "You're wrong about him," Nell said. "Everybody is. I even went to the principal, the disciplinary committee, and my teachers, and I told them I thought Jack should get a chance to show and explain the math he did. I assumed you stood up for him too." No one at the table said anything.

that I swore to myself that the law would rule on my turf. At any cost, and using any methods, per fas et nefas. For the law is not jurisprudence, not a weighty tome full of articles, not philosophical treatises, not peevish nonsense about justice, not hackneyed platitudes about morality and ethics. The law means safe paths and highways. It means backstreets one can walk along even after sundown. It means inns and taverns one can leave to visit the privy, leaving one’s purse on the table and one’s wife beside it. The law is the sleep of people certain they’ll be woken by the crowing of the rooster and not the crashing of burning roof timbers! And for those who break the law: the noose, the axe, the stake and the red-hot iron! Punishments which deter others. Those that break the law should be caught and punished. Using all available means and methods… Eh, witcher? Is the disapproval written on your countenance a reaction to the intention or the methods? The methods, I think! For it’s easy to criticise methods, but we would all prefer to live in a safe world, wouldn’t we? Go on, answer!” “There’s nothing to say.” “Oh, I believe there is.” “Mr. Fulko,” Geralt said calmly, “the world you envision quite pleases me.” “Indeed? Your expression suggests otherwise.” “The world you envision is made for a witcher. A witcher would never be short of work in it. Instead of codes, articles and peevish platitudes about justice, your idea creates lawlessness, anarchy, the licence and self-serving of princelings and mandarins, the officiousness of careerists wanting to endear themselves to their superiors, the blind vindictiveness of fanatics, the cruelty of assassins, retribution and sadistic vengeance. Your vision is a world where people are afraid to venture out after dark; not for fear of cut-throats, but of the guardians of public order. For, after all, the result of all great crackdowns on miscreants is always that the miscreants enter the ranks of the guardians of public order en masse. Your vision is a world of bribery, blackmail and entrapment, a world of turning imperial evidence and false witnesses. A world of snoopers and coerced confessions. Informing and the fear of being informed upon. And inevitably the day will come in your world when the flesh of the wrong person will be torn with pincers, when an innocent person is hanged or impaled. And then it will be a world of crime.

The school is teeming with activity. The rooms are small and large, many are special-purpose rooms, like shops and labs, but most are furnished like rather shabby living or dining rooms in homes: lots of sofas, easy chairs, and tables. Lots of people sitting around talking, reading, and playing games. On an average rainy day—quite different from a beautiful suddenly snowy day, or a warm spring or fall day—most people are inside. But there will also be more than a few who are outside in the rain, and later will come in dripping and trying the patience of the few people inside who think the school should perhaps be a “dry zone.” There may be people in the photo lab developing or printing pictures they have taken. There may be a karate class, or just some people playing on mats in the dance room. Someone may be building a bookshelf or fashioning chain mail armor and discussing medieval history. There are almost certainly a few people, either together or separate, making music of one kind or another, and others listening to music of one kind or another. You will find adults in groups that include kids, or maybe just talking with one student. It would be most unusual if there were not people playing a computer game somewhere, or chess; a few people doing some of the school’s administrative work in the office—while others hang around just enjoying the atmosphere of an office where interesting people are always making things happen; there will be people engaged in role-playing games; other people may be rehearsing a play—it might be original, it might be a classic. They may intend production or just momentary amusement. People will be trading stickers and trading lunches. There will probably be people selling things. If you are lucky, someone will be selling cookies they baked at home and brought in to earn money. Sometimes groups of kids have cooked something to sell to raise money for an activity—perhaps they need to buy a new kiln, or want to go on a trip. An intense conversation will probably be in progress in the smoking area, and others in other places. A group in the kitchen may be cooking—maybe pizza or apple pie. Always, either in the art room or in any one of many other places, people will be drawing. In the art room they might also be sewing, or painting, and some are quite likely to be working with clay, either on the wheel or by hand. Always there are groups talking, and always there are people quietly reading here and there. One

The US traded its manufacturing sector’s health for its entertainment industry, hoping that Police Academy sequels could take the place of the rustbelt. The US bet wrong. But like a losing gambler who keeps on doubling down, the US doesn’t know when to quit. It keeps meeting with its entertainment giants, asking how US foreign and domestic policy can preserve its business-model. Criminalize 70 million American file-sharers? Check. Turn the world’s copyright laws upside down? Check. Cream the IT industry by criminalizing attempted infringement? Check. It’ll never work. It can never work. There will always be an entertainment industry, but not one based on excluding access to published digital works. Once it’s in the world, it’ll be copied. This is why I give away digital copies of my books and make money on the printed editions: I’m not going to stop people from copying the electronic editions, so I might as well treat them as an enticement to buy the printed objects. But there is an information economy. You don’t even need a computer to participate. My barber, an avowed technophobe who rebuilds antique motorcycles and doesn’t own a PC, benefited from the information economy when I found him by googling for barbershops in my neighborhood. Teachers benefit from the information economy when they share lesson plans with their colleagues around the world by email. Doctors benefit from the information economy when they move their patient files to efficient digital formats. Insurance companies benefit from the information economy through better access to fresh data used in the preparation of actuarial tables. Marinas benefit from the information economy when office-slaves look up the weekend’s weather online and decide to skip out on Friday for a weekend’s sailing. Families of migrant workers benefit from the information economy when their sons and daughters wire cash home from a convenience store Western Union terminal. This stuff generates wealth for those who practice it. It enriches the country and improves our lives. And it can peacefully co-exist with movies, music and microcode, but not if Hollywood gets to call the shots. Where IT managers are expected to police their networks and systems for unauthorized copying – no matter what that does to productivity – they cannot co-exist. Where our operating systems are rendered inoperable by “copy protection,” they cannot co-exist. Where our educational institutions are turned into conscript enforcers for the record industry, they cannot co-exist. The information economy is all around us. The countries that embrace it will emerge as global economic superpowers. The countries that stubbornly hold to the simplistic idea that the information economy is about selling information will end up at the bottom of the pile. What country do you want to live in?

For some reason, Jase thought it would be really funny to lock me out of the house, and I was furious. I kept banging on the door, but Jase had turned the music up loud so he wouldn’t hear me. He kicked his feet up on a table and kept yelling, “I can’t hear you. I can’t hear you.” I went to Granny’s house and told Kay what Jase had done. Kay went marching back to our house and was hotter than a catfish fry in July. She started banging on the door, but Jase thought it was still me and just kept blaring the music and enjoying having the house to himself. Kay got so angry that she banged on the glass pane and her fist went right through the window, cutting up her hand pretty badly. This caught Jase’s attention. When he saw her hand, he knew he was in big trouble. “When your dad gets home, he’s going to whip y’all’s butts,” Kay told us. I hadn’t even done anything, but Phil didn’t usually conduct and investigation to find out who was at fault. He just whipped whoever was in the vicinity of the crime. Jase and I ran back to our room and padded up with anything we could find-socks, underwear, and pillowcases. We sat on our bed with our butts padded, waiting for Phil to get home, certain we were in big trouble. Phil came into our house and saw the bandage on Kay’s hand. “What in the world did you do?” Phil asked her. “Look at what these boys did,” Kay told him. “Jase locked Willie out of the house, and I was banging on the door for him to let us in. My hand went right through the window.” “Kay, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Why would you bang on a glass window?” Phil said. Phil walked right by her and took a shower. Jase and I were standing there with padded behind, our mouths wide open with relief. Phil was always in charge of disciplining us, but sometimes Kay tried to take matters into her own hands. Unfortunately for Kay, she was really an uncoordinated disciplinarian. One day when Phil was out fishing, Kay announced that she was going to whip us. She grabbed a belt that had a buckle on one end and told us to line up for a whipping. Now, Kay never liked whipping us and always closed her eyes when she swung because she didn’t want to watch. This time, she reared back and swung and missed, and the buckle flew back and hit her right in the forehead. Jase and I just looked at her, started laughing, and took off running into the backyard. I really don’t know how she survived raising us four boys. Korie: Poor Kay! All that testosterone in one house! Maybe that’s why she is so great to us daughters-in-law. She is thankful we took them off her hands. She has definitely enjoyed all of her granddaughters. She has set up a cute little library and a place for tea parties. They have coloring contests and dress-up parties. She didn’t get to do any of that with her four boys so our daughters have gotten the full “girly” grandma treatment.

No, Sonia, that’s not it... ...that’s not it! Better … imagine—yes, it’s certainly better—imagine that I am vain, envious, malicious, base, vindictive and … well, perhaps with a tendency to insanity. (Let’s have it all out at once! They’ve talked of madness already, I noticed.) I told you just now I could not keep myself at the university. But do you know that perhaps I might have done? My mother would have sent me what I needed for the fees and I could have earned enough for clothes, boots and food, no doubt. Lessons had turned up at half a rouble. Razumihin works! But I turned sulky and wouldn’t. (Yes, sulkiness, that’s the right word for it!) I sat in my room like a spider. You’ve been in my den, you’ve seen it.… And do you know, Sonia, that low ceilings and tiny rooms cramp the soul and the mind? Ah, how I hated that garret! And yet I wouldn’t go out of it! I wouldn’t on purpose! I didn’t go out for days together, and I wouldn’t work, I wouldn’t even eat, I just lay there doing nothing. If Nastasya brought me anything, I ate it, if she didn’t, I went all day without; I wouldn’t ask, on purpose, from sulkiness! At night I had no light, I lay in the dark and I wouldn’t earn money for candles. I ought to have studied, but I sold my books; and the dust lies an inch thick on the notebooks on my table. I preferred lying still and thinking. And I kept thinking … And I had dreams all the time, strange dreams of all sorts, no need to describe! Only then I began to fancy that.… No, that’s not it! Again I am telling you wrong! You see I kept asking myself then: why am I so stupid, that if others are stupid—and I know they are—yet I won’t be wiser? Then I saw, Sonia, that if one waits for every one to get wiser it will take too long.… Afterwards I understood that that would never come to pass, that men won’t change and that nobody can alter it and that it’s not worth wasting effort over it. Yes, that’s so. That’s the law of their nature, Sonia, … that’s so!… And I know now, Sonia, that whoever is strong in mind and spirit will have power over them. Anyone who is greatly daring is right in their eyes. He who despises most things will be a law-giver among them and he who dares most of all will be most in the right! So it has been till now and so it will always be. A man must be blind not to see it!... ...I divined then, Sonia... ...that power is only vouchsafed to the man who dares to stoop and pick it up. There is only one thing, one thing needful: one has only to dare! Then for the first time in my life an idea took shape in my mind which no one had ever thought of before me, no one! I saw clear as daylight how strange it is that not a single person living in this mad world has had the daring to go straight for it all and send it flying to the devil! I … I wanted to have the daring … and I killed her. I only wanted to have the daring, Sonia! That was the whole cause of it!

The madness surged around him, and Rhy tore himself away from the breaking city and turned his sights again to his quest for the captain of the Night Spire. There were only two places Alucard Emery would go: his family estate or his ship. Logic said he’d go to the house, but something in Rhy’s gut sent him in the opposite direction, toward the docks. He found the captain on his cabin floor. One of the chairs by the hearth had been toppled, a table knocked clean of glasses, their glittering shards scattered in the rug and across the wooden floor. Alucard—decisive, strong, beautiful Alucard—lay curled on his side, shivering with fever, his warm brown hair matted to his cheeks with sweat. He was clutching his head, breath escaping in ragged gasps as he spoke to ghosts. “Stop … please …” His voice—that even, clear voice, always brimming with laughter—broke. “Don’t make me …” Rhy was on his knees beside him. “Luc,” he said, touching the man’s shoulder. Alucard’s eyes flashed open, and Rhy recoiled when he saw them filled with shadows. Not the even black of Kell’s gaze, but instead menacing streaks of darkness that writhed and coiled like snakes through his vision, storm blue irises flashing and vanishing behind the fog. “Stop,” snarled the captain suddenly. He struggled up, limbs shaking, only to fall back against the floor. Rhy hovered over him, helpless, unsure whether to hold him down or try to help him up. Alucard’s eyes found his, but looked straight through him. He was somewhere else. “Please,” the captain pleaded with the ghosts. “Don’t make me go.” “I won’t,” said Rhy, wondering who Alucard saw. What he saw. How to free him. The captain’s veins stood out like ropes against his skin. “He’ll never forgive me.” “Who?” asked Rhy, and Alucard’s brow furrowed, as if he were trying to see through the fog, the fever. “Rhy—” The sickness tightened its hold, the shadows in his eyes streaking with lines of light like lightning. The captain bit back a scream. Rhy ran his fingers over Alucard’s hair, took his face in his hands. “Fight it,” he ordered. “Whatever’s holding you, fight it.” Alucard folded in on himself, shuddering. “I can’t….” “Focus on me.” “Rhy …” he sobbed. “I’m here.” Rhy Maresh lowered himself onto the glass-strewn floor, lay on his side so they were face-to-face. “I’m here.” He remembered, then. Like a dream flickering back to the surface, he remembered Alucard’s hands on his shoulders, his voice cutting through the pain, reaching out to him, even in the dark. I’m here now, he’d said, so you can’t die. “I’m here now,” echoed Rhy, twining his fingers through Alucard’s. “And I’m not letting go, so don’t you dare.” Another scream tore from Alucard’s throat, his grip tightening as the lines of black on his skin began to glow. First red, then white. Burning. He was burning from the inside out. And it hurt—hurt to watch, hurt to feel so helpless. But Rhy kept his word. He didn’t let go.

And the wraith on the heart monitor looks pensively down at Gately from upside-down and asks does Gately remember the myriad thespian extras on for example his beloved ‘Cheers!,’ not the center-stage Sam and Carla and Nom, but the nameless patrons always at tables, filling out the bar’s crowd, concessions to realism, always relegated to back- and foreground; and always having utterly silent conversations: their faces would animate and mouths would move realistically, but without sound; only the name-stars at the bar itself could audibilize. The wraith says these fractional actors, human scenery, could be seen (but not heard) in most pieces of filmed entertainment. And Gately remembers them, the extras in all public scenes, especially like bar and restaurant scenes, or rather remembers how he doesn’t quite remember them, how it never struck his addled mind as in fact surreal that their mouths moved but nothing emerged, and what a miserable fucking bottom-rung job that must be for an actor, to be sort of human furniture, figurants the wraith says they’re called, these surreally mute background presences whose presence really revealed that the camera, like any eye, has a perceptual corner, a triage of who’s important enough to be seen and heard v. just seen. A term from ballet, originally, figurant, the wraith explains. The wraith pushes his glasses up in the vaguely sniveling way of a kid that’s just got slapped around on the playground and says he personally spent the vast bulk of his own former animate life as pretty much a figurant, furniture at the periphery of the very eyes closest to him, it turned out, and that it’s one heck of a crummy way to try to live. Gately, whose increasing self-pity leaves little room or patience for anybody else’s self-pity, tries to lift his left hand and wiggle his pinkie to indicate the world’s smallest viola playing the theme from The Sorrow and the Pity, but even moving his left arm makes him almost faint. And either the wraith is saying or Gately is realizing that you can’t appreciate the dramatic pathos of a figurant until you realize how completely trapped and encaged he is in his mute peripheral status, because like say for example if one of ‘Cheers!’’s bar’s figurants suddenly decided he couldn’t take it any more and stood up and started shouting and gesturing around wildly in a bid for attention and nonperipheral status on the show, Gately realizes, all that would happen is that one of the audibilizing ‘name’ stars of the show would bolt over from stage-center and apply restraints or the Heineken Maneuver or CPR, figuring the silent gesturing figurant was choking on a beer-nut or something, and that then the whole rest of that episode of ‘Cheers!’ would be about jokes about the name star’s life-saving heroics, or else his fuck-up in applying the Heineken Maneuver to somebody who wasn’t choking on a nut. No way for a figurant to win. No possible voice or focus for the encaged figurant.

After wandering the world and living on the Continent I had long tired of well-behaved, fart-free gentlemen who opened the door and paid the bills but never had a story to tell and were either completely asexual or demanded skin-burning action until the morning light. Swiss watch salesmen who only knew of “sechs” as their wake-up hour, or hairy French apes who always required their twelve rounds of screwing after the six-course meal. I suppose I liked German men the best. They were a suitable mixture of belching northerner and cultivated southerner, of orderly westerner and crazy easterner, but in the post-war years they were of course broken men. There was little you could do with them except try to put them right first. And who had the time for that? Londoners are positive and jolly, but their famous irony struck me as mechanical and wearisome in the long run. As if that irony machine had eaten away their real essence. The French machine, on the other hand, is fuelled by seriousness alone, and the Frogs can drive you beyond the limit when they get going with their philosophical noun-dropping. The Italian worships every woman like a queen until he gets her home, when she suddenly turns into a slut. The Yank is one hell of a guy who thinks big: he always wants to take you the moon. At the same time, however, he is as smug and petty as the meanest seamstress, and has a fit if someone eats his peanut butter sandwich aboard the space shuttle. I found Russians interesting. In fact they were the most Icelandic of all: drank every glass to the bottom and threw themselves into any jollity, knew countless stories and never talked seriously unless at the bottom of the bottle, when they began to wail for their mother who lived a thousand miles away but came on foot to bring them their clean laundry once a month. They were completely crazy and were better athletes in bed than my dear countrymen, but in the end I had enough of all their pommel-horse routines. Nordic men are all as tactless as Icelanders. They get drunk over dinner, laugh loudly and fart, eventually start “singing” even in public restaurants where people have paid to escape the tumult of the world. But their wallets always waited cold sober in the cloakroom while the Icelandic purse lay open for all in the middle of the table. Our men were the greater Vikings in this regard. “Reputation is king, the rest is crap!” my Bæring from Bolungarvík used to say. Every evening had to be legendary, anything else was a defeat. But the morning after they turned into weak-willed doughboys. But all the same I did succeed in loving them, those Icelandic clodhoppers, at least down as far as their knees. Below there, things did not go as well. And when the feet of Jón Pre-Jón popped out of me in the maternity ward, it was enough. The resemblances were small and exact: Jón’s feet in bonsai form. I instantly acquired a physical intolerance for the father, and forbade him to come in and see the baby. All I heard was the note of surprise in the bass voice out in the corridor when the midwife told him she had ordered him a taxi. From that day on I made it a rule: I sacked my men by calling a car. ‘The taxi is here,’ became my favourite sentence.

But…but that’s tragic! To go through life without color? Unable to appreciate art, or beauty?” He laughed. “Now, sweet-hold your brush before you paint me a martyr’s halo. It’s not as though I’m blind. I have a great appreciation for art, as I believe we’ve discussed. And as for beauty…I don’t need to know whether your eyes are blue or green or lavender to know that they’re uncommonly lovely.” “No one has lavender eyes.” “Don’t they?” His gaze caught hers and refused to let go. Leaning forward, he continued, “Did that tutor of yours ever tell you this? That your eyes are ringed with a perfect circle a few shades darker than the rest of the…don’t they call it the iris?” Sophia nodded. “The iris.” He propped his elbow on the table and leaned forward, his gaze searching hers intently. “An apt term it is, too. There are these lighter rays that fan out from the center, like petals. And when your pupils widen-like that, right there-your eyes are like two flowers just coming into bloom. Fresh. Innocent.” She bowed her head, mixing a touch of lead white into the sea-green paint on her palette. He leaned closer still, his voice a hypnotic whisper. “But when you take delight in teasing me, looking up through those thick lashes, so saucy and self-satisfied…” She gave him a sharp look. He snapped his fingers. “There! Just like that. Oh, sweet-then those eyes are like two opera dancers smiling from behind big, feathered fans. Coy. Beckoning.” Sophia felt a hot blush spreading from her bosom to her throat. He smiled and reclined in his chair. “I don’t need to know the color of your hair to see that it’s smooth and shiny as silk. I don’t need to know whether it’s yellow or orange or red to spend an inordinate amount of time wondering how it would feel brushing against my bare skin.” Opening his book to the marked page, he continued, “And don’t get me started on your lips, sweet. If I endeavored to discover the precise shade of red or pink or violet they are, I might never muster the concentration for anything else.” He turned a leaf of his book, then fell silent. Sophia stared at her canvas. Her pulse pounded in her ears. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of her neck, channeling down between her shoulder blades, and a hot, itchy longing pooled at the cleft of her legs. Drat him. He’d known she was taunting him with her stories. And now he sat there in an attitude of near-boredom, making love to her with his teasing, colorless words in a blatant attempt to fluster her. It was as though they were playing a game of cards, and he’d just raised the stakes. Sophia smiled. She always won at cards. “Balderdash,” she said calmly. He looked up at her, eyebrow raised. “No one has violet lips.” “Don’t they?” She laid aside her palette and crossed her arms on the table. “The slope of your nose is quite distinctive.” His lips quirked in a lopsided grin. “Really.” “Yes.” She leaned forward, allowing her bosom to spill against her stacked arms. His gaze dipped, but quickly returned to hers. “The way you have that little bump at the ridge…It’s proving quite a challenge.” “Is that so?” He bent his head and studied his book. Sophie stared at him, waiting one…two…three beats before he raised his hand to rub the bridge of his nose. Quite satisfactory progress, that. Definite beginnings of fluster.

He hadn’t been aware of staring, but when her questioning gaze locked with his, Grey felt as though he’d been smacked upside the head by the open palm of idiocy. “Is something troubling you, Grey?” He loved the sound of his name on her tongue, and hated that he loved it. She made him weak and stupid. One sweet glance from her and he was ready to drop to his knees. It wasn’t love. It wasn’t even infatuation. It was pure unmitigated lust. He could admit that. Hell, he embraced it. Lust could be managed. Lust could be mastered. And lust would eventually fade once she was out of his care and out of his life. That was the cold, hard, blessed truth of it. “I was wondering if you were eagerly anticipating Lady Shrewsbury’s ball tomorrow evening?” How easily the lie rolled off his tongue as he lifted a bite of poached salmon to his mouth. She smiled softly, obviously looking forward to it very much. “I am. Thank you.” Camilla shared her daughter’s pleasure judging from her coy grin. “Rose has renewed her acquaintance with the honorable Kellan Maxwell. He requested that she save the first waltz of the evening for him.” The fish caught in Grey’s throat. He took a drink of wine to force it down. “The same Kellan Maxwell who courted you during your first season?” Rose’s smile faded a little. No doubt she heard the censure in his tone, his disapproval. “The same,” she replied with an edge of defensiveness. The same idiot who abandoned his pursuit of Rose when Charles lost everything and scandal erupted. The little prick who hadn’t loved her enough to continue his courtship regardless of her situation. “Mm,” was what he said out loud. Rose scowled at him. “We had no understanding. We were not engaged, and Mr. Maxwell behaved as any other young man with responsibilities would have.” “You defend him.” It was difficult to keep his disappointment from showing. He never thought her to be the kind of woman who would forgive disloyalty when she was so very loyal herself. She tilted her head. “I appreciate your concern, but I’m no debutante, Grey. If I’m to find a husband this season I shouldn’t show prejudice.” Common sense coming out of anyone else. Coming out of her it was shite. “You deserve better.” She smiled a Mona Lisa smile. “We do not always get what we deserve, or even what we desire.” She knew. Christ in a frock coat, she knew. Her smile faded. “If we did, Papa would be here with us, and Mama and I wouldn’t be your responsibility.” She didn’t know. Damn, what a relief. “The two of you are not a responsibility. You are a joy.” For some reason that only made her look sadder, but Camilla smiled through happy tears. She thanked him profusely, but Grey had a hard time hearing what she was saying-he was too intent on Rose, who had turned her attention to her plate and was pushing food around with little interest. He could bear this no longer. He didn’t know what was wrong with her, or why she seemed so strange with him. And he couldn’t stand that he cared. “Ladies, I’m afraid I must beg your pardon and take leave of you.” Rose glanced up. “So soon?” He pushed his chair back from the table. “Yes. But I will see you at breakfast in the morning.” She turned back to her dinner. Grey bid farewell to Camilla and then strode from the room as quickly as he could. If he survived the Season it would be a miracle.

For years Angus McAllister had set before himself as his earthly goal the construction of a gravel path through the Castle’s famous yew alley. For years he had been bringing the project to the notice of his employer, though in anyone less whiskered the latter’s unconcealed loathing would have caused embarrassment. And now, it seemed, he was at it again. 'Gravel path!' Lord Emsworth stiffened through the whole length of his stringy body. Nature, he had always maintained, intended a yew alley to be carpeted with a mossy growth. And, whatever Nature felt about it, he personally was dashed if he was going to have men with Clydeside accents and faces like dissipated potatoes coming along and mutilating that lovely expanse of green velvet. 'Gravel path, indeed! Why not asphalt? Why not a few hoardings with advertisements of liver pills and a filling station? That’s what the man would really like.' Lord Emsworth felt bitter, and when he felt bitter he could be terribly sarcastic. 'Well, I think it is a very good idea,' said his sister. 'One could walk there in wet weather then. Damp moss is ruinous to shoes.' Lord Emsworth rose. He could bear no more of this. He left the table, the room, and the house, and, reaching the yew alley some minutes later, was revolted to find it infested by Angus McAllister in person. The head-gardener was standing gazing at the moss like a high priest of some ancient religion about to stick the gaff into the human sacrifice. 'Morning, McAllister,' said Lord Emsworth, coldly. 'Good morrrrning, your lorrudsheep.' There was a pause. Angus McAllister, extending a foot that looked like a violin-case, pressed it on the moss. The meaning of the gesture was plain. It expressed contempt, dislike, a generally anti-moss spirit; and Lord Emsworth, wincing, surveyed the man unpleasantly through his pince-nez. Though not often given to theological speculation, he was wondering why Providence, if obliged to make head-gardeners, had found it necessary to make them so Scotch. In the case of Angus McAllister, why, going a step farther, have made him a human being at all? All the ingredients of a first-class mule simply thrown away. He felt that he might have liked Angus McAllister if he had been a mule. 'I was speaking to her leddyship yesterday.' 'Oh?' 'About the gravel path I was speaking to her leddyship.' 'Oh?' 'Her leddyship likes the notion fine.' 'Indeed! Well——' Lord Emsworth’s face had turned a lively pink, and he was about to release the blistering words which were forming themselves in his mind when suddenly he caught the head-gardener’s eye and paused. Angus McAllister was looking at him in a peculiar manner, and he knew what that look meant. Just one crack, his eye was saying—in Scotch, of course—just one crack out of you and I tender my resignation. And with a sickening shock it came home to Lord Emsworth how completely he was in this man’s clutches. He shuffled miserably. Yes, he was helpless. Except for that kink about gravel paths, Angus McAllister was a head-gardener in a thousand, and he needed him. He could not do without him. Filled with the coward rage that dares to burn but does not dare to blaze, Lord Emsworth coughed a cough that was undisguisedly a bronchial white flag. 'I’ll—er—I’ll think it over, McAllister.' 'Mphm.' 'I have to go to the village now. I will see you later.' 'Mphm.' 'Meanwhile, I will—er—think it over.' 'Mphm.

I can’t remember a specific time when the comments and the name-calling started, but one evening in November it all got much worse,’ she said. ‘My brother Tobias and me were doing our homework at the dining room table like we always did.’ ‘You’ve got a brother?’ She hesitated before nodding. ‘Papa was working late at the clinic in a friend’s back room – it was against the law for Jews to work as doctors. Mama was making supper in the kitchen, and I remember her cursing because she’d just burned her hand on the griddle. Tobias and me couldn’t stop laughing because Mama never swore.’ The memory of it made her mouth twitch in an almost-smile. Then someone banged on our front door. It was late – too late for social calling. Mama told us not to answer it. Everyone knew someone who’d had a knock on the door like that.’ ‘Who was it?’ ‘The police, usually. Sometimes Hitler’s soldiers. It was never for a good reason, and it never ended happily. We all dreaded it happening to us. So, Mama turned the lights out and put her hand over the dog’s nose.’ Esther, glancing sideways at me, explained: ‘We had a sausage dog called Gerta who barked at everything. ‘The knocking went on and they started shouting through the letter box, saying they’d burn the house down if we didn’t answer the door. Mama told us to hide under the table and went to speak to them. They wanted Papa. They said he’d been treating non-Jewish patients at the clinic and it had to stop. Mama told them he wasn’t here but they didn’t believe her and came in anyway. There were four of them in Nazi uniform, stomping through our house in their filthy great boots. Finding us hiding under the table, they decided to take Tobias as a substitute for Papa. ‘When your husband hands himself in, we’ll release the boy,’ was what they said. ‘It was cold outside – a freezing Austrian winter’s night – but they wouldn’t let Tobias fetch his coat. As soon as they laid hands on him, Mama started screaming. She let go of Gerta and grabbed Tobias – we both did – pulling on his arms, yelling that they couldn’t take him, that he’d done nothing wrong. Gerta was barking. I saw one of the men swing his boot at ther. She went flying across the room, hitting the mantelpiece. It was awful. She didn’t bark after that.’ It took a moment for the horror of what she was saying to sink in. ‘Don’t tell me any more if you don’t want to,’ I said gently. She stared straight ahead like she hadn’t heard me. ‘They took my brother anyway. He was ten years old. ‘We ran into the street after them, and it was chaos – like the end of the world or something. The whole town was fully of Nazi uniforms. There were broken windows, burning houses, people sobbing in the gutter. The synagogue at the end of our street was on fire. I was terrified. So terrified I couldn’t move. But Mum kept running. Shouting and yelling and running after my brother. I didn’t see what happened but I heard the gunshot.’ She stopped. Rubbed her face in her hands. ‘Afterwards they gave it a very pretty name: Kristallnacht – meaning “the night of broken glass”. But it was the night I lost my mother and my brother. I was sent away soon after as part of the Kindertransport, though Papa never got used to losing us all at once. Nor did I. That’s why he came to find me. He always promised he’d try.’ Anything I might’ve said stayed stuck in my throat. There weren’t words for it, not really. So I put my arm through Esther’s and we sat, gazing out to sea, two old enemies who were, at last, friends. She was right – it was her story to tell. And I could think of plenty who might benefit from hearing it.

Keynes was a voracious reader. He had what he called ‘one of the best of all gifts – the eye which can pick up the print effortlessly’. If one was to be a good reader, that is to read as easily as one breathed, practice was needed. ‘I read the newspapers because they’re mostly trash,’ he said in 1936. ‘Newspapers are good practice in learning how to skip; and, if he is not to lose his time, every serious reader must have this art.’ Travelling by train from New York to Washington in 1943, Keynes awed his fellow passengers by the speed with which he devoured newspapers and periodicals as well as discussing modern art, the desolate American landscape and the absence of birds compared with English countryside.54 ‘As a general rule,’ Keynes propounded as an undergraduate, ‘I hate books that end badly; I always want the characters to be happy.’ Thirty years later he deplored contemporary novels as ‘heavy-going’, with ‘such misunderstood, mishandled, misshapen, such muddled handling of human hopes’. Self-indulgent regrets, defeatism, railing against fate, gloom about future prospects: all these were anathema to Keynes in literature as in life. The modern classic he recommended in 1936 was Forster’s A Room with a View, which had been published nearly thirty years earlier. He was, however, grateful for the ‘perfect relaxation’ provided by those ‘unpretending, workmanlike, ingenious, abundant, delightful heaven-sent entertainers’, Agatha Christie, Edgar Wallace and P. G. Wodehouse. ‘There is a great purity in these writers, a remarkable absence of falsity and fudge, so that they live and move, serene, Olympian and aloof, free from any pretended contact with the realities of life.’ Keynes preferred memoirs as ‘more agreeable and amusing, so much more touching, bringing so much more of the pattern of life, than … the daydreams of a nervous wreck, which is the average modern novel’. He loved good theatre, settling into his seat at the first night of a production of Turgenev’s A Month in the Country with a blissful sigh and the words, ‘Ah! this is the loveliest play in all the world.’55 Rather as Keynes was a grabby eater, with table-manners that offended Norton and other Bloomsbury groupers, so he could be impatient to reach the end of books. In the inter-war period publishers used to have a ‘gathering’ of eight or sixteen pages at the back of their volumes to publicize their other books-in-print. He excised these advertisements while reading a book, so that as he turned a page he could always see how far he must go before finishing. A reader, said Keynes, should approach books ‘with all his senses; he should know their touch and their smell. He should learn how to take them in his hands, rustle their pages and reach in a few seconds a first intuitive impression of what they contain. He should … have touched many thousands, at least ten times as many as he reads. He should cast an eye over books as a shepherd over sheep, and judge them with the rapid, searching glance with which a cattle-dealer eyes cattle.’ Keynes in 1927 reproached his fellow countrymen for their low expenditure in bookshops. ‘How many people spend even £10 a year on books? How many spend 1 per cent of their incomes? To buy a book ought to be felt not as an extravagance, but as a good deed, a social duty which blesses him who does it.’ He wished to muster ‘a mighty army … of Bookworms, pledged to spend £10 a year on books, and, in the higher ranks of the Brotherhood, to buy a book a week’. Keynes was a votary of good bookshops, whether their stock was new or second-hand. ‘A bookshop is not like a railway booking-office which one approaches knowing what one wants. One should enter it vaguely, almost in a dream, and allow what is there freely to attract and influence the eye. To walk the rounds of the bookshops, dipping in as curiosity dictates, should be an afternoon’s entertainment.

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

Cotton Ball Blow Materials: Cotton balls and a table to play on. Preparation and Instructions: Sit across the table from the child, holding the child’s arms with your arms to outline the playing field. Place a cotton ball in the middle of the field. On your signal, both of you will begin to blow. The object of the game is for the child to blow the cotton ball over to your chest and for you to blow the cotton ball over to the child’s chest (or off the table, as the case may be). This is a great game to teach children how to observe the results of a game, instead of focusing only on winning or losing. Important Points to Remember: This is not a competition. The child may attempt to turn it into one. To structure the game to reduce or prevent competition, you may want to do the following: Begin the game by saying, “This game is called ‘Cotton Ball Blow.’ I will give a signal, and we will both blow the cotton ball to see where it goes. You will try to blow it over to me, and I will try to blow it over to you.” Tell the child the signal. “The signal will be ready, set, go. When I say ‘go,’ you and I will begin to blow.” Do not remove your hand from the cotton ball until you say go, so the child always begins on your signal and is successful. If the child comments, “I won, I won,” you can simply say, “You blew the cotton ball over to my side.” Verbally track the results of each blowing encounter. “You blew the cotton ball, and it hit our arms and flipped off the table.” The Big Crash Preparation and Instructions: Pick the child up and swing him or her in the air.

I kept so many things, and consumed the wrong things, all because I never felt like I was good enough. I wasn’t smart enough or professional enough or talented enough or creative enough. I didn’t trust that who I was or what I brought to the table in any situation was already unique, so I bought things that could make me better. Then I spent a year sorting through the mess and figuring out who I really was. A writer and a reader. Hiker and traveler. Dog owner and animal lover. Sister, daughter, and friend. It turned out I had never been someone who valued material objects. I valued the people in my life and the experiences we shared together. None of that could be found in the belongings in my home. It had always been in my heart.

Master Hsing Yun now uses a wheelchair to get around, but his mind remains clear and sharp. Partway through our meal, he turned to me with a blunt question. “Kai-Fu, have you ever thought about what your goal is in life?” Without thinking, I reflexively gave him the answer I had given to myself and others for decades: “To maximize my impact and change the world.” Speaking those words, I felt the burning embarrassment that comes when we expose our naked ambitions to others. The feeling was magnified by the silence emanating from the monk across the table. But my answer was an honest one. This quest to maximize my impact was like a tumor that had always lived inside of me, ever tenacious and always growing. I had read widely in philosophy and religious texts, but for decades had never critically examined or doubted this core motivating belief within me.

Now, all political parties are alliances of groups with disparate interests, but the contradictions in the Democratic Party coalition seem unusually sharp. The Democrats posture as the “party of the people” even as they dedicate themselves ever more resolutely to serving and glorifying the professional class. Worse: they combine self-righteousness and class privilege in a way that Americans find stomach-turning. And every two years, they simply assume that being non-Republican is sufficient to rally the voters of the nation to their standard. This cannot go on. Yet it will go on, because the most direct solutions to the problem are off the table for the moment. The Democrats have no interest in reforming themselves in a more egalitarian way. There is little the rest of us can do, given the current legal arrangements of this country, to build a vital third-party movement or to revive organized labor, the one social movement that is committed by its nature to pushing back against the inequality trend. What we can do is strip away the Democrats’ precious sense of their own moral probity—to make liberals live without the comforting knowledge that righteousness is always on their side. It is that sensibility, after all, that prevents so many good-hearted rank-and-file Democrats from understanding how starkly and how deliberately their political leaders contradict their values. Once that contradiction has been made manifest—once that smooth, seamless sense of liberal virtue has been cracked, anything becomes possible. The course of the party and the course of the country can both be changed, but only after we understand that the problem is us.

The ban uncovered the truth, which was that when you decide to want less, you can buy less and, ultimately, need less money. Decluttering and purging 70 percent of my belongings came with different lessons. I realized I had spent the first 29 years of my life doing and buying whatever I could to be someone I thought I should be. I kept so many things, and consumed the wrong things, all because I never felt like I was good enough. I wasn’t smart enough or professional enough or talented enough or creative enough. I didn’t trust that who I was or what I brought to the table in any situation was already unique, so I bought things that could make me better. Then I spent a year sorting through the mess and figuring out who I really was. A writer and a reader. Hiker and traveler. Dog owner and animal lover. Sister, daughter, and friend. It turned out I had never been someone who valued material objects. I valued the people in my life and the experiences we shared together. None of that could be found in the belongings in my home. It had always been in my heart.

I may not be able to play a harp again, or sing for the clan,” he said. “But I have found that this is my song. This is my music.” And he framed her face in his hands. “Months ago, I told you that I was a verse inspired by your chorus. I thought I knew what those words meant then, but now I fully understand the depth and the breadth of them. I want to write a ballad with you, not in notes but in our choices, in the simplicity and the routine of our life together. In waking up at your side every sunrise and falling asleep entwined with you every sunset. In kneeling beside you in the kail yard and leading a clan and overseeing trade and eating at our parents’ tables. In making mistakes, because I know that I’ll make them, and then restitution, because I’m better than I once ever hoped to be when I’m with you.” Adaira turned her face to kiss his palm, where his scar from their blood vow still shone. When she looked at him again, there were tears in her eyes. “What do you think, Heiress?” Jack whispered, because he was suddenly desperate to know her thoughts. To know what she was feeling. Adaira leaned forward, brushing his lips with hers. “I think that I want to make such music with you until my last day when the isle takes my bones. I think you are the song I was longing for, waiting for. And I will always be thankful that you returned to me.

Chapter 3 The next morning, I wake up early, but I hang out in bed longer than usual. Since the surprise party yesterday, I’ve been bombarded with images of my past. And those memories have a bitter taste that yesterday’s cake can’t mask. I somehow manage to extricate myself from my pod, even though it feels like my head’s a bit foggy—my stomach, too, for that matter. I walk quietly toward the Cafeteria. By this time, there shouldn’t be many people left. Hopefully my delay will go unnoticed. I didn’t account for Doc, of course. When I get to the Cafeteria, she’s sitting at one of the tables with a tray of unfinished food in front of her. When she sees me coming, she taps the plastic nervously with her fingers. “Oh, so now you’re hungry?” she asks. Doc has always had a problem with people not following the rules, and she doesn’t understand why people break them. For her, duty is an essential trait. I think her attitude is a bit extreme, but it’s clear that she’s turned out to be a better person than me, so maybe I should try following the rules. “Sorry. Problem with my alarm clock,” I say, improvising.

Well. What are you proposing?” This was one of my father’s favorite questions to ask, ever the businessman. Always calm. Always allowing his opponent to lay their cards on the table first. That’s how he survived the weapons business so long. Until, of course, he didn’t

He told Hermogenes of his realization that the spirit to whom he had always listened might be offering him a way out of life, in a manner “easiest but also the least irksome to one’s friends,”126 with “sound body and a spirit capable of showing kindliness”127 and absent the “throes of illness” and vexations of extreme old age.128 Socrates’ decision to accept his fate allowed him to put away mortal terror in the face of death itself, prior to and during the trial, after the sentence was handed down,129 and even later, during his execution.130 He saw that his life had been so rich and full that he could let it go, gracefully. He was given the opportunity to put his affairs in order. He saw that he could escape the terrible slow degeneration of the advancing years. He came to understand all that was happening to him as a gift from the gods. He was not therefore required to defend himself against his accusers—at least not with the aim of pronouncing his innocence, and escaping his fate. Instead, he turned the tables, addressing his judges in a manner that makes the reader understand precisely why the town council wanted this man dead. Then he took his poison, like a man.

But he cut me off, drew himself up to his full height and demanded I tell him one last time if I believed in God. I said no. He sat down, looking indignant. He said that was impossible, that every one believed in God, even those who turned away from Him. This was his firm belief, and if he ever had cause to doubt it, his life would no longer have any meaning. 'Do you want my life to have no meaning?' he shouted. In my opinion, that was none of my business and I told him so. But from across the table, he was already thrusting the Christ figure in my face and screaming like a madman: 'I am a Christian! I ask Christ to forgive your sins! How can you not believe that He suffered for you?' It struck me that he was now addressing me in a very personal way, as if I were a child, but I'd had enough. It was getting hotter and hotter. As always, whenever I want to get rid of people I'm barely listening to, I try to look as if I'm agreeing with them. To my surprise, he sounded triumphant: 'You see, you see, he said. "You do believe, don't you, and you will put your trust in Him? Obviously, I said no again. He slumped back into his chair.

What happens when I don’t need to be rescued anymore, Wyatt? She struck a target with that question. Just as he was in her mind, she was in his. He didn’t give a damn and that was the truth. His dark gaze drifted over her, deliberately possessive. He brought her wrist to his mouth and slid his tongue over her pulse, felt her shiver and watched her eyes go an even darker purple. Somthin’ tells, me, sugar, you’re always goin’ to be gettin’ yourself into trouble and I’ll always have to go rushin’ to your rescue. You got trouble stamped all over you, woman. Any man can see that a mile out. He winked at her, and turned his attention back to the table

step: In silence both raised their left arms in a kind of salute and passed straight through, as though the dark metal were smoke. The yew hedges muffled the sound of the men’s footsteps. There was a rustle somewhere to their right: Yaxley drew his wand again, pointing it over his companion’s head, but the source of the noise proved to be nothing more than a pure-white peacock, strutting majestically along the top of the hedge. “He always did himself well, Lucius. Peacocks . . .” Yaxley thrust his wand back under his cloak with a snort. A handsome manor house grew out of the darkness at the end of the straight drive, lights glinting in the diamond-paned downstairs windows. Somewhere in the dark garden beyond the hedge a fountain was playing. Gravel crackled beneath their feet as Snape and Yaxley sped toward the front door, which swung inward at their approach, though nobody had visibly opened it. The hallway was large, dimly lit, and sumptuously decorated, with a magnificent carpet covering most of the stone floor. The eyes of the pale-faced portraits on the walls followed Snape and Yaxley as they strode past. The two men halted at a heavy wooden door leading into the next room, hesitated for the space of a heartbeat, then Snape turned the bronze handle. The drawing room was full of silent people, sitting at a long and ornate table. The room’s usual furniture had been pushed carelessly up against the walls. Illumination came from a roaring fire beneath a handsome marble mantelpiece surmounted by a gilded mirror. Snape and Yaxley lingered for a moment on the threshold. As their eyes grew accustomed to the lack of light, they were drawn upward to the strangest feature of the scene: an apparently unconscious human figure hanging upside down over the table, revolving slowly as if suspended by an invisible rope, and reflected in the mirror and in the bare, polished surface of the table below. None of the people seated underneath this singular sight was looking at it except for a

You can’t break your sister’s toys, Thomas. You know that.” And he snapped the Nintendo in half. The glass behind his eyes vibrated white hot. The two halves of the Nintendo buckled and bent until the plastic gave way in a resonating pop and the system folded the wrong way. Just like the bird, only a little harder and not as messy. He dropped the two halves back on the table, eyes never leaving Tommy, whose mouth hung open in shock and betrayal. “You… always blame me,” Tommy gasped, eyes welling with tears. “I hate you!” “You’ll get over it.” Tommy turned and ran to the bathroom, slamming the door so hard that a picture of his second-grade soccer team fell off the shelf and shattered. Like father like son, Dan thought. Even down to the flair for destruction.

One thing about them tables… they always turn.” - Unknown

After all, imagine we framed the problem differently, the way it might have been fifty or 100 years ago: as the concentration of capital, or oligopoly, or class power. Compared to any of these, a word like ‘inequality’ sounds like it’s practically designed to encourage half-measures and compromise. It’s possible to imagine overthrowing capitalism or breaking the power of the state, but it’s not clear what eliminating inequality would even mean. (Which kind of inequality? Wealth? Opportunity? Exactly how equal would people have to be in order for us to be able to say we’ve ‘eliminated inequality’?) The term ‘inequality’ is a way of framing social problems appropriate to an age of technocratic reformers, who assume from the outset that no real vision of social transformation is even on the table. Debating inequality allows one to tinker with the numbers, argue about Gini coefficients and thresholds of dysfunction, readjust tax regimes or social welfare mechanisms, even shock the public with figures showing just how bad things have become (‘Can you imagine? The richest 1 per cent of the world’s population own 44 per cent of the world’s wealth!’) – but it also allows one to do all this without addressing any of the factors that people actually object to about such ‘unequal’ social arrangements: for instance, that some manage to turn their wealth into power over others; or that other people end up being told their needs are not important, and their lives have no intrinsic worth. The last, we are supposed to believe, is just the inevitable effect of inequality; and inequality, the inevitable result of living in any large, complex, urban, technologically sophisticated society. Presumably it will always be with us. It’s just a matter of degree. Today, there is a veritable boom of thinking about inequality: since 2011, ‘global inequality

3 ALICIA Seven hours. That’s how much time had passed since Alicia collected two-and-a-half-year-old Theo from the police station and brought him to his new foster home. Seven hours since he scampered out of her grasp and disappeared under the dining room table. Seven hours since Alicia sat on the linoleum floor and promised him she would wait until he was ready to come out. Alicia always kept her promises to the kids. Which meant now she might have to die on this linoleum floor. “Hey, buddy, I think Bluey might be on the TV,” Alicia tried, without much hope. “Should we go and see?” Theo didn’t turn his little blond head from the wall. She had to admire his resolve. Since they’d arrived, he hadn’t spoken, he’d refused all food and drink, and, if smell was anything to go by, he’d soiled himself. Still, he wouldn’t budge. Last night, he’d been taken to the police station by a neighbor who’d discovered him playing on the road at midnight, wearing nothing but a dirty nappy. Apparently his father had been too inebriated to realize he was gone. His mother had yet to be located and it wasn’t looking hopeful. Alicia had hoped that returning Theo to Trish’s, where he’d spent a few months earlier in the year, might provide Theo with some reassurance; but, if anything, his understanding of what was happening made things worse. His head remained down, his tiny, twiggy arms remained ramrod straight by his sides. “Do you like chocolate?” she asked, as another foster kid, Aaron, sloped into the kitchen, and started rummaging in the cupboards, presumably for food. “I’ve got a Kit Kat here. Want some?” Alicia broke off a chocolate finger and held it out to Theo under the table. To her delight, he scooted across the floor to inspect it. “Ow!

Let's go into the living room and sit in front of the fire." She gets up from the kitchen table. "It's seventy-five friggin' degrees outside." He gets up, too. "Then I'll make it nice and chilly in here." She goes to a thermostat and turns on the air-conditioning. "I've always found it easier to talk in front of a fire.

In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop past the thick barricade of Books You Haven't Read, which were frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you. But you know you must never allow yourself to be awed, that among them there extend for acres and acres the Books You Needn't Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To The Category Of Books Read Before Being Written. And thus you pass the outer girdle of ramparts, but then you are attacked by the infantry of the Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered. With a rapid maneuver you bypass them and move into the phalanxes of the Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First, the Books Too Expensive Now And You'll Wait Till They're Remaindered, the Books ditto When They Come Out In Paperback, Books You Can Borrow From Somebody, Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too. Eluding these assaults, you come up beneath the towers of the fortress, where other troops are holding out: the Books Dealing With Something You're Working On At The Moment, the Books You Want To Own So They'll Be Handy Just In Case, the Books You Could Put Aside Maybe To Read This Summer, the Books You Need To Go With Other Books On Your Shelves, the Books That Fill You With Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified. Now you have been able to reduce the countless embattled troops to an array that is, to be sure, very large but still calculable in a finite number; but this relative relief is then undermined by the ambush of the Books Read Long Ago Which It's Now Time To Reread and the Books You've Always Pretended To Have Read And Now It's Time To Sit Down And Really Read Them. With a zigzag and a dash you shake them off and leap straight into the citadel of the New Books Whose Author or Subject Appeals To You. Even inside this stronghold you can make some breaches in the ranks of the defenders, dividing them into New (for you in general) and New Books By Authors Or On Subjects Completely Unknown (at least to you), and defining the attraction they have for you on the basis of your desires and needs for the new and the not new (for the new you seek in the not new and for the not new you seek in the new). All this means that, having rapidly glanced over the titles of the volumes displayed in the bookshop, you turn toward a stack of If on a winter’s night a traveler fresh off the press, you have grasped a copy, and you have carried it to the cashier so that your right to own it can be established. You cast another bewildered look at the books around you (or, rather: it was the books that looked at you, with the bewildered gaze of dogs who, from their cages in the city pound, see a former companion go off on the leash of his master, come to rescue him), and out you went. You derive a special pleasure from a just-published book, and it isn’t only a book you are taking with you but the novelty as well, which could also merely be that of an object fresh from the factory, the youthful bloom of new books, which lasts until the dust jacket begins to yellow, until a veil of smog settles on the top edge, until the bindings become dog-eared, in the rapid autumn of libraries. No, you hope always to encounter true newness, which having been new once, will continue to be so. Having read the freshly published book, you will take possession of this newness at the first moment, without having to pursue, to chase it. Will it happen this time? You can never tell. Let’s see how it begins.

thepsychchic chips clips i How often are we actually in control, I wondered? And how does the perception of being in control in situations where luck is queen actually play out in our decision making? How do people respond when placed in uncertain situations, with incomplete information? 13 Personal accountability, without the possibility of deflecting onto someone else, is key. 41 There’s never a default to anything. It’s always a matter of deliberation. 56 Erik: You have to have a clear thought process for every single hand. What do I know? What have I seen? How will that help me make an informed judgment about this hand? 74 … find the fold … 86 Erik: There’s nothing like getting in there and making a bunch of mistakes. 88 Erik: Pick your spots. 91 Erik: Have you ever heard the expression ‘snap fold’? A snap fold, you do it immediately. You’re thrilled to let it go. So. snap fold. This lets you shove with basically the same enthusiasm. It tells you which hands to go with when you have different amounts of big blinds. 98 There’s a false sense of security in passivity. You think that you can’t get into too much trouble—but really, every passive decision leads to a slow but steady loss of chips. And chances are, if I’m choosing those lines at the table, there are deeper issues at play. Who knows how many proverbial chips a default passivity has cost me throughout my life. How many times have I walked away from situations because of someone else's show of strength, when I really shouldn't have. How many times I've passively stayed in a situation, eventually letting it get the better of me, instead of actively taking control and turning things around. Hanging back only seems like an easy solution. In truth, it can be the seed of far bigger problems. 100-101 Gambler's fallacy -- the faulty idea that probability has a memory. 107 Frank Lantz, NYU Game Center, former poker player: Part of what I get out of a game is being confronted with reality in a way that is not accommodating to my incorrect preconceptions. 109 Only play within your bankroll. 126 Re: Ladies Event: Yes, I completely understand the intention, but somehow, segregating women into a separate player pool, as if admitting that they can’t compete in an open player pool, feels equal parts degrading and demoralizing. … if I’m known as anything in this game, I want to be known as a good poker player, not a good female player. No modifiers need apply. 127 Erik: Bad beats are a really bad mental habit. You don’t want to ever dwell on them. It doesn’t help you become a better player. It’s like dumping your garbage on someone else’s lawn. It just stinks.” 132-33 No bad beats. Forget they ever happened. 136 As W H Auden told an interviewer, Webster Schott, in a 1970 conversation: "Language is the mother, not the handmaiden of thought; words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.” The language we use becomes our mental habits—and our mental habits determine how we learn, how we grow, what we become. It’s not just a question of semantics: telling bad beats stories matters. Our thinking about luck has real consequences in terms of our emotional well-being, our decisions and the way we implicitly view the world and our role in it. 133

At the meeting, Lu Dingyi made self-criticism, admitting that it seemed unbelievable that he could have lived with Yan Weibing for twenty-five years without knowing about her letters, but insisting on his innocence. 'Yan Weibing is now at the Ministry of Public Security, so please ask her. If I knew anything about her letters before reading the Ministry of Public Security files, please treat me like a chief conspirator and accomplice of counterrevolution and punish me more harshly.' In reply to Lin Biao's grilling, Lu said: 'isn't it quite common for husbands not to know what their wives are up to?' Lin Biao said: 'I'm itching to shoot you right here and now!' He went on, 'I've always had a liking for some intellectuals, and I've been especially fond of you, Lu Dingyi. So why do you engage in this kind of mischief? What's your intention?' When Lu Dingyi said he really didn't know about the letters, Lin Biao smacked the table and said, 'How can you not know when you're in bed fucking every day?' The denunciation turned farcical as Zhou Enlai hurled a a tea mug in Lu Dingyi's direction, and Yang Chengwu shook his fist under Lu's face and said, 'This is the dictatorship of the proletariat!

The renewal of their friendship was signalled by the fact that Einstein let Bohr use his office. One day Bohr was dictating a draft of a paper in honour of Einstein’s 70th birthday to Pais. Stuck on what to say next, Bohr stood looking out of the window, every now and then muttering Einstein’s name aloud. At that moment Einstein tiptoed into the office. His doctor had banned him from buying any tobacco, but had said nothing about stealing it. Pais later recounted what happened next: ‘Always on tiptoes, he made a beeline for Bohr’s tobacco pot, which stood on the table at which I was sitting. Bohr, unaware, was standing at the window, muttering, “Einstein…Einstein…” I was at a loss what to do, especially because I had at that moment not the faintest idea of what Einstein was up to. Then Bohr, with a firm “Einstein”, turned around. There they were, face to face, as if Bohr had summoned him forth. It is an understatement to say that for a moment Bohr was speechless. I myself, who had seen it coming, had distinctly felt uncanny for a moment, so I could well understand Bohr’s own reaction. A moment later the spell was broken when Einstein explained his mission. Soon we were all bursting with laughter.

They each contribute at least one dish to their new menu. It's not an extensive list, just a handful of favorites that are not only delicious and filling, but affordable as well. Peter makes the most mouthwatering shucos on heavenly soft long bread buns, buttered and toasted to perfection before being topped with halved hotdogs, guacamole, cabbage, mayonnaise, tomato sauce, chili sauce, and mustard. It's both crispy and soft at the same time, a perfect combination of textures in one's mouth. It's honestly the perfect dish for anyone looking for a quick but hearty meal for lunch. Freddie brings fish and chips to the table. Simple, delectable, but hardly anything to scoff at. He makes sure to use a beer batter to bring out the subtle flavors of the fresh halibut he uses. It's then fried to golden perfection. The fries are lovingly cut and seasoned by hand, optional Cajun spice in a small serving bowl to the side. He never skimps on the portion sizes, either. The fish is massive, and he makes sure to pile fries so high, a few always fall off the expo line. Rina contemplated making a classic pho from scratch, but eventually decided on her and her sister's personal favorite gỏi cuõn--- savory braised pork, massive prawns, soft vermicelli, cucumbers, lettuce, and diced carrots all wrapped up in a pretty rice paper blanket. The way she plates everything makes the dish look like a masterpiece that's too good to eat. Most people do, however, eat it eventually, because it'd be a right shame to waste such an amazing meal. Eden makes her mother's macaroni and cheese. The cheap, boxed shit from grocery stores doesn't even begin to compare. She comes in early to make the macaroni from scratch, rolling and kneading pasta dough with deft hands. The cheese sauce she uses is also made from scratch, generous helpings of butter and cream and sharp cheddar--- a sprinkle of salt and pepper and oregano, too--- melting into one cohesive concoction she then pours over her recently boiled pasta. She makes every bowl to order, placing everything in cute little ramekins they found on sale, popping it into the oven beneath the broiler so that the butter-coated bread crumb topping can turn a beautiful golden brown. With a bit of chopped bacon and fresh green onions sprinkled on top, it's arguably one of the most demanded dishes at The Lunchbox.

He turned back to the old man, whose eyes were half closed to the music. Oblivious. Sweet and oblivious to the New World ways. “I love music,” Federico said and opened his eyes. “When I was a boy, minstrels and troubadours would visit our village from the spring through the summer. I would sit until my mother shooed me from the square—sometimes with a switch, yes?—and watch them play. The sounds. Ah, the sounds! Language is such a poor substitute. You see?” Danny shook his head. “I’m not sure.” Federico pulled his chair closer to the table and leaned in. “Men’s tongues fork at birth. It has always been so. The bird cannot lie. The lion is a hunter, to be feared, yes, but he is true to his nature. The tree and rock are true—they are a tree and rock. Nothing more, but nothing less. But man, the

Of course, Adam was still counting days the old way, as Sunday was the first day of the week, so he was misinforming me as to which day his father actually arrived in Spain, seemingly by accident, by mistake. Perhaps it was a mistake that Adam had confused the European calendar with the Israeli calendar from time to time; perhaps it was not a mistake. Ferran actually arrived the following day, Tuesday, according to the Gregorian calendar and not Monday, when we had all been preparing for his arrival with Martina in vain. I had wanted to introduce her to the old man nicely. However, Tuesday, when he was scheduled to arrive, Mario Larese - Mister Twister - showed up, banging the glass of the store-front door, echoing throughout the entire store and upstairs apartment, as if he was about to break the glass if I did not go down to open it. He was knocking on the plain, large glass of the door with either a lighter or with his metal ring; I don't know which, but it was terrible. I knew Ferran could arrive at any moment, so I told Martina it might be best if she went home to Paola and let me take care of the business. I couldn't ignore Mario, who was almost breaking the glass, seemingly because he had seen my scooter parked in front of the store. I opened the door and he started pushing his way inside, saying, “Let's smoke a joint and drink a coffee.” I replied, “Slow down, cowboy. I've got company, I'm expecting more company, and I just woke up. I have no time now; sorry, Mario.” He kept banging the door because he wanted to smoke somewhere early in the morning, and Canale Vuo was still closed. I was so tempted to slap him. Unintentionally, I let slip that I was expecting Ferran, which only increased his refusal to leave. Theatrical. Dramatic. He wasn't going to get out of my store, my way, my day, my life, my struggle, or my schedule. Meanwhile, the same time, Nico was bugging me on the phone to make sure I delivered a box of 1,000 cones for La Silla because they needed it to make pre-rolled joints for their smokers. They sold 2-3,000 pre-rolled joints a week, ordering two boxes weekly, thus making me waste my time for free. I started to think it had all been planned just to make me lose time every week. They sold 3,000 joints a week and yet couldn't afford more than two boxes of cones to purchase to keep up. Tuesday morning was so urgent for La Silla to get those 1,000 brown cones right then. Just for Nico's 5-euro commission and so he wouldn't be embarrassed in front of his friends at La Silla with his sales performance - no problem. I couldn't kick out Mario, and I didn't want to kick out Martina, who apparently didn't want to leave. I asked them to leave, but Mario was leaning on the kitchen table and unable to look up or turn toward me to meet my gaze. Martina was looking at me angrily. So, I told them both, “OK then, stay here; let the old man inside once he arrives. I have to deliver this box of cones to La Silla right away, but I will be right back. 20 minutes tops.” Adam had also failed to inform me that he had copied a set of keys for his dad at one point, and he had somehow sent them to Israel by mail, I guess. Martina did not need to stay in the store to let Ferran in, but I did not know that. Adam was always secretive and brief with his words, as if it cost him money to say words out of his mouth or dictate to Rachel what to write in an email or what he was supposed to tell me on the phone. I thought that Martina had to stay to let Ferran into the store in case he arrived just when I went to La Mesa to do a favor for Nico. I was on my way back to Urgell from La Silla, when Adam suddenly called me from Amsterdam, screaming on the phone.

Shallow. Harmless. A little bit stupid. Crazy in love with you. Needs access to every part of the house. Let’s see . . . Who am I? Well, Roman’s trophy wife, of course. I am pretty, elegant, and extremely snobbish. I love wearing expensive clothes, just the best labels. I’m not really into dresses unless the occasion requires it. I much more prefer designer jeans, paired with silky blouses. The heels are a must.” She pauses, opens her eyes, and turns toward me. “Are heels a must, do you think?” She scrunches her tiny nose. “Of course they are. Damn it. I hate wearing heels.” She closes her eyes again and continues. “The heels are a must, and I have dozens of them. Roman loves when I wear them, he says they make my butt look amazing. I’m also very self-conscious about my height, and wearing heels all the time makes me forget how short I am. My favorite pastime is shopping, and I buy a ton of clothes. My husband has to allocate one driver specifically for me and my shopping sprees.” Another pause and she turns toward me again. “Roman, I’ll need funds to support her addiction with clothes. She is an impulse buyer.” “You’ll get anything you need,” I laugh. She’s completely nuts. “My husband is crazy about me, and he allows me to do whatever I want with the house, like rearrange furniture, so the vibe of the house works better with the earth vibrations. The house feels terribly cold, so I buy a bunch of indoor plants and spread them everywhere. I also tour every single room because I want to make sure the unobstructed energy flows, so I rearrange paintings and mirrors. I also hate the dining room table, it’s so overstated, and I decide to swap it with a sleek glass one I found in an interior design magazine.” Another pause. “This woman is expensive, Roman. I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into.” “I’ll manage.” “Your funeral.” She shrugs and continues. “My husband doesn’t like it when he’s interrupted, but of course, that doesn’t apply to me. I often come into his office just to check up on him and exchange a few kisses. It annoys his men so much. They wonder what he sees in me and why he allows me so much freedom, and then decide he’s thinking with his dick. I’m always around, and they hate it.

The woman in the pictures may change, but what remains constant is that she is always someone Andrew had fucked or was fucking or wanted to fuck, and that's something that, for me, keeps them from being art photos, the work of an artist. That's something that, no matter how beautiful they are, turns them into booby pictures that Andrew took and pulled out of a leather satchel as we sat at my kitchen table - pictures that, for reasons I haven't yet figured out, Andrew showed to me but not to my husband, who wanted into the kitchen to fix a ham sandwich while Andrew and I flipped through his leather-covered portfolio -- and I tried to think of things to say that weren't "How on earth did you ever talk this girl into doing this?

Often when I do interviews and press events from space, I’m asked what I miss about Earth. I have a few answers I always reach for that make sense in any context: I mention rain, spending time with my family, relaxing at home. Those are always true. But throughout the day, from moment to moment, I’m aware of missing all sorts of random things that don’t even necessarily rise to the surface of my consciousness. I miss cooking. I miss chopping fresh food, the smell vegetables give up when you first slice into them. I miss the smell of the unwashed skins of fruit, the sight of fresh produce piled high in grocery stores. I miss grocery stores, the shelves of bright colors and the glossy tile floors and the strangers wandering the aisles. I miss people. I miss the experience of meeting new people and getting to know them, learning about a life different from my own, hearing about things people experienced that I haven’t. I miss the sound of children playing, which always sounds the same no matter their language. I miss the sound of people talking and laughing in another room. I miss rooms. I miss doors and door frames and the creak of wood floorboards when people walk around in old buildings. I miss sitting on my couch, sitting on a chair, sitting on a bar stool. I miss the feeling of resting after opposing gravity all day. I miss the rustle of papers, the flap of book pages turning. I miss drinking from a glass. I miss setting things down on a table and having them stay there. I miss the sudden chill of wind on my back, the warmth of sun on my face. I miss showers. I miss running water in all its forms: washing my face, washing my hands. I miss sleeping in a bed—the feel of sheets, the heft of a comforter, the welcoming curve of a pillow. I miss the colors of clouds at different times of day and the variety of sunrises and sunsets on Earth.

On train trips, Ernie always wanted the window seat. He knew the names of the trees we passed, and the clouds—nacreous, cumulus, nimbus. He was ever vigilant for animal life and appreciative of the tiny patches of humanity along the tracks that exposed the lives of the rail-side dwellers in such intimate detail. “I love sad houses,” he’d say, pointing to a chorus line of discoloured laundry waving at us, to an upturned self-propelled lawnmower, straggly gardens, leaky drainpipes, a rain-weathered pram that had been turned into a wheelbarrow. “The porch lights are on to keep the rats in their dens,” he’d said. To be a voyeur of decay at such close range was as much of an enthrallment as it was a validation of the scarcities in his own backyard. I knew exactly which days Ernie’s mum had had to choose between heating the house and putting food on the table. My mother had been there too. Before the Zipper had given her a leg up.

One day he can only hope and tables will turn. Until that day arrives and his loneliness evaporates he will remain the one who stands on the outside always looking in.

The following day Alexander came back in the evening and said happily, “Girls! You know what day today is, don’t you?” They looked at him blankly. Tatiana had gone to the hospital for a few hours. What she did there, she could not remember. Dasha seemed even more unfocused. They attempted to smile, and failed. “What day is it?” asked Dasha. “It’s New Year’s Eve!” he exclaimed. They stared. “Come, look, I brought us three cans of tushonka.” He grinned. “One each. And some vodka. But only a little bit. You don’t want to be drinking too much vodka.” Tatiana and Dasha continued to stare at him. Tatiana finally said, “Alexander, how will we even know when it’s New Year? We have only the wind-up alarm clock that hasn’t been right in months. And the radio is not working.” Alexander pointed to his wristwatch. “I’m on military time. I always know precisely what time it is. And you two have got to be more cheerful. This is no way to act before a celebration.” There was no table to set anymore, but they laid their food out on plates, sat on the couch in front of the bourzhuika, and ate their New Year’s Eve dinner of tushonka, some white bread and a spoonful of butter. Alexander gave Dasha cigarettes and Tatiana, with a smile, a small hard candy, which she gladly put in her mouth. They sat chatting quietly until Alexander looked at his watch and went to pour everyone a bit of vodka. In the darkened room they stood up a few minutes before twelve and raised their glasses to 1942. They counted down the last ten seconds, and clinked and drank, and then Alexander kissed and hugged Dasha, and Dasha kissed and hugged Tatiana, and said, “Go on, Tania, don’t be afraid, kiss Alexander on New Year’s,” and went to sit on the couch, while Tatiana raised her face to Alexander, who bent to Tatiana and very carefully, very gently kissed her on the lips. It was the first time his lips had touched hers since St. Isaac’s. “Happy New Year, Tania.” “Happy New Year, Alexander.” Dasha was on the couch with her eyes closed, a drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other. “Here’s to 1942,” she said. “Here’s to 1942,” echoed Alexander and Tatiana, allowing themselves a glance before he went to sit next to Dasha. Afterward they all lay down in the bed together, Tatiana next to her wall, turned to Dasha, turned to Alexander. Are there any layers left? she thought. There is hardly life left, how can anything be covering our remains?

On The Outside Looking In By David Harris The peels of laughter emulate from within and he stands on the outside forever looking in. He stands the stranger, which no one wants to know. Sadness always etched across his brow with a lonely heart beating inside. He sees the smiles radiate from within while he stands alone always on the outside looking in. The one who stands apart from any joyous crown with only tears and a lonely heart. He is the one who never is invited to parties at anytime, but has to watch from outside a window on the outside always looking in. He is that someone everyone rejects as a friend. One day he can only hope and tables will turn. Until that day arrives and his loneliness evaporates he will remain the one who stands on the outside always looking in. Reprinted with permission from the author

When he was three years old Jackie ran into the house crying. I asked, "What's happened? What's wrong?" He showed me his bleeding hand - the palm of his hand had been scraped. "How did you do that? It isn't bad! Did you hurt it on something dirty?" I patted the blood away with a tissue. He stopped crying; he pressed against me with his wet face. My husband said, coming into the kitchen, "Let's see what happened -" He took Jackie's hand and stared down at it. Jackie's hand was very small in his; his own hand was not clean. He had been working on the lawn mower. "Should this be washed out or what?" he said, looking at me. "You think there's some germs in it?" "I'd better wash it out." I turned on the hot water. "Maybe it should be sterilised. It should be washed out good," my husband said slowly. He stared down at Jackie's hand and for a few seconds he was silent. He loved Jackie very much; he was always afraid of Jackie getting hit by a car. Now Jackie tried to get away from him, uneasy. My husband looked strange, as if the sight of blood frightened him. "I can wash it out. I'll put a bandage on it," I said. He paid no attention to me. Instead, he turned on one of the electric burners of the stove, still holding Jackie's hand. "If it was something rusty... if it was some dirt, some filth, he could get very sick," my husband said. "The germs should be all killed." "What? What are you going to do?" "I know what to do," he said irritably, vaguely. "All it needs is a bandage...." Jackie began to cry, afraid of his father. He tried to get away. "Goddam it, hold still! You want to get lockjaw or something? Why is this kid always crying?" He pulled Jackie to the stove and before I could stop him he pressed his palm down onto the burner - Jackie screamed, kicked, broke away - it was all over in a second. "You're crazy! You burned him!" I cried. My husband stared at me. Jackie was screaming, gasping for breath, he had backed away against the kitchen table. His screams rose higher and higher. My husband stared at him and at me, very pale. "You're crazy!" I shouted at him. I ran cold water for Jackie to stick his hand under. The burn was not bad - the stove hadn't been hot enough. "I didn't mean to hurt him," my husband said slowly, "I... I don't know what...." "Putting his hand on the stove! God, you must be crazy!" There was something pulsating in me, a bright, thrilling nerve - I wanted to laugh in my husband's face, I wanted to claw at him, I wanted to gather Jackie up in my arms and run out of the house with him! I hated my husband and I was glad that he had made such a stupid mistake. I was glad he had burned Jackie and that Jackie was crying in my arms, pressing against me, terrified of his father. "I don't know what I was thinking off," he said. His voice was vague and slow and surprised. "I didn't mean...I'm sorry...." "Don't scare him anymore!" "I'm sorry. I must be going crazy...." "Where did you ever get such an idea?" He rubbed his hands violently across his face, across his eyes. "Jesus, I must be going crazy," he said. "You're just lucky the stove wasn't hot." Jackie kept crying, frightened. I took him into the bathroom and put a bandage on the cut - only a small scratch - no real burn at all.

I’m not built for a high-maintenance lover. I’ve always been the brat in a relationship. Now the tables have been turned on me, and I’m not handling it well.” “Corey,

could have sworn that she saw the tip of Douglas’s tail wag. She left Bomber to his odious sister and tripped downstairs into the bright afternoon sunshine. The last thing she heard as she closed the door behind her was from Portia, in an altogether changed, but still unpleasant, wheedling tone: ‘Now, darling, when are you going to publish my book?’ At the corner of Great Russell Street she stopped for a moment, remembering the man she had smiled at. She hoped that the person he was meeting hadn’t left him waiting for too long. Just then, in amongst the dust and dirt at her feet, the glint of gold and glass caught her eye. She stooped down, rescued the small, round object from the gutter and slipped it safely into her pocket. Chapter 4 It was always the same. Looking down and never turning his face to the sky, he searched the pavements and gutters. His back burned and his eyes watered, full of grit and tears. And then he fell; back through the black into the damp and twisted sheets of his own bed. The dream was always the same. Endlessly searching and never finding the one thing that would finally bring him peace. The house was filled with the deep, soft darkness of a summer night. Anthony swung his weary legs out of bed and sat shrugging the stubborn scraps of dream from his head. He would have to get up. Sleep would not return tonight. He padded down the stairs, their creaking wood echoing his aching bones. No light was needed until he reached the kitchen. He made a pot of tea, finding more comfort in the making than the drinking, and took it through to the study. Pale moonlight skimmed across the edges of the shelves and pooled in the centre of the mahogany table. High on a shelf in the corner, the gold lid of the biscuit tin winked at him as he crossed the room. He took it down carefully and set it in the shimmering circle of light on the table. Of all the things that he had ever found, this troubled him the most. Because it was not a ‘something’ but a ‘someone’; of that he was unreasonably sure. Once again, he removed the lid and inspected the contents, as he had done every day for the past week since bringing it home. He had already repositioned the tin in the study several times, placing it higher up or hidden from sight, but its draw remained irresistible. He couldn’t leave it alone. He dipped his hand into the tin and gently rolled the coarse, grey grains across his fingertips. The memory swept through him, snatching his breath and winding him as surely as any punch to the gut. Once again, he was holding death in his hands. The life they could have had together was a self-harming fantasy in which Anthony rarely indulged. They might have been grandparents by now. Therese had never spoken about wanting children, but then they had both assumed that they had

When at last we arrived in Mannheim, I found that my apartment had been rented to a family whose young son was an amputee. I had conscientiously paid our landlady the entire time we were gone and now that I returned and needed my apartment I couldn’t do anything about it. I felt upset that these people usurped what was ours and I didn’t find much comfort when they offered us one of the bedrooms to live in. Frustrated as I was, there was nobody I could turn to. The rule of law had been suspended, so the only thing I could do was accept their offer. As I moved into what had been my bedroom, they reluctantly agreed that I could share the kitchen and use one of the burners on the stove. Climbing up into the attic, I found a bed that my husband Richard had used when he was a student. Now I had to cram onto it with the children every night and it always became a contest as to who got the pillow. None of us got much rest but the experience did bring us closer together. Frequently I wound up on the floor. Somehow I found a vicarious joy in seeing that my furniture, which the other family had been using, was becoming warped from moisture damage. It had been in a room where the window was blown out during one of the air raids. Of course this exposed everything to the weather, and so the frequent rains ruined the table and much of the other furniture. I really grew to dislike these people and with each passing day things became worse. One day while trying to balance three pots on one burner, I got an idea as to what I would do next….

I nurse the small fish on my plate. Cassius is already finished with his, always a man of appetites. I'm more practiced than he in the art of self-deprivation at the dinner table, doesn't feel so long ago that I was a knobby-kneed boy sitting at my grandmother's dinner table when she turned her long neck to me and peered down that Peregrine nose, and in a kindly manner, inquired if I intend to sleep out in the gutter instead of in my bed chamber, because by virtue of the fact that I'd eaten three whole tarts, I'd clearly abdicated being a man in favor of being a little pig.

Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come. -ROMANS 5: 14 (Emphasis mine) Paul explains that Adam’s failure opened the door for the alien entities of sin and death to enter and wreak havoc upon the human race. It was Adam alone whose work is blamed, though Eve technically ate first. Paul seems to be laying out Adam’s role as the head of the human race, the gateway through which death and sin passed to the subsequent generations. However, after establishing this truth, Paul turns the tables, telling us that Adam was merely a pattern of a greater One who was to come –Jesus, the last Adam! This word, pattern, is the Greek word typos, which can be translated as “an example”, or a “for instance”. You see, Adam was not plan a., but merely an example. Jesus is, was, and always will be the eternal plan a.! Adam served the eternal purpose of educating the human race on how Christ’s work of redemption would function. Just as the work of one man, Adam, affected the whole, so it would be with Jesus. Adam is given the title of first, but Jesus is given the title of last! He is not merely called the “second Adam”, but the “last Adam”. This means that whatever Christ accomplishes on our behalf will be final. It will never be undone, and serves as the period, capping off and sealing God’s declaration concerning redemption.

city, ending again at the palace gate. “Bounds must always be walked to dawn first,” Belvarin had explained. “It is not the direction of the circle, but the direction of the first turn that matters—it must be the shortest way to the rising sun and the elvenhome kingdoms.” Now they were nearing the city’s margin, with forest beyond gardens and orchards. A cloud of birds rose singing from the trees—tiny birds, brilliantly colored, fluttering like butterflies. They swooped nearer, flew in a spiral over his head, and returned to the trees as the procession turned toward the river. Butterflies then took over, out of the gardens and orchards, arching over the lane, then settling on his shoulders and arms as lightly as air, as if he wore a cloak of jeweled wings. As they neared the river side of the city, the butterflies lifted away, and out of the water meadows rose flying creatures as brightly colored as the birds and butterflies … glittering gauzy wings, metallic greens, golds, blues, scarlet. Kieri put up his hand and one landed there long enough for him to see it clearly. Great green eyes, a body boldly striped in black, gold, and green, with a green tail. The head cocked toward him; he could see tiny jaws move. Was it talking? He could hear nothing, but the creature looked as if it were listening. It was a long walk, and his new boots—comfortable enough that morning—were far less so by the time they reached the palace gates again. He could smell the fragrance of roast meats and bread, but next he had the ritual visit to the royal ossuary, and spoke vows into that listening silence, to those who had given him bone and blood, vows no one else would hear. He came up again to find the feast spread in the King’s Ride, long tables stretching away into the distance. On either side, the trees rose up; he could feel them, feel their roots below the cushiony sod that welcomed his feet. His place lay at the farthest table, with

So here’s the dealio; I was trying to think of what I could get for your birthday that would mean something, not just the usual Barbie crap. And I was thinking—you and me are Indian. Your mom’s not, but we are. And I’ve always liked Indian symbols. Know what a symbol is?” She shook her head. “Shit that stands for shit. So let’s see if I remember this right.” Sitting on the bed, he plucked the bird card out of her hand, turning it around in his fingers. “Okay, this guy is magic. He’ll protect you from bad spells and other kinds of weirdness you might not even be aware of.” Carefully he unwound the wire ties that attached the small charm to its plastic card and placed the bird on her bedside table. Then he picked up the teddy bear. “This fierce animal is a protector.” She laughed. “No, really. It may not look like it, but appearances can be deceiving. This dude is a fearless spirit. And with that fearless spirit, he signals bravery to those who require it.” He freed the bear from the card and set it on the table next to the bird. “All right. Now the fish. This one might be the best of all. It gives you the power to resist other people’s magic. How cool is that?” She thought

Sweet Dreams In the evening I like to “cash out”—something I learned from waiting tables in my youth. Before we could go home, we had to cash out, meaning turn in all our receipts, credit card slips, and cash. Everything had to add up, or there was big trouble! It’s important to cash out your day’s performance. Compared to your plan for the day, how did it go? What do you need to carry over to tomorrow’s plan? What else needs to be added, based on what showed up throughout the day? What’s no longer important and needs to be scratched out? Additionally, I like to log into my journal any new ideas, ah-has or insights I picked up throughout the day—this is how I’ve collected more than forty journals of incredible ideas, insights, and strategies. Finally, I like to read at least ten pages of an inspirational book before going to sleep. I know the mind continues to process the last information consumed before bedtime, so I want to focus my attention on something constructive and helpful in making progress with my goals and ambitions. That’s it. All hell can break loose throughout the day, but because I control the bookends, I know I’m always going to start and finish strong.

door, waited then let herself in, and instantly she saw that her employer was fast asleep, propped up against the pillows in her bed. But this was Mrs Spooner as she had never seen her before. The old lady’s wig was discarded on the dressing table, and with her wispy grey hair floating about her head and without her heavy layers of paint and powder she looked suddenly very old and fragile. Sunday had often helped her to undress but Biddy had always insisted on having complete privacy afterwards, seeing to the rest of her toilette herself. Now the girl saw why. Mrs Spooner was understandably reluctant to let anyone see her like this, so not wishing to upset her she quickly turned about and tiptoed from the room. The incident did bring home to Sunday, however, that Mrs Spooner might be even older than she had thought and she found herself wondering what would happen to herself, Nell and Mickey if their beloved employer should die. But then, feeling utterly selfish and guilty for having such thoughts, she let herself into her room, revelling in the sheer luxury of it. For now, she was just going to enjoy herself. The future would see to itself. Chapter Forty The following morning after Sunday had helped Mrs Spooner to get dressed in yet another outrageous gown, mint-green this time, and enjoying a hearty breakfast in the hotel dining room the three of them set off on a sightseeing tour of London in a horse-drawn carriage.

Sorry about that. For years, my sister has labored under the impression that she’s funny. My father and I have humored her in this.” Rylann waved this off. “No apology necessary. She’s just protective of you. That’s what siblings do—at least, I assume it is.” “No brothers or sisters for you?” Kyle asked. Rylann shook her head. “My parents had me when they were older. I asked for a sister every birthday until I was thirteen, but it wasn’t in the cards.” She shrugged. “But at least I have Rae.” “When did you two meet?” “College. We were in the same sorority pledge class. Rae is…” Rylann cocked her head, trying to remember. “What’s that phrase men always use when describing their best friend? The thing about the hooker and the hotel room.” “If I ever woke up with a dead hooker in my hotel room, he’d be the first person I’d call. A truer test of male friendship there could not be.” Rylann smiled. “That’s cute. And a little scary, actually, that all you men have planned ahead for such an occasion.” She waved her hand. “Well, there you go. If I ever woke up with a dead hooker in my hotel room, Rae would be the first person I’d call.” Kyle rested his arms on the table and leaned in closer. “Counselor, you’re so by the book, the first person you’d call if you woke up next to a dead hooker would be the FBI.” “Actually, I’d call the cops. Most homicides aren’t federal crimes, so the FBI wouldn’t have jurisdiction.” Kyle laughed. He reached out and tucked back a lock of hair that had fallen into her eyes. “You really are a law geek.” At the same moment, they both realized what he was doing. They froze, eyes locked, his hand practically cupping the side of her cheek. Then they heard someone clearing her throat. Rylann and Kyle turned and saw Jordan standing at their table. “Wine, anyone?” With her blue eyes dancing, she set two glasses in front of them. “I’ll leave you two to yourselves now.” Rylann watched as Jordan strolled off. “I think you’re going to have some explaining to do after I leave,” she whispered to Kyle. “Oh, without a doubt, she’s going to be all up in my business over this.

I was clearing some plates off a table when I heard the familiar strum of guitar chords. My heart clenched painfully as I slowly made my way to the kitchen. Tonight was another open-mic night, and while I enjoyed having live music playing throughout the bar and dining room, I didn’t usually pay that much attention to it. But there was no way to miss this song. The deep, husky voice began crooning through the speakers as I came back out of the kitchen empty-handed. And I couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew that voice as I made my way to a spot where I could see the stage. I rubbed a hand over my aching chest and stopped suddenly when I saw Kash sitting on the stool in front of the mic with a guitar in his hands. What was he doing? Since when did he play guitar and sing? And why this song? His eyes searched the dining area and landed on me just as he began the first chorus of “I’ll Be.” Tears pricked the back of my eyes and my entire body warmed under his intense stare as he continued through words that meant more to me than he could have known. Not once did he take his eyes from me, and my mind and heart fought over my conflicting feelings. Part of me wanted to yell that he was the guy I’d been waiting for. That I was in love with him and was done being only his friend. The other part wanted to know why he was torturing me with this song. With everything else that had happened tonight and the fourth anniversary of my parents’ death less than two months away, I wanted to run away from there, to curl in a ball and mourn what I had lost and would never have. I couldn’t call my mom and tell her I’d met a guy whose presence alone made me dizzy. Who sang to me the same song Dad had always sung to her. I couldn’t tell my parents that no matter how hard I fought my feelings and pushed Kash away, I knew I’d met the man I wanted to marry. The haunting words drifted to an end, and soon the chords did too. When Kash was finished, he put the guitar on the stand and began walking in my direction. Throughout all of this, his eyes still hadn’t left mine. Before he could reach me, the bitter side of me won out and I turned on my heel and rushed back to my customers. I kept myself busy for the rest of the hour and whenever I had to go over to the bar, I made sure to go to Bryce’s side so I wouldn’t have to face Kash again. I knew I was being ridiculous, but if it had been any song other than that one, if it had been on a night that wasn’t wearing me completely down, I may have been brave enough to finally fight for what I wanted. But right now all I could think of was finishing out this shift at work and staying far from Logan Hendricks. Somehow, he knew how to get to me. And somehow, I knew that our being together was right. But especially after that morning, everything about him—and us together—scared me. And I wasn’t sure I could handle that right now. People say that being in love is amazing. They lie. It’s freaking terrifying.  

Giving her a second, I stood up and walked into my room, threw a pair of sweatpants over my shorts, and shrugged into a sweatshirt. God, how was she shivering? I was already sweating with this on. But if I couldn’t comfort her in the way I wanted to, I was going to do it in the only other way I knew how. I’d just be there for her. When I walked back through the living room, her sobs had quieted, but she was still in a ball. Heading into the kitchen, I grabbed two bottled waters, a spoon, and the pint of Ben and Jerry’s she always made sure I had in the freezer. I put everything on the coffee table, grabbed the remote, and searched the DVR until I found Bridesmaids. I didn’t give a shit about the two hundred dollars or breakfasts I would owe her for this. Sitting down next to her this time, I picked up the water and ice cream, balanced them on my legs, and turned the volume up. When the movie started, she brought her red face up and glanced at the TV with a furrowed brow before looking over at me. Her eyebrows shot straight up when she saw me. “What are you wearing?” Her voice was hoarse from crying and I handed her the bottle of water. “Well, you came over in sweats. I figured I missed the memo or something and had to get in on the party.” She looked at the TV and back to me, and a small smile cracked when she took the ice cream and spoon from me. I’d pushed her enough today. I hated knowing what I knew and vowed to one day find out who this guy was. Hopefully now that she knew she could talk to me, she’d open up more when she was ready. But anything more today would be too much. So I settled into the couch and pretended to watch the movie instead of her every move. After a while, she handed me back the half-empty container and leaned against my shoulder. My arm automatically went around her and I pulled her close to my side. “Thank you, Kash,” she whispered a couple minutes later. “Anything for you, Rach. I’m here whenever you need to talk.” Pressing my lips to her forehead, I kept them there as I said, “And I will always protect you.” We were still sitting there watching the movie when Mason came back from his run. He nodded at us, and when he came back out of his room after a shower, he was dressed in sweats as well. He grabbed the melting ice cream and tried to squeeze himself onto the couch on the other side of Rachel. She laughed and curled closer into my side. “You guys are the best.” “You think we’re going to let you veg on the couch alone?” Mason said, scoffing. “Sweetheart, you obviously don’t know us that well. I mean, it’s gonna be a hundred degrees today. How else would I spend the day than in sweats?” Rachel kicked at his leg and he squeezed her knee. After a few minutes of watching the movie, Mason caught my gaze over Rachel’s head. He quickly looked down at her and raised an eyebrow, the question clear in his eyes. I nodded once and the color drained from his face. He swallowed hard and grabbed one of Rachel’s hands. She laughed lightly at something from the movie and his eyes came back to mine. They were determined, and he looked like he was struggling at relaxing his now-murderous expression. I knew exactly how he felt. He didn’t have to say anything to me. We’d worked together long enough to know that we’d both just agreed to find the bastard. And make him pay.

Giving her a second, I stood up and walked into my room, threw a pair of sweatpants over my shorts, and shrugged into a sweatshirt. God, how was she shivering? I was already sweating with this on. But if I couldn’t comfort her in the way I wanted to, I was going to do it in the only other way I knew how. I’d just be there for her. When I walked back through the living room, her sobs had quieted, but she was still in a ball. Heading into the kitchen, I grabbed two bottled waters, a spoon, and the pint of Ben and Jerry’s she always made sure I had in the freezer. I put everything on the coffee table, grabbed the remote, and searched the DVR until I found Bridesmaids. I didn’t give a shit about the two hundred dollars or breakfasts I would owe her for this. Sitting down next to her this time, I picked up the water and ice cream, balanced them on my legs, and turned the volume up. When the movie started, she brought her red face up and glanced at the TV with a furrowed brow before looking over at me. Her eyebrows shot straight up when she saw me. “What are you wearing?” Her voice was hoarse from crying and I handed her the bottle of water. “Well, you came over in sweats. I figured I missed the memo or something and had to get in on the party.” She looked at the TV and back to me, and a small smile cracked when she took the ice cream and spoon from me. I’d pushed her enough today. I hated knowing what I knew and vowed to one day find out who this guy was. Hopefully now that she knew she could talk to me, she’d open up more when she was ready. But anything more today would be too much. So I settled into the couch and pretended to watch the movie instead of her every move. After a while, she handed me back the half-empty container and leaned against my shoulder. My arm automatically went around her and I pulled her close to my side. “Thank you, Kash,” she whispered a couple minutes later. “Anything for you, Rach. I’m here whenever you need to talk.” Pressing my lips to her forehead, I kept them there as I said, “And I will always protect you.” We

Dr. Henderson, he suggested I practice my Seductive Look, to learn if my diligent practice would pay off. I decided to give Andy a try, without his knowledge. Andy's stare had always intimidated me; now it was time to turn the tables. I noticed Andy walking alone, down a passageway. Plucking up my courage, I followed him. He did not notice I was trailing behind. As he turned a corner into the courtyard, he noticed me, several paces back. Turning around, he smiled, and waited for me to catch up. As I walked towards him he eyed me with his usual lustful, intimating stare, as if he saw me naked through my djellaba (our Bahriji school uniform.) Normally, I would have avoided looking into his eyes, afraid of being sexually aroused. Today was different.

Kestrel set her cup on its saucer. “I didn’t ask to see you,” she said. “Too bad.” Arin claimed the chair across from her table in the library in a manner unbearably familiar to her. It was as if the chair had always been his. He slouched in his seat, tipped his head back, and looked at her from beneath lowered lids. The morning light fired his profile. “Worried, Lady Kestrel?” He spoke in Valorian, his accent roughening his voice. He always pronounced his r’s too low in his throat, so that when he spoke in her tongue everything came across as a soft growl. “Dreading what I’ll say…or do?” He smiled a grim little smile. “No need. I’ll be the perfect gentleman.” He tugged at his cuffs. It was only then that Kestrel noticed that they came too short on his arms and showed his wrists. It pained her to see his self-consciousness, the way it had suddenly revealed itself. In this light, his gray eyes were too clear. His posture had been confident. His words had had an edge. But his eyes were uncertain. Arin fidgeted again with his cuffs as if there was something wrong with them--with him. No, she would have said. You’re perfect, she wanted to say. She imagined it: how she would reach out to touch Arin’s bare wrist. That could lead nowhere good. She was nervous, she was cold. Her stomach was a flurry of snow. She dropped her hands to her lap. “No one’s here anyway,” Arin said, “and the librarians are in the stacks. You’re safe enough.” It was too early for courtiers to be in the library. Kestrel had counted on this, and on the fact that if anyone did turn up and saw her with the Herrani minister of agriculture, such a meeting would excite little interest. One with Arin, however, was an entirely different story. It was frustrating: his uncanny ability to unsettle her plans--and her very sense of self. She said, “Pressing where you’re not invited seems to be a habit with you.” “And yours is to put people in their place. But people aren’t gaming pieces. You can’t arrange them to suit yourself.” A librarian coughed. “Lower your voice,” Kestrel hissed at Arin. “Stop being so--” “Inconvenient?” “Frankly, yes.” His smile came: quick, true, surprised by itself. Then changing, and slow. “I could be worse.” “I am sure.” “I could tell you how.” “Arin, how is it for you here, in the capital?” He held her gaze. “I would rather talk about what we were talking about.” “Arin, how is it for you here, in the capital?” He held her gaze. “I would rather talk about what we were talking about.” She arranged her fingers along the studs that pinned green leather to the tabletop. She felt each cool, small, hard nail. The silence inside her was like those nails. What it held down was something sheer: a feeling like fragile silk, billowing up at the sound of his voice. If she and Arin were to talk about what they had been talking about, that silk could tear free. It would float up. It would catch the light, and cast a colored shadow. What color would it be, Kestrel wondered, the silk of what she felt? What would it be like to let it go, let it canopy above her?

Yet, this greeter, built like a small brick house, was two buildings over from his condo. Why couldn't hot-greeter-guy make a quick stop by Avery's place after he got off work tonight? A quick in and out kind of thing, all under the cover of complete darkness. Avery could see no reason why that wouldn't work just fine for both of them. As the front door opened behind him, Avery gave a knowing wink and moved on to the maître d'. He'd have this all worked out before he left the restaurant tonight, of that he was certain. Avery looked back over his shoulder as he was taken to his table. The greeter stood there watching him walk away. Good step forward in closing this deal. They made brief eye contact and Avery grinned. A good Italian meal and some hot sex afterward…damn, this was turning out to be a good night after all.

No, they were," Avery said, clearly confusing her. As he waited for someone to answer the phone, he gave Janice his most cocky grin, a very clear watch-me-get-what-I-want expression. "La Bella Luna, can I help you?" The deep rich timbre turned him on instantly, and his gaze strayed to the corner of his desk, Janice completely forgotten. "Good Morning, this is Avery Adams. Who do I have the pleasure of speaking with?" He already knew the answer, he just wanted to hear Kane's voice again. Avery thought about Kane's hands and how competently he'd handled that bottle of wine. He imagined them using the same care as he picked up the phone from the cradle. The air in the room sizzled, his heartbeat picked up, and his body grew hard with need. He had never in his life been so immediately taken with another. Avery prayed Kane might be at least bi-sexual. Straight men were much harder to work into his bed—not impossible, but harder—and he definitely wanted Kane Dalton in his bed. "Hello, Mr. Adams. This Kane Dalton, would you prefer I transfer this call to someone else?" The soothing voice on the other end of the phone became tense. "No, you're who I was hoping to speak with. It seems you and I may have gotten off on the wrong foot, and I'd like to set things right between us," Avery said, adjusting his gaze to stare out the open window. "I have no issue with you, sir," Kane responded back immediately. "There's a large bouquet of rather expensive lilies sitting in my office that might say otherwise." He cut his eyes back to the flowers on the small conference table. Kane didn't respond this time, there was just silence. Good. Kane got a taste of his own medicine. "Listen, I'd like to book a regular table in your restaurant a couple of days a week. It doesn't have to be the same days each week, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself a few nights ago and got reacquainted with several families from my youth." He was met with more silence, then he heard the rustle of pages being turned. "Sir, I'm sorry, but I just don't have—" "I'll make it worth your while." Avery cut him off, his eyes still on the flowers, but seeing the man who sent them instead of the lovely blooms. "It's not that, sir. We're just incredibly booked." Kane started with the excuses again, but Avery wasn't taking no for an answer. "Please lose the sir. My name's Avery. I'd like you to use it." Avery's voice turned lower and huskier as he spoke from his deepest desires. "Avery," Kane said as if testing the word. "We don't have the space available. We're booked solidly for several months." "No one's that booked," Avery called him on the lie, and left it right there between them. After a long extended pause, Kane finally answered, "You're right, let's get you in Monday and Wednesday evenings. Does that suit you?" "You sure do," Avery said. Now that he'd managed a firm reservation, it was time to draw Kane in. Not surprisingly, he was met with silence. "I'll take whatever days you offer." In fact, I'll take whatever you are willing to give. As the thought faded, Avery realized those were actually terrible days to be seen out and about. "Seven o'clock?" Kane asked, ignoring everything he said. "Whatever works," Avery replied. "All right, would you like to come in tomorrow night?" Kane asked. His tone was back to all business. "Absolutely!

No, sir, that's not the restaurant's policy. A customer wants you, you do what he needs. And that customer definitely wants you," Markie said and actually chuckled this time. That just flat grated on Kane's nerves. All he could do was gawk at the waiter for a few seconds in total disbelief before turning his attention to the bartender. "Rodney, can you handle this one for me?" Kane stopped at the end of the bar, even more frustrated that Rodney wore the same smirk as Markie. Why did his carefully planned life feel as if it was all of the sudden spinning out of control? His mother at the beginning of the week, Brian this afternoon, and now he had a guest from hell at table thirty-four…and his staff had decided this was all a game to them. Really? "We tried that last time, remember? He wants you," Rodney said, grinning at Markie as he poured two new drinks. Did they really just exchange winks? Seriously?

From the corner of his eye, he saw most of the kitchen staff standing in the small windows of the double doors beside him. La Bella Luna was full tonight, how was Paulie letting this happen? Weren't there dinners to prepare? Kane cocked a brow, turning inquisitively toward the window, only to see Paulie's smirking face gloating back at him. He had to be in an episode of the Twilight Zone. Drill Sergeant Paulie gave him a big grin and nodded him toward the table.