Once upon a time, there was an artist who hated to paint. In the house to the left of the artist was a writer who hated to write, and next to his house was a musician who hated playing instruments. These three lived on Avenue Street in a city called Grouping of Buildings. Every weekday the three would arise in the morning and do what they hated most. The artist would begin by laboriously cleaning her brushes from yesterday, the writer would sharpen his pencils, and the musician would tune their instruments. By 8:00 o’clock each day they would begin their work. By 12:00 o’clock they would gather for sandwiches and tea, and grumble about what each of them had completed in the morning. They spent their days as such, and by the time the weekend came, they were glad not to do their tasks and instead enjoyed each other’s company and going to the farmer’s market on Sundays.…
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I liked her best when she was puking her guts out, more than once, in a mini dress, can’t remember the color, maybe cream, fall 1998, rural New England, by a big tree, then another, after the dance at which I’m pretty sure she didn’t dance but at which I’m absolutely sure she did a great deal of underage drinking, after which I helped a few guys prop her up, walk her back to her room in the little house for upperclassmen where I put her to bed, where she puked again, all over the spread on her twin bed, which I’m pretty sure I later inherited. I do love a hand-me-down. Vulnerability. Rigid self-appointed authority demoted, somewhat disgusting, disarmed. Then back down the gravel road in the dark, across the little causeway into co-ed Kendrick, down the stairs to the room I shared with a round-faced Ritalin addict who sold drugs out of our mini-fridge.…
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The old couple have vanished from my view. Hard to believe: they were there for so long. Gone too, the snatches of their rumpus. The tiffs and bouts grew louder as the man’s mobility and faculties diminished – but, even then, they seemed to me perfect companions, he the milder one, she, the more forceful, though half his size.
Their apartment was adjacent to mine and a few floors below, and I’d catch her cleaning windows or pegging dishcloths, a diminutive demon, tackling tasks with vim. She loved leaning over the rail and flapping towels. Every morning she swept the narrow balcony, claiming it with the clatter of her broom. Her husband would often sit out there on his own, absorbed for hours in a hobby, hunched over a jigsaw, or gluing matchsticks together, plump fingers at work.…
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Many years ago, I replaced the mail slot in the front door of our family home and found a note wedged between the old frame and the door. It was a note to my little sister Kate, left there a few months before by her boyfriend Bill. She had known Bill since their high school days and they were inseparable. They went to summer camps together and then enrolled in the same college to study English Literature. They both returned home after college and took up teaching jobs in the local school.
All of us thought that they were going to get married. Months went by. I got the sense that they were somehow slowly drifting apart. They saw each other less often, and Bill lost the characteristic bounce in his gait. …
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How can someone atone for a sin they cannot name?
It was Yom Kippur. The four of us donned formal wear.
Mom was anxious & had to double-check the locks, making us late.
Dad yelled, cursing the heavens. Our annual ritual—
fasting, & then rushing out to Wendy’s at 4 o’clock to break.
How can someone atone for a sin they cannot name?
Among the crowded, ticketed, gussied-up masses,
we filed into pray, to atone
for our sins. I was 11, obediently taking in
the words of teshuva:
For transgressions against God, the Day of Atonement atones;
but for transgressions of
one human being against another,
the Day of Atonement does not atone
until they have made peace with one another.…
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Jillian Reese is sipping a venti Starbucks Green Tea Frappuccino on a bench in the Men’s Department of Nordstrom’s. So far, for the occasion of her fiancé’s return from a three-year deployment in Afghanistan, she hasn’t garnered the energy she needs to begin searching for something special to wear on the day she welcomes him home. Her plan is to continue sitting and sipping until inspiration strikes.
Jillian practically grew up inside this store trailing behind her mother’s shoes. Brown snow boots with black fur trim in wintertime. Pastel, strappy sandals in the hot weather. When she was a child, department store mannequins looked different. Then, they looked like real people. Male mannequins in pleated shorts and short-sleeved golf shirts with muscled arms hanging relaxed by their thighs.…
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