From her earliest memories, Laura Bishop had been entranced by summer flowers. Every year, behind the small clapboard farmhouse where she lived with her mother and father, the hillside that sloped gently up to a stand of thick woods became a dazzling carpet—coneflower and corn poppy, blue flax, indian blanket, goldenrood and New England aster. These were the names taught to her by her mother.
“Now, your aunt Elizabeth, a very smart woman, indeed,” her mother had said, “knows every one of those flowers by their Latin names. She learned them at the college in Carbondale. I just know them by what we call them here. Good enough for me. In that I am in agreement with your father. Why do we need a foreign name when we have a perfectly fine one in good, old American?” …
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Casey was pricing vinyl when she walked in. The door was open. It was early, and he normally greeted customers when he was alone, but he figured it was a regular, poking through the newest used stuff. That or Sean forgot something. Casey continued with the stack until he heard the flutter of a coat and the scrape of approaching feet. When a woman cleared her throat, he looked up.
“Not going to ask if you can help me?”
“Can I help you?”
“I guess you trust people here. Not sure I would.”
He yawned. “What brings you to Seattle?”
“Robert’s nephew, Scott. Remember him? He’s getting married.”
“Why here—doesn’t he live in L.A.?”
“His wife and her family. They’re all from Tacoma.”
“And where’s Robert?”…
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I sat on the 18 -inch cement ledge that jutted out from the museum wall at the South entrance and looked at the fountain in front of me. It boasts 60 spouts, with a 6 -foot geyser of foaming water coming from each one. It is a big, oval- shaped fountain with a lip wide enough that sometimes you see young boys rollerblading around it, though they usually wipe out. Sometimes a particularly streamlined cyclist will attempt the circuit and jump off just as the curve tightens at either end.
Noontime. And even though fall was approaching, the sun was strong enough that I could sit out with only a sweater over my sleeveless dress, leftover from the summer. It wasn’t my lunch hour for I take that at 2:00 o’clock, a necessary defense against the long afternoons.…
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Last-minute shoppers were making frenzied purchases as the last rays of warmth died outside the mall. Seasonal malaise whistled in through cracks around the windows and doors and through the bullet holes from last summer’s drive-by shooting. Security had tightened, then, just like it tightened when that little boy went missing the summer before that and that makeup counter girl was strangled in the parking lot a year or two before that. Somehow, the mall only ever had its big problems when the weather was so hot the glass roof of the food court sweated. That’s why the security guard was playing on his phone when Santa Claus pulled an AR-15 out of his sack.
– AJ Miller…
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My most cherished,
Fate keeps pulling us together. Entwined like the vines on your family lake house in Granby. Let’s take a trip there someday! Perhaps that can be where we share our vows? It would make for a beautiful wedding spot. Don’t worry, I’m not proposing quite yet, just considering our future, which is paramount because women like you enjoy planning ahead and preparing.
I adored the blue flower sundress you wore on our date the other night. The movie was hilarious! I rarely like movies but watching you laugh just brightens my day. I know you felt self conscious about your appearance but you shouldn’t; the dress fit your frame perfectly and your hair looks pretty curled.
Take these flowers, one for everyday we’ve been together.…
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Dunkin is out of vanilla syrup for your mid-afternoon latte. You get it anyway, but can’t bring yourself to drink it. A white Escalade behind you has cruise set to breakneck. Your eyelids droop. I should get over, you think. There’s nowhere to the right. Your eyes flick up and over, check the rear, check the driver’s side. The Escalade is still there. There’s a gap on the left. You start to jump lanes, dipping into a pothole that cradles your tire. Fleetingly, you dream the hollow is a large, black dog. You hit the brakes. The Escalade doesn’t.
– AJ Miller…
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The door swung shut so fast it almost hit Joe in the ankle, almost nipping at his heel like a sheepdog would its misbehaving charge. Joe had slammed the door shut behind him for effect and it almost came back to bite him. In spite of his rage, he chuckled at that fact as he made his way down the weathered stairs of the rented beach house. He followed the trail that led through the dunes, covered in sea oats, to the Gulf of Mexico.
When one door closes, another one always opens. Joe had heard that theory although it was merely wishful thinking to him. The idea certainly couldn’t be counted on like Newtonian laws of gravity and motion. But in this case, the same shut door opened up again briefly, just long enough for Joe’s little sister to slip through and pull it shut behind her, closing it much more gently than Joe had done.…
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