I’m six years old when I’m propped up on a stool and covered in a barber’s cape in front of my entire elementary school for my first haircut. Volunteers for a charity carry large bristol boards into the gymnasium, all wearing matching white tee shirts with logos involving scissors and hair and hearts. The gym fills with rows of kids, and a choice few are taken to sit in a row near the front: two girls from kindergarten, one other from grade one, another in grade three, a boy from grade eight. I offer my permission slip, and a volunteer—herself with short hair and bangs—pumps the chair up with a lever, raising me high enough so the kids in the back can see. Read more →
I saw you yesterday in a grocery store. I caught your eye and, when I made a silly face, you mirrored it back at me. That’s how I knew it was you. Sometimes you come to me like this.
There are stories I have always wanted to tell you. Stories I think you might laugh at, like the time your great-grandma got stuck climbing through a fence and I had to pull her out, or the evening your uncle and I got yelled at for following a stray cat and forgetting to come home. I would want you to have all of these stories and more, the stories you will miss by never being born. Read more →
Cora and Joan walked side by side from the lobby of their apartment to the courtyard. They were headed to the community mailbox to collect bills. Neither of them had regular access to the internet so they hadn’t opted into receiving their bills electronically. Besides, walking together had become a type of ceremony, though not one Cora looked forward to. It was just more evidence that she needed to do something drastic to keep everything intact. She felt nervous for the first time about her interview later that night because no matter which way she crunched the numbers, she needed more money than she currently had. A lot more. Read more →
When we first started dating, the ten-year age difference was really difficult for Dev, as was the fact that I was married. “Hey, don’t mention your in-laws around Maria, okay?” Dev made me promise the week before she arrived from New York for a conference. He wanted to ask her to collaborate on a project and didn’t want her thinking he was “a shitty guy.” Read more →
There was once a woman who went out with a man whom she was pretty sure was going to kill her by the end of the evening. She knew this when she gave him her email address. She might have even told him, email me. Now they’re at an elegant wine bar about three miles from her house, sitting at a table between two tall slim plants with fat, waxy leaves. She takes a sip of the wine that he’s probably filled with drugs. She went to the ladies room a few minutes ago in order to give him a chance to do this. Read more →
Lima, 2017: My uncle’s car smells like Vienna sausages and bad eggs. We’re driving through Jesus Maria, and then to the ocean. He keeps fidgeting with the windows, unsure of where the smell is coming from. The car battery broke down on the way to the airport, he tells me. It shut off at a gas station, and the attendants had to push the car into the street, so it could start after picking up some speed. Afraid that the battery would shut off again, my uncle left the car running, and waited for my call in the parking lot. Read more →