The ninth year of Margarita Yurevna Platnikova’s life was the year that the village of the Lungs finally got its prized silver icon back. It was also the year that she was sunburned four days in a row and once in the dark. That year, from November to October, it...
At the party on Day of the Dead, a table spills over with marigold, pomegranates, votive candles, a life-sized, white chocolate skeleton that we cannibals feast on as though on our own bodies. The spine climbs into the ivory patina skull—one’s kingdom—filled...
You are fourteen years old and you spend all your time trying to get Bethany as your scene partner in drama. She is a natural-born actress, and you find yourself holding your breath every time she walks onstage. She looks like Audrey Hepburn and carries herself like...
“Nigger trumps faggot,” Andre told Frankie, spitting blood with the words, a twist of handkerchief stuffed into his left nostril, a line of red between the white cloth and the brown of Andre’s nose. They sat with their backs to the graveyard wall, looking out at the...
Quarter is in the house, in the wider sense of the word that includes the S-2 bus, so I don’t have to check my watch or scam off of someone else’s before going back to my book on why the Anasazi disappeared. I know what time it is: between eight forty-nine and eight...
