Games and Rituals

She ate one meal a day, at lunchtime—ham-and-cheese roll-ups drizzled with honey. Otherwise, she drank can after can of Diet Coke in the morning, and then about midafternoon she switched to mango margaritas, and the margaritas saw her out. She said this was pandemic behavior, but the only kitchen equipment she brought with her when she moved in was

He winks at Colette. The wink doesn’t cause her heart to leap with hope anymore. She thinks that must be a good sign.

Alejandro was there on Friday, same as always, friendly and smiling. But by then Colette understood that the previous day had been a buffer, a cooling-off period, a time to let her hopes diminish. Perhaps it had been a kindness; Alejandro had not seen the silk shirt, or the dangly earrings, or her eager face. Her fever had broken; she no longer glo

(Although even in her twenties, Charlie wasn’t what you’d call eye candy: her looks had always been sharp edged and intense, more like eye tequila.)

She drew deeply on her cigarette and he watched her, seeming to approve. “Aren’t you supposed to be doing something wedding related?” Marlee paused. Captain Rhinebeck looked at her so attentively that she had the feeling she could say anything to him. “Aren’t you?” Marlee asked. Captain Rhinebeck laughed and Marlee realized all of a sudden why her

And she takes the people who are not only nervous about the road test but seem nervous about life. People who come to the DMV wearing pajama pants and slippers, or cardigans with food dribbles and shoes without laces. Or—this is somehow worse—people who have dressed up. They wear clothing which has moldered unworn in their closets for years: shiny

Always when Marlee looked at him, his dark eyes were looking back at her, and she knew they were thinking exactly the same thing. She was certain that they would meet later to talk about it and that certainty made her pupils dilate and her breath quicken. (There is no aphrodisiac even half as powerful as talking shit about someone.)

It wasn’t accurate to say she lost weight—it was more like she chased the weight off her body the way a farmer would chase a stray dog off his property. And like a suspicious farmer, Fawn still patrols the borders of her body, a shotgun propped in the crook of her elbow, ready to shoot any fattening food that tries to sneak back in.

WILLIAM HAD BEGUN TO WORRY THAT HE NO LONGER SPARKED JOY IN his wife and that she would give him to Goodwill. It was alarmingly easy to picture. His wife would thank him for his service and then drop him off at the donation center, the one behind the store with the blankly sinister roll-up doors. Goodwill would take him in and William would live ou