It’s nice to have my head in something nearly steady. I’m not sure if the real steadiness will come, but a girl can dream.

When we were younger, every door was a secret door. Every mollusk perhaps contained a pearl. We could anticipate rooms hidden behind other rooms, or meaty carcasses buried under mounds of soil. We wandered every surface with amazed suspicion. Now, Anna scoops up all the mystery for herself, tossing it over her shoulders like an oversized sweater. I

The last time you see someone is never the last time you see them. The empty space a person leaves behind retains heat; a retina will preserve a face for later.

To hold the entire history of everything. Something more sacred than just survival. “It’s the least I can do,” she thinks, “While You Are Out.”

“Not everyone,” I say, and it’s like stretching open a sealed scar. “I didn’t mean it like that!” she cries. “Don’t worry. When you know, you just know!” I hope she won’t say the next thing, but she says it anyway. “Sometimes these things happen when you’re not looking for them.” Anna smiles.

Just because something is familiar does not mean it is mine.

I think of my many available selves, coagulated and discrete, compromising themselves for one another.

“Thanks, that’s sure nice of you to say. But I’ll never plainly be Pearl. I’ll never be anyone until I feel the steadiness. All I can do is try to convince you that I’m successfully inhabiting the current target of my approximations.”

The shoes I’m hired to fill are constantly switching in size.