Sublime

anthropomorphically.”

Then she stood and lifted the stool carefully off Benny, who continued to sit there, looking somewhat wobbly and exposed, like Jell-O taken too soon from the mold.

Tilting the wide brim of a martini glass toward the sky to catch whatever plunked into it.

Jo looked at the bar, where she’d worked for a few summers pouring wine and shaking cocktails for the hordes from away, sunburned tourists who’d said her little seaside village was quaint and asked what folks did here in the winter. Well, this is what we do here, she thought. We gain weight and drink too much and get on each other’s nerves.

On the verge of disappearing, she turned, and she ran back to him. “Sam!” she said. “Do you still game?”

A perfect restaurant: linoleum and vinyl and hugging owners and a dusting of feta on all the food. Sometimes the giant windows were open to the street and the smelly sunshine poured in, but usually it was a place to hide from the rain, full of steaming wet coats and intense conversations. I went here with anyone and everyone, or with a book. One gr

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