Sublime

“I was planning to hyphenate?” “Winthrop-Woodcock is no better, babe.”

Surreptitiously

And isn’t it silly to love the way someone’s things look like next to yours? Little bits and pieces of lives lived in parallel.

blandishments

“What’s the name of the loser boyfriend?” “Tom Higgins.” She wrinkles her nose. “He worked at the shoe store out at the Airport Mall.

The Lost Child

She might be very young, or her own age.

ROSE SAXON, the Queen of Romance Comics, was at her drawing board in the garage of her house in Bloomtown, New York, when her husband phoned from the city to say that, if it was all right with her, he would be bringing home the love of her life, whom she had all but given up for dead.

It had all been arranged by advert and telephone: the Fredrikson family were offering a holiday home to a child for the summer out of the goodness of their hearts, and for a small fee, of course. Axel and Hanna had discussed it thoroughly – all the big-city children in need of fresh air, woods, water, and good food. They had said all the things peo