Sublime

My heart was skipping in my throat. I knew that anger. How had I managed to find it in Ohio?

That Thomas had worked for the Chronicle since 1976 was easily established, as was the fact that he’d published three brief novels since that date. Out of a sense of delicacy Carleton never mentioned that he owned all three of these, and found them elegant and elliptical, couched in prose that had the cadence of the King James Bible, and concerned

He has a kind, round face and the relaxed, easygoing manner of someone who’s spent most of his life in California.

(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.)

“Dao reminds me of my father.” It wasn’t just that he was the same age as our fathers. It was also his trim and discreet appearance that made him familiar. His nondescript appearance was as much for camouflage as it was for comfort, cultivated to project a benign and anonymous professionalism. His appearance said: I am not one to take up space nor