I haven't shared fiction with you in a while, have I? Here's one you'll likely find in my third collection of short fiction. Yes, another book is coming. Call it a spoiler. Share your thoughts about it in the comments, won't you? Enjoy your Friday and have a bon weekend. *********************************************************************** The Choice The envelope sat …
Elegies.
I'm still writing poems about him. I don't think that will ever end. Elegy. 16. Perhaps I always knew I would end up near you, my dear, departed one, near the streets you once walked upon, near the air you once had the privilege to breathe. Somehow that dreaded constant summer began to call …
[Pardon the Interruption]…
...But I'd like to deviate from the daily Parisian round-up and share my new poem with you. Enjoy. Birthright Before I could even learn to appreciate you, I was desperate to shrug you off, this mantle that clung to the nuances of my dark skin like birthplaces and legacies. You were the mirror I was ready to turn …
The Wedding and the Web: The End
* It was a lovely wedding. There was an orchestra and ice swans and roses flown in from Marseilles. My sister Charlotte was rhapsody in white; my other sisters and I wore lovely gowns in various shades of blue. Even Irene Vine, as she cried in the front row, allowed Danny to pat her hand …
The Wedding and the Web: Part 6
* “Nervous about tomorrow?” Andy Flood asked as he walked into the break room that morning. I stood by the counter, stirring my coffee and deliberating over my resolution from a few nights ago. “Actually, no. I’m kind of looking forward to it.” “Good. I’m glad.” “Mostly because of what Carmen may do.” I watched …
The Wedding and the Web: Part 5
* At the co-ed bridal shower a few evenings later, I watched Sanford and Charlotte twirl around on the dance floor. Our parents had rented a much smaller ballroom in a smaller hotel for the event, but it was no less swanky, as it was a black-tie affair. Caroline, Danny, Carmen, and I sat at …
The Wedding and the Web: Part 4
* Charlotte eventually settled on a venue for the wedding—the grand ballroom of the Hotel del Coronado. Gradually, painstakingly, the colors were picked, the dress was finally chosen, and the bridal party wined, dined, and fêted the bride-to-be. Specifically, this bridal party consisted of the three of us: one matron of honor and two …
The Wedding and the Web: Part 3
* When I wasn’t sitting by Charlotte’s side during the wedding preparations, I was a litigation assistant for a law firm in the city. The world of lawsuits and trials was a significant diversion from frilly dresses and color swatches, and far more interesting. Nevertheless, my busy job didn’t necessarily mean I could escape from …
The Wedding and the Web: Part 2
Charlotte may have been the fragile baby, but I was the one with the problem. The short of it, akin to a plot from a frothy, clichéd soap opera: we had all grown up together, the Vine sisters and Sanford; I fell in love with Sanford somewhere along the way; he fell for Charlotte. And why …
The Wedding and the Web: Part 1
So while in the middle of a strange, hormone-fueled rage sometime in 2013, I wrote a short story one evening while sitting on the couch in our living room, not getting up and not pausing in my vicious scribbling (yep, I wrote in longhand in a spiral notebook like it was 1992) until I was finished, …
This Square Peg. 