* “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, …
Les Poèmes.
Autumn: Brevity I pull open the doors for you, my intermittent love, eager to greet you with the cool kisses of yet another season. It does not bother me that you arrive once a year bearing your all-consuming brevity. It does not trouble me that I compete with the other colors in your world. When …
Your Elephant, After All.
and while the others gasped when you called me an elephant, I gazed at you with pride—as if you were mine, a lover armed with a compliment— and understood that you were hailing my ability to seemingly hold memory tightly in the palm of my hand, knowing the nuances and ridges of time and past …
About your Author: It’s Hot.
Apparently, winter hijacked springtime and then we went headfirst into midsummer. Yeah, tell me about it. How are you handling it? Lots of sundresses and sandals. But since the atmosphere at the OK Corral tends to be below zero, I still wear sweaters over my dresses and closed-toe shoes. It's very confusing. I can only imagine. …
Favorite Author Spotlight: Flannery O’Connor.
I discovered her in college. I'm surprised we didn't meet earlier, being that--other than my actual home--I lived in the library stacks. I stalked books, really; grabbing whatever my greedy hands could locate on the shelves, investigating, searching, making friends with the Dewey Decimal system. That said, I find it intriguing that in all my library …
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This Square Peg. 