willful abandon

George sits across the restaurant table and talks about art films and important novelists and experimental jazz and Kayley thinks she might scream. Long and loud and deeply, with great feeling. With high passion. George is talking to Kayley about art and novels and music because, he’d told her, those were the things he was most passionate about. Kayley thought either they had different definitions of the word or, more likely, that George was lying through his teeth. He’d been talking for twenty minutes straight, a monologue interrupted only long enough for her to interject polite noises like “Really?” and “Hm,” and it just seemed like an attempt to look cool. Passion wasn’t coolness; it was dirty and messy and unselfconscious. It was the least cool thing of all, and Kayley wanted to scream with it.

“The thing about the Swedish postmodernists,” George says through a swig of merlot, with what he must have thought was a roguish lift of his eyebrow and a self-satisfied chuckle, “is that their Swedishness was completely at odds with their postmodernism—”

Kayley screams, long and loud and deep with passion.

It is their second date.

+++

When you are young, everything is new and shiny, wrapped in possibility. The world is filled with so many stories, and you don’t know what your ending will be. Who knows what amazing career could come out of that new job! Who knows if your exotic and extroverted new roommate will be your new best friend! Who knows what will happen on your next date, how the evening will unfold, what you’ll do, what you’ll talk about, how far you’ll go!

Kayley isn’t young anymore, and she knows exactly how far she’ll go with a well-meaning and boringly handsome corporate artist who cannot stop trying to talk to her about soulless things. Kayley has seen the way things went in previous chapters, and there aren’t any surprises anymore.

+++

George says good-bye at the subway entrance, and it’s clear he doesn’t want to say good-bye at all. Kayley’s outburst at dinner hasn’t scared him off; on the contrary, it seems to have made him more interested. This is not a surprise either. George thinks it makes Kayley dangerous and crazy, a free spirit. He thinks it makes her someone uninhibited in bed. Kayley is completely over whatever George might think, and she shakes his hand and turns away when he leans in for a kiss. She rushes down the steps and through the long tunnel to the other end of the platform, and then takes a different set of steps back up again. She isn’t tired and doesn’t feel like going home yet, but that was none of George’s business, after all.

+++

At a bar downtown Kayley sips her gin and tonic and watches the old bartender handle the regulars. She’s way overdressed for the dive bar, wearing a cocktail dress, carrying a purse, her hair pulled up and back. Still, no one pays her any attention. She used to live in the area, and this bar was her favorite. The old pub next door has been turned into a hipster lounge, trafficking in fake grime, contrived decadence. The bar she’s in now though, that’s the real thing. The alcoholics here are passionate about their addiction, and that’s something she can respect.

Kayley needs for something to happen. The itch in her chest that had started in the restaurant with George seemed to grow with each block she walked down, and when she got to this street and the two bars, side by side, she couldn’t decide for a minute. She stood on the sidewalk exactly in between them and considered. She needed excitement, an uproar, a feeling of life. On her right, in the lounge, music pulsed out from the seams of the door and took over the street. Sweet young things went in and came out, laughing and stumbling and making out by the side door and the aluminum trash barrels. Kayley needs for something to happen.

But she also needs something real, and so she walked to her left and stepped into the quiet dive bar, waving hello to the ancient bartender as he mixed her gin and tonic.

+++

“Young people, you don’t know what you have. We didn’t know then, and now you don’t know.”

Kayley has made friends with one of the regulars, an old alcoholic named Jim. She let him bum three cigarettes and then just handed him the pack. In exchange, she asked him for his stories, and he happily began telling them. Like George, Jim speaks in monologue, a steady stream of unbroken narrative. Unlike George, Jim is funny and heartbreaking and unfettered and passionate.

Right now, his passion is about his lost youth, and Kayley’s comparative youngness.

“The fire comes so easy when you’re young, and you think you’ll have it forever, that it’s part of your gut and soul. And then life takes over and you get caught up in it all, all the little battles, and then you wake up one day and poof!" Jim throws his hands into the air so enthusiastically that he tips back a little too far, and Kayley moves her hand out as though to catch him. Jim scowls at the gesture, and throws his hands up again, more emphatically this time, to prove her wrong.

“Poof!” he says, remaining standing. “The fire’s gone. Even the embers, gone out with the wind.”

“What fire are you talking about?” Kayley asks. “Like, activism or building something or—”

“Doesn’t matter. Whichever you want. All of ‘em. They all go. Fire to build with and fire to burn it all to the ground.” Jim sighs and sits back on the bar stool and takes the new drink that Kayley’s ordered for him. “Even the fire to burn it all down disappears with age. Without that, how can you start anything new?”

The itch in Kayley’s chest gets stronger, beats a staccato rhythm. She has an almost uncontrollable urge to kiss Jim, not sexually, but passionately. But Jim is focused on his gin and lost in thought for whatever used to light his fire and so instead Kayley raises her glass and taps it against the edge of Jim’s and says

“Cheers.”

+++

Fire trucks pass Kayley on her walk home from the subway, their lights blazing, but when she gets to her block her apartment building is still standing. Real life isn’t as poetic as all that. She opens her cell phone on her walk and checks her messages. One is from George, and she deletes it without listening. One's from her sister, and she shuts the phone for the time being.

It’s almost four in the morning but no one’s around outside her building; either the party kids haven’t gotten home yet or they decided to sit out a night for a change. Kayley unlocks her building’s door and walks up three flights of stairs and unlocks her deadbolt and then locks it behind her again. Nothing happened on her way home; the night was without incident, good or bad. How can a person be expected to live without incident? Kayley wonders. Without burning things down or starting things new.

Kayley’s exhausted, and she kicks off her shoes and opens her window and climbs up her fire escape to her roof. She isn’t supposed to be up there, but she’s tired and the view is beautiful and the sun will be coming up soon and the itch in her chest is beating a drumbeat she can’t find the rhythm to. She lies down on the black tar and wiggles into the hard surface, wishing she’d brought a pillow. There’s a rose color at the edge of the horizon, she can see it just past the skyscrapers and the trees. She fights to keep her eyes open as the rose turns to red and orange and gold, to stay awake long enough to see the sky turn to fire in front of her eyes.

“Poof,” Kayley says, and smiles.

combat and ballet

soft magics

There were kittens everywhere. Crawling over armchairs and scaling bookshelves and popping tiny kitten heads out from behind doors and under beds. Gray kittens and white kittens and orange kittens and black kittens. Patterned kittens, in tortoiseshell and patchwork and tiger stripe and paint splotch. Purebred kittens, with pedigrees and lineages, from the finest schools. Street kittens, with chips on their shoulders and no breeding, but hearts of scrappy gold. Tiny kittens and giant kittens. Skinny kittens and fat kittens. Kittens sleeping and running and pouncing and meowing and stalking and scratching and dancing and eating and planning and dreaming. Kittens everywhere.

Kacey was a dog person. She’d grown up with dogs, liked their loyalty, their playfulness, the way they looked at her with nothing but pure adoration in their eyes. She still had a photo album back at her house that was filled with snapshots of all her old dogs, from Goldie to Snappers to Goldie Jr. She’d pull it out on autumn days when she was feeling nostalgic and remember the good times she’d had with her pups. But she wasn’t at her house now; she was at her aunt Gretchen’s, and Gretchen was most definitely a cat person.

Kacey stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind her, nearly catching a tabby in the doorway. She brushed past the brocade couch and felt Siamese paws grab at her skirt. She gingerly stepped around the chipped wood coffee table where a giant Maine coon sprawled, halfway falling off. Two twin calicos watched her from the top of the china cabinet, their green eyes blinking in unison.

Aunt Gretchen was sitting in the kitchen, playing solitaire and drinking lemon tea that smelled like whiskey. A Russian Blue rubbed against her legs and purred as she flipped the ace of clubs over.

“Hey Auntie. How’s Tuesday treating you?” Kacey dropped her bag by the kitchen table. Three white strays immediately ran over to inspect it.

“Same as always, which is nothing to complain about. Pour yourself a drink, sweetie. I’m almost done here.” Aunt Gretchen didn’t look up as she gestured to the cabinet where she kept the tea bags and the liquor. Kacey grabbed a mug and a bag of English Breakfast. She left the whiskey where it was. A black and white tabby peeked through the half-finished bottle of Jack from the other side, the glass distorting its oversized head, making its already huge kitten eyes immense. Kacey closed the cabinet.

As Kacey put the water on to boil, Aunt Gretchen kept at her cards, alternately mumbling to herself and throwing out conversation to her niece.

“How’s your mum doing? Been to the doctor yet?”

“No. She’s okay. I told her what you said, but… She says she’s okay.”

Aunt Gretchen let out a sad sigh. The Persian on her lap also let out a sad sigh.

“That woman’s stubborn. You know it as well as I do. She won’t listen to anything but doctors and science, but still, you just have to keep hoping.”

“I’ll keep at her, Auntie. Don’t worry.” The teakettle sang out in a tone like a high purr. Kacey lifted it off the stove and poured her mug three-quarters full, leaving just enough room for an ice cube. A Himalayan and a hairless Sphynx sat curled around each other, on top of the refrigerator. When she walked over, the Himalyan was kind enough to open the freezer door for her with its paw.

“And your sister? How’s she?” Kacey shrugged, though her aunt didn’t see it. The Sphynx reached a six-fingered paw out and closed the freezer door.

“I haven’t heard from her in, ah, two months now, I guess.” Kacey pulled a chair out from the table, brushed off the jet-black kitten with the missing ear from the seat, and sat down. “We kind of got into it over the holidays.”

“I thought as much,” Gretchen said, turning over an ace of diamonds. “The cards never lie.”

Kacey sipped her tea and watched her aunt lay down the cards in neat rows. Ace of diamonds on ace of spades. Ten of clubs on six of hearts. Eleven of ill-conceived wishes on thirteen of kittens. Gretchen’s deck was new every time.

“What game are you playing this week?” Kacey asked as the Turkish Angora in the chair across the table mouthed her words back at her as she said them. Kacey thought how much she missed Goldie and Snappers and Goldie Jr. Her dogs would never have been so presumptuous, so rude.

“It’s a prayer for the future, dear. For your sister’s well being.” She flipped the top card over, to the two of hearts. “I think she’s coming home.”

“That would be nice, I guess,” Kacey said, taking another sip of her tea. She wasn’t sure how she felt about Abby coming home. She loved her sister, but she was so difficult, so much work… Kacey closed her eyes and leaned her head back.

“Aunt Gretchen?” she asked, not opening her eyes. “Why kittens?”

Gretchen clucked her tongue at the question and Kacey could hear the deck being shuffled. She opened her eyes and watched a Korat stack the cards into a neat pile.

“You need something loyal and smart,” Gretchen answered, picking up the deck again. "Something full of energy but easily managed.” She placed the deck on the table and tapped it. “But really, I think I just like how fluffy they are.”

Kacey looked over to Gretchen, and her aunt looked back at her with bright green eyes. She pushed the cards toward Kacey and shrugged.

“You can pick whatever you like, when it comes down to it. When you’re done with your lessons, and ready to hang your shingle out. But I like kittens the best of all.”

Kacey picked up the deck and cut it three times. Aunt Gretchen began explaining the cards to her in low tones, the same lesson she’d heard before, which card meant good fortune, which card signaled trouble, how to read the face and position. Underneath the table kittens brushed against her ankles and purred under her chair and danced in a circle on their hind legs. Kacey began to deal, and thought about all the puppies she would have someday. Puppies everywhere. She placed the first card and dealt out her future.

allesthesia

The ghost sits on the end of Elizabeth’s bed and runs an ivory comb through its long, ghostly hair. The comb, thinks Elizabeth, looks like the type that Victorian ladies used to use to pin their hair up, an ornately carved piece that fits perfectly in the hand, ivory from a real elephant or a real whale or a real something that used to be alive. Just the same as the ghost used to be.

The ghost is dead. Transparent. Overall deceased-looking. The comb is dead and solid and as real as any other object in Elizabeth’s room.

The ghost is wearing a dressing gown. The ghost is wearing a nightgown under a dressing gown. The ghost is humming softly to itself as it combs through the insubstantial wisps. The ghost raises its head and looks straight through Elizabeth, deep, gaping holes where its eyes should be, but aren’t.

Elizabeth thinks how strange the word “comb” is, how it’s one of those words that loses its meaning with repetition. It’s an odd word to spell out, too, with that strange combination of the M and the B. She would close her eyes to visualize the word spelled out, but unlike the ghost, she can’t see without eyes, and it’s important to her to be able to see right now. Now, with a ghost with no eyes at the end of her bed.

Sydney is down the hall, in the kitchen. She is probably making toasted peanut butter and jelly, her favorite before-bed snack. She is probably untying the twist-tie on the bread, pulling out two pieces from the middle of the loaf, putting them in the toaster. She is probably laying out the peanut butter, the jelly, the knife and plate. Sydney is doing all of this without any idea that at the same exact moment there is a dead woman in her bedroom, staring at and through Elizabeth. Sydney has always been Elizabeth’s greatest defender but this time Sydney isn’t there. She is in the kitchen and she is not thinking that Lizzie is maybe in trouble, maybe paralyzed with fear. She is probably thinking about how she hopes she doesn’t burn the toast.

+++

(Another ghost lives in the space between their kitchen wall and the wall of the adjoining apartment. Every night between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. it floats into their neighbor’s kitchen and begins to make a ghostly meal. It chops nonexistent vegetables, dices spectral meat, stirs unreal pots of stew that nevertheless come to a real boil. One night, months from now, Elizabeth and Sydney’s neighbor will wake from a strange dream about a woman he once loved, and he will stumble to the kitchen doorway. He will be searching, he thinks, for a glass of water, and he will see his ghost standing at the stove, stirring a stew that will never be real enough to eat. He will look at it, and he will whisper, “Elizabeth,” shocked and hopeful. Not Elizabeth his neighbor with the beautiful eyes and quiet voice, but Elizabeth, the woman he once loved.

His ghost has no eyes either, only those same dark, gaping holes, but it seems like something’s buried down there, if only he could stare deep enough.)

+++

Neighbor-Elizabeth knows about portents and she knows that the eyeless ghost at the end of her bed is not a good one. Elizabeth’s mother was a gypsy, after all, and she instilled in her daughter the knowledge of how the world really works, along with a healthy dose of fear. Elizabeth knows what things to be afraid of, which signs are meant to reassure or give fair warning. She is not afraid of muggers, of flying, of getting hit by a car or caught in a fire. Her mother taught her that death comes in cleverer disguises.

Up and down, up and down the comb goes through the ghost’s long hair. Over and over, mesmerizing.

+++

(“A candle to burn to keep out the spirits,” her mother tells her, “and this charm to ward off the evil eye. This other one’s from your grandmother’s grandmother, for good fortune and safe travel, and… Are you even listening?” Elizabeth was, but not in the way her mother meant. “If you don’t take this seriously, who knows what will happen to you? The world is not a safe place, tehara. The world is not soft.” But Elizabeth is only fourteen and her idea of danger is still undeveloped. She nods and pretends to listen while she doodles hearts and arrows in her notebook, mixing her initials with various crushes, casting unwitting love spells of her own.)

+++

Elizabeth is sitting upright at the head of her bed, knees pulled to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs. The ghost’s gaze hasn’t changed, but Elizabeth knows that now she is being looked at, not through. She can’t imagine this is a good change. From the kitchen she hears the toaster pop and a sharp intake of breath as Sydney touches the hot bread and quickly drops it on her plate. Elizabeth can hear all those little sounds; they are that close. She would just have to whisper, “Syd,” and Sydney would hear her, come down the hall, find out what was wrong, save her. But Elizabeth knows inevitabilities as well as she knows omens, and she is on a high-speed train hurtling toward a clearer and clearer fate, and no whisper or shout will derail it now. Why even try.

+++

(When their neighbor addresses his ghost by his departed beloved’s name, nothing happens at all. The ghost keeps stirring, staring at him with no eyes, and the ghostly pot keeps boiling, and the seconds tick by. But that is not what he will see. He will imagine a spark of recognition. He will think he sees his own Elizabeth somewhere in the depths of those black spaces. He will feel the air around him change to spring, to be infused with love like he used to know it, making the world Technicolor again. He will shake his head and turn around, glass of water forgotten, and he will go back to bed, to sleep. He will think it was a dream. He will feel somehow reassured.)

+++

The ghost sits on the end of Elizabeth’s bed and stops combing its long, long hair. It stares at Elizabeth without eyes, and wisps of hair fly around its face, lifting and falling as though in a breeze. Elizabeth’s mother taught her about portents and warnings, safety and danger, and somewhere in the back of her mind are all those lessons still. Elizabeth lets go of her legs and comes to her knees, leans forward. The ghost holds out its ivory comb to her, a solid thing in its spectral hand. The details of the engraving are so delicate, so intricate, so amazing, and their swirls and symbols never seem to end. In the kitchen, Sydney has started humming, and Elizabeth wishes she could stop for a moment and kiss her. Instead, Elizabeth reaches out her hand.

eyes closed, face first

At the top of the hill it’s quiet, peaceful. Just how you remember it. Below is nothing but perfect whiteness, no breaks in the snow except for trees dotted here and there, all the way down to the end of the field and the start of the street. It is all orderly, all complete. School hasn’t let out, maybe one more hour to go. It’s been so long since you’ve been a kid, you don’t know when the school day ends anymore. Maybe an hour of quiet left, and then chaos will erupt on the hill.

When you were a kid you were the chaos, the constant noise and movement and color obliterating the quiet. The rush of the red plastic sled as it went down. The back and forth swish of your army green snow pants rubbing together as you pulled yourself up the hill once again. The yelling as you face-planted or got a spray of snow in your mouth or were crashed into by other kids on orange inner tubes and brown toboggans. The laughing as you snuck up on your friends and pushed them before they could get their gloves back on, making sure you put some spin into it. Noise and color everywhere, crashing into each other, clashing as it tumbled together, bounced back and forth, slid past.

What was that like, those days, can you really remember? There was abandon, that’s for sure. Did you really run up and down that hill for hours? Were you really able to ignore the cold and the soaking wet gloves and socks? Are the things you are trying to reclaim really there at all, were they ever? Could you really have had that much fun?

From the top of the hill the snow is blinding in the winter sun. You wish you’d brought your sunglasses, you wish you’d brought a visor, you wish you’d brought a hundred children to tear up that whiteness with all the enthusiasm their little hearts can muster. We all had that enthusiasm once. But there is only you and a giant hill and untouched whiteness everywhere. So do your best. Raise that sled high above your head. Take a running leap. Throw yourself into the void.

four times four

Annabelle India Cynthia Knox did not like Michael Hurley, and she let it be known throughout the fifth grade. She did not like his shockingly red hair, too bold for an eleven-year-old. She did not like his thousands of freckles, so distracting when one is trying to figure out multiplication or concentrate on diorama building. She did not like his habit of running everywhere – to the bus, to lunch, to recess, to class, to the bathroom, to the chalkboard even, for goodness sake! – which lead to his habit of crashing into things, like the wall or a tree or his desk. Or Annabelle. Twice. Michael Hurley, Annabelle decreed, was a giant loser, and not worth anyone’s time.

Michael Hurley’s only response to this, when Jason P. came back from recess and told him what Isaac told him Steffi told him Annabelle said, was to spin his right index finger in a tight circle at the side of his head, in the universal sign for “looney tunes.” Then he turned back to the picture of ninjas he was drawing, and continued his work, whistling.

When Annabelle heard this, through Jason P. to Gretchen to CJ to Steffi to her, she was furious. She kicked the monkey bars and crossed her arms and blew out a frustrated, emphatic “hmph!” and turned to her four best friends – Steffi and Liza and Reeca and Jules – and declared war.

The first thing they did was switch seats. A small opening shot, but an effective one nonetheless. Michael had problems with multiplication, and everyone knew he cheated off Reeca during tests. So Annabelle raised her hand in the middle of class and asked if she could be moved, “because I’m having problems concentrating with the smell and all,” and after an affronted “Hey!” from Michael and a lot of sighing from Mr. Palmacci and snickering from the class, Mr. Palmacci let Annabelle switch with Liza, who switched with Jules, who switched with Reeca, into Annabelle’s original seat behind Michael.

When Michael saw the girls getting up and gathering their books in a well orchestrated maneuver, he knew what had really happened, and he looked over to Jason P. and narrowed his eyes. The war was on.

Retaliation came the next day at lunch, when all five girls opened their bags and reached in for sandwiches and pulled out plastic baggies of worms instead. Annabelle’s were the fattest and most squirmy. The girls screamed even louder than expected, and none of the guys, Michael or Jason P. or Carlos or Billy, could stop laughing, it was so funny. They were still laughing when the girls turned to them with evil glares. No one said anything, but everyone knew more was coming.

There was the hall pass maneuver. The swing set attack. The prank call offensive. The frog guts incident (involving a daring raid on the sixth grade science lab in order to get the necessary parts). The Field Day retaliation. The Valentine’s card betrayal. Until, finally, there was four squares.

+++

Every Wednesday recess, Annabelle and her friends played four squares. It was only Wednesdays, because four square was the most popular game amongst the girls at school, and there was only one court, so a schedule had to be made as to who got playing time when. Mr. Palmacci’s fifth grade class got Wednesdays, Recess B, and Annabelle always declared herself fourth square to start. Annabelle rarely lost.

Four square was a girl’s game; the boys never wanted to play. They always ran for the kickball field or the basketball court or to the corner of the yard to dig in the dirt and plan mischief. This was fine with the girls, who were orderly and patient as they waited their turn in line, planning what games they’d make up if they landed in the fourth square. They did not need the chaos of the boys to ruin their game.

It was a beautiful spring day and Annabelle India Cynthia Knox surveyed the playground from her fourth square domain. They were six games in, and no one had managed to get her out. She didn’t plan to let them. Liza had already rotated in and out twice, she couldn’t catch a ball if her life depended on it, and Reeca had just been knocked out on an alphabet game. Annabelle thought about what to try next and watched as Reeca left the square to join the back of the line. Annabelle’s eyes followed her absently, thinking of double-bounces and animals that might begin with the letter X. Reeca passed the Schaffer twins at the front of the line, Sarah Caulk behind them, and then, to Annabelle’s shock and horror, she saw it. Standing behind Sarah, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his horrible red hair shining in the sun, was Michael Hurley. And right behind him was Jason P. And Carlos. And Billy.

The other girls noticed the interlopers just as Annabelle did, and they looked to her for a cue. But what could she do? Recess wasn’t even half over, and it was four square. The game must go on.

Lindsey Schaffer missed the ball on the first toss. Anna came in. Jules forgot to triple-bounce. Sarah came in. Liza couldn’t think of a fruit that began with F. And Michael Hurley stepped onto the first square.

Annabelle didn’t pause for even a second; she couldn’t afford to show weakness, and she’d been plotting the game she’d use to end this encroachment immediately. Double-bounce, name a character in The Baby-Sitter’s Club, bounce-pass. Boys didn’t read those books, Annabelle knew. She doubted they could even read at all.

Annabelle double-bounced, said “Kristy,” and bounce-passed to Michael, who eyed her funny. He double-bounced too, and said “Stacey,” and bounce-passed to Sarah. Annabelle couldn't believe it. How could an annoying, loud-mouthed boy like Michael Hurley know that? Sarah got Claudia and Anna said Mary Anne but forgot to bounce-pass, just tossed it to Annabelle, so she was out. Jason P. stepped in and Michael Hurley moved to square two.

Annabelle always had contingency plans, and she would not be bested. “Next game is bounce, name a Miley Cyrus song, bounce, then toss pass.” She knew Jason P. would get it, he had a younger sister after all, and he did, but Jason P. didn't matter. She could knock him out once Michael Hurley was done. Annabelle had her priorities; her eyes were on the prize.

But Michael Hurley got it too, and Sarah didn’t miss of course, and they had to go another round. Annabelle was so shocked she almost blanked on a song, almost forgot to bounce before the pass. And then Jason P. again, and Michael again, and this time Sarah said “Start All Over,” which was right, but was also the song Jason P. named, so she was out too. And Carlos came in and now Michael Hurley moved to square three, right next to Annabelle, and that red hair was so distracting, but not as distracting as the challenge in his eyes.

Annabelle expected the boys to be aggressive or mean or chaotic. She expected them to hurl the ball, make up rules, try to hit someone in the face. But they didn’t do any of that. They played like the girls played, orderly, and they didn’t talk to each other or crack jokes. In fact, the only time they spoke at all was to give their answer for the game. “Stacey.” “7 Things.” “Yak.” “Water buffalo.” “Viper.” Annabelle thought as quickly as she could to try to trip them up, but they go round after round, without forgetting a word or a bounce.

After five rounds of animal names, reverse alphabetically, she called for a new game. It was a rule the girls made up to keep the game challenging, and for a second it seemed like the boys might rebel. But Michael looked at each boy in turn, and no one said anything. Annabelle thought for a moment, the ball balanced on her hip, and it came to her. The perfect solution to getting Michael Hurley out.

“Triple-bounce,” she said, “double-bounce pass,” she continued. “And the multiplication tables for nine, in order.”

There was an audible intake of breath from the line, which had grown as fifth-graders around the playground gathered to watch boys take over the four-square court. Annabelle put on her sweetest fake smile and looked at Michael Hurley. There was sweat on his over-freckled face, and he chewed his lip in that nervous tic Annabelle despised, but his eyes were narrowed in determination and he didn’t look away. Michael Hurley took the challenge.

“Nine,” she said after her triple bounce, and double-bounce passed to Carlos. “Eighteen,” he said with all the right bounces, and gave her a look that mades her feel about as big as a toothpick. “Twenty-seven,” said Jason P., but slowly, and he bounced slowly too. Annabelle figured he was trying to give Michael time to remember the answer.

“Thirty-six,” Michael said, and looked Annabelle directly in the eye as he passed.

“Forty-five,” Annabelle said, surprised he got that. But there’s no way that he could know the next one, he’d cheated off Reeca from almost the start of the year. She took a breath and monitored the boys, checking their math and their bounces.

“Fifty-four.”

“Sixty-three.”

“Seventy-two.”

A pause before he said it, but then a gasp from the crowd when he did. And now it was a crowd, all of fifth grade, both classes, gathered in a half circle around the players. Even if Annabelle got one of the boys out, Billy still waited on deck, she’d still need at least three games to clear the square of all the intruders, send them back to their dirt and their ball fields. “Eighty-one,” Annabelle said. This round would be her triumph, good-bye to Michael Hurley, once and for all.

“Ninety,” said Carlos, easy as anything.

“Ninety-nine,” said Jason P. Bounce, bounce, pass.

“One-oh-eight,” said Michael, without a pause, and with triumph in his eyes.

And then there’s the ball, bouncing up to Annabelle, and then there’s Annabelle, holding it for a beat, her mind blank. They’d only gone up to twelve on their multiplication chart, she didn’t think they’d get this far in the game. Another beat. She should’ve been adding the nines in her head, she should’ve been ready just in case. A third, and that’s all you get in four square. She waited too long, she didn’t even think to triple-bounce to buy time, she just stood in the fourth square, holding the ball, unable to move, defeated.

From the sidelines the girls were stone-cold quiet, and then a cheer went up, started by Billy, that all the boys in the yard picked up. Shouts of “you’re out!” came from some boy in the back, but Annabelle still couldn’t move from the shock. They'd moved their desks so he couldn’t cheat, so Michael Hurley had started studying. How could she have known? Ninety, ninety-nine, one-oh-eight, the end.

And now Michael Hurley is coming toward her, stepping over the line between square three and square four to claim his new rank. Annabelle is still standing, rooted to the pavement, holding the ball in front of her where it bounced. He is going to grab it, she supposes, maybe elbow her out of the way to get her to move. She doesn’t think she can move, so he might have to. He is walking toward her, that bright red hair like flames in the sun, his grass green eyes locked on hers triumphantly. Around them there is cheering from the boys still, and now arguing from the girls, and general mayhem, but the sound fades out as Annabelle watches the end of the war approach.

Michael Hurley is in front of her, and he puts his hands on the rubber ball like she thought he would, but he doesn’t elbow her aside. He holds the ball on the opposite side from where her hands are and he leans in and she thinks he might whisper something to her, something mean and victorious. But instead, in front of the whole fifth-grade class and under the spring sun, Michael Hurley puts his pursed lips on Annabelle India Cynthia Knox’s own and kisses her chastely in the middle of square four.

It is only a second, but she drops her hands from the ball in shock. Michael Hurley steps back and smiles.

“One seventeen,” he says with a bounce. “I win.”

by thousands

Sadie holds her breath under the water and slowly counts to ten by thousands. One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand. When she breaks the surface, things will be different. The world will have changed between the time that she dipped her head under the horizon and when she emerges. Four one thousand, five one thousand. The world changes by seconds, she knows, whether she’s under water or not. Seconds and less than seconds, infinitely and forever. Six one thousand, seven one thousand. But in this case, Sadie wants specific change. Eight one thousand, nine one thousand. When Sadie lifts her head out of the chlorinated pool and looks around her, she wants to see that her life is markedly and noticeably different, that she is ten pounds lighter or that there is no boring office job to return to or that Greg is not still sitting poolside flirting with the Swede from room 202. When she lifts her head out of the water, Sadie wants it all to be new.

++

Back on the east coast it is snowing. A blizzard, in fact. Sadie called her mom when they checked into the hotel, and her mom told her that Buffalo got twenty inches. Sadie thought that was a weird statistic to share, since no one they knew lived in Buffalo, but she let it go. Sadie has been letting everything go lately. She likes to think she’s attempting a Buddhist form of non-attachment, but she suspects it’s just a more mundane giving up. Even the trip here to the Keys was a giving up. Greg asked if she wanted to skip out on the holidays and go sit in the sun, swim in the ocean, drink cocktails by the pool. Sadie didn’t. She wanted to go visit her best friend in Portland, hang out in coffee shops, listen to bands, get drunk in bars. Sadie hates the relentless sunshine; she prefers the calmness of overcast, rainy days. But Greg’s question was more of a statement, like he knew she’d be excited, like he’d already gotten the tickets, like he only wanted confirmation. So she’d said sure, okay. He’d pulled the tickets out of his back pocket with a grin and handed them to her. Surprise.

++

Sadie has been dating Greg for exactly one year and six days, and she thinks that if she wasn’t so busy giving up, one year and six days would be just about long enough. She doesn’t understand why Greg doesn’t realize he feels the same way. It’s obvious he feels the same way, when he spends much of their first two vacation days chatting up lovely Swedish ladies by the pool.

++

In a move that surprised even herself, Sadie packed a sketchpad for the trip. She wasn’t sure why; she hasn’t sketched in over a year. Or painted. Or even doodled. Not since before she met Greg. In fact, if Sadie thinks about it, which she begins to do as she waits in the airport and thumbs through trashy celeb magazines, she stopped drawing around the same time she started working reception, because she thought benefits would be nice for a change. Which was around the same time that her best friend moved to Portland and she started going to clubs she wouldn’t have been caught dead in before, because that’s where her work friends were going. Which is how she met Greg. Who came after Adam. Who she met when she was bartending and who was an artist too and the two of them used to spend whole Saturday mornings sitting at the coffee shop together, sketching out notebooks worth of the ridiculous and the sublime.

++

Adam. Adam was the last time that Sadie remembers anything being well and truly new. It is halfway through this line of thought that Sadie begins to suspect she is giving up on the wrong things.

++

Under the water Sadie’s lungs are starting to burn. She’s counted by thousands up to nine, but it’s so peaceful down there she couldn’t bring herself to finish. The kids that are usually infesting the pool must all be at lunch or enforced naps, and the tourists are out doing touristy things. Miraculously, they’ve got the pool almost entirely to themselves, just Sadie and Greg and two other couples and the Swedes. Sadie is the only one in the water, posed in what they called the dead man’s float when she was a kid. She plans to stay in there as long as her lungs can hold.

++

A memory floats back to her, under the water. When Sadie was eleven, her grandmother came to visit. It was only her second trip, and since it was summer, the family took her to Coney Island. Sadie showed off her knowledge of the boardwalk, and steered her grandmother toward the shops and games, but her grandmother made a beeline for the Cyclone. She had never been on a rollercoaster before, she told Sadie. They didn’t have them in the old country. Sadie’s parents had gone for hot dogs, and Sadie wasn’t sure what to do. She was worried for her frail, seventy-two-year-old grandmother in general, never mind in a wooden car on a rickety rollercoaster that was older than she was. Sadie tried to talk her out of it. She told her grandmother that she wasn’t missing anything, that the coaster was overrated, that there was nothing exciting about it at all.

“So says you,” her grandmother answered. “Maybe it is true, but how will I know except to try? When you stop trying, Sadie, your life becomes blah. My life has been blah for too long.” She grabbed Sadie’s hand and marched her into the line, and nothing Sadie said during the wait could deter her.

Finally, they reached the front and were put, to Sadie’s utter horror, in the very first car of the coaster. As they were strapped in, Sadie’s grandmother turned to her granddaughter and grabbed her hand.

“The only way to get through this world,” she told Sadie, “is to flee from the blah and chase after every new thing with a greedy heart.”

++

Sadie feels the first drops hit her back just as she’s beginning to see spots from lack of air. Raindrops. It’s raining, a summer storm. Through the strange echo chamber of the water she can hear the Swedes sending up fake shrieks at the idea of getting wet, and she hears footsteps running for the hotel. Sadie stays in the dead man’s float a moment longer, until the drops have become a torrent, real water covering her better than the chlorinated stuff ever could. She drops to the bottom of the pool in a crouch, ready to burst up, and opens her eyes to the rain clouds overhead, to the new and different sky that’s waiting.

One one thousand, two one thousand

Ten.