Before landing a fresh job and quitting the service industry altogether, Mary’s life revolved around shelf talkers, the diligent tallying of registers, and stock replenishment. Clocking-in-and-clocking-out.
Four New Chairs and a Persian Rug
The Deer – Editor’s Pick
Lance loved this neighborhood from the moment we drove through the gates twelve years ago. The ancient trees. The big lots. A fantastic K-8th grade school. The award-winning golf course didn’t hurt. It felt elegant but grounded. West coast country, as described by our real estate agent. If you bought a house here, you had the kind of wealth that didn’t need proving. Women wore high-fashioned brands like Chanel and Hermes but not the crap with the logos – the real stuff from the Paris runways.
Social Murder
IF THERE’S ONE thing we know for sure, it’s that nobody does banter quite like the British police. On the other hand, we also know that this banter is often heinously misinterpreted when it gets out into the wider world, so I’ll spare you the full details. Suffice it to say, they went in hard on my supposed orientation and fondness for sexual perversity.
New Beginning, Lost Love
The safest time to call the number you typed into your phone with sweaty fingers is at least six months after you first make fleeting eye-contact with the man across the bar who gave it to you. Six months is an adequate amount of time to show him how not-clingy you are, how nonchalant, enough time for him to forget that he gave you his number at all. You’ll have a laugh about it, then he’ll tell you that he’s gotten back together with an ex and you’ll say it didn’t matter anyway because you weren’t that interested in the first place.
Westward Flow
I got here by thumb. From Port Arthur in a cold rain. I worked there six weeks as a security guard. Before that, Dallas, stacking crates. Before that, Tallahassee. But I’m not running from anybody, if that’s what you’re thinking.
alone, together
There was a cluster of teenagers with their legs dangling off a boulder at the edge, smiling like lovers with their coy eyes and long hair for pictures they took of themselves. The woman considered herself a proper feminist, but she hated them a little, for being so pretty.