No Poem Is the Only Poem. No Story Is the Only Story.
When Nan started at the paper people talked to each other more, sat together. Nan wasn’t included at first but that changed over time and she believed she earned their respect. Her cubicle had come because of a promotion; she’d have preferred to still be in the newsroom.
He was a wriggling thing of eight his first time at sea. Until then he had had to watch as the men of the wharf sang their way down the docks.
The boy was awestruck as they creaked into their ships and slipped between the two vast and unforgiving blues.
In just his boxers, he sat straddle over the plexiglass wall. Paul carefully steadied himself to bring his leg round and face the water. As he edged off he counted down numbers twice and then made the drop.
Underneath, it was deadly quiet except a faint hum, likely the pool’s heater. Paul wanted to go right down and feel the bottom. It was unpleasant when he didn’t.
First, do anything but be alone. Date lots of people you will remember by comparing them to various vegetables you have seen in the produce section in the grocery store.
“Well you got a mighty fine memory, donchya?” Leland said. “All them Hargroves live down this way.” Sophie recognized the name as soon as he said it, the Hargroves, whom she knew as the main black family of Azalea.
Bessy Hargrove was her grandmother’s best friend, and the last time Sophie was in Azalea they attended her ninety-eighth birthday party in the Azalea Baptist Church. They had been the only white people there, occupying one table in the back near the buffet tables, yet Sophie distinctly remembered they were ordered to take their food first.
“It's San Francisco,” she replied. “I've gotten raises and promotions and you're working, but we're struggling to get by. We couldn't even afford to take time off for a vacation last year.”
They both hated what the City had become, an overpriced playground for tech geeks working at Google, Uber, and Airbnb. Once sketchy nightclub areas had been gentrified into neighborhoods where newcomers fought over four thousand dollar a month, one-bedroom apartments.