Category: Fiction

Even with the gloves off, which I am increasingly likely to want, I think that Litbreak can remain evenhanded.

The Spencerville Police Department gave Rachel Velázquez a retirement party with a cake and a poster-size reproduction of Diego Velázquez’ painting Las Meninas, Ladies in Waiting. It was like the post card sized print she’d kept on her desk for eighteen years but bigger. She’d bragged to everyone that she was Diego’s descendant. She wasn’t. She had the print for another reason. She’d stare at it, imagine herself the king’s daughter at the center of the picture. Safe from any danger, flanked by her ladies in waiting, surrounded by her entourage.

Most of us had known each other since kindergarten. But next year destiny would lead us all to the junior high. We knew life would be different. The junior high school was regional; there’d be other kids, kids we didn’t know, which would change everything. But for now, we remained together.

He wore a name badge like the rest of us.  Easton University, Class of 1995.  The same blue border, the same insignia that always looked to me like the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz crashing through a crusader’s shield.  Like everyone else, his name was printed in bold 16-point font.  ELMAR W GRAY.  He would probably spend much of the next four days insisting it was not a typo, that his name was spelled with an -ar, not an -er, much like he might have done while a student at Easton.

Out of all the dirty jobs in the world, the worst was working in the spaghetti mines.

“There’s something to be said,” Elizabeth begins, at which point I stop listening. She holds a glass of white wine at the stem and her chin points in her usual degree of superiority. I glance over at Nana, who mirrors the expression with white wine to match. I sip my diet coke. My sister makes me a little mad. Her mouth is overdrawn in caramel lipstick. Her highlights golden and fresh. She is beautiful and such a snob. These two will kill me this weekend. But she’s here now and I’m glad, or maybe relieved. I’m not going to overthink it. Herding us to the Chinese buffet for dinner was her idea, All-you-can-eat puts Nana in a good mood. Nana, however, smiles easy enough and her saggy face seems small under the white cap of feathery hair, but I know better. The room bustles around us like a train station with winding red silk lanterns dangling off the ceiling. People roam the buffet, eating long past stopping, until they almost explode, and the yellow fish in the tank are barely swimming, staring blandly at me. I haven’t spoken a word, and won’t, unless they make me.