They’d chosen a hiking trip for their budget-friendly honeymoon, but they were late driving to the bed and breakfast they’d reserved, a converted lighthouse on the shores of Lake Superior. They were traveling due north to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and didn’t realize the time zone changed when they crossed the state line into …
I. Our first summer as princesses, we are ravaged by the heat. Already, even before the perspiration slithers from our glitter-slathered pores, so little of us is us, beneath the tulle and the spandex, the polyester and rayon, the baubles and the brightly colored faux hair, the galaktoboureko layering of unbreathable fabrics. We’re touched up …
My father’s first wife had died giving birth to Utaka, the youngest of my three older brothers. She had done her duty, my father often joked, giving him an abundance of sons. Therefore he could afford to be less stringent when it came to selecting his next wife. He had settled for Hanako, the mother …
Brink stuck his head into the treehouse, just popped his giant head on that scrawny neck in, and Todd and Keith pelted him with pretzels. Absolutely peppered him with those twisted bits because what the fuck Brink? This was the Lost Boys Club. No Non-Lost Boys allowed. No fucked-up weird Brinks. It didn’t say so …
Last month, I heard a story that has stuck with me like a winter cough. It’s about a mother who killed herself for her daughter. I was staying at a hotel in Seoul, a boxy thing of dirty white concrete. When I went down to the bar, I ran into another American. I could tell …
My grandfather’s dying wish was for me to appear on the nationally renowned quiz show, Trivial? For the past couple weeks, they’d been advertising tryouts for the upcoming teen tournament. “Ben,” he said, “I need you to do this for me and your father.” He was lying on what we’d assumed was his deathbed, a …
Mya’s parents are liberal enough to send her paddling across the lake, on errand for their “grassroots pharmaceuticals,” but not liberal enough to let her wear a muumuu while doing it. “That’s my maternity dress, Mya,” her mother groans, scrunching her face in both distaste and reaction to the high sun, distending itself in her …
My sister used to say, “I’m going to have an affair as soon as I get married,” and I wouldn’t understand. I was too young then, too innocent to identify with her desire to ruin things. There was no coming back from it, like what we’d both done to all our Barbies. I’d done the …
Of the three people on the riverbank—Janice, Anton, and Fiona—only two have magical powers. Anton is extraordinarily tall, but excessive height is not in and of itself a magical power. Janice is rather pretty for a woman of her age, but despite her looks, Anton cannot be alone with her. Fiona has a broken arm, …
We’d been to this funeral home twice before—at least, I think we had? I guess it sounds heartless but they blend together, with their signs calligraphed with the family name, the floral arrangements and folded programs, the standard chairs in the standard rows. Even the silence feels uniform in these places. They must all use …