My round robin experience

Goodbye for now, Janice thought. She sneezed her September allergy to San Francisco's changing weather as she closed the door of her '97 Corolla and headed down Mission toward the Bay Bridge. God, how she hoped her Corolla would make it all the way cross country. She had no idea whether Lenny would even open the door when she drove into their Great Neck driveway, but she had to at least try. The two years working for Google had been great, but they'd taken a toll on her long-distance marriage. When Lenny told her three weeks ago he wanted a divorce, she'd come this close to saying fuck you you can have your divorce I'm staying with Google in San Francisco what's life with you like anyway but serving your needs and your fucking family's needs goodbye for now and for ever. Two days after that cellphone exchange while she barreled down the 101 to Mountain View in her coughing Corolla, the voice of reason came back to her. No, she didn't want to ask herself years from now, what if? What if they'd tried to work it out? She had to go back, even if breaking up was the end result. She had to go back.

How many miles would it be, she thought. She'd stop in Salt Lake to see Larry, her high school sweetheart. He'd married a Mormon who'd broken with tradition by going to Columbia. That's where they'd met and she'd taken him to Salt Lake where they had two kids and got a divorce. He stayed in Salt Lake and she went to Phoenix. Janice hoped Larry wouldn't want to rekindle anything; things were complicated enough with Lenny. Then she'd visit her cousin Winifred in Denver. She adored Winifred -- even better than her own sisters -- because she didn't judge her for anything. Winifred would give her good advice about Lenny and marriage. She'd been married for more than thirty years. She was certainly the expert. And then on to St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia. Janice loved the midwest -- loved the flatness of it, loved being able to see for miles and miles, like the California coastline.

She enjoyed her sputtering Corolla drives better than anything in California -- better than the marijuana parties on Valencia, the No on 8 rallies, the leather men at Folsom, the foggy walks across the Golden Gate Bridge. In truth, those drives were more romantic to her than even her Florence honeymoon had been. She'd also found the Writing Salon in San Francisco -- oh, how she'd miss Pamela's humor workshops, Karen's novel classes, Chris's exploring your writer's voice, and even though she could continue the daily rite round robin from anywhere in the world, she'd miss seeing Jane's happy, smiling face at the bookend sessions -- because no amount of e-mail could replace the personal connection of face to face. But it sure made for a nice way to stay alive and part of the experience that she'd had. All by herself. In California. And in San Francisco especially.

No toll for the Bay Bridge in the eastbound direction. As she came down the final span before touching down in Oakland, Janice looked to the left. Still far from completed. She wondered when they'd finish the new bridge. Probably not for three or four more years. Fools, all of them -- didn't they realize that the old bridge could be made stronger? San Francisco didn't need a new bridge. It knew how to connect to anywhere in the world, and it had been doing it better than any other city since the Gold Rush of '49. No matter whether Janice stayed in Great Neck with Lenny, whether she got a divorce and moved into Manhattan, down to her Bubby's Boca Raton, Florida condo, she'd feel connected to San Francisco. And thank God for the round robin, because she could do that for the rest of her life and feel connected to her writer friends, to the people who, like her, challenged themselves every day.

Ask a question, get an answer

Agnes entered the house and girded herself for attack, clutching the heavy purse close to her side. Her husband greeted her at the front door with a wan smile.

"Norman, I have a question for you and let's see if you can be honest with me."

He stared at her, silent and saucer-like.

"Did you sleep with Cristina?"

He looked away. She'd never thought her husband would act the coward, but here it was.

"Norman, I repeat, did you sleep with Cristina?"

"Honey, it's a little complicated ..."

"I don't see how. The answer is either yes, I did sleep with Cristina or no, I didn't sleep with her. So which is it?"

"Well ..."

"I'll take that as a yes. So let me ask you another question. Do you want a divorce?"

His lip quivered. "No, not really."

"Not really? Not really? Does that mean that you kind of do want a divorce and you kind of don't want a divorce? Do you kind of still want to sleep with Cristina?"

"Well, yes! She's got watermelon tits. But that doesn't mean I don't want to be married to you. Or to sleep with you either ... I do!"

"Do you think I'm a fool? I wasn't born yesterday, Norman Balmoral."

"You're the smartest babe I know!"

"Babe? Norman, we've been married for eight years. You don't know me well enough by now to know how I feel about sex and marriage?"

"I just thought you'd be more realistic. I'm a man, after all, and men like to wander occasionally."

"Brother, what an idiot I am! And to think I thought you were faithful. How long have you been sleeping with Cristina? Have there been others?"

"I've only been with her thirteen times! And there've only been forty-seven others!"

Agnes took the revolver out of her purse and shot him straight in the heart. Good riddance. She only regretted the splatter of blood on her limestone tile. Limestone absorbed everything. It'd never come out.

The pizza

Harold walked his schnauzer down the narrow streets of Shadyside. How he remembered his college years on these very same streets, wanting to slap some sense into the eager, fresh-faced college student, too anxious to shake off innocence for experience as he downed pizza after pizza with his college buddies. He brushed against the same brownstone walls and the same low-hanging sidewalk trees as eighty years ago. He remembered the burst of promise settling on his shoulders in college when he explored the mystery of the arts and sciences. How had that promise turned into a minefield of expectations that he had to tippy-toe through all his life? Hadn't the twenties been a decade of unlimited possibilities, blissfully unaware of what lurked beyond?

He played his game of avoiding sidewalk cracks that October morning. In his twenties he hadn't needed an overcoat in October. In his twenties his stomach could take five pizzas a week. He'd scamper down the street in slacks and a light shirt, enjoying the cool Pittsburgh breeze. Harold recalled his bravado when he turned thirty, but he really begrudged the new decade. In those ten years he morphed into a workhorse of bullet items, laundry lists, all the artifacts of a pumped-up ego as he strutted down the street, drowning in confidence. And then his forties gave him a salty dose of reality -- a slice of pizza, perhaps, at lunch but only once a week or so. The divorce, the layoff, he had a lot more to learn, much more than he'd already learned, and had fewer years to do it -- more than half way to dead, probably. Fifty and the bankruptcy knocked Harold off his feet, his ego splattered on the floor like blood, left only with anxiety and fear, yearning for his golden years in the sun and shade. Life promised him nothing, it guaranteed him nothing. Life settled down and he married a bookish Squirrel Hill widow when he turned sixty.  Reality stared him in his freckled, blotched, wrinkled face, no choice but to abandon his long-forgotten dreams and accept the brutal realities staring him in the face.

When he turned seventy, his gait slowed down as he buried the second wife and walked yet another of his dogs down this street. He noticed the trees and flowers more and more. It surprised him that his warts, blemishes, wrinkles, and lines didn't bother him. Just the opposite, they proved he'd lived his life well. He survived the heart attack he had in his early eighties and lived every day in the moment, just as it arrived, just as it departed. He laughed at outliving the world when he turned ninety, but had no choice but to say goodbye to his family, his friends with graceful, quiet simplicity as they departed this world for the next, embraceable world. Last Thursday Harold turned one hundred. He celebrated with young friends at Oakland Pizza, the first taste of his old college staple in more than ten years.

He could still walk on his own, he could still take his latest dog for a walk down these flat, narrow streets of Shadyside, the same streets he'd walked so many decades ago during college. In his latest years he befriended young college students again. They'd ignored him for decades but now they befriended him, seeking him out for advice, for wisdom. He told them the whole thing was one big colossal joke.

I paid for it

Arthur buzzed in his loafers and squinted his eyes and combed his hair and bounced his feet off the floor and smoked a cigarette and lit a joint and popped a Xanax and took an Ambien and downed three martinis. Tuesday evening proved to be far less dramatic for Conrad who read Michael Cunningham's "By Nightfall" by candlelight. He lay on the outdoor terrace on the sofa, the doggie at his feet, nursing a glass of sauvignon blanc with some brie and green grapes. He heard Arthur buzzing about inside the house.

Conrad started the second chapter, page 25. He tried to make it past page 27 but couldn't get Arthur's rickety-rack noises from the living room out of his head. Okay, let's try reading this sentence. Bang, slosh, kaboom. Okay, I made it through that sentence, he thought. What did that mean? Let's keep trying to read it. Second try. Nope, bang, slosh, kaboom again. Third try. Nope, bang, slosh, kaboom yet again.

"Could you keep it down in there? I'm trying to enjoy some peace and quiet out here!"

"I'm just trying to find the anagram puzzles. Where the hell did you put them? Every time I put something down in this apartment you organize it and it disappears." Arthur's yell echoed from inside to the outside. The dog perked his ears.

"In the nightstand by my side of the bed. Besides which, I bought it and it's mine."

Arthur peeked his head out the sliding glass door and stared Conrad in the face. "Next time tell me when you put something away, okay?"

"Why do I need to when it's mine? Get your own puzzle books."

Arthur huffed and blinked and squinted again. "Mine, mine, mine. Everything's yours around here. Why can't you share anything, you know? It's not like I don't live here too."

Conrad dismissed the thought and went back to his reading. Share with Arthur? Who never had two pennies to rub against each other? He couldn't save anything. What was the point? Back to reading, Conrad, reminded himself. Bang, slosh, kaboom came from the other room. The cycle repeated itself ... just like every night ... insanity.

Confess to something

Lieutenant Marble stared at the guests in the living room. Every last one of them looked guilty. There was the society matron with the 32-carat diamond necklace sitting on the edge of the sofa, clutching her knees so he couldn't see her nervous twitching. The colonel with a pipe in his mouth, pretending nonchalance, stood behind the left highback chair the debutante with big tits and blonde hair was hiding in -- or at least she was trying to conceal her guilty conscience from the lieutenant, Marble thought. Opposite the dishy deb sat the professor, concealing his bespectacled eyes by focusing on his book, Guilty Pleasures for Made-up Characters. The host of the evening couldn't sit still, nervously pacing left to right, side to side across the room, scratching his gray beard and coming his hair back every five minutes with his wrinkled hand. The hefty, round widow rounded out the group, sitting on the sofa next to the society maton and stealing furtive glances at the other five and Lieutenant Marble.

"I think I've pieced together all the clues the six of you have left behind. We know the butler died in the pantry. We know there was a terrible amount of blood all over everything. The rows of Proctor & Gamble cereals, Del Monte green beans, Dole pineapples, and Dutch Boy paint samples were drenched. He had a gaping wound in the center of the chest and both hands were clutching his groin, as if he had been sexually molested."

At this one of the matrons on the sofa squeaked out a high-pitched harumph. Marble couldn't be sure which it was -- Mrs. Peacock or Mrs. White.

"We know what that means -- it was done with the knife in the pantry. But who done it? Which one of your infernal creations done him in?"

The debutante stood up and pointed at the host. "It was Mr. Green! He's the only one who had a motive! The butler was about to expose the affair Green was having with --"

A shot rang out and Miss Scarlet lurched forward. Colonel Mustard raced around the chair to catch her falling body -- dead as a doornail, he said. "Mrs. Peacock! That's who Green had the affair with! And the butler was blackmailing --"

The colonel stood directly under the crystal chandelier. Without warning it cracked the ceiling and fell on Mustard and killed him instantly, but not before Green tried to pull him out of the way and got killed himself. Lieutenant Marble surveyed the remaining three. "Well, ladies and genteman," he said to the Mrs. Peacock, Mrs. White, and Professor Plum. "One of you done the butler in."

"Well, don't look at me --" Professor Plum added.

"Don't look at me either --" Mrs. White intoned.

"It ain't me!" Mrs. Peacock stated in her emphatic staccato.

"I think I've got it all figured out now. But it's not from anything any of you has said. The butler has told me everything --"

Mrs. Peacock demurred. "How? You yourself said it was a surprise."

"Ah, my dear Mrs. Peacock, it was a surprise -- for the murderer. The butler was clutching his crotch after all. That can mean only one thing."

"What could that be?"

"His crotch has a penis. A pee-pee. Professor Plum! It was Professor Plum in the pantry wity the knife!"

He confessed. Marble won the game.

Confess to something

Lieutenant Marble stared at the guests in the living room. Every last one of them looked guilty. There was the society matron with the 32-carat diamond necklace sitting on the edge of the sofa, clutching her knees so he couldn't see her nervous twitching. The colonel with a pipe in his mouth, pretending nonchalance, stood behind the left highback chair the debutante with big tits and blonde hair was hiding in -- or at least she was trying to conceal her guilty conscience from the lieutenant, Marble thought. Opposite the dishy deb sat the professor, concealing his bespectacled eyes by focusing on his book, Guilty Pleasures for Made-up Characters. The host of the evening couldn't sit still, nervously pacing left to right, side to side across the room, scratching his gray beard and coming his hair back every five minutes with his wrinkled hand. The hefty, round widow rounded out the group, sitting on the sofa next to the society maton and stealing furtive glances at the other five and Lieutenant Marble.

"I think I've pieced together all the clues the six of you have left behind. We know the butler died in the pantry. We know there was a terrible amount of blood all over everything. The rows of Proctor & Gamble cereals, Del Monte green beans, Dole pineapples, and Dutch Boy paint samples were drenched. He had a gaping wound in the center of the chest and both hands were clutching his groin, as if he had been sexually molested."

At this one of the matrons on the sofa squeaked out a high-pitched harumph. Marble couldn't be sure which it was -- Mrs. Peacock or Mrs. White.

"We know what that means -- it was done with the knife in the pantry. But who done it? Which one of your infernal creations done him in?"

The debutante stood up and pointed at the host. "It was Mr. Green! He's the only one who had a motive! The butler was about to expose the affair Green was having with --"

A shot rang out and Miss Scarlet lurched forward. Colonel Mustard raced around the chair to catch her falling body -- dead as a doornail, he said. "Mrs. Peacock! That's who Green had the affair with! And the butler was blackmailing --"

The colonel stood directly under the crystal chandelier. Without warning it cracked the ceiling and fell on Mustard and killed him instantly, but not before Green tried to pull him out of the way and got killed himself. Lieutenant Marble surveyed the remaining three. "Well, ladies and genteman," he said to the Mrs. Peacock, Mrs. White, and Professor Plum. "One of you done the butler in."

"Well, don't look at me --" Professor Plum added.

"Don't look at me either --" Mrs. White intoned.

"It ain't me!" Mrs. Peacock stated in her emphatic staccato.

"I think I've got it all figured out now. But it's not from anything any of you has said. The butler has told me everything --"

Mrs. Peacock demurred. "How? You yourself said it was a surprise."

"Ah, my dear Mrs. Peacock, it was a surprise -- for the murderer. The butler was clutching his crotch after all. That can mean only one thing."

"What could that be?"

"His crotch has a penis. A pee-pee. Professor Plum! It was Professor Plum in the pantry wity the knife!"

He confessed. Marble won the game.

The truth is

Gracie sat on the living room sofa in her country house. She'd lived in it almost 50 years. Mr. Honeywalker brought her here back in '85 after their honeymoon in New Jersey. Furthest she'd ever been since fleeing the Georgia plantation for New York back in '64 when Sherman came through. Mr. Honeywalker'd been real nice to take her in and then 10 years later, they got married even if no one approved. She might now be 80. It might not be the nicest living room anymore. Sofa sat nearly on the floor. Tables were missing legs. The portraits of Mr. Honeywalker's parents and grandparents were dusty and faded. And the drapes hung loose. But, hell, it was home.

She waited for Norman and Agnes to come back with the truck. They were taking her to Old Man Lacey's and had run out to get some final stuff for her trip out there. Didn't make any sense to her, why she had to go. She'd lived on this land and run it just like a man -- she'd didn't need no one to help her. But they insisted since Agnes's own grandma just died and  they had to go back to Philadelphia. Gracie would miss the new baby girl she'd help bring into the world that thundering August night. Agnes had even named her Grace after her. It made her real sad to see them go. They'd kept her good company last five months. But they worried since it was February she'd freeze to death without heat. Don't know why, she'd managed okay in winters a lot worse than this winter of '33. But they insisted, she'd spend the rest of it with Old Man Lacey and his warm house. Enough said for now.

Old Man Lacey'd been good to her all these years. Best next-door neighbor a black woman and former slave could have, even if she only saw him two, three times a year. Hell, they lived ten miles apart. That was the nice part. No one lived out these ways much. If her nearest neighbor was 10 miles, so be it. Her eleven children hardly ever came by. They went off to New York, down to Pittsburgh, anywhere but here in the middle of the New York mountains. But she had Old Man Lacey whenever she wanted. Truth be told, they'd depended on each other for years now, even if months passed between visits. That was the thing. You didn't have to see him. But you knew, he was there if you wanted him.

My sister

Blood seeped out of the car's cabin onto the wet road and mixed with water. A pool of blood and rain formed at Harriet's feet. She stood, soaked to the bone and tears streaming out of her eyes, looking at the tangled mess of steel, rubber, and plastic. The collision had wedged her sister's ten-year old Celica between a school bus and a Mack truck. Harriet could see Mabel's auburn temple poking out of the broken windshield, her head at a 135 degree angle to her neck. But she also knew the truth she could not see but the blood told her. Mabel's head had been severed at the neck.

If only it had been her. She was the older one. She wouldn't have minded going just before reaching 40. Not her Mabel, not her baby sister, ten years her junior. She'd lived her life. She'd been to her son's college graduation and she'd attended his wedding and her first grandbaby's christening. It was okay for grandmothers to die, but not for mothers -- not this mother, who'd just adopted a little girl from Romania four years ago. Mabel had long ago decided she didn't want to get married (too much compromise) but she'd finally decided to give her life to someone else: a child in need. And now Margaret was orphaned a second time -- at least until Harriet could adopt her. How, Harriet thought, would she ever tell Margaret that her mother had died?

Lime green and charcoal gray

Will wiped the smut off his cheek and blew the dirt out of his nose and got back to shoveling the coal out of the grotto. He'd been working 7 hours that gray March Saturday and had just an hour to go before quitting. He'd have just enough time to scrub the coal dirt off his face and arms before his mother served supper at 2:30.. They'd go to 4 p.m. mass afterward and then he and his father would go to the pub in downtown Dublin. He'd turned 16 yesterday and it'd be the first time he could have some dark ale with his father and his buddies.

Will liked Dublin. His mother and father didn't know it, though Father Edwin who did his confession did know. He'd gone to the whorehouse on Limerick Street a dozen times since he'd turned 15. He loved paying for the women, made working in the coal mines and the grotto worth it. Last summer he'd saved up the money to buy one of Miss Annie's girls for real intercourse. Nothing'd ever felt like it and he'd exploded in less than a dozen thrusts. Took no time at all. He'd learned since then that girls liked it when you took your time and he liked it better, too, because it meant the explosion would be more wild.

As he finished up the last of the coals he thought about the scherzo. He hadn't touched his violin in practically 2 weeks. He'd wanted to play this afternoon after he got home, but Mama had insisted -- they'd all go to mass, the three of them with Will's little sister Emily. He hated Emily. She tattled on everything Will did, except for going to the whorehouse, which she didn't know because she didn't even know about sex yet. He wanted to hang all her dolls and scare the shit out of her. But the violin -- he missed it a lot. He'd almost finished working on the Beethoven concerto's rondo, but had to put it down once his parents told him, go work forty hours a week to pay your way. Ever since then, he'd only had fifteen minutes here, ten minutes there. It mostly sat in the case under his bed.

He went home that afternoon, skin dry and grimy from the coals, hungry at the bottom of his tummy. He'd forgotten to eat his oatmeal before leaving for work at 5 a.m. He was real glad Mama was cooking today. She'd have boiled ham and cabbage waiting for him. He could smell the aroma as he opened the door, but he also heard the scratching sounds of his violin from the parlor room. Emily was playing his violin, scratching away on his very own violin. His very own teacher Mr. Lowrey sat next to her. Mama stood in the kitchen, her back to the scene in front of Will's unbelieving eyes. Didn't Mama and Mr. Lowrey know she was butchering his violin?

This isn't working

I made my morning list of my TODO action items. Few people knew I always mixed the personal stuff in with the work stuff. Hey, I've only got one life, after all -- both personal and professional stuff, you know. Just because it's nine in the morning doesn't mean the personal life gets completely turned off. And just because it's eight in the evening doesn't mean the work stuff gets turned off, either. Though it's much easier to try the latter than the former.

Google's a great company, but boy are the demands high. I had eight work items on my list for the day. Debug the calibration module. Test the bi-weekly build. Monitor the freakin' continuous builds. Go to the daily stand-up. Have lunch with Marcia (didn't want to do that but gotta). Refactor the load tester. Build a new front-end library. Fix the concurrency algorithm. If I added it all up, it'd take me 30 hours. But NO, it's gotta be today.

And my personal stuff. Lisa my girlfriend wants me to call her wood flooring guy and straighten out that mess. They don't take a woman seriously, she told me. She's right about that, those low-class pigs. Yeah, one more responsibility. And then there's my parents. Making a dermatology appointment. That red spot on my face has got to go. Going to the gym, need to work on my problem areas. Thank the Lord, Google has an on-site gym, not to mention the cafeterias. I barely have time even to beat off. Perhaps I can squeeze that in between nine and nine-oh-five tonight.

Okay, I've made my list. Now, let's get cracking. Oh, here comes Tom from Larchmont, New York. God, that accent, a cross between Mort Sahl and Joe Pesci, every time he opens his mouth, I feel like I'm descending into the bowels of the Bowery. Tom can't sit still for five minutes without commenting on something. Most of the time, not related to work, usually something about stocks, babes, or Star Trek. Every day, it's something new about Star Trek this, Star Trek that. After being together in the office for more than a year he still hasn't figured ou that every time he starts talking, I grab my headphones and my iPod and I listen to the loudest heavy metal playlist I can find. I HATE heavy metal.

Today I snap. For the first time. I'm in the middle of fixing the concurrency algorithm. Peace and quiet for six minutes, a personal record for Tom. We don't make it to seven.

He tapes me on the shoulder and I jump out of my skin. "Robert, guess who's starring in 'Star Trek: the Endless Franchise?' It's Patrick Stewart's comeback!"

The furnace boils over. "Who the hell cares about fucking Star Trek? Can't you shut up for five fucking minutes? Just let me fucking work, you moron! This is fucking totally not working for me!"

I was fired later that afternoon.

The kitchen

He'd said it before and he'd say it again. Redoing the kitchen was a sure sign that they were about to break up. And sure enough it had come to pass.

It had all started off innocently enough. He and Michael had bought their deluxe apartment in the sky four years ago and slowly but surely had changed it as the money flowed in (more out than in, truth be told). First they replaced all the windows and the air conditioning. That'd cost almost forty grand right there. Shit was expensive in South Florida. And then came the call from Sarah Rogers downstairs -- "your shower's leaking into our shower!" Eleven months and two hundred headaches later, they'd blown forty-nine grand on new bathrooms. One snowball and led to a larger snowball.

And then came the affair and the almost-breakup. They'd decided to stay together after the affair but as part of the deal, they'd redo the kitchen so they'd both feel like it was their apartment. New cabinets, new countertop, new floors. That was the agreement. And then the little things got added. New ceiling with recessed lighting. New appliances, even though the ones they'd had were only 3 years old. Tearing out one wall and moving the opening to another wall. Tearing out another wall for better access to the den. New steps up to the den. A railing across the opening. Why not new furniture too?

Before they knew it, the fifty grand budgeted for the project had swelled to an estimate over one hundred grand. So he decided he'd rather get a divorce. Would be cheaper.

Go

"What's that smell?" I asked Giles, surveying the buffet platters of food and hors d'oeuvres on the banquette and dining table. Giles's tartan ascot went askew at the scent of something gone wrong. My Christmas bow tie twitched.

"Freddie, it sounds like the turkey's burning!"

"Oh my God, not the turkey!" We barreled into the kitchen. Giles slipped on the shiny white tiles of our nouveau kitchen and his 300-pound tub of a body fell flat on its face. My stick figure of a body jumped over his pile of blubber and ran to the stove, opened it, and grabbed the turkey roaster with my bare hands.

"O O O O U U U U C C C C H H H H !!!!"

I turned around, jumped back over a Giles struggling to get to his feet, ran over to the sink, turned on the faucet, and doused my hands. Water splashed all over my dark red Armani jacket.

"Thank the Lord!"

"Serves you right, you weasel!" Giles stood up and glared at my soaked Armani. He limped over to the stove, grabbed the oven mitts, and pulled the turkey out of the oven.

"Looks like Wiley Coyote after a bomb's exploded. In his face."

So what were we going to do now? We had the Contessa Louisa de Pretenza sitting by our 9-foot tree in the formal salon, holding court with Letitia Cosgrove, Cornelius Armstrong, Bunny Havers, the Underwoods, the de Gooches, and the Huntingdon-Worthingtons. And here we were, trying to impress the haut polloi, a burned turkey, smoke billowing out of the stove, 300-pound Giles limping, and my about-to-blister fingers. Not to mention Giles's ascot all in a mess. What else could go wrong at this Christmas soiree?

The kitchen door swung open. It was Bunny, her flabby chins bouncing. "Giles, Freddie, come right away! Your dog's urinated on Contessa Louisa!"

"Oh, no!"

"Saints preserve us!"

We waddled out to the salon, my hands wrapped in wet rags and Giles limping on his injured foot, only to find Whizzer baring his teeth at the contessa. Why, oh why, hadn't we put him in the basement for the evening? The barking, that's why. He'd have barked his German shepherd head off from the basement, ruining our lovely evening on the social ladder. And there was the countess, a Hedda Hopper hat square on her head, her full-length dress with a Rorschach-blotted wet stain just below the knees.

Giles smirked an apology, grabbed Whizzer, and retreated down the hallway with the dog.

"Dear Contessa, are you wet? Did he raise his leg and go on you? I'm soooooooooooooooo sorry. How can I ever apologize enough, dear Contessa?"

"It is not a problem, my dear Mr. Carlton. After all this is only the gown I wore to my introduction to society as the late Count's new wife. This was my dear, departed husband's favorite dress. I assure you, it is no bother whatsoever!" She rolled her eyes and raised her pencil-thin eyebrows into tarantula arches. She telegraphed a silent message over to Letitia Cosgrove, that small-minded bigot who wrote the gossip column for the A-listers of Bar Harbor.

We were FINISHED.

Stop

Towanda ruled.

She drove up I-95 from Washington to Philadelphia on her mission. As the head of Planned Parenthood, she'd averted a fiasco in D.C. by holding a press conference ahead of the maelstrom. She'd gotten the heads up from Melissa Rosenberg, Mrs. Galt's social secretary, that the vice-president's young wife would be walking into the local Planned Parenthood facility to get an abortion. It would bring all of the crazies out of the woodwork. Sure enough, Towanda's network of contacts confirmed that weirdos from Alaska to Colorado to Arizona to Kansas to Kentucky to Pennsylvania to Maine would descend on Washington like a plague of locusts. She knew action had to be taken fast.

Mrs. Galt was outspoken in her pro-choice views. Towanda shared them, but she'd compromise, twist arms, negotiate with the opposition, give a little to get a little, rather than demand everything all at once. The Second Lady had cost President Anderson votes in the election because of it. Pennsylvania hadn't gone Republican since 1988 but the Democrats lost it, Towanda knew, because of Mrs. Galt's radical views on abortion -- at least, radical insofar as the current political times were concerned. Most people were pro-choice, but only up to a point. And the more one side fanned the flame, Towanda believed, the more the other side would push back.

Towanda drove to Washington without warning and spoke directly to the vice-president's wife. After much arm-twisting from her and from the president himself, she'd agreed to allow a Planned Parenthood doctor perform the abortion at the vice-presidential mansion. Her arguments had at first fallen on deaf ears, but when Mrs. Galt was told in a none-too-subtle manner that grandstanding in front of the Planned Parenthood facility would jeopardize the safety of all women seeking its services, she agreed to have the procedure performed in private. Following this, Towanda held a press conference and announced funding for confidential transportation to the D.C. facility for local women seeking abortions. Women would be escorted from undisclosed locations into the facility's garage, avoiding contact with abortion protesters.

She had to stop the "Stop Abortion!" fanatics in their tracks and keep pro-choice fanatics from ruining it for everybody. Yyou know what they say, Towanda thought. It's not your enemies you need to worry about. It's your friends.

Three sentences

I got home and Paula sat on the sofa, hands folded in her lap. Her blonde hair was tied in a tight ponytail, so tight her pale blue eyes practically bulged out of her skull. She always did look like a young Bette Davis. She wore a white collared blouse, a tartan plaid skirt, and her worn black loafers. She looked, more than anything, like a nervous girl sitting in the headmistress's office in private school. Like she'd thrown food at the class tattletale.

She had her suitcase with her. She didn't have to say a word. I knew what was coming. But she said it anyway: how she needed to find herself, how it wasn't about me it was all about her, how she would always love me, how we'd always be friends. Yadda, yadda, yadda. We both knew it was total bullshit, but had to go through the polite formalities, I suppose, so that neither one of us would collapse in hysterical don't-leave-me-I-can't-live-without-you sobs. She left less than five minutes after I got home.

I poured myself a glass of chardonnay and sat in the dining room, looking at the red velvet drapes. She'd done all the decorating and I could never stand it. The Victorian look would have to go, first thing. Then I noticed it. The dining closet was empty. Everything was gone. The fine china, the crystal, the display of my grandmother's silver. All gone. I looked everywhere else, did my inventory. My grandmother had left everything to me for my daughters, but I never had any daughters, only my wife Rebecca and Rebecca had taken the furs, the jewels, even the locket with the 1920s photo of my grandfather, dead before I was even born. I couldn't bear that wherever I looked, it was all gone. I, too, left the house.

Milton

Milton had $67.85 in his wallet. The credit cards had long ago dried up. He'd been living on cash for six weeks, counting time until he lost his basement studio apartment in the Tenderloin. Even with the porn shop's neon sign glaring in his only window every night until 3 a.m., it cost him $750 every month. Why wouldn't anyone buy his watercolors? They were good, or at least Darlene had told him so.

Darlene had given him an extra week to scrounge up the $800, but she couldn't afford to rent the basement for free either. Tips from waitressing at the Home restaurant on Market Street had pretty much dried up. Ever since the Great Recession began a year ago, they couldn't earn any money. So finally she'd plodded down the stairs to the basement and told him he'd have to go, she didn't have any choice but to let the new tenant move in.

He loaded up his shit brown Taurus with what he could take. A few clothes, here and there. Not much, just a lot of denim, black socks, tennis shoes, a few wool scarves, caps, and his leopard lampshade hat. He loved it; he'd taken it after his mother had died fourteen years ago. He had to fight his younger brothers for it. They lived in Modesto. And then there was Dudley -- his sixteen year old wiener dog. Okay, dachshund, but he liked calling Dudley a wiener dog. Dudley had a heart murmur and arthritis in his back. It'd be a hard trip for him.

He left at 3 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, just after the neon signs went out. He didn't want to say goodbye to Darlene. She'd been too good to him and he didn't know what to say, didn't know how to say goodbye. He drove through the night into the morning and stopped in the early afternoon. He had to get gas -- Winnemucca was the stop. He paid $39.80 to fill the tank. His mouth was bone dry. He had to have something to drink. Bought a bottle of water for $2.19. That left $25.86 in his pockets. He wouldn't get very far with that. Next town was 250 miles. Guess this is where he hit the wall, Winnemucca, Nevada. Maybe he could get a job as a janitor in a whore house.

Some part of his face

I absolutely loved going to Jacksonville even if I did find it boring, provincial, ordinary, and mundane. My father-in-law Ron had a big ranch house on the St. John's River with a breathtaking western view of the city's modest but shapely skyline. The house sat on a huge property. His back yard must've been the size of a football field. Our dogs jumped up and down in the way-back of the S.U.V. whenever we approached. It was easy enough for them to figure where we were, after all, with those rolling dips in the road on the final two blocks. Mike and I had an absolute terror named Chester; Alicia and Jay had a sweet little neurotic named Taylor. They were best buddies, and why not? Doggie-wise, they were first cousins. They loved going to visit Grandpa Ron's house.

Captain Ron always rolled out the welcome mat for us. He'd serve us a lunch of boiled ham, tomato and lettuce salad, and Cool Whip for dessert. Not bad -- really. Invariably dressed in short '80s shorts, a Florida shirt, and tennis shoes, he had a deep tan from years and years of boating. He hadn't worked since 8-tracks, Walkmans, and VCRs. He'd sold his business back then and had lived miserly on the income from it ever since. At least, his three wives called it miserly -- No. 1 Judy (Mike and Alicia's mother), No. 2 Becky (the O.C.D. one, mother to half-sister Tessa), and No. 3. I can't remember the third wife's name because she (a Serbian immigrant in search of a meal ticket and a permanent Visa) only lasted four months. I think her name was Sefia or something like that.

After lunch, we'd head out to the back yard for the dogs to run around, Jay and Alicia's 8-year old son Michael to play in the tree house, Mike to walk 1-year old Brookie Cookie around, checking out bugs, bushes, and branches, me to read my book. Hey, I knew I didn't always fit in with Mike's recreation-is-life family, but I always enjoyed the getaway aspect of Jacksonville and the way they liked me even if I was a brainy intellectual geeky nerd with a chip on his shoulder. Case in point ...

That afternoon I lay on Ron's living room sofa looking out toward the St. John's River, alternating between "Middlemarch" and logic puzzles. Ron came over. "So what do you think, Jim?"

Think about what, I wondered ... but his body language said it all. He turned his face toward me, rotating it a little to the left, a little to the right, chin raised a little, chin falling a little -- like Carol Merrill showing off a prize on "Let's Make a Deal." Groan. His recent facelift. God, was I supposed to gush? I wasn't in the mood so I decided to play stupid.

"Think about what?" I asked in my most deferential son-in-law tone of voice. "What do you mean, Ron?"

"This, right here." He tossed his jaw one more time to the left, then to the right.

I knew stupid could only go so far without becoming rude. "Oh, of course! How nice." It was the kiss of death in the Deep South to give someone the "how nice" compliment. Luckily Ron came from Detroit and was a good sport where I was concerned. Ron headed outside and I went back to the adventures of Dorothea Brooke and Will Ladislaw.

A spill

Natasha and Louis struggled up the steep hills of the Marin Headlands. It was a glorious late Saturday morning in Northern California's September -- best they could remember since getting married after finishing Berkeley a dozen years ago. The hills above the craggy mountains that hugged the Golden Gate Bridge simply crawled with San Franciscans, Sausalitans, Mariners, Sonomans, and tourists who always stood out like Norwegians at a bar mitzvah. Natasha and Louis wound their way up the hill like the other cyclists, Natasha in her navy blue spandex, sports bra, her long straight blonde hair in a single ponytail behind her -- all the more for the sun to bronze her smooth, tanned skin -- and Louis, in matching navy blue spandex that concealed a little-on-the-large-side bulge, shirtless with silky sweat dripping down the dark, hairy sinews of his gym-sculpted torso. He loved the view of Natasha's hips in front of him. She loved the ripples of his pulsing triceps.

Nearing the top, each thought about what they'd be doing in the late afternoon after tying the bikes to the BMW 3's caboose and driving the open-topped cabrio back to their Noe Valley bungalow. They'd shed their sweaty clothes in a straight line from the front door to the bed, rumple the linen sheets and toss the pillows onto the floor, open the windows and let the linen drapes blow in the wind, and use up their supply of ropes, condoms, and lube. Their weekly Saturday 4 p.m. ritual hadn't lost its thrill even after twelve years of marriage. Why hadn't they yet had kids? Her eyes on the convex shape of Louis's crotch, Natasha joked, they didn't want anything to interfere with fucking.

Just as they reached the peak, an old VW Bus blundered from the other side, a little too close to Natasha. She jumped out of her skin, turned right into a mound, took a spill, and landed on the rocks in a jumble of crashing limbs. The VW driver swerved away from Natasha and blundered over the edge of the cliff. Louis cried out at the sight of Natasha tumbling onto the rocks but froze in sheer terror as he heard an explosion from the bottom of the ravine. He rushed to Natasha and she whimpered, "I'm okay." Louis smelled burning metal, oil, and flesh coming up the hill below them.

He realized there probably wouldn't be any fucking this afternoon. He held out hope anyway.

Keep danger out of the kid's reach

Life can change in a single instant when the wrong people meet at the wrong time.

Karen Burlington cried to herself in bed Friday night, two weeks since Henry had left, saying he couldn't take the bickering any longer. He took his '70s record collection of KISS, Chicago, the Bachman Trio, Captain and Tennille and the 10-year old Plymouth minivan and left her with the Pontiac Sunbird, Lionel trains, his dead mother's musty furniture, ten months on a $900 monthly lease, and three children to raise. Her horizontal tears persisted until the sun came up and, sleepless, she walked zombielike to the kitchen, put the tea kettle on the stove.

As it whistled little Arthur, at 6 her youngest, came into the room. He'd been watching Bugs Bunny and wanted his Cheerios. He reached up for the box -- Karen screamed a little scream -- but grabbed the tea kettle instead. He couldn't handle the weight of it; too heavy for the little boy. And the handle, too hot to hold. Started to teeter over --

"Sweetheart, let me handle that!" She grabbed it from him in the nick of time, put it on top of their small pantry cabinet from Ikea. Yeah, it wobbled if anyone touched it, but Arthur'd zero in on his Cheerios and would forget it was 6 feet off the ground. She looked at her youngest -- the most sensitive of the three boys. Harry didn't miss his dad. He had his basketball hoop and all the neighborhood boys to occupy his time. Jason didn't miss his dad. He had his books and his retreat into the fantasy world of Harry Potter. But Arthur ... Arthur'd never forget being abandoned by his father.

The house, so quiet, so still. Karen could stand anything but the silence, no one talking, no one making a noise. And yet she didn't hear the kitchen door open, didn't know until she heard, "Karen, I've --"

She screamed, this time for real, the bearded man almost unrecognizable in his sunglasses and baseball cap, wife beater and jeans. Before she recognized him, she flinched, slipped on the wet tiled floor, fell backwards into the Ikea pantry cabinet. The tea kettle wobbled, spilled over, and fell with full force -- on the man's head, spilling boiling water down his back, down his front, knocking him unconscious. He fell, hit the side of his head on the sharp corner of the '50s diner table, split it open, then landed a second time on the floor six feet from Karen. Popeyed, Karen took in the scene, little Arthur sobbed, spilling his Cheerios as he reached down to his daddy, already growing cold, already receding further into the distance.

The tea kettle

Life can change in a single instant when the wrong people meet at the wrong time.

Karen Burlington cried to herself in bed Friday night, two weeks since Henry had left, saying he couldn't take the bickering any longer. He took his '70s record collection of KISS, Chicago, the Bachman Trio, Captain and Tennille and the 10-year old Plymouth minivan and left her with the Pontiac Sunbird, Lionel trains, his dead mother's musty furniture, ten months on a $900 monthly lease, and three children to raise. Her horizontal tears persisted until the sun came up and, sleepless, she walked zombielike to the kitchen, put the tea kettle on the stove.

As it whistled little Arthur, at 6 her youngest, came into the room. He'd been watching Bugs Bunny and wanted his Cheerios. He reached up for the box -- Karen screamed a little scream -- but grabbed the tea kettle instead. He couldn't handle the weight of it; too heavy for the little boy. And the handle, too hot to hold. Started to teeter over --

"Sweetheart, let me handle that!" She grabbed it from him in the nick of time, put it on top of their small pantry cabinet from Ikea. Yeah, it wobbled if anyone touched it, but Arthur'd zero in on his Cheerios and would forget it was 6 feet off the ground. She looked at her youngest -- the most sensitive of the three boys. Harry didn't miss his dad. He had his basketball hoop and all the neighborhood boys to occupy his time. Jason didn't miss his dad. He had his books and his retreat into the fantasy world of Harry Potter. But Arthur ... Arthur'd never forget being abandoned by his father.

The house, so quiet, so still. Karen could stand anything but the silence, no one talking, no one making a noise. And yet she didn't hear the kitchen door open, didn't know until she heard, "Karen, I've --"

She screamed, this time for real, the bearded man almost unrecognizable in his sunglasses and baseball cap, wife beater and jeans. Before she recognized him, she flinched, slipped on the wet tiled floor, fell backwards into the Ikea pantry cabinet. The tea kettle wobbled, spilled over, and fell with full force -- on the man's head, spilling boiling water down his back, down his front, knocking him unconscious. He fell, hit the side of his head on the sharp corner of the '50s diner table, split it open, then landed a second time on the floor six feet from Karen. Popeyed, Karen took in the scene, little Arthur sobbed, spilling his Cheerios as he reached down to his daddy, already growing cold, already receding further into the distance.