Physically, Mrs. Gutman  appeared quite fragile. She wore no makeup. She dressed for winter in two or three layers of well-worn cardigans and a long wool coat, and her long blond hair was untamed and frizzy, forming a halo mass around her small face. Her eyes were a deep blue. She was the first college professor who came to know me by name. 

Two Curses 

There used to be 7 wonders of the world, some of the wonders were leveled; some of the wonders have only grown taller, wider, more prolific as refrigerator magnets, as modeling clay crumbling at a crime scene. 

Bob Wilson was on vacation. It was a forced vacation; he hadn’t had a vacation in over two years and he really didn’t want this one. He really, really, didn’t want this one.

When Bob woke up the next morning in their motel room, he half expected Millie would be gone with his car and his money. When she was still there in bed with him, he thought that maybe he had truly found his soul mate. He looked over in the corner by the television and saw her small attaché case next to his small suitcase. She had been embezzling just as he had been; she also had had no plan on when to quit and take the money and run. Bob’s forced vacation had been his push and his bank robbery attempt had been hers. 

Everyone’s smiling and chirping, talking with their hands, and feeling with their mouths. You can feel the music’s bass pound your sternum in tune with your heart beat, sandwiching your ribcage with every thumping, bumping measure. You’re engaged in a conversation with four or five people dressed in flannels, pencil skirts, chucks, and t-shirts, but nobody knows what anyone’s talking about. You all just laugh loudly and listen in vain. People you know mingle with people you don’t know, and the people you don’t know are sure to become people you do know within the next hour or so. 

I know what will make it better. I’ve seen the commercials with that pro wrestler. What’s his name? The Masher? Tongue wagging through a weird leather mask that looks like a catcher’s mitt, he jams his behemoth hands forward and his palms are filled with brightly colored mini musclemen. “Berzerkoids are here!” He screams so loud the TV rattles even when the volume is down. The toys are cheap and Jamie has been begging for them. 

Adam took a long second look into the ravine, and shook his head. “I don’t want to go over any side,” then put a limp hand up on the handlebar, which wouldn’t have been able to push the Hitachi in a million years. So they pushed it off together. They had designed a sub-par go-kart, but apparently the Hitachi was perfectly made for flight. It came off the top and twisted, then stalled and twisted the other way, like a knuckleball, finally landing on its side, corner down. 

She arched her eyebrow then let out a sharp laugh. “Perverse is a compliment. The people pulling your strings are the only people in the world who can make a woman look uglier than I can. I respect that. I respect them. Of you, I have no opinion—yet.” She finished her champagne and again, dropped the coupe. It shattered at her feet. “Come by my studio whenever you get back to Paris. Let me see if there’s more to you than men’s trousers and a pretty face.” She slid the tray to the floor and walked away through the puddle and shards of glass. 

My mother had been too young, too pretty and had died too soon after giving birth to me, Sister Clemence told me. Of my father, she knew nothing. There was no name anywhere. Telling us children our histories was strictly forbidden but Sister Clemence had a soft place in her Christ-licked heart for me. I reminded her of a child she had lost when she, too, had been too young. Shortly thereafter, she took her vows. She smothered me in hugs smelling of laundry soap, incense and sweat, and kisses disturbingly wet. Touch was also verboten. Sister Clemence was bit of a dissenter.