It had been raining all morning. Water fell down the sand-blasted red brick facades and burst from the tops of clogged copper downspouts. It pooled where masons had misplaced their levels, rushed in rapids toward heavy, cast-iron grates. Less than a year before the street had been part of a burned out neighborhood, a patchwork of vacant lots and fallen down houses, gangs on the corner, burned out cars, but now it was picture perfect, nineteenth century, a place to eat and drink and shop...

It had been raining all morning. Water fell down the sand-blasted red brick building facades and burst from the tops of clogged copper downspouts. It pooled where masons had misplaced their levels, rushed in rapids toward heavy, cast iron grates. The rain was washing the city clean of winter. They had gone shopping down along Newberry Street for things to furnish the apartment. People had on their Patagonia rain gear with hoods pulled tight. Others walked under huge umbrellas, black and red a...

 It had been raining all morning. Water fell down the sand-blasted brick facades and burst from the tops of clogged copper downspouts. It pooled where masons had misplaced their levels, rushed in rapids toward heavy, cast iron grates. The rain was washing the city clean of winter. They had gone shopping down along Newberry Street for things to furnish the apartment. People had on Patagonia parkas with their hoods pulled over and others walked under huge umbrellas, red and green against t...

Every night she slept alone, but she was used to that. In fact, she didn’t really mind at all. She never felt alone. She had many friends, and she wasn’t afraid of being called an old maid or even taken pity on by the other women at church. What did they know? “We all have our little roles to play,” she said each morning, a kind of mantra, whether standing in front of the bathroom sink or over in front of the mirror by her dressing table. It was something her father u...

She looked surprisingly healthy, sitting at a table in back, a salad and glass of ice tea in front of her. He assumed it was tea. During one of their chats she had said that she drank her weight in bourbon each week; that once she had gone a whole month without bathing. She had said all kinds of things, wild things, and there was never any way of knowing what was true, or whether it was only true for that day, or that hour. The restaurant was one of those neighborhood joints, Italian; with a ...

She looked surprisingly healthy, sitting at a table in back, a salad and glass of ice tea in front of her. He assumed it was tea. During one of their chats she had said that she drank her weight in bourbon each week; that once she had gone a whole month without bathing. She had said all kinds of things, wild things, and there was never any way of knowing what was true, or whether it was only true for that day, or that hour. The restaurant was one of those neighborhood Italian places, with a b...

She looked surprisingly healthy, sitting at a table in back, a salad and glass of ice tea in front of her. He assumed it was tea. During one of their chats she had said that she drank her weight in bourbon each week; that once she had gone a whole month without bathing. She had said all kinds of things, wild things, and there was never any way of knowing what was true, or whether it was only true for that day, or that hour. The restaurant was one of those neighborhood Italian places, with a b...

She looked surprisingly healthy, sitting at a table in back, a salad and glass of ice tea in front of her. He assumed it was tea. During one of their chats she had said that she drank her weight in bourbon each week; that once she had gone a whole month without bathing. She had said all kinds of things, wild things, and there was never any way of knowing what was true, or whether it was only true for that day, or that hour. The restaurant was one of those neighborhood Italian places, with a b...

She looked surprisingly healthy, sitting at a table in back, a salad and glass of ice tea in front of her. He assumed it was tea. During one of their chats she had said that she drank her weight in bourbon each week; that once she had gone a whole month without bathing. She had said all kinds of things, wild things, and there was never any way of knowing what was true, or whether it was only true for that day, or that hour. The restaurant was one of those neighborhood Italian places, with a b...

She looked surprisingly healthy, sitting at a table in back, a salad and glass of ice tea in front of her. He assumed it was tea. During one of their chats she had said that she drank her weight in bourbon each week; that once she had gone a whole month without bathing. She had said all kinds of things, wild things, and there was never any way of knowing what was true, or whether it was only true for that day, or that hour. The restaurant was one of those neighborhood Italian places, with a b...