Fiction

The woman asks CK if he has a bodega cat. He says no, even though there’s a cat sleeping on a bread box in back.

We float in the pool and stare at the clouds. My sister says Jack. I say Rose, like a weird game of Marco Polo.

During the Festival, we’re forbidden to eat anything except fruits.

It’s not the first time you do it, but it is the first time you get caught.

Over time, I detested how the woman jealously occupied his heart so that no other woman ever stepped into our lives or our house.

“This is a homecoming,” he’d announced to the girl who took the order, “don’t let our mouths or cups go empty.”

If I stand in the middle of my home and wingspan my arms out, I can touch the insides of my mother’s left lung, wall-to-wall.

I thought about that Chupacabra at the farmhouse, ripping those goats to shreds. He was my fucking hero.

Every customer with perfect lipstick and a hard-lined face reminded me of Mom. We hadn’t spoken in nearly a year.

This is what beauty was, she said. This is what beauty made you into.

“I don’t know why the hell he chose to live here, of all places. Sometimes it feels like the loneliest city in the world.”

I don’t know if she’s dangerous, or crazy like they say. But in this deadening place, she’s the only live wire.