I scrutinized the man under veiled eyes. My long dark eyelashes were one of my vanities, and in times like these they came in useful. (The Exit Door)
Since when did I follow a complete stranger ( I wondered – what’s an incomplete stranger?) out of a social setting where I knew at least half the participants, toward a “wonderful café” he suggested?
“George,” the blue-jeaned “complete” stranger said as if reading my mind. And no, I don’t do this often.” Continue reading
Amy didn’t know how to tell him.
They’d been dating almost seven months. In September, at month two, she wondered if he was the one.
But something held Amy back. Continue reading
On one of my hold-my-breath-until-we-land flights a few months ago, I was the last passenger to enter the plane (my normal routine) and sat next to a nice-looking man who barely looked up.
But I looked him up and down, gauging how well the flight would go. Not garrulous, check. Not nervous, check. Not a drinker, check. All good to go. 
But as I placed my purse under my seat and opened my book, I took offense. Perhaps this man – mid-30s – dismissed me already for being one of those things: a talker or a nervous flier or worse, just an “older woman” who was – dismissible. Continue reading
I didn’t mean to, but I made a grown man cry.
A huge hulking man who wore high-heeled boots.
It all happened on a sunny Sunday in front of a restaurant on a busy Boston cobblestoned street. Continue reading
I take the train from Boston to Delaware to visit my mom. Anything is better than flying, I figure. Plus, I can watch the pastoral East Coast scenery whiz by, in my romanticized notion of riding the rails.
I pack five books, my laptop, and three short story rough drafts. After all, I have more than six hours to write or read with no interruption.
Heaven!
When was the last time you rode a train? Do you remember the bouncing and jouncing, the rolling and jerking one mile to the next to the next…?
