Bouncers by Barbara Robinson
Between the two of them they made an impenetrable wall to the skinny, chewing lads and the curvy, goose-fleshed girls. They kept their faces blank, sometimes standing with arms folded,…
Between the two of them they made an impenetrable wall to the skinny, chewing lads and the curvy, goose-fleshed girls. They kept their faces blank, sometimes standing with arms folded,…
He tells me I’ve been wearing my doubts like old clothes, ugly and impossible to love. He’d like me to cast them off, but I don’t know if I can…
She starts with the woody end of her pencil; the paint flakes away at her bite, the lead draws a metallic line across her lips. Next, her tongue explores the…
A cocktail dress is a sorry thing at eight A.M., but here’s one now, coming up out of the 86th Street subway station. The wearer of the dress needs pills.…
Two brunettes pass a house with a black swastika painted on the mailbox. That’s terrible, says one. It looks like calligraphy marker, says the other. Do you think they did…
The woman was over 60 and willowy. Which meant that she was kind of like a tree, equal parts strong and limber. She wasn’t the kind to bend over backwards,…
He loved lying in bed, watching her get dressed in the morning. She moved quickly, peeling off her pyjamas as she walked across the room. Her hair – bobbed now,…
Georgina enjoyed the smell that selling a packet of cigarettes left on her fingers. The the raw earthy tang that lingered reminded her of him, of his jacket, his car.…
Her red dress had lain hidden at the bottom of the laundry basket. When she’d asked him to return it, he wasn’t lying about not knowing its whereabouts. Glancing sideways…
Mike strides out into the bush. Alternately swishing at palm fronds and slapping at mosquitoes, he reminds me with every movement, every huff of breath, that it was my idea…
My reflection in the flower shop window startled me. The scowl, five o’clock shadow (now more hobo than hip), and bags under my eyes weren’t mine and were not a…
Helen stands up with a quizzical look on her face. “Do you smell that?” She takes one whiff. Two. “I smell something.” The turkey sandwich’s dry. Needs something. “What?” “There’s–”…