Lanlan is ten and enlightened. She is brimming with knowledge. She is no longer lost. It is a terrible thing.
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The plan was dinner only, but here he’s shown up with alcohol. Sorry, he says, he gets nervous. It’s our second date. He’s looking at the alligator-shaped cat-house and asking if I’m one of those people.
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The man standing on the rooftop of the south block building pokes a wet finger into the pale belly of the sky. A cool wind coming from the north lifts gray strands on his head like semaphores signaling rain.
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The craving was instant. We had just gotten home from school, my sister Nneka and I. As I changed out of my uniform in our shared bedroom, I looked out the dust-mottled window and saw two boys across the street.
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I once loved a man who spoke only in product names.
We met at a bar in Koreatown, the kind with too-loud music and too-low lights and bottles of liquor—clear, brown, green, ocean blue—stacked on shelves, floor to ceiling, against a mirror wall.
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I learn how to steal cable from watching YouTube videos at the public library. I’m supposed to be playing math games to swing some sense into my head before school starts in a few weeks, but I learn this instead.
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Scientists watch the body farm in accelerated time. The research facility’s cameras play back at warp speed: bodies break open, the skin marbled red and yellow, a reflection of the sinking Texas sun. My cousin is one of these scientists.
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Your life is full of new things. Two of them are men. One makes his own end tables and works in sustainable energy. The other makes you laugh and you don’t actually understand what he does.
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In the pool, all are equal. Everyone is as barefaced as you; faces no longer obscured by makeup, streaked and dyed hair trussed into swimming caps.
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Eve was scrubbing a pot when her dress tore at the seam on her right breast. It was an old dress, falling below the knees, but the material was said to last for centuries. Her legs were thin and white like the rest of her body. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a bun. Her face, stunning. Her eyes, blue.
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We still go to bed early, out of habit. I take the monitor from my bedside table and switch it on. George and I huddle around the black and white screen. Channel A, our channel, shows nothing but a blank square of white carpet.
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