As the rain got heavier, people moved inside. When the annual Art Walk was held in good weather, everyone stayed out and enjoyed the spring twilight. Last year’s mild temperature and clear skies meant poor sales. Tonight, just about every place was packed. Moving among the paintings on display was difficult, and some business owners grieved the occasional drops of water shed by hastily closed umbrellas, even as they celebrated the occasional keen interest in one or two pieces.Celia was soaked. She’d had to walk into town because her boyfriend, Terry, had been working swing shift all week at the hospital and just didn’t have the energy to get off the couch and give her a lift. Might she borrow the truck? Just for tonight? He reminded her that it was less than a mile, and that she was always saying how she needed to get more exercise. Celia was a cashier in an upscale grocery store, and found that hours scanning jars of imported olive oil, Oregon bleu cheese, and Japanese eggplant didn

Antennae Galaxies by NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage teamKuala Lumpur: 12 May 2076, 6:15 p.m.Tuesday, 12 May 2076, 10:15 UTCis glad to be on the road and away from McJoys. She’s grinning in the driver’s seat of the SUV, like a kid with a new toy._Shift into “D” Drive, juice the motor_and follow behind. Press the brake_pedal when Jo slows down. Not_bad for a novice with no license.She hasn’t given the roosters another thought. They’re snugged and asleep in the cargo area. Jen peers ahead at her getaway doyen who can be seen through the Humvee’s rear window._Hard to miss the rich scarlet_peeking from under her cap._No grays amid the short hairs_though Jo has passed the four-oh_milestone. To keep hair roots in_dayglow, she must dye them often._It shows how much she dreads_the outward signs of middle age.Performance-wise isn’t an issue, for qat exercises and Do

Audrey, with eight-week old on chest, diaper bag on shoulder, pushes through the door to the coffee shop as soon as they unlock it (late today at 5:06 AM), pre-empting crowds and small talk at the counter. Black coffee in spare hand, she collapses into the crumb-infested couch near the toy box filled with rough-looking dolls and cookie-stained books. Here she WILL swig this mugful before the other La Leche moms show up. Last night her husband muttered another woman’s name in his sleep. His ‘was only a dream’ speech when she woke him plain exhausted her.On Mom’s tail are the recovering alcoholics. As they pause in the wind-swept doorway to scope the scene, she shivers, spreading her hands on Baby’s back.Meanwhile, at home in his basement, glowing pictures on Mark’s screen jack up his heart rate as does the onset of a rustling upstairs: Fiona? Up so early? Will she come down?Bianca the barista scrapes her front teeth on the backside of her tongue-ring as she eyes the group that’s jus

Peter and Sonja slouched in the audio-visual room of the vasectomy clinic, giggling like sixth graders. Sonja wished there was a sink with paper towels, so she could make spitballs. The movie featured a barbecuing man in a red-checkered apron who had had a vasectomy on Friday and was well enough to grill a T-Bone that very night.“This is incredibly stupid,” Sonja’s lips tickled Peter’s ear. He swatted at it as though a mosquito had been nibbling on it.“What?”“Are you actually taking this seriously?” she yelled above the volume. “Don’t you get how ludicrous this is?”Decades later, whenever Sonja saw a man barbecuing—at a church picnic or at a county fair—the grainy footage came flooding back, along with the jowly face of the man in the red-checkered apron, jousting with the sinewy steak.Sonja’s biological clock had starteding going haywire around her thirty-sixth birthday. It seemed to change its mind every week. Some days she fantasized that she was pulling out its springs with h

Determined not to look, Samantha strode past the tall mirrors that covered an entire sidewall in the studio. Her third-year college drawing class would arrive in a half hour and she hustled to set up the easels, arrange the model stand lighting, and select a cassette to play on her ancient boom box.But the mirrors drew her in and Sam stopped to stare. Jeez, I look like a scarecrow…I should be planted in some farmer’s cornfield…and my hair looks like gray straw.The door at the back of the studio rattled open and that night’s model sauntered in: pale, well-padded, wide hips, big breasts, with red hair worn in a French braid.“You’re early, Lucy. What’s the rush?”“Ah, ya know…boyfriend problems. His jock buddies keep razzing him about me posing nude. I told him it’s my body and ta fuck off.”“That doesn’t sound good. He should come by sometime. I’ll pay good money for a male model who can hold still for forty minutes.”Lucy grinned. “Yeah, that would teach ’im. Whatcha got planned for