AM:95
Starting a family is easy: The sign said “Free Kittens,” and Sam pulled the car over. Two fat people, a man and a woman, sat in lawn chairs behind a cardboard box. They had positioned themselves at the side exit of the Wal-Mart, where Sam and Hazel had just been stealing light bulbs.
The trick to stealing light bulbs is to walk in with an empty light bulb carton. Wave the carton at the greeters so they can see it, and then take what you need. Hazel would sometimes wave to the greeters on the way out, the full carton in her hand. The more blatant, the better, when it comes to stealing.
“Free light bulbs, free kittens,” Sam said. “Today’s our lucky day.”
“Today’s your lucky day!” the fat woman parroted. She flipped open one of the cardboard flaps and hauled out a kitten.
“They’re real pretty,” the fat man said. He was drinking from a juice box.
Hazel reached for the gray and white kitten and touched its paw. “Do those kittens have six toes?”
The woman nodded. “This kitten could shake your hand,” she said.
“That’s a sign of a good kitten,” Hazel said.
The woman looked a little offended. “They’re free,” she said, thrusting the kitten towards Hazel. “There’s four more.”
“We’ll take them all,” Sam said. And they did.
96:PM
Tess kept a secret: her left hand was turning into a claw. She felt the tendons tightening up in her forearm the week before, and had written it off as the onset of carpal tunnel, but the tendons continued to tighten. The feeling spread into her hand, which began to curve like a scythe, the bones lengthening a little and then bending, almost imperceptibly, until her fingers hardened into one immobile point and her left hand was fully a claw.
Tess kept the secret, but compensated by repeating it to herself. She would lie in bed, curled around her left hand, holding it gently to her knees. My hand is a claw. My hand is a claw.
AM:97
June woke up covered in seeds. They were small, toasted sesame seeds, thousands of them all over her body. She had never been covered in seeds before and it was a strange feeling, like a snake might feel in sand. There was no explanation, as far as she could see, for the sudden appearance of all the seeds. It was a comforting feeling, and June turned over three times in the slippery weightlessness before falling back asleep.
98:PM
They were in love! Carla wore her hair up and Andrew saw everything as a sign. They spent an entire afternoon sitting side by side in a coffee shop, taking more meaning than necessary from the world around them. A man wearing boxing gloves walked down the sidewalk in front of them and they took that to mean they would be together forever.
AM:99
Good morning, John Mayer Concert Tee! It has been a while. I’m feeling a need to overstress my happiness at seeing you, hanging on the laundry line between my house and the neighbor girl’s house. It’s one of those mornings where everything is tinged with miracle. The waxed floor is a miracle! The dirty dishes are a miracle! The day ahead is a gift from heaven. This isn’t to say I’m happy, John Mayer Concert Tee, but you are a miracle. If we mated, John Mayer Concert Tee, our children would have jersey-knit skin. They would never speak unless spoken to, and even then they might not speak. But they would be soft, and they would smell like fabric softener, and they would love us, and we would love them.
100:PM
“I just had a terrible dream,” Martha said.
Emily turned to look at her. “You were sleeping?”
Martha flicked on the turn signal, changed lanes. “I dreamt we were in a awful car accident,” she said.
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
It wasn’t that much of a coincidence, really, as they were weaving through late-night traffic. It bothered Emily more to think that Martha had been asleep at the wheel, though surely it was just an expression.
“It was a bad dream,” Martha said. “We were in an accident, and I was okay.”
“Did I have a bar through my head?”
Martha shook her head and blinked. Emily realized she was staring.
“You weren’t okay,” Martha said.
“I’m okay now,” Emily said, turning to look out the window again. Without looking back, she reached across the seat divider, found Martha’s hand, and held it.
AM:101
Betty cracked the crust of her crème brûlée with the edge of her spoon. “This is a symbol of my love for you,” she said.
“You’ve said that about a lot of things,” Simon said. “You said that about the entrée as well. And the bottle of wine.”
“It’s all true,” she said. “Your cup of coffee is a symbol of my love for you. This spoon. Our waiter. The ceiling. Your fingernails. The crack in that windowpane. The cars parked outside. My shoes. Your shoes. The pastry chef. This tablecloth.”
“What about the flowers?” he asked, gesturing to the buds in a vase between them.
She looked at him. “Don’t be stupid,” she said.
102:PM
Frances ate fish at all meals. In the morning, when the newspaper came, she ate a bagel with lox. Mid-day, she would prefer something light, like tuna in olive oil, but at night she would make cod fried with polenta, rich seafood stews, baked salmon, seared tuna rolled in pepper and sea salt. She declared that she would eat fish until the day she died, and then she would eat fish as an angel.
As the days went on, her fish consumption grew simpler. She ate fish as a singular pursuit. She ate alone, with her back to the door, the fish alone on a plate, without spices or sauces. She stopped cooking rice and vegetables. She drank a glass of water before the fish and a glass of bourbon after. She ate the fish from a white plate, and the fish was white against the plate. When the fish was gone, she licked the white plate.
When Missy or Chastity called, Frances talked about her day in relation to fish.
She would say, “I just ate some fish,” or “I am about to cook some fish, broil it perhaps.”
Her friends silently wondered when they would be invited for dinner, and then they began to wonder it aloud, but she never had a solid answer for them.
She would say, “I’m sorry, I only defrosted enough fish for one.”
When her friends pressed her to make future plans, Frances seemed confused. Her friends decided she was demurring and stopped calling, because they were all sensitive people. She was sensitive, too, and didn’t understand why they stopped calling.
AM:103
Carla snapped the tines off the plastic fork with her thumb. “No matter how deeply I bury you in the gravel pit of my memory,” she said, “you come crawling back out.”
“There’s no need for poetry,” Andrew said. “I’m just here for my chair.”
“I’m eating,” she said.
“You just broke your fork.”
“See, Andrew, that’s just how you are. It’s no damn business of yours how I eat, and what I eat with. What if I brought this fork to the door just to show you how serious I am?”
“All I’m saying is, you’re not eating right now, and I want my chair back.”
“I want those years back,” Carla said. “I want my youth back.”
“You may have your youth,” Andrew said. He had a bag with him, and he reached into the bag and pulled out a small, carved box. He handed it to her and she held it with both hands.