Are you alone?" So that's what this call was about. For some reason, the question made my throat tighten. "No," I said, "Elvis is here. Would you like to talk to him?

Gabe brings home a chicken and Tommy Falk for dinner. Truth be told, I'm not unhappy to see any of them. Gabe, because it's been so long since we've had dinner with him; the chicken because it's not beans; and Tommy Falk because his presence makes Gabe cheerful and goofy.

More than anything, the journal wanted. It wanted more than it could hold, more than words could describe, more than diagrams could illustrate. Longing burst from the pages, in every frantic line and every hectic sketch and every dark-printed definition. There was something pained and melancholy about it.

I just looked at her, feeling utterly empty. I didn't know what I was supposed to say to her. My life is in that bed. Please let me stay.

When you were born, the rivers dried up and the cattle in Rockingham County wept blood.

I leaned across the table towards the crumb-thrower. "Do that again," I said, loud enough to be heard over the opera singer, Dolly, my mother, and the smell of the breadsticks, "and I will sell your firstborn child to the devil.

sensitive," I tried. Sam translated, "squishy." "creative." "Dangerously Emo." "thoughtful." Feng shui.