30. Mary

Mary clenched the racquet until the rubber grip tape let out a faint squeal. Her knuckles were white. With a careful toss, the ball rose into the air, reached its peak, and fell. The ball hit the floor and bounced, lower and lower until it just rolled, slowly, to a stop. She stood, staring across the empty court, breathing hard. It was late. She needed to go home.

•••

Scraping around the edges of the jar for what was left of the peanut butter, the sound of the serrated knife dragging across the plastic made her skin crawl. When she had collected a decent dollop, she spread it over a slab of bread, trying to make the second sandwich as robust as the first. Even the bread felt heavy. She craved a shower. Instead, at almost two in the morning and still wearing her tennis gear, she stood in the kitchen making sandwiches.

29. Easton

The cards felt stiff to Easton's shaking hands as he bent up the corners. Across the table, two royal blue chips worth a hundred dollars each rested uneasily in the betting box. The dealer showed a red eight. The other card was face down. Easton's eyes stared at the patterns on the back of it until shapes began to emerge.
"Stand," he said. The dealer nodded, and laid down a card for himself. Five of spades. He flipped over the down card, a six. Nineteen.

28. Blake

Blake craned his neck up so he could see the mirror. Past the landscape of his body – rolling, bronzed hills that could be mistaken at this angle for a set of unusually regular sand dunes – he saw the reflection of his legs planted on the floor, the same ripples of his torso, and his eyes just barely edging over the twin domes of his chest. Satisfied with his vertiginous appearance, he began his routine of high flies, bringing the forty-pound barbells together over his head and separating them, together and apart, the stainless steel weights coming together with the 'clack' sound of an office executive's desktop toy.

27. Tamara

Tamara tugged on the edges of her thigh–high stockings, although they couldn't possibly slip from their place. The stage seemed like the edge of a tall building; she felt vertigo just picturing herself standing on it. "This is where I wanted to be," she thought. "This is what I've practiced for."

The DJ told the audience her stage name and she tottered into the spotlight, newly christened. She smiled, and breathed heavily, holding her frame erect; back arched, chest out. Standing in front of the crowd did seem like looking over the edge of a great precipice, but it wasn't as intimidating as she had envisioned. They all seemed to look up at her from far away, and the lights were bright, as though she had arisen into the night sky to dance among the stars.

26. Rey

"Pepperoni and green peppers, mushrooms, olives, chives." Esteban hung up the phone and tore a page off his notepad.
"Chives? We don't have chives." Manuel scratched his mustache.
"What the hell is a chive?" Tomas was getting the ingredients ready, flattening out a dough ball and looking over the dishes of toppings.
"It's like a green onion."
"Think they'd just like onions?"
"It's not the same. Just put the other stuff."
Tomas shrugged and went about the process of making the pizza.
Reynald, who did the deliveries, came in the back door and walked behind Tomas, dropping the delivery bag on top of the oven. "Did someone order chives on a pizza?" he asked.
"Yeah, how'd you know?"
"I was having a cigarette, door was open, I could hear you guys. It's from a System of a Down song, they're probably fucking with you."
Tomas stopped, his hands on the ladle of tomato sauce. "Do I make the pizza?" He looked at Manuel.
Manuel looked hard at Rey. "Are you sure it's a prank?" His mustache blew around with his breath.
"What? I never said it was a prank," Rey said nervously, "just leave the chives off it. It's a deluxe. They probably just want a deluxe."
Manuel nodded. "Make a deluxe, Tomas."
"Deluxe," he said, and spread the tomato sauce in a circle.
"Weird orders tonight," Esteban said. "Someone else asked for a delivery with green peppers on 'half of one quarter,' no kidding."

25. Bradford Shawe

Attendance was excellent for the evening’s showing at the Trois-Avectoi Art Gallery. The building had once been a textile factory, and it was once again packed to the rafters with suits and dresses, but these recent arrivals of the sartorial sort were wrapped around the most influential buyers in New York City. Regardless, Bradford Shawe, occasional gallerist and second-tier art dealer-at-large, was afflicted with paralyzing dread. None of his artists had shown up in the flesh, leaving his personal representation the only remaining link between the paintings and high society.

24. Thin Soup

For the last hour, it’s been nothing but wheat and horizon on either side of the road. I’d started off awestruck when the fields opened up. It’s so vast; a golden sea. That was early in the morning, around sunrise. The sight seemed new again, for a little while. The prairies are incredibly something, either beautiful or boring. Maybe I’ve got used to it now. Maybe beauty becomes redundant. Just another thing I’ve seen enough of.

From a convertible, the road feels different. You’re really on it, like you could get out and run. In a hardtop, there’s glass on every side, you're inside a television. I hate TV. I like this.

Carter’s driving fast, but I can’t see the speedometer. “How fast are we?”
“Buck and a half,” he says, without looking away. “What’s the posted limit?”
“The sky,” I say. “Hasn’t been a sign since never.”