According to the weather forecast, the next day was to be sunny, warm, decidedly springlike. At times like this, though, one never knew, because on the eve of ­ official holidays the forecasts were always falsified. 

Today I have learned a great lesson; our cook was my teacher. She is twenty-five years old and she’s French. I discovered that she does not know that Louis-Philippe is no longer king of France and we now have a republic. 

Classic American story: I was out of money and people I could ask for money. Then I got what the Greeks, or even the Greek Americans, call a eureka moment.

Jake hadn’t meant to stare at her breasts, but there they were, absurdly beautiful, almost glowing above the plunging neck- line of the faded blue dress. He’d read the press releases, of course. 

The messenger’s knuckles were up to bang the door again when I opened it. He held out the damp telegram in the swirling snow, looked over my shoulder at the guests moving in the kitchen doorway, the back of a woman 

I woke up, opened the curtains, found my nightgown, made the bed, tightened the sheets, fluffed the pillows, donned my slippers, turned the tap, filled the kettle, hit the switch, boiled the water, brewed the tea, stirred the milk

Most nights my neighbor, a middle-aged man in a red hoodie, would stand on his front porch, reaching up every now and then to knock the icicle Christmas lights dangling from the porch roof back and forth.

That fall, Sam and Sandy had a third date and a fourth. They talked without stopping, drove around town, ate sushi and pad thai and barbequed ribs. At the end of each date, Sam walked Sandy to her 

Tweezer Painton was a burly ten-year-old with a glower built into his square mug. His name came from his hobby of grabbing individual hairs on his victims’ heads and yanking them out for fun. Mostly he did it with his thick, grubby fingers but sometimes he used tweezers stolen from his mother’s bathroom cabinet.

We had conjectured the impact of the blockade: shortages of petrol and tobacco, a dearth of news, an end to the tourist trade. But now we were told potable water would be rationed. Water surrounded us