Junk Man

Jimmy “Two Wheels”—a name he’d picked up in the Army that he couldn’t seem to shake—inched his orange Dodge pick-up down Collier Street. Lined with stately old homes, it had the some of the best picking in town come trash day.

Bob, Jimmy’s retriever, sat in the passenger seat, upright like a person, as Jimmy pulled over at number 629. Out front was an old three-speed Schwinn, a 1960s model, with a black frame and white-wall tires. He’d had one just like it when he was ten.

Energized, Jimmy hopped out of the Dodge and snatched the old bike. The chain was rusted stiff but it didn’t matter. He had everything he needed to fix it.

Jimmy tossed the bicycle into the back of the truck alongside the stacks of old hubcaps and bundles of wire he collected for scrap. He whistled a tune all the way home.

Orchard

Ellie hiked the grassy hill into the orchard, where she and her brothers played as kids. The leaves had gone with the November rain, the apple trees gnarled, black claws against the pewter sky. Under her left arm was the plastic box from the funeral home.

Bill wanted to spring for the urn in the catalog, but their father would have thought it frivolous. He’d asked Ellie spread his ashes among the Roxburys and Pippins, the antique trees he’d spent his last 20 years tending like infants.

At the crest of the hill Ellie saw the entire orchard, all of it hers and her brothers’ now. Inside the house the lights flickered on. The funeral guests had gone, leaving behind lasanga and sympathy cards.

In the heirloom grove, Ellie pried off the lid. Like gray sand, she spread her father’s ashes around the trees like fertilizer, nourishment for his apples.

Coffee House

A university couple sat on recycled kitchen chairs at Martin’s Coffee House—once an old machine shop—studying Russian literature. Their heads bowed toward one another’s cups.

He’d be graduating soon, just weeks, and she hadn’t yet told him: every minute she spent without him drained her soul dry like Mohave sand.

How could she say it? He was older. Brilliant. His girlfriend was stunning.

The tattooed barista steamed organic milk. She bit her lip. Across the table her friend—were they just friends?—looked up from his book and smiled.

Feeling courageous, she reached out for the back of his hand. She opened her mouth to speak.

The flyers on the wall fluttered when the door opened. One of his friends—out of breath—said he was late for something. He’d have to go.

Alone, she remembered his brown eyes.

“Dear, Charlie,” she wrote. And the barista steamed on.

Autocomplete

His mind racing, Martin stared at his laptop. A swell of nausea washed over his insides. He’d hit “send” without checking the address. His wife’s and Maria’s names both began with M.

His tie loose around his damp collar, Martin drove home from work, the radio too loud. He tried to imagine what might await him: boxer shorts strewn across the hedges, shards of China littering the hallway.

The late-day July sun blazed down on the highway blacktop, softening its edges. Rush hour traffic, always heavy, slowed to a turtle’s speed.

Behind him sirens wailed. In the far right lane was a red Toyota Corolla, its left side ripped away. The driver lay on the road covered with a plastic sheet.

Martin got out of his car and ran. Scorching waves wafted up from the asphalt. The last time he’d seen Melissa’s car had been that morning in their driveway.

Turkish Coffee

So there we were again, in that little Japanese place near Martin’s Square. Kenan orders sushi for both of us. He asks me if this is OK.

“Of course,” I say. What am I supposed to say?

Kenan wears a gold chain around his neck as wide as a baby’s finger. He tells me about his wife, Christina—how she doesn’t understand him—as he slides his fingers along the back of my wrist.

When we leave the restaurant, the silky air of the June night envelops my bare shoulders like a veil. My sandals click against the pavement.

“We will get coffee,” Kenan announces as we approach a café. White bistro tables line the sidewalk.

His hand slips beneath my dress as he tosses back his espresso.

Christina makes him coffee like this he tells me. He drinks it at all hours. I have no idea how he sleeps.

Housekeeping

Melanie Parks rolled her steel cart, heaped with towels and complimentary pens, up to room 217. She slid her card into the lock.

In the twenty-four years she’d been a maid at the Greensborough Hilton, Melanie had seen almost everything, including a Vietnamese pig helping itself to the mini bar. Once she’d found a diamond ring in the shower drain. And although it could have ended most of her troubles she’d reported it to the manager.

Melanie opened the bathroom door, her housekeeper’s fingers grasping the brass handle. On the counter sat a brand new bottle of Chanel No. 5.

The glass was weighty and luxurious. Its contents shimmered like liquid amber.

She sprayed the perfume into the air, the mist filling the windowless room.

Unexpectedly she was nineteen again, waiting in the basement of First Baptist for her wedding.

She slipped the bottle into the pocket of her apron.

James

When I got to the rental house in Santa Fe, I slammed the car door. I hadn’t meant to. It just sort of happened, the way things do when you’re not sure of yourself. I’d just left my job back East for a year, to write a novel. At least that’s what I’d said. I hadn’t wanted to admit the truth. It was because of James.

I’d met him on a mountain in Vermont, a ski instructor with fantastic arms. He lived in the desert with two Labradors and a beat-up Ford pickup.

Come to New Mexico, he’d said in the email. I’ll teach you a few new moves.

But when I stepped onto the patio the Sandia Mountains rose up purple and auburn. James faded away like early morning fog in the hot sun.

In the kitchen I made tea. Then I unpacked my laptop and began to write.