STARS by James Gordon Bennett
Cora’s had enough of Bruce Willis for one night, and I tag after her as she heads up the aisle. It’s the second buddy movie this week she’s dragged me out of before the credits even roll. Outside, the desert air hits us like a jet engine’s exhaust, and she cuts across the parade ground to stay up wind of the drainage canal. Next Sunday’s Oscar Night and my sister’s already bitching again about how the post theater never shows any of the important nominees.
“And you know why we didn’t get to see ‘An Inconvenient Truth’?” she asks, not really interested in my answer.
The stars are as big and bright as panacea marbles which reminds me that my “extended metaphor” paper for English is way overdue.
“Because this man’s Army can’t handle the truth,” she says.
I don’t bother to mention the obvious to her: that we don’t exactly live in Los Angeles. Where we do live is on the biggest (and hottest) military proving ground in America. My father’s the Commanding Officer. Cora says that’s because when he was passed over for his star last year, he was basically put out to pasture. Although, as she likes to point out, there isn’t a pasture within a thousand miles of here.
“I’ll tell you somebody else who can’t handle the truth,” she says, trying to rile me when she sees I’m not paying any attention to her.
My sister believes that our parents are headed for a divorce. She blames my mother for being jealous of “every junior officer’s wife who wears less than a size twelve.”
My eyes suddenly water from straining to spot a satellite which usually streak overhead every ten minutes or so.
“Oh, for cryin’ out loud, Teddy,” Cora says when she catches me blinking rapidly. “Buck up. They’ll get joint custody.”
“Buck up yourself,” I tell her. “I’m not even listening to you.”
“Good,” she says. “Save your tears for Scorsese’s acceptance speech.”
But a jeep coming down Westmoreland starts flashing its headlights at us.
“The law,” Cora says. “Get rid of the dope.”
My heart jumps and when I bring my hand up to my chest, my sister rolls her eyes.
“Honest to god you kill me, Teddy,” she says. “I mean, do you believe everything I say?”
But my pulse is hammering in my ears as I watch the two MPs swing their legs out of the door-less jeep at the same time.
“Synchronized cops,” Cora mutters.
My sister’s in one of her real smart alec moods tonight, and I’m worried that she’ll say something to get us in trouble.
The older MP comes up, patting his clipboard at his side.
“Curfew’s ten,” he says to Cora. “Cutting it kind of close here.”
But the jeep’s radio suddenly crackles.
“That’s probably HQ,” he says to his buddy and trots back to answer it.
The three of us stand staring at each other until Cora smiles at the solemn-faced MP.
“Another UFO sighting?” she says.
You don’t have to be a college graduate to be in the military police, and the guy doesn’t look that much older than my sister.
“Matter of fact,” he says to her, “I thought I saw one out here a while back.”
For a moment, Cora’s speechless, which, like UFOs, isn’t something you see every day.
“A flying saucer?” she says.
“Whatever,” he says. “It got my attention.”
My sister looks at me as if to be certain she wasn’t the only one to hear this.
“Like in ‘Close Encounters’?” she says.
He glances back at the jeep.
“It didn’t give me a sunburn,” he says. “If that’s what you mean.”
It’s impossible to believe that she’s taking any of this seriously. Because I happen to know that she doesn’t take any of Spielberg’s movies seriously. Not even ‘Schindler’s List’.
The older MP suddenly signals for his partner to join him. While we wait, Cora asks me if I noticed her new friend’s name tag.
“Bernstein,” she whispers. “Think they do kosher for him at the mess hall?”
The older MP waves to us and we walk back to the jeep.
“Hop in,” he says to Cora as his partner holds the passenger seat down for us. “We’ll drop you off on the way.”
“How do you know it’s on the way?” Cora says as we scrunch into the narrow well behind the seats.
“Just a hunch,” he says.
In other words, he assumed we live on Officer’s Row, which naturally irritates my sister who likes to think she’s the only army brat in America who would have voted for Clinton. My bet is she’s already planning how she’s going to get the last laugh. Which is why she doesn’t say anything more until we turn down McNamara and can see our house in the distance.
“The penultimate one,” she says and waits for the driver to gaze up at her in the rearview mirror. “The next-to-last house on the left,” she adds.
Actually, ours is just across the street. But Cora doesn’t like to advertize that our dad’s the CO.
“Practically in the Old Man’s backyard,” Bernstein says, nodding at my father’s staff car in the driveway. “You have to watch your p’s and q’s?”
The tires scrape the curb as the jeep comes to a stop.
“Did you know that ‘p’s and q’s’ is a British expression?” Cora says. “In pubs you order by the pint or by the quart.”
Bernstein hops out to fold his seat back down for us. “I didn’t,” he says.
The older MP reminds us not to be out again this close to curfew. “Consider this your warning.”
I squeeze my sister’s elbow. I always know when she’s about to open her big mouth.
“Thank you,” I say.
Cora slaps her arm back at her side. “My brother watches his ‘p’s’ and ‘q’s’ for the both of us,” she says to Bernstein. “It’s why I don’t always let him tag along.”
The MPs are obviously in a hurry and speed off. Not until the jeep’s taillights fade in the distance does Cora let go of my wrist.
“Why didn’t you just ask him for a date?” I say, smirking like Bruce Willis.
But we can suddenly hear my mother’s voice coming all the way from the kitchen. My sister thrusts her arm out like a crossing guard.
“Bet you anything it’s about the Adjutant’s wife,” she says.
According to Cora, Mom’s jealous of Captain Mullen’s “war bride.” That’s what my mother calls anyone in the military who’s a second wife. Last month, there was a piece about them in the post newsletter, The Sidewinder. Apparently, the new Adjutant met her in Iraq when she worked for Halliburton.
Cora counts to three in French before opening the door.
“Personne ici?” she calls out. “Anybody home?”
It’s immediately quiet in the kitchen, and in another moment my mother follows my father into the living room like a prisoner of war.
My sister has let them know that their fighting is the reason for the big drop in my grade point average.
“Sounds like we missed the real show,” she says, gathering up her manila folder from the coffee table.
Cora’s been waiting until we were all in the same room together to hand out her Oscar lists. She downloaded them from the Internet.
“You’re to return these postmarked no later than 8:00 p.m., Saturday,” she says, passing a copy to each of us. The nominees are arranged in what looks like fifty categories.
“Your father and I haven’t seen two movies all year,” my mother says.
“Then do what Teddy does on tests, “ Cora says. “Guess.”
My mother makes a face at her but I know that she’ll eventually fill the thing out. Oscar Night is like Christmas to Cora, and if we don’t all cooperate my sister will sulk for the rest of the week.
Later, after everyone’s gone to bed, my mother comes back to my room to check on me. It’s after midnight but she sits on the edge of the mattress and presses her hand to my forehead. Her palm feels as cool as the Petoskey stones I used to collect when we lived at Camp Grayling in Michigan.
“You need to be more like your sister,” she says finally. “Don’t let your feathers get ruffled. Let things roll off your back more.”
She pulls the sheet up to my chin and when she kisses me I can smell the wine on her breath.
“You’re right,” I say. “Cora’s a dumb duck.”
No one really makes my mother laugh the way my father does. What she does with me is more like just a chuckle. And I know it’s just to make me feel like I’ve said something clever.
My father comes out of the bathroom and flicks the light off and on in the hall. My mother leans over to kiss me again. It’s almost as if she forgot about having done it once already. I realize that she’s probably a little drunk.
“Go to sleep, honey,” she says at the door. “And lets work on those grades.”
With the hall light still on behind her I can see right through her nightgown. Last week my father took us all out to dinner because he had to fly over to El Centro the next day. We were all halfway out the door when he realized he’d left the key to the van on his dresser and sent me back to get it. The suitcase my mother was packing for him was still open on their bed. On top of his pajamas she’d left a Polaroid he’d taken of her several years ago when she weighed less than she does now. So I’ve seen my mother without her clothes on before. But what kind of surprises me is that my father isn’t sleeping on the couch in the den tonight.
My parents have a bed made out of teak they bought when we were stationed in Thailand. It’s got all these carved dragons and must weigh a thousand pounds. Because the dowels aren’t as tight as they used to be, sometimes you can hear the headboard creaking. Anyway, after a while, it starts making that sound. But it’s funny how instead of keeping me up, I immediately get drowsy. For some reason it has the same effect bedtime stories used to have when I was a kid. It puts me out like a light.
Later, opening my eyes, I stare at the alarm clock and try to decide whether I’m awake or still asleep. Only the sound of my mother’s voice makes me realize that I’m not dreaming. She’s talking pretty loud and so I get up and stand by my door. My parents’ bedroom is at the end of the hall. Cora’s is next to theirs. My mother had her switch with me because my Dad’s been on the road a lot lately and when he’s away she’ll stay up pretty late watching Turner Classics. Cora’s a heavier sleeper than me, and my mother was afraid I could hear the TV on school nights. “At least that’s the cover story,” my sister said after she had to spend all day carefully peeling her collage of movie star pictures down from her wall. “Of course the real reason is so her sensitive little soldier doesn’t get held back.”
My mother’s doing most of the talking. What she wants to know is how many more of these overnight trips he plans to take. Because she’s not going to put up with it.
I get back in bed and squint at my digital alarm. It’s a little after three but I can’t close my eyes. Every few minutes I have to flip the pillow when it gets damp from my head being in one spot too long. “Growing boys need their sleep,” my sister said the other day when she claimed she could see bags under my eyes. “You’re going to wind up a twenty-year-old midget.”
Saturday morning, my mother wants Cora and me to get out of the house and take in a little sun. So she drops us off at the Officer’s Club pool.
“I want to see some color in those cheeks,” she says, handing my sister a new chit book.
Although there are lots of kids at the pool her age, Cora ignores their different cliques and leads us over to a couple of empty lounge chairs in the shade. She keeps a towel wrapped around her hips which she believes every woman should do except maybe Nicole Kidman. Her Darth Vadar-like sunglasses make it impossible to tell whether she’s looking at you or not.
“Well, well, well,” she says without lowering her movie magazine, “look who we’ve got at eleven o’clock.”
The glare from the wet tile makes it hard to see who it is at first.
“The ‘autre femme’ herself,” Cora says.
The Adjutant’s wife is standing by the ladder at the shallow end.
“Go ahead, sweetheart,” my sister whispers. “Take the plunge. Everybody’s watching.”
And, in fact, several housewives sitting beside the pool (all wearing towels around their waists) have looked up from their paperbacks.
The Adjutant’s wife finally lowers herself into the water and breaststrokes toward the deep end. The other women never take their eyes off her.
“All officers’ wives are unhappily alike,” Cora pronounces and then asks if I want to know why.
She doesn’t, of course, wait for me to answer.
“Because their husbands are all outranked by someone else.”
“Nobody outranks Daddy,” I blurt out.
Cora makes her patented puffing sound.
“True, Teddy. Nobody outranks Daddy. At least not on this godforsaken dump in the middle of nowhere.”
But she’s got another “query” for me.
“Ever notice how there’s not a single general for as far as the eye can see? Why do you suppose that’s so?”
This time I manage to bite my tongue.
“Because these are not parts where generals generally send generals. It’s a buddy thing. And you’re not one of the buddies if you wake up one day and find yourself in Dante Land.” She smooths the page out on her magazine. “Au contraire, frere. This is how generals tell old colonels that it’s time to fade away. They’re assigned to Camp Inferno. In other words, take the hint and retire. Or go to hell.”
“Daddy’s not old.”
Cora sighs.
“Clinton was Commander-in-Chief when he was Daddy’s age.”
Debating with my sister is like staying out in the sun too long. My scalp starts to itch, and I wind up with a headache. So I just let her finish.
“That was Tolstoy, by the way,” she says. “You might run across him in high school.”
I’m in seventh grade. Cora’s in eleventh. She skipped my grade.
“Assuming you get that far.”
Lately, it’s as if she thinks that it will be some kind of reflection on her if I fail. But I know for a fact that my sister doesn’t care what anyone at her high school thinks about her. “I stand on the shoulders of giants,” she likes to say. “Not cheerleaders.”
When I get up too quickly from the lounge chair, the blood goes right to my head.
“Jesus, Teddy,” Cora says, grabbing my arm to keep me from careening into the pool.
I sit back down for a minute, and she pretends to be reading instead of watching me the whole time.
“I need some chits,” I say finally.
Cora points to her back pack.
“Get me a float while you’re at it.”
There’s an outdoor kiosk that sells just non alcoholic drinks, and I wait in line with half a dozen other kids. A couple of the younger ones aren’t wearing flip flops and start dancing around on their toes on the hot tiles. The boy in front of me tries balancing on his bare heels but he’s only about five and quickly gives up.
“Save my place,” he says, dropping his booklet of chits at my feet.
Before I can say anything, he tiptoes off like he’s crossing a bed of hot coals. The lifeguard shouts at him to stop running but the boy just keeps flapping his arms and squealing until he reaches the pool and jumps in.
“What took you so long?” Cora says, examining her ice cream float critically.
I tell her how I waited for the kid but he never came back.
“Why my vanilla scoop has positively vanished,” she says, making her voice flutter.
I’m supposed to recognize the actress she’s imitating but instead I turn up my iPod. Cora has downloaded all the nominees for Best Original Song this year. She thinks Melissa Etheridge will win for “I Need to Wake Up,” which she says could have been my theme song.
After a while, I see the kid who dropped his chit book holding his mother’s hand at the other end of the pool. She’s talking to the lifeguard who’s leaning down to hear her, his head practically between his knees.
Cora’s been reading some reviewer’s predictions for the Oscars and says “Wrong!” out loud every time she disagrees with him.
Suddenly, the lifeguard, mother, and son are all marching this way in single file like a rifle squad.
“I think they want to talk to me,” I say.
Cora lets her sunglasses slide down slightly on her nose. “The Adjutant’s wife?”
It isn’t until the woman’s practically standing in front of me before I recognize her. Her bikini’s a different color wet.
“What’s up?” the lifeguard says to Cora.
My sister folds the page over in her magazine. “Do I know you?”
The lifeguard acts like I’m invisible and Cora’s my mother.
“The kid says your brother has his chits.”
Using just her middle finger, my sister pushes her sunglasses back up.
“Now why would the CO’s son have some kid’s chits?”
Suddenly both the lifeguard and the Adjutant’s wife have a different expression on their face.
“You’re Colonel Taylor’s dependents?” the woman says.
Cora yawns the way she does when she’s trying to act bored.
“And you’re . . . ?”
“Louise Mullen,” the woman says, drawing the boy out from behind her. “And this is Connor.”
Connor doesn’t look up from his flip flops.
“I left them with the assistant manager,” I say to the lifeguard. “He said he’d keep them at ‘Lost and Found’.”
The woman looks down at Connor. “‘Lost and Found’,” she says more to herself than to the boy. “That’s where we should have gone first.”
Cora opens her magazine back up. “Took the words right out of my mouth.”
The lifeguard twirls the whistle string around his finger.
“‘Lost and Found’s’ in the Clubhouse,” he says to the woman, and untwirling the string, he pads back to his abandoned chair.
The Adjutant’s wife pulls her son closer to her. “Tell the young man you’re sorry,” she says.
Connor mumbles something.
“No problem,” I say.
Cora doesn’t look up again until mother and son have made it back to their towels.
“‘The Case of the Missing Chits’,” my sister says, patting her chin with her finger. “Who are we casting as the Captain’s wife? Sienna Miller?” She immediately shakes her head. “Not chesty enough. Clare Danes? Too smart. What about . . . ”
But I’ve stopped listening to her because I don’t know whether I’m angrier at my mother for not being as slender as the Captain’s wife or at my father for thinking that the woman is prettier.
My mother hasn’t had much luck staying on her latest diet. And Cora keeps reminding her that Pinot Grigio has more calories than lasagna.
“I’m thinking of moving to France after graduation,” she says, squeezing the tube of lotion on her knees. “The French are my kind of people. They love movies and they hate our prime minister.”
In the military, you’re not allowed to campaign for anyone or have things like bumper stickers or yard signs. I don’t even know what party my parents belong to. But some of the things they say about the war make me think they’re Democrats. For instance, that time the President landed the jet on the air craft carrier, they both laughed when Cora said that the only shot Bush has probably ever seen fired in anger was in a bar with his fraternity brothers.
The next day, I’m at the kitchen table with my Oscar list when my mother comes in still wearing her bathrobe.
“Your sister will kill me if I don’t do mine,” she says and sits down across from me.
“Dad took his to work,” I say.
She presses the heels of both hands against her eye sockets.
“Your father cheats,” she says tiredly.
When she opens her eyes and sees the look on my face, my mother smiles sadly at me.
“I meant he’ll have his secretary fill it out for him, honey.”
I go to look for her copy in the living room. When I come back with it, she has her head down on the Formica table.
“Mom?”
“Your mother had too much wine with her dinner last night,” she says without lifting her head. “Let that be a lesson to you, Teddy.”
I set a pencil down in front of her, and she asks me what I think of Helen Mirren.
“Cora says she’s a lock,” I say.
My mother turns her head so that she can see me.
“I mean what do you think of her looks? Do you think she’s still pretty?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I guess I like Penelope Cruz more.”
She smiles lopsidedly at me. “You’re a chip off the old block, sugar.”
Cora spends the day in her room, monitoring every blog on the Internet that’s discussing the nominees. I try to think about something to write for my English assignment but can’t concentrate.
It’s after six by the time my father gets home from work. And as soon as his staff car pulls into the driveway, I go out to warn him about Mom being in a kind of funky mood.
“Field intelligence,” he says, squeezing my shoulder, “a soldier’s got to have it.”
Although he tries to act like everything’s copacetic I can tell that he’s in a kind of funky mood himself. But it’s not until after dinner when he goes for a walk with my mother (part of her new Mediterranean diet) that I discover why. And it doesn’t have anything to do with the Adjutant’s wife.
I’m still filling the dishwasher when Cora comes in and sits down at the formica table.
“Daddy’s going overseas,” she says.
Her voice is a little husky sounding and I almost think she’s been crying. It’s not about them getting divorced but I still get the same kind of chill as when I’m taking a shower and someone turns on the tap downstairs.
“When do we go?” I say.
My sister keeps her hands folded in her lap.
“It’s a hardship tour, Teddy. No family.”
I’m having trouble hearing her.
“I thought you said we were going overseas?” I say.
“Just Daddy,” she says. “Not us.”
It’s like someone’s holding giant conch shells over my ears.
“Daddy?” I say. “Not us?”
“He’s going to Iraq, Teddy. That’s what the walk’s all about. So Daddy can break the news to her.”
He told my sister first because he wanted to be able to “deal with your mother one on one.” In the meantime, he thought it’d be better just to have her “bring your brother up to speed.”
“Which is kind of appropriate when you think about it,” my sister is saying. “I mean, it is a proving ground. And Mom’s going to go ballistic.” She crosses her arms the way she did when the lifeguard told her about the missing chits. “Daddy’s an idiot. He probably thinks this will get him his star.”
“Daddy’s not an idiot!”
My sister smiles curiously at me.
“You’re right, Teddy. I meant something more like ‘misguided’. Given the missile analogy.”
When I only stare at her blankly, she pauses as if trying to translate something from the French for me.
“It’s a metaphor, Teddy. Like your English paper. It just means he’s mistaken. As in, ‘Daddy’s mistaken if he thinks volunteering for that stupid war is going to get him promoted.’”
“Maybe it’ll be over before he gets there,” I say.
Cora pauses and then makes her puffing sound.
“Maybe, Teddy. We can always hope Allah is great, right?”
My father suddenly appears at the front door. But my mother’s not with him.
“Let me guess,” Cora says to him. “She took the road less traveled.”
My father winks at me the way he does when we both know something that my sister doesn’t. Only this time I don’t know what it is.
“As you’re aware,” he says, still smiling at me though he’s talking to Cora, “your mother has a tendency to get carried away.”
“Mom’s the one getting carried away?” my sister says. “I didn’t hear her volunteering for that idiot’s war.”
My father winks at me again. “That’ll do, Cora.”
I look out the window. The sun has dropped below the rooftops across the street. Although it’s time for supper no one says anything about being hungry. Instead, my father changes his clothes and goes out to lie in the hammock. He’ll smoke a cigar to keep the mosquitos away.
Cora watches the pre-Oscar telecast but mutes the sound so she can give her own color commentary. I sit out on the steps and watch for my mother. With the door cracked behind me, I can still hear my sister who’s starting to get a little hyper with all the big stars making their red carpet entrance. “Helena Bonham-Carter,” she says loud enough for my benefit. “Tell the folks at home you’re kidding with that getup.”
After a while, I see the lights of an MP jeep turn onto our street. Its siren isn’t on and doesn’t look as if it’s in any rush to get where it’s going. But the biggest surprise is when it pulls into our driveway.
Then I recognize the same MPs who took us home the other night.
“What’s the light show all about?” Cora says, stepping out onto the porch.
But we can both see for ourselves now. Bernstein is helping my mother out of the jeep.
“Great,” my sister mutters. “Mom does the perp walk.”
My father comes around the side of the house still smoking one of his cigars.
Seeing him, the two MPs snap to attention, leaving my mother to drop to her knees on the flagstones.
“Jesus,” Cora says but does her crossing guard move when I try to get past her. “Daddy’ll take care of it, Teddy.”
And, in fact, my father has flicked his cigar away and is already kneeling down beside her. Only after she appears to have calmed down a bit does he try to get her to stand up. But then she starts pounding her fist against his chest and shouting at the MPs who are still at attention.
“Do you know what he’s done?” she yells at them.
The older MP hesitates as if hoping my father will issue an alternative order.
“He’s volunteered for Iraq,” my mother says. “Does that make any sense to you?”
My father steps in front of her. “You men can return to the motor pool,” he says. “Thank you for your help.”
They salute my father who, because he’s not in uniform, merely nods back.
“What help?” my mother says. “They’re not going to Iraq.”
My father smiles crookedly at the MPs.
“We’re a little distraught here,” he says.
“Yes, sir,” Bernstein says.
“We’ll call it a night,” my father says.
“Yes, sir,” the older MP says and executes a crisp about face, his spit-shined leather boots squeaking.
You can hear the TV in the living room and Cora stands still, listening intently to the announcement for Best Actress.
“Told you,” she says.
My mother gets to her feet and plods up the steps ahead of my father.
“This is how I hear about things,” she says bitterly to us. “No one ever tells your mother a goddamn thing.”
Cora and I move away from the door to allow my father to follow her into the house.
The driver has turned the flashing lights off in the jeep.
“Wait here a second,” my sister says to me and hurries down the driveway.
I bring my hand up to my chest as if I’m about to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. But I’m just trying to slow my heart down. Cora’s right, of course. I’m just like my mother. I’m too excitable. I take everything too seriously. “When’s the last time you read about any full colonel getting taken out by a suicide bomber?” she said to me in the kitchen. She argued that they’re not going to put a senior grade officer where some crazy person can get at him. “Not even Bush is that stupid.”
She comes back, out of breath.
“Bernstein says they’ll drop us off at the Club,” she says excitedly. “We can watch the rest of the show on the giant flat screen.”
I’m already shaking my head. “It’s all right,” I say. “I’ll tell Mom and Dad where you are.”
My sister turns and raises one finger to let Bernstein know that she’ll be there in a second.
“Come on, Teddy,” she says, pausing a moment to listen to whatever the actress is saying. “It’ll actually be easier on everyone if you get out of the house and leave them alone.”
I tell her that I need to get going on my English paper.
“Jesus, Teddy. It’s Oscar Night.”
The driver starts the engine.
“All right, fine,” she says without sounding all that disappointed. “Tell Daddy I’ll call if I need a lift.”
Once again Bernstein stands holding the seat down for my sister who as she squeezes into the back of the jeep says something about Guantanamo that makes even the older MP laugh.
But she’s probably right about leaving my parents alone for the time being, and so I walk back around the side of the house and settle into the hammock. Its tubing is made out of some kind of miracle metal that doesn’t get hot (Cora claims the Proving Ground’s research labs work on coming up with stuff they can use over in the war), and so you can actually stretch out in it without getting second degree burns. But I’m prone to seasickness and can only take the swaying for a couple of minutes (not to mention the lingering cigar smoke) before I have to get back on my feet.
Living in the desert, you don’t have a lawn to mow so there’s practically zero upkeep. Cactuses pretty much take care of themselves. The only thing you really have to be careful about is sidewinders. Anyway, it’s not your typical backyard. For instance, right now, where I’m standing, I can see an entire petrified palm tree exactly where it fell a million years ago. It’s in pieces but it’s like a giant jigsaw puzzle in the sand. There’s the trunk at the bottom and half a dozen large fronds kind of splayed out on top. The thing must weigh a ton which is why it’s still in the same spot it was when it hit the ground. Cora suggested I use it for my metaphor paper that’s already two weeks late. She says I could compare a real tree to a family tree to show how both of them have roots and branches and can grow to be healthy and strong if they’re properly nourished. Or, she says, they can wind up shattered and petrified in the desert. Anyway, I should probably get started because it’s not going to be easy stretching it to three typed pages (double-spaced) and I really need a good grade if I’m going to turn things around before the end of the year.
James Bennett is the author of two novels, My Father’s Geisha (Washington Square Press, 1991) and The Moon Stops Here (Doubleday, 1994). His stories have appeared in Best New Stories from the South, Literary Imagination (Oxford University Press), and The Yale Review.