From "Notes from Mexico"

When Benito replaced her, he gave Mirabelle a condo. He also lent his plane to her best friend, Maxine, so that she could fly down once a year from Paris to keep Mirabelle company when Benito could not.


Now Benito is in trouble. He did not anticipate the current trend of less is more. He built twenty-seven villas along the Turtle coast and he hasn’t sold a single one of them. Mirabelle took me to visit one of them and there was a dead seagull in the pool.

Excercise for Gotham Writer's Class

Antonia’s favorite candy growing up was Jolly Ranchers— watermelon flavored. She didn’t like to eat an entire one, however. What she liked was the initial thrill of the numbing syrupy taste that clung to her gums like jelly shoes on a bare, wet foot. When she’d sucked the candy down to a transparent, gem-like nub, she would remove it from her mouth and place it back in its wrapper; and then she’d shove the wrapper in the pocket of her jeans, her corduroys, her flannel PJ pants. Her housekeeper would come upon the caramelized pink deposits in the laundry room later as she stood there folding Antonia’s things, and she would think that Antonia hid these candies in her pockets because Mrs. Kauffman became anxious around candy. So the housekeeper never said anything to Antonia about the many pairs of sullied pants that she folded over the two years that she worked for the Kauffman family, and Antonia went on leaving half-sucked candies in her pants until she got into Dadaist poetry her junior year and decided that (blast it!) she agreed with her mother. Candy was for kids.

National Novel Writing Month

I said I'd never do it, but I just did. I signed up for a marathon. 30 days, 50,000 words....it's called Nanowrimo and it stands for National Write a Novel Month. Thousands of people all over the world have joined- 174 in my area alone. Lucky for me, I work at a cosmetics company so I have easy access to under eye concealer because I don't see myself getting much sleep in the coming month.

Are there prizes? No, not really. Nothing consequential. Do I know what I'm going to write about? Um, no. Not really. Is there something fantastically absurd about plundering off into the cold November night alongside thousands of people I've never met, typing with purpose for no concrete reason? Yes, yes and yes.

Socks

It was the month of my wedding; I thought the napkins were in the box. These napkins were a particular point of contention for me. I was dead set against them. As dead set as you can be against something that is actually going to happen. My stepmother insisted on printing them with a photograph of my fiancé and I, trying on hats. She’d designed a monogram to be positioned underneath this: the first letters of our names, connected by an illustrated version of a bubbling champagne glass. A complicated substitute for an ampersand, if you ask me.
We’d invited 50 people to the wedding, but she’d ordered 300 napkins. She told me we could use them again on our wedding anniversary, wouldn’t that be fun? So when my father came up the stairs from the garage into the kitchen with a big bucket of fried chicken on top of a larger, brown box, I thought that the oft-discussed napkins had finally arrived. My plan was to open them, to act enthusiastically, and then to hide them in the attic. Because everyone in my family had been coasting along in high spirits, attacking the wedding to-do list with tremendous good cheer, I felt sure that if these napkins went missing on The Best Day of My Life, my stepmother would turn to me and bravely say, “They’re only napkins!” and that this act of benevolence would do more for our relationship than the fact that she’d wanted to make me customized cocktail napkins in the first place.
But my father acted very shy and surreptitious, and made as if to hide the box away from us, which made it even more obvious that its contents were for me. So I leapt up from the table and lunged for the bottom box, knowing full well that my father’s instincts for survival would cause him to grab the bucket of fried chicken posed on top of it less it tumble to the floor, and this is exactly what happened. My stepmother beamed as I stole away behind the kitchen table with my booty, safely out of reach.
Using my sharpest fingernail, I dug underneath the packing tape and peeled it back with a tug. Across the room, my father held his breath. Gleefully, I pulled apart the cardboard flaps to reveal four dozen pairs of tiny white athletic socks, their reinforced pink tips touching like the snouts of sleeping piglets.
“Dad?” I said, looking across the kitchen to where he stood hugging the greasy bucket against his sweater.
“I got them on EBay!” he exclaimed.
I lifted out a single specimen to try and understand whose feet, exactly, the small white socks were for.

From an exercise for a Gotham Writer's Workshop

I could see how the cutlets could be sauteed with curried spinach, onions and cream, and how this would taste, if not delicious, certainly rewarding on top of a bed of rice. I could taste the future perfect of those chicken cutlets. I could smell the garlic frying.

But right now, those chicken cutlets were lying underneath a choke of plastic, like pale and fattened slugs. Where were the nerves, the rubbery tendons where was the puckered flap of cream-white outer skin?

The other meat choices were no more enticing. Every cut before me looked like the embodiment of nothing; the exact color and texture and glistening sheen I would attribute to this word. What do you feel like doing? Nothing. What did you learn at school today? Nothing. What do you feel like eating? Nothing. This.

From "Night Watch"

The next morning, Antonia padded downstairs into the kitchen and surveyed the kitchen counter (somewhat accusatory, so empty, so clean) and the blinking coffee machine, already dribbling out its necessary black fuel. Something made Antonia pause, as she listened to its gurgling, its faint, reptilian hiss. Her memory jolted, Antonia walked back upstairs to the second floor landing and leaned her ear against the door of the guest bathroom that Grey favored for his grooming. She knocked hard enough for him to hear her over the busy whir of his electric toothbrush.
“Can you eat anything?” She hollered.
He appeared at the door, a flaccid burst of foam around his mouth.
“Hmmm?”
“Can you eat anything, darling, or do you have to go on empty?”
“Ghmghm, ghmmm,” he mumbled, shooing her away.
She went back downstairs and poured coffee into a travel mug. This was for her, Grey didn’t like to drink anything in transit. She fixed him an English Muffin with almond paste in case, wrapped it in aluminum foil, and sat down at the table to wait. He was putting on a show for her, but she knew he hadn’t slept the night before because she hadn’t slept, either. Both of them had simply been too proud to say something in the dark.

When they pulled up in front of the hospital (why were they like this, and always in brick? Factory-like, with noxious fumes tumbling up into the sky from a forgotten wing), Grey undid his seatbelt and stilled her hand on the gear shaft, with his.
“I don’t want you to come in with me,” he said.
“Don’t be silly,” she answered, undoing her own belt.
“No,” he said. “I mean it. Just drop me off and go back home, like I’m a schoolboy. I’ll be good as new tonight.”
She bit her lip and looked out the window. They both knew this wasn’t true.
“You’ll need me.”
“I’ll have them call you when I’m ready to go.”
“Like takeout.”
“Be brave.” He said this to her. He was always saying things like this, to her.

From "Night Watch"

Tomorrow would be the first trip to the hospital they would share together as a couple. Neither of them had wanted a child, and Antonia took any physical complaints she had to gentler merchants: acupuncturists, massage therapists, energy healers.

From "Night Watch"

He had a funny way of speaking, always calling attention to mundane, perplexing words. Split pea. Split pea, he had said to her one time. Table. Cloth. He was batty, and brilliant. But it was true that he smelled.

From "Night Watch"

In their bathroom (still painted pink. How many times had they thought about a change?) Antonia wet a washcloth with tonic and pressed it to her cheeks.
He’d been a bear of a man, until…Antonia moved the washcloth down to her neck. She tried to picture herself saying this to a girlfriend over a glass of wine. She wasn’t sure which girlfriend, exactly, someone she didn’t see often. He’d been a bear of a man until this. And it happened to be true. Not a broken bone in his body, a cholesterol level just average enough to be taken for granted, a vibrant libido, two squash games a week.

From "Val Smells"

The Winklevosses has a life-size chess game in the west corner of the lawn that no one ever played with. Two children were playing with it now, however, pushing their pudgy faces behind and then to the right of the wooden figures, screwing their mouths into frightening shapes for each other.
Antonia pushed her body against the wooden railing. “Checkmate,” She said out loud, to no one. She thought about drinking more. She considered getting tossed. It would certainly make it easier to sit through the coming dinner and the dreadful obligation of a formal desert.
Desert was for children. Or it was for feeling like a child, at the very least. Desert was something that should be eaten in a field, that should be spilled, melted on to fingers, licked off of hands. It should be messy and irreverent, not quartered, cut and presented onto matching porcelain plates. This wasn’t going to last, none of it. Grey would remain friends with Robert forever, men were like that. Comfortable with comfort. But Antonia imagined that she would see this house two, perhaps three more times. And then? And then nothing. Dixon would go on smelling worse and worse and no one would ever tell him.

From "Metronome"

“Jin?”
He turned to find Mrs. Carter standing on the landing. She sighed, and walked over to join him at the piano. Over his shoulder, she looked at the music he held in his hands.
“It’s incredible,” she says. “Just jibberish to me. And you can turn that into music.”
“He doesn’t feel like coming down, does he?”
She sat down in the fold-out chair beside him. She leaned back and closed her eyes for a minute, and Jin felt permeated by the tiredness rolling off the slight slope of her shoulders, her limp hair, sticking slightly to her neck.
She pulled her hands into her lap and intertwined her fingers. “He says he wants to quit,” she said.
“He’s angry,” said Jin, grasping the sheet music.
“He’s angry.” She looked down at the carpet. “But he’s also sad. It’s a lot for a boy, I think. His school. You have to do so many things well. And there’s some stuff going on with his Dad.”
Jin’s pulse quickened at the mention of the man he’d never met.
“So I think we should just give him a little time off.”
Jin’s throat clenched. Time off was time lost. They had not yet reached the point where Jake could not live without the piano. And they had to reach that point, less he become another gifted student who limits the display of his talent to saccharine, forced performances at birthday parties, or Christmas.
“He’s been making so much progress, though. Jake has a gift.”
Mrs. Carter smiled warmly at the mention of her name. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? Watching my own son do something I could never dream of? I love to stay upstairs while you have your lessons and listen to him play. But he’ll be off to college next year. And I can’t force him.”
Why not? Jin thought. Why? With a gift like his, it was a wonder the neighbors didn’t come barreling through the front door with shouting at the infidel to come down and perform.
“There’s a lot of stuff going on right now, and I just feel like he deserves to concentrate on his friends, his sports, the things that make him happy. You’re only young once, right?”
“But he loves to play the piano.” Jin said, desperate.
“Does he?” She asked, her brown eyes lighting up. “He won’t talk about it with me.”
“Please,” Jin whispered. “You shouldn’t let him quit,”
Mrs. Carter broke into a wider smile and leaned forward to clasp his hand. “Oh Jin,” she said, “don’t take it personally. I’ll recommend you to all my friends.”
Jin pushed the piano bench backwards and got to his feet. He gritted his teeth together to keep his eyes from welling up, and forced his lips to curl upwards into a delusional smile when Mrs. Carter gathered his bag of music off the floor.
“He might change his mind,” she said, passing it to him. “Fingers crossed!” She held up two crossed fingers, to empathize her point.
Jin did not feel like standing in her living room and staring at her crude attempt to make him smile. Jin felt like running up the stairs and yanking Jake out of his bedroom and forcing him to come downstairs to that piano, because if you didn’t go to it in the worst of times, you might never go to it again. Jin did not do this. Jin laughed at her crossed fingers. Jin accepted her offer to pay him for the remaining month’s lessons, and then he let himself out of their home into the perfect light of summer’s end.

From "Metronome"

They stood like that for several thundering ticks of the grandfather clock in the entrance hall; Jin’s fingers on this soft part, willing him back. And then Jake pulled away from him, and Jin knew what Jake must be thinking, and it was with a retch of pure revulsion that he listened to Jake ascend the staircase to the second story; a place that was off limits to a clumsy piano teacher who should have used his words instead of his hands. If he had been Jake’s father, or his brother, or yes, he could admit it, if he had been his lover, he could have crossed the threshold that separates a misunderstanding from a making up. As it was, he was not even a friend of the familys, and his own desires and disappointments held no weight. Jake had a mind-boggling but still nascent gift, and it didn’t matter, because no one in Jake’s family was going to push him to want something that he didn’t. There would be no more apple juice. There would be no more iced coffee. Suddenly exhausted, Jin reached down for his tote bag full of music, and let himself out in to the perfect light of summer’s end.

From "Metronome"

Through the living room window, Jin spied a little girl riding a training bike in between two women. She wore a pink helmet on her head with white polka dots, which made it appear as if she was making the first athletic efforts of her fourth year under the tutelage of giant mushroom.

From "Metronome"

The week had been a long one, and Jin was grateful to find himself on the indistinctive train to Manhattan, the vinyl seats discolored from the sweat of countless thighs and knees, the linoleum aisle littered with bad news and gossip. He brought his cup of coffee up to his lips, and swallowed, and felt happy. He recognized that the coffee was insipid and watered down, a mere shadow to the way coffee should actually taste, but even this pleased him. He’d ordered it “light and sweet”, and this is what he’d been given.

From "Metronome"

“Everyone sit down on your behinds, both cheeks on the floor!”
Jin turned his attention to Ms. Weir, the first grade homeroom teacher, a woman whose eccentricities would never have been allowed to surface in Korea. She was fond of irksome euphemisms, such as “cheeks” and “wee wee’s”, and she dressed monochromatically: her shoes, her clothes, her tights.
“Can we say good morning to Mr. Kim?”
“Good morning, Mr. Kim!” Exclamation points everywhere, like many balloons, rising.
“Good morning,” he stood. “Are you ready to warm up?”
“Yes!!”
That year, the first grade was working on “Chim Chim Cher-ee” from Mary Poppins. Jin hadn’t played any part in the selection of this song, and he was more than grateful that this was the last year the first graders would be singing it.
The choice was problematic for a number of reasons. It was extremely difficult to get first graders to enunciate all of the “cher-ees” and “cher-oos” and the melody was haunting. How a group of parents soberly decided that The Sherman Brother’s bittersweet tune would make an appropriate send-off for the seniors was beyond him. After “Nature Boy”, it had to be the saddest song he’d ever heard in English.
“We’ll take it from the beginning?” The little children crossed right ankles over left, clapped hands together, reached out and poked their friends. Every day was a new beginning for them.
Their eyes opened wide as he played the first stanza- the ba, da-da-dum, ba da-da-dum like a whirling carrousel.

Chim chiminey, chim chiminey, Chim chim cher-ee!
A sweep is as lucky, as lucky can be.
Chim chiminey, chim chiminey, Chim chim cher-oo!
Good luck will rub off when I shake hands with you!

Their high-pitched, eager voices almost camouflaged the dark current, but the lyrics reinforced the downward-pulling irony of the relentless bass. Ba da-da-dum, ba da da da-da-dam…

Now, as the ladder of life has been strung
You might think a sweep's on the bottommost rung
Though I spend my time in the ashes and smoke
In this whole wide world there's no happier bloke.

Jin stopped. Some of the parents had complained. They were fairly certain that ‘bloke’ was a bad word, but they couldn’t come up with anything to replace it. ‘Rogue’ had been proposed, but that seemed just as bad. The real problem was that the children couldn’t manage the hard ‘k’.
“Remember what we said last week? We were going to cough?”
Jin retook the stanza and looked up at Ms. Weir. He loathed singing out loud, but she was more than happy to demonstrate the phrasing.
“In this whole world there’s no happier blow- KUH!”
“Shall we try it again?”
It was worthless, really. On the day of graduation, the children would be nervous and all of the words would run into each other like colored cereal in milk.
“In this whole world there’s no happier BLOKE. YAW!”
Jin smiled. A lot of these little boys would go home that evening and run around a kitchen island singing “Bloke-ha! Bloke-ha! Bloke-ha!” until their mothers hit them playfully with a dishtowel. Others would go home to quieter households where laughter was viewed as a vulgar display of affection, and it was for these children that Jin the lamented the endless repetition of the song.

From "Homemade"

She noticed that he stopped in the fiction section before heading towards the checkout. She sucked at her cheeks while she watched him choose. After flipping through the fiction rack, he moved to the table of bestsellers. She felt both relieved and saddened when he chose “Tuesdays with Morrie”. It made her sad to imagine a grown up reading a tale about a grown up and his mentor. But then again, most people bought it as a gift for their fathers, which struck her as an incredibly sad gift, indeed.

From "Homemade"

The parking lot of Bookends had recently been painted and the parking-space lines seemed particularly white and aggressive to her that day. Teresa took a deep breath before she pulled her car into her usual spot, considering the barbed snarl of potential disasters waiting inside.

From "Sunday in the Garden"

A snake in a forest. A broken yellow line running through a frost heave. The irremovable gold sticker from Oprah’s Book Club. The possession of a secret was an anchor in the noise. She looked out at the garden. She went to him, there.

The Car From "Notes on Mexico"

The art critic, who criticizes everything. The man who built a little house on an island so that no one could reach him. Who thinks that the size of Michelle Obama’s hips are indecent. Who takes coconut ice cream for desert instead of chocolate flan. He pulls me into a discourse about Mexican fiscal policy that I neither understand nor care about. Over a final glass of sparkling water, he explains how he recently ordered a car in much the same way one would order a pizza. He called up the company, gave them the model and his credit card number, and finally, his address. And they drove it out to him.

On the way out to my car, I see his. It is a raised white truck with painted flames along each side. This is not the car he had ordered like a pizza. He explains that it is his vehicule d’enti-enlevement. The car he drives around in so that he won’t be kidnapped.

From "Notes from Mexico"

On the way back from the restaurant, he says- he’s almost singing, really- how I hate the Parisians. Les Parisians, comment je peux les haiir. He has an incredible voice. He is purring. He says it is the same every time he arrives in Charles de Gaulle. Last time, he asked a man when he could expect his suitcase. As if I have time for such things! The man exclaimed. The Parisians. How I hate them. How I hate them sometimes.

From "Metronome"

For Jin, it didn’t hit him the way it did some boys. He’d always appreciated the intricate nature of a woman’s beauty, the delicate exactitude of a gesture, the way a woman could store entire sentences in her head only to pick them apart later, carefully, carefully, like so many petals.
It was an instinct, the attraction, sharp and all consuming, the smell of a man. The taste of his sweat and the nubby grit that held on to the ridges near an ankle. It was about the delicious loss of control that came from being opened.
Though he didn’t have a type, it was important that he could depend on the other person’s body. He didn’t like the feel of small or fragile things. The delicacy of sinews and pert bones repulsed him- he hated his own elbows, for example. There was a little knob that stuck out, the subcutaneous olecranon bursa. Bulbous and insistent, like a bottle cap poking out from underneath his skin.

From "The Sunset"

Despite the fact that the contractors had taken their time (and certain liberties with the budget), the new French doors they’d installed were a breathtaking addition to their already spacious bedroom. And beyond those doors, the balcony. Snug, centered, like the forepeak on a ship, perched protectively above the seascape of trees and plains and bushes, the balcony stood out as the apex of their achievements as a couple. Thirty-five years married, and this is what they’d decided to build to remind themselves of it. A magnificent, albeit costly, pat on the back.

From "Sun Tunnel"

There was fury and rage and metallic tension in the air and the brush was scintillating with molten ornaments of need.

I work in the Arts & Crafts Section and I can’t remember the name of my first dog. I.e, Is my life a failure?

Why do people take the spot next to the window on the bus when they only have two stops? Since when has it become commonplace to careen about a shop with a hot beverage in the vicinity of printed matter? Would I be different if I drank coffee instead of tea? What happened to the jewelry box I hand painted for my mother when I was in summer camp? How often do they vacuum this carpet? How long could I go without food before I felt sick? Isn’t it amazing that only a painted yellow line keeps strangers from hurtling into one another with their cars? How many people has my sister had sex with? How could the postmaster have allowed 100 ducklings to die in a box before they could be delivered- wasn’t there some indication that they were ever so much more than fragile? Will I ever like to exercise? The question was never, why did my mother do it, but rather, why did she wait so long?
What is the appeal of monogrammed tote bags? Shouldn’t people declare sand in their sneakers on a custom form? How did my father make it through the day on just one half of a grapefruit?
If books cost less, would more people get published? If I wrote a book, would I be considered ungracious if I left out a thank-you section? Why do so many American women have highlights? How did the lobster feel when my mother placed him on the floor of our black and white kitchen in order to scare, or to impress us? Will I have this job for the rest of my life, or will I die beforehand?
Why do the ridges of my socks stay imprinted on my skin so much longer than other people’s? Why in the world would I ever want to order a blueberry latté? What happened to my childhood furniture after my father moved in with the woman in the leggings? How come there are never any people of color in the Fiction section of this bookshop, is it because I live in Connecticut? Why does adding an additional ‘p’ and ‘e’ to the end of “shop” automatically cause one to associate the venue with Christmas? Does anyone know the difference between a sheriff and a cop?
Do people actually forget that they have half a sandwich in the staff refrigerator, or do they intend, one day, to suddenly remember –hooray!- I have half a sandwich in the staff refrigerator?
Am I too old to wear a bib? Is it human to not allow us to sit down? How many people out there actually create things with pipe cleaners any more and where in the world would you buy some if you wanted to?
Do only men build model trains? Why do guests never use the guest soap you leave on the top of the carefully folded towels on their bed?
Why can’t I remember the name of my first dog?
Isn’t there another location for a nametag than on top of my left breast?

In the cafeteria

Beef bourguignon, tofutti, or Cuban sandwiches- with or without the bread?
It’s so hard to choose, I said, turning to my companion.
Isn’t it?
I really feel like a Cuban sandwich, but it’s not the same without the bread.
Tofutti, I say, pointing. I’ve decided to be good.
The woman behind the counter dips her serving spoon into one of the empty trays. They’ve heated each tray on top of a bed of dirty water. I know this because I used to work in a restaurant myself and no one ever dumps that water out at night after the hot selections have been removed.
I can’t resist- says my companion. Cuban sandwiches- but without the bread.
She winks. Baby steps, she says.
I grab us silverware and take too many napkins. I feel guilty about the amount of napkin I’ve taken, so I push them to the side of the table we choose in hopes that someone else will use them. I imagine, however, that they’ll just get thrown out. Why don’t I just stand up and put them back?
Hmmmmmm, says my friend, sniffing her food. This just smells delicious.
She is very convincing. I look at her plate. There is a speck of something small and dry stuck near the middle of it.
Mine’s too hot to eat just yet, she says, folding her arms.
I pick up my fork. I forgot what I have supposedly ordered. Oh yes, I remember. I tell my companion that I wish I had chopsticks.
Oh- she says. You should drop that into the suggestion box.
I push my fork into what I imagine to be the center of a thick slab of tofu. I decide that it is resting on a bed of ginger scallion sauce and so I push the piece on my fork around and around to soak up the sauce.
Is it good? She asks, after I’ve taken my first bite.
It could be spicier. They always err on the side of caution, here.
She nods. She raises the fork to her mouth. I watch as she closes her lips around the prongs. She takes time to swallow. She puts her fork back down. Shouldn’t you be eating that with your hands? I ask.
She looks down at her plate. Well, it’s not really a sandwich without the bread, she says, pointing to what I assume she intends for me to think is lettuce.
Plus, this way it lasts longer. You want to try?
I grimace.
No, but thanks. I stare down at my plate trying to imagine how much there might be there- how large or small a portion. Do you want to try mine?
I am disheartened when she says, yes, as sharing isn’t part of my repertoire, yet.

From "Homemade"

It had been early enough in the morning that Teresa’s mother could have ran out into the street without making a spectacle of herself, but the front door only opened once that day. Her father left behind a host of foreign smells and objects in his wake that Teresa spent weeks running her hands over, under, on. In the garage, in the far corner of the bedroom. A rotary mower, two pairs of cedar shoe horns, a box of Amaretto flavored cigars, covered in dust.

From "Homemade"

When they were little, Sarah used to tease Teresa about what the bigger boys and girls did. She would hold her down on the carpet and tickle her on the belly, whispering that one day, a boy would stick a penis in her mouth. It will sound like this! She would say, blowing air into her ear.
Teresa didn’t know about a boyfriend, but it would be nice to have an obligation to someone other than herself. Not a person, necessarily, but a small thing that she could prepare a dish of food for. The type of obligation that would force her to snap out of her reveries, and think, I have to do this now. A cat, or a rabbit- she wasn’t fond of dogs and their easy, indiscriminate displays of affection. Teresa didn’t put much stock into superficial relationships. If you liked her, you liked her. If you didn’t? It was like those zucchini loaves. You just wouldn’t get one next year.

From "Homemade"

Sarah worked out the numbers and closed the business the next day. Adolescent, adult, she’d been that way with everything. One week, Sarah ate nothing but vanilla flavored frozen yogurt before deciding that she didn’t like anything that oozed out of a machine. And last year for Christmas, she’d sent Teresa a carton full of ducklings. She must have thought she was only ordering one, because the card that came with it said “I hope you like him!”. There were 100 ducklings in that flat box, 25 per grid. Teresa had to spend an hour and a half on the telephone before she could find someone to take them back.

My dream on the 8th.

In these dreams, my grandmother is alive again, and no one in my family asks why. It is as if everything will be ruined if we do.

From "Metronome"

Jin didn’t have a type, per say, there was a spark, or there wasn’t, but sexually, it was important that he could depend on the other person’s body. He didn’t like to hold on to small things. The tactile fragility of sinews and pert bones repulsed him- he hated his own elbows, for example. There was a little knob that stuck out, the subcutaneous olecranon bursa. Bulbous and insistent, like a bottle cap poking out from underneath his skin.

From "Metronome"

The man’s name was Mark. He wanted a dog and a bigger apartment. Under “guilty pastime”, he’d listed “Ebay”. He put two photos online, and sent several more directly to Jin. In this second batch, he’d been photographed with a chocolate Labrador puppy, which suggested that he’d either awarded himself one of his wishes or that he’d taken the photo with somebody else’s dog.
Jin had compiled his profile under the name “Bruno Schulz”, his favorite writer, so that his mother and sister wouldn’t find him online. He never lied to his dates about his real name, though. Usually, they thought it was quirky and endearing that he so enjoyed the stories of an eclectic Polish modernist.

From "Metronome"

When other students gave a poor performance, the Jaquelyn Wu’s and Tony Higgins of his junior class, people approached them with pinched looks and furled eyebrows after the concert. What….happened? There was a real sense of disquietude in the aftermath of such a letdown- the shared sentiment that the bystanders couldn’t let a rising star fall. Jin didn’t experience anything like the day he took a beta blocker. People were embarrassed for him. He’d ruined the last piece of the program and left them with a bitter taste in the back of their throats that would probably end up causing them an ugly feeling of inevitability when their steak arrived medium instead of medium rare out later that evening. I’ll eat it anyway. What does it matter?

From "Metronome"

Timed like clockwork but executed with naivety, Jin had grown used to the consistent interruption of Beatrice’s phone calls during their Tuesday sessions. He tolerated them because Mrs. Carter did, but he hated the string of minutes he had to sit alone in front of the piano, waiting to feel like a human being, again.
But one Tuesday in August, Jin found her on the couch when he arrived for Jake’s lesson.
Even though he’d never met her in person, he could tell who she was from the self-satisfied slump of her body against the couch, the entitled way she let her flip flops dangle from her feet.
This felt inexcusable. Not only was Jake unable to practice, too embarrassed to practice at a “speed for dummies” in front of his girlfriend, but she went out of her way to distract him. Parading back and forth from the couch to the kitchen in terry cloth shorts that seemed to somehow get shorter with every trip.
Most lessons, Mrs. Carter timed her reappearance with the end of the hour, eager to know what Jin thought about her son’s progress. That day, while Beatrice chased Jake up the stairs with an open can of soda, Jin told Mrs. Carter that Jake seemed “distracted”. He thought this would suffice- in Suwon, it certainly would have, but Mrs. Carter only smiled, catering to his disappointment with a well-worn commentary about how very fast her little boy had grown up.
Jin got on a train that very same night for a meeting with a man he’d had sex with twice before. He didn’t know his real name, but his IM screen name was “BlowGo”. He had more hair on his chest than Jin would have liked, but he was ravenous and officious, insistent that Jin be in position when he arrived.
They’d prearranged a knock: two times, followed by a third, and Jin would move onto the bed and turn the lights off, and assume whatever posture BlowGo had specified in his text. When BlowGo fucked him, he did it fast and hard and it was over in ten minutes. Afterwards, Jin would curl up with his knees tucked into his chest while the hairy man cleaned up in the bathroom. They didn’t make eye contact and they didn’t say goodbye, and it was only from peering out the window that Jin realized BlowGo always paid the cab driver to stay.

From "Metronome"

Growing up, Jin’s mother used to yell at him for balling up his socks in the dirty laundry basket. When she found a clumped pair in the dryer, she would pull it inside out over his head so that all the bits and pieces of lint would fall onto his black hair, like dandruff.

From "Metronome"

Jin opened up the book of exercises- a saccharine edition that he’d found online: “Sing After Me Echo Songs and Warm-Ups for Young Voices”. There were movement worksheets to go along with each song, but Jin was the only one who knew this. He could only imagine what a person like Ms. Weir would do if she got to move those purple colored tights in time with “Blue Brother Jake”.

From "Metronome"

Looking at the woman in her just-so house, Jin couldn’t help but wonder if his father had a mistress hidden in a private community somewhere. These American women were more Korean than his own mother. They attended to details. They “got things done”.