STORIES IN THIS COLLECTION

"DANTE"

After thirty white-knuckle days of not calling Grant, nobody gave me a nice little medallion to wear on my keychain. At the vast watershed of a year, no cake. Nobody sang. At Grant's memorial, even though I didn't know those people, I was sharply aware of their potential failure to appreciate that accomplishment. It wasn't as easy as it sounds.

A modern, hard-edged and comic tale of a woman who inherits a dangerous dog on the death of her married former lover. Her sex life quickly goes from bad to non-existent, because Dante won't let anyone near her. "Dante" first appeared in Descant, and on the winner's list of the 1996 Raymond Carver Short Story Contest.

"RED TEXAS SKY"
"Teddy? Will you tell me one of your nightmares?
Your worst one?"
Teddy sat back and blew smoke rings, nice and casual, like he hardly noticed he was doing it. "Aren't your own nightmares bad enough?"
"I'll tell you my worst one."
"Okay," Teddy said, "you go first."
Charlie told about the full moon out in the middle of the day, the sky turning red, and the big bird swooping down and snapping his neck like a matchstick.
Teddy told of a dream where he opens fire on a circle of Viet Cong, rakes them with his M-16 and kills them, every one. Then he turns them over, and they're all little kids, some no more than ten years old.
"And the very last one I turn over," Teddy says, "is me."
"You? How can it be you?"
"Well, how can a giant bird snap your neck?
It's a dream, right?"
Charlie said, "Oh, yeah."

A young boy learns to overcome his chronic nightmares with the help of an unlikely "angel" in the form of his mother's alcoholic, Vietnam veteran boyfriend. "Red Texas Sky" first appeared in Eureka Literary Magazine, and was later nominated for Best American Short Stories, the O'Henry Award, and Pushcart Prize XXII.

"LOVE IS ALWAYS RUNNING AWAY"
That very first night we both made love to Chloe, on the beach at Huntington, tripping our brains out on acid, I should have known the baby would turn out to be his. Only, stupid as we all were, who'd have guessed there would be one? We were all just friends at the time, too high to see that the sex would change that.

A menage-a-trois of three young people produces a baby girl, and a complex web of jealousy and competition, but only one true parent. "Love is Always Running Away" first appeared in the 25th anniversary edition of The Amherst Review, and on the winners list of the 1994 Raymond Carver Short Story Contest.

"WEDNESDAY MAN"
He stood at the confessional, and knocked cobwebs down with his handkerchief, and she came up behind him and ran her hands around to his smooth, narrow chest. A mouse ran by her foot and she did not jump.He turned and kissed her, then slid into the confessional and drew the torn curtain behind him. He asked if she had anything she would like to confess.

A middle-aged woman carries on an affair with an anonymous young stranger in an old abandoned chapel. But she learns it's possible to get too close to someone without knowing his name. "Wednesday Man" first appeared in Potpourri, and was later nominated for Pushcart Prize XXII.

Other stories in "Earthquake Weather" first appeared in South Dakota Review, The Crescent Review, Vignette, and in the 10th anniversary edition of Hayden's Ferry Review, in a special section devoted to work solicited from previous contributors, alongside the work of such noted authors as Valerie Miner and Rick Bass.