Daniel fretted over Dori until she was honestly getting annoyed about it. He sat her in the office, gave her an ice pack, offered to call an ambulance, offered to call a lawyer and did call the police. She didn’t want to press charges, but when Daniel told the cops about Smile’s wreck the week before, they ran him through their computer, found that his license was suspended, and went looking for him anyway. She imagined that the cops were getting kind of sick of seeing her name pop up every few days, but what could she say? It was being a really weird month. Read More →
The thing that would replay itself over and over in Smile’s head, the thing that eventually made him so sick he actually vomited, kneeling humiliated over the stainless steel toilet of his jail cell, was that it was so easy. His first thought had nothing to do with shock or shame or horror, but more …
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Smile was at Pandora’s when Dori arrived, cached quietly at a corner table and nursing a Coke. He was wearing a gray coverall she’d never seen before, and his hair was tied back. “Hey,” she said, swinging past the table before she punched in. “How’d you get here?” “Khalid rented a car,” he replied, all …
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Brian wanted to come, but he had some other unspecified thing to do. Liz, on the other hand, seemed perfectly cool with the idea of taking her only day of the week off to wander around with Dori on her random business. This didn’t make her feel any less weird. But then, it was probably …
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Dallas’ Lizard Lounge hosts a couple of noisy-stuff nights a week, under the name The Church. On Thursdays and Sundays, the DJs spin neo-gothic, industrial and electro (that’s according to The Church’s website) tunes in one of the cooler club environments I’ve experienced.
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Being accused of kidnapping Taylor was too big a piece of news to be kept from Aunt Andrea, so Dori told her over brunch. Okay, so it wasn’t really brunch, just the usual super-late breakfast, but still. For some reason, telling on herself felt a lot like going to the teacher to announce that a …
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Roads to Quoz: An American Mosey, William Least-Heat Moon: I’m having a hard time putting my finger on why I didn’t enjoy this book. I loved Blue Highways, Least-Heat Moon’s solitary journey through the forgotten backroads of America. Though Roads to Quoz is very similar in content, and the flowery prose is both creative and …
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Liz and Nikki were getting together with some other friends for dinner, and Dori had to work, so they said their goodbyes and promised to meet again. Dori got to work feeling positively buoyant; Nikki was back, and her friend seemed cool, too. Nikki’s parting words had been to suggest that she and Dori go …
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I’m not 100% certain about this one, which strikes a balance between too vague and too specific, and might not be as arresting as the previous challenges. It leaves the field a bit wider open, and presents less opportunities for mindless gore than before, though there are certainly interesting places to take it. But in …
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All in all, Nikki was one big happy surprise. She was still her moody, gothy self and that was okay with Dori, but she’d lost most of the hesitant, insecure girlishness that she’d been full of two years ago. In fact back then Nikki reminded Dori of the way Taylor was now, a little. Now …
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