My Year of Rest and Relaxation

I was all sharp corners at that point.<…>“You look like a skeleton. You look like Kate Moss.

I reached for her hand and held it. It was bold of me to make such a move,

I couldn’t sleep in Reva’s bed. It was a lost cause.

Maybe Reva had gone to Ken’s Christmas party and watched him carouse with his wife, who she’d told me was petite and Japanese and cruel.

I put on my headphones and played old tapes on my Walkman as I read. <…>. The silence was maddening otherwise.

The sadness was just floating around in the air.

I would have loved that. Just the thought of Whoopi soothed me. She really was my hero.

As Reva stomped snow off her boots on the mat, three fat women in black dresses and curlers in their hair came out from the kitchen with trays of donuts and Danishes.

I chugged the rest of the McDonald’s coffee and refilled it from the samovar.

Reva led me into a sitting room with windows looking out onto the snow-covered front yard.