Happy Medium

by Sarah Adler

Gretchen never particularly enjoyed the story of the boy who cried wolf. Probably because when she read it in their fables unit at whatever elementary school she was in at the time, the teacher took away her recess privileges after she raised her hand and pointed out that none of this would have happened had the boy not tried to pull off the same con on the same group of people over and over (seriously, that’s Grifting 101).

“Sorry, sorry,” he says at the same time she manages an, “Ope!” Apparently, those four months she lived in Wisconsin really made an impression on her.

How much shower stuff does he think one woman needs for a month? It’s like how NASA tried to send Sally Ride to space for one week with a hundred tampons “just in case.”

“So I figured it would be okay if I . . . I know this sounds ridiculous, but it’s like I can feel . . . her love . . . when I wear something she made.

“Why do it, then?” she asks. “Why do something that’s probably going to hurt?” “Oh, doll,” he says, sounding for the first time like the much older—and perhaps wiser?—soul he actually is. “Because it hurts so much more not to.”

cantrips