The Lola Quartet

by Emily St. John Mandel

It seemed like something that might have happened to somebody else.

For just a moment she felt unreachable and protected, but of course everyone who knew her also knew where she worked.

It was a look she’d seen across poker tables on the faces of men and women who’d been dealt poor hands and hadn’t decided whether or not to bluff.

On either side of the highway the suburbs continued uninterrupted, a continuous centreless glimmering of lights, shadows of palm trees on parking lots, malls shining like beacons and he was nowhere, this could be any suburb on the edge of any city but it seemed to him that none of the cities had edges anymore, just a long slow reach across landscapes.