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September 6 - October 1, 2024
At some point, you will be tired or distracted or simply human and you will start to write or say your real name instead of your alias. It is far easier to correct your mistake without arousing suspicions if you have at least begun with the proper letter. Also, it means never having to change your monogram. Remember, ladies, your lives are lies now, but the fewer you tell, the simpler it is to keep them straight.
“Why do I care if anyone hears me? Periods are a perfectly natural phenomenon.”
“Here, Mary Alice. Drink this and I’ll see if I can find you a flashlight.” Mary Alice furrowed her brow. “Flashlight?” “To find the stick up your ass. Let me know if you need a hand getting it out,”
“I’m going to miss the adrenaline,” Nat told us, her expression wistful. “I mean, how else am I going to find anything that makes me feel that alive?” “You could take up recreational drugs,” Mary Alice suggested.
By the time she split from the third one, she’d given up entirely on marriage and decided to keep a string of what the kids call fuckbuddies.
‘I am interested in justice, not the law. There is an unfortunate difference.’
We don’t make killers. We simply find them and point them in the right direction.
“Thank you, dear,” Helen told her sweetly. “But I brought some edibles.”
At least I want to be. I am so sick and tired of waking up feeling like someone tore off one of my limbs. Every morning, for just a few seconds, I forget. I wake up and it hasn’t happened yet. There’s nothing but emptiness and calm. And then it comes crashing down and I hate it. I hate it so much.”
Three old women, nodding their heads like the witches in Macbeth. I’d known them for two-thirds of my life, those impossible old bitches. And I would save them or die trying.
“Wow. He must have a jaw like porcelain,” Nat remarked.
“Who works there?” Minka asked. “Nobody now,” Natalie told her. “The last one died six months ago and they haven’t gotten around to finding a permanent replacement. Vance can be persnickety.”
Wanna bet?
“Happy fucking New Year,” said the clown.
It’s a comfortable place, mediocrity. Never pushing oneself to the limit to see what you can take. Never staring down your fears, never reaching into yourself to find that last bit of courage.
She has let enough of herself slip away already. Elocution lessons have rubbed the edges off her Texas drawl; the reading lists have improved her vocabulary. The art and history they have absorbed have broadened her world to a vastness she has never before imagined. She is not entirely certain who she is anymore. But if she puts a fingertip to the little ridge that sits just above her lip, she can remember herself.
Like playing piano or giving a good hand job, it’s all in the wrist.
They kissed and hugged again and finally broke apart as the carrying case in my arms shook hard enough to rattle the Richter scale. “What the hell is in here, a poltergeist?”
She nudged my shoulder with hers. “Bitch.” “Said with love?” “Always.”
even Kevin looked committed—although that may have just been the kitty Valium Akiko had forced down his throat.
“You want to take care of the lock?” “Sure.” She picked up a stone from the driveway and tossed it through a window. “I meant pick it, but okay,”
“It looks like a My Little Pony murder plot,” Mary Alice said. “Jesus, is that glitter?” “I like it,” Natalie said loyally. “I find it hard to take us seriously as agents of vengeance when our plan looks like a kindergarten craft project.”
been drinking dead monkey wine.” Natalie shrieked and dropped the bottle. “It’s not made from dead monkeys,” Mary Alice said. “It’s a marketing gimmick.” “It’s nasty,” Natalie answered. “Not as nasty as that bathroom upstairs,”
Her expression is one of perfect contentment. She knows exactly who she is and what she wants. It is taken at the height of her power, although she doesn’t know it.
It is terrible to witness, but it is hers, Billie reflects. Whatever it looks like, this life has been lived. And that is something the baroness took from others when she had the chance.
“You don’t seem sad for me. Usually when I tell my tragic story, a girl would already be unbuttoning her blouse by this point.” “I have sad stories of my own,” she says. “Tell me and maybe I’ll unbutton my blouse,” he offers. She smiles. “I like you a little more than I want to but not nearly as much as you think I do.”
it means I got stuck, and if I got stuck, you’re definitely not fitting through there.” “Did you just call me fat?” I asked her ass as she disappeared.
Natalie ran through the rest of the plan and we worked out the details over tiny coconut jellies in the shape of smiley faces.
bench until the end of your contract and you wind up coaching Little League to six-year-old assholes.” “Six-year-olds can’t be assholes,” Mary Alice says. “The fact that you think they can says a lot.” “Yeah, it says that you’ve clearly never met a six-year-old.”
“Focus on the job. I’ll trip him when we get inside,” she promised. “That’s real friendship,” I told her.
“Your Duolingo score must be the absolute shit,”
They were tired, those nightbirds, and their song was quieter now. But they were still singing, and they went on singing until dawn broke over the trees.
