From my fiction
Photo by Craig VanDerSchaegen
Glynis walks into Chase’s office without knocking. This annoys Chase but she doesn’t say anything even though Glynis is a mediocre secretary and, she suspects, the reason spell-check was invented. Glynis is twenty years older than Chase, and her Aunt Pat’s favorite tennis buddy. She doesn’t have to work for a living, but a few months ago, Aunt Pat called and asked (well, demanded) Chase hire Glynis because “her husband died and the poor dear needs an outlet.”
And Chase is a little afraid of her Aunt Pat, so she puts up with Glynis’s quirks.
“Lady outside to see you,” Glynis says, hunching up her shoulders like a little girl with a big secret.
“And?”
“Won’t say what it’s about. Or her name. But she’s wearing some pricey glad rags,” Glynis says. “I’d say she’s got the goods.”
Ever since becoming Chase’s secretary, Glynis has spoken like the hard-bitten assistant of some 1930s gumshoe. She uses that phrase, too, to Chase’s intense embarrassment. She’s heard Glynis announce over the phone, “I’m personal assistant to the gumshoe.”
Glynis doesn’t know a thing about private investigation. But when it comes to the new client’s fashion sense, Glynis—who owns closets-full of couturier clothes she wears to the office—can certainly be trusted. Last week it was her canary yellow Balenciaga sheath, yesterday a power-red Dior suit.
And since Glynis is working for free while business is bad, Chase can’t complain. Not too much.
— From FIRST KILL
It's a little-known fact that hippos are braver than lions. Female hippos, especially.
They'll fight to the death.
I plunge my hand into my pocket and pull out my jade hippo figurine. When I get nervous, I stroke her smooth back and pat her ears. I’m nervous now, standing in an antiques store, staring at a silver ring with a swirly N.
N for Nina, my name. And for some old lady who just croaked. It’s that kind of antique store—the kind that sells junk from a hundred dead grandmas.
Monogrammed rings don’t make me nervous. Stealing does. My fingers hurt and my breath quickens.
- From THE CRIMINAL GENE
Lydia has a fascination with typeface, and she is pained whenever she meets someone who doesn’t appreciate the importance of fonts, of Garamond and Cloister, Perpetua and Bulmer, the names themselves striking her listeners mute. At night, she apprentices with a printer, and at parties Kim finds her, back to the wall, beer in hand, lecturing one of her blond boys about leads, slugs, quads, and spaces. If the boy looks bored or doesn’t seem sufficiently enamored of typeface, she sends him home. I don’t sleep with idiots, she says.
- From "The Importance of Dead Girls"
“I like to steal small.
A little ceramic vase in the dollar store. A sparkly hairband from the pharmacy. Cheap things I can say I bought with my allowance.
The items I steal are like abandoned cats in a shelter waiting for an owner. One of them mews at you in a certain way, purrs at just the right moment, or rubs its head against your hand, and you know it’s coming home with you.”