Selected Stories

“Shark Lore” - Excerpt

Sonora Review, No. 51

Ann, legal aid attorney, overworked, underpaid, had scrimped and done without during the last ten years so Richard could open his restaurant. Unbeknownst to him, his partner in the new restaurant, Javier, owed for back alimony, child support, workers comp, and a whole slew of unpaid disasters going all the way back to student loans at Culinary Institute. While Ann fretted over her indigent clients, her own neglected life spiraled out of control. The courts were in the process of freezing the company accounts, consisting of their entire life savings earmarked for rent, kitchen equipment, tables, chairs, decorators, and florists. The landlord was suing them for the lease.

“Let them eat blinis,” Javi said, and laughed, drunk, when they found out. “Isn’t that how it goes?”

Ann went to the bank in a daze and told the teller she needed to get a cashier’s check for the entire amount in the account. House down payment. Closing time, new teller — the check issued without question. For the first time in her life, she got the adrenaline high of being on the wrong side of the law. So Ann stole what was about to be stolen from her.

By bedtime they were on a plane, sipping umbrella-stabbed drinks at thirty thousand feet above the ocean.