And then they started fighting about what the gravestone would say. Noam’s dad wanted “Son, something, and friend, plucked in the prime of his life.” He didn’t know what the “something” would be yet, just that there had to be three things...
The house that the three men lived in looked like any old house in the neighborhood. No carvings on the door or around the roof. No lush garden out back, just a patch of green and barely even that. The windows had all been closed and the...
The metallic desks in the administrative offices of IIT-Delhi, India’s top-ranked engineering college, hadn’t been moved since 1976; nor had their bureaucratic occupants. This created in the office an atmosphere of geopolitical resignation...
It is strange, looking back, to think how different things could have been. Years ago, the company I work for undertook a number of joint ventures in China. We didn’t understand the place well, but the industry was in transition, and it was...
Sommy notices his legs first, hairy and stumpy, the part not covered by his tan-colored shorts. He’s standing by the airport’s exit, watching a woman on tiptoes, a piece of cardboard held above her head. His name is Bayo, Sommy’s new...
After a wretched, wakeful night, my hot head buzzing with annoyance, I sat squirming in my study waiting for Ollie to arrive. At nine he put his head in, smiling with his usual greeting, “How are we doing, Andy?”
The hospital was uptown on First Avenue, big, pale, and brand new, its atrium lobby with windows two stories high. Ivy held her son’s hand crossing bright squares on a white floor.
Soon the first cars will arrive for Mass. I can picture them floating down the streets of our city, this suburb of Los Angeles populated by gladsome old people and families with small children and a murky middle swath to which my husband...
The King’s Cross streets are loaded, Thursday night miniskirts and Chelsea boots, pastel Hackett polo shirts and Stone Island wear, people coughing the odd virus or two in my direction.
