Hanging Waspby Cori JonesPART ONE: HARVARD UNIVERSITY, SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1998: Vinca She figures she has an eating disorder, but what the fuck. After all, she spits. It goes like this: she never eats more than half of her regular meals. Divides the stuff on her plate--veggies, meat, pizza, whatever--into The Half that goes into Her Stomach and The Half that Goes into the Garbage. But she’s always on guard against sweets, which she spits. She buys a whole cake, or a dozen donuts, maybe a whole box of gourmet cookies. Shuts herself somewhere secret, chews everything up, spits it all into a wad of napkins. Never swallows anything buttery, sugary; brushes her teeth--twice if it’s chocolate--when she’s finished. Never pukes. Been spitting ever since Harvard, ever since everything with Ann and the note she found under her pillow. Dearest Vinca, I’m leaving Harvard. I feel dishonorable and awful. I’m leaving you some notebooks you might find helpful. Love always, Ann. Does spitting count? She knows it’s not like sticking her finger down her throat five times a day or going on a water diet for three months so she can get down to seventy-two pounds. Still, she wonders if it does count for anything. Lately, she’s started spitting out half her dinner and breakfast too: eggs, meat, all the things that build your body up. But who would she ask about spitting? Mum? Mum would wipe away a tear (Crying, she once told Vinca, was too Irish.) and tell Vinca about all the years she spent wishing she could get off chemo and keep food down and now her daughter tells her this? Then she’d sigh, shake her head. At least I raised you to be polite. Just remember that people like us are always polite. But, Lovey, you’ve got to watch that mouth of yours. You spent too much time before college listening to nasty language in Harvard Square. Language? What language? During those days at Harvard Vinca heard about five new words an hour: metaphysical, punctilious, cryptic, quandary, postmodern. She had no idea what they meant or how a person could pull them out of their brain and use them. No way she’d picked up nasty language at Harvard. Actually, she hadn’t even picked it up in the Square, although she’d hung there with plenty of burnouts when she was fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. She knew that her nasty language came out of Mum’s cancer. It started when she met Jerome Washington at Dana Farber, the cancer hospital that sits practically on top of Roxbury. Jerome used to hang at the main entrance, wearing cool shades and baggy shorts that hung down past his knees, talking nonstop in a soft rap rhythm. Big C hit and Man that’s spooky. You got pukey. Big C-pukey. Keep that food in your belly in your belly in your belly. Buy from me and your mind’s gonna float. Suck that pukey up in smoke. Smoke. Smoke. Weed. Right here. Vinca started hanging with Jerome when he became Mum’s regular pot-dealer. She used to meet him at the Roxbury Crossing T or on a bench down where Brattle meets Mount Auburn. They hung together for maybe two years, until the day he disappeared and she never saw him again.
Category: Novel
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Cumulative Earnings:
$340.00
Rank: 1
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Month's Earnings:
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Rank: 1 The Book of Markby Janet Lloyd WeberJanet Lloyd Weber 1959 E. Wheatridge
Category: Novel
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Cumulative Earnings:
$0.00
Rank: 6
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Month's Earnings:
$0.00
Rank: 4 The Book of Eliby sam moffieChapter 1 HOW HE GOT THERE
Category: Novel
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Cumulative Earnings:
$0.00
Rank: 14
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Month's Earnings:
$0.00
Rank: 13 Harvey's Driveby Stephen HinesBack then I lived in a little town in West Virginia called Summersville. I never even knew there was anything else but that town till I was six. My family never went nowhere or did much of nothin. We lived in a beat up two-story white shack just down the street from the swimmin pool. My momma and daddy never did get along too much. They loved each other and all, but it just seemed like they was always makin each other mad. Sometimes they’d be fightin and screamin and me and Rick, my brother, would just hide in our room. I was just a little kid then, so I’d get all upset and bawl like a baby, coverin my ears so I couldn’t hear. ‘Course I could still hear it all, pots and pans bangin around, Momma screamin for daddy to stop. Rick, he just stood there starin at me, his eyes bulging out like he’d seen a ghost, then he’d ask me if I was alright. He always acted like he wasn’t scared or nothin. Like it didn’t get to him. Sometimes he’d find me hidin under my bed, cryin like a sissy, and he’d tell me to quit it. He tried to make it sound like he was mad, but I could hear his voice shakin, just not as bad as mine was. Still, he meant okay, I guess. Just tryin to be tough. One of us had to be.
Category: Short story
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Cumulative Earnings:
$0.00
Rank: 31
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Month's Earnings:
$0.00
Rank: 26
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