Read Online The Best American Short Stories® 2011 by Geraldine Brooks - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Geraldine Brooks
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Steamrolled by the world, but in the face of defeat, she threatened us all.
Carnie moved back to her shoulder and buried his head into her thin hair. It occurred to me that with her voice inside of him, he would always have more of her to remember.
You don't want to keep these? I asked, giving her a second chance on a box of photographs.
My heart, she'd said. I can turn it off.
For years, I'd believed her.
But I know the truth now. What maniacs we are—sick with love, all of us.
A Bridge Under Water
Tom Bissell
FROM
Agni
"S O ," HE SAID , after having vacuumed up a plate of penne all'arrabiata, drunk in three swallows a glass of Nero D'Avola, and single-handedly consumed half a basket of breadsticks, "do you want to hit another church or see the Borghese Gallery?"
She had plunged her fork exactly ten times into her strawberry risotto and taken two birdfeeder sips from the glass of Gewürztraminer that her waiter (a genius, clearly) had recommended pairing with it. She glanced up and smiled at him (more or less) genuinely. The man put away everything from foie gras to a Wendy's single with the joyless efficiency of a twelve-year-old. He never appeared to taste anything. The plate now before him looked licked clean. When he return-serve smiled, she tried not to notice his red-pepper-and-wine-stained teeth or the breadcrumbs distributed throughout his short beard. They were sitting on the AstroTurfed outdoor patio of an otherwise pleasing restaurant found right behind the American Embassy in Rome. They had been married for three and a half days.
Again she pushed her fork into the risotto and watched steam rise from its disturbed center. "Think I may be a little churched out."
He snapped up another breadstick, leaned back, and rubbed his mouth. This succeeded, perhaps accidentally, in clearing the perimeter of breadcrumbs around his mouth. He had small eyes whose irises were as hard as green marbles, a crooked wide nose, and an uncommonly large chin. His thick and tinder-dry brown hair sat upon his head with shaggy indifference due to how quickly they had cleared out of their hotel room this morning after his rushed shower. She did not mind that he had overslept. The only reason she had not overslept was that she had never fallen asleep to begin with. His plum-colored linen shirt was unbuttoned to his sternum, showcasing a pearl-white chest covered in pubically corkscrewed hair. She felt a sudden urge to lean forward and button him up but did not want the doing of such small tasks ever to fall to her.
He bit the end off his breadstick. "It's not a church, strictly speaking. It's more like a crypt." Now that he was gesturing, the breadstick resembled a wand. "Mark Twain wrote something really funny about it when he visited Rome. Apparently it's decorated with the bones of all the monks who've lived there. Like four centuries' worth. The chandeliers are bones, the gates, everything. All bones. It's supposed to be really creepy."
"A crypt made of monk bones. Why didn't you say so? Let's do that."
His smile softened in a pleased way that made her realize how falsely polite his earlier, larger smile had been. "Funny girl," he said. The thing he liked most about her, he enjoyed telling people when she was in earshot, was her sense of humor. He was the only man who had ever said she was funny, and she wondered, suddenly, if that was one of the reasons why she married him. She was, in fact, very funny.
It had been a good morning, uncontaminated by the reactor-leak conversation of the previous night. They had hardly talked about things today, but she knew both of them were aware they would have to. It was the lone solid thing in their day's otherwise formless future. It was the train they would have to catch.
"Okay," he said, setting down his breadstick with an air of tragic relinquishment, "I'd really like to see the creepy bone crypt."
She put her hands on her only slightly rounded belly and gave it a crystal-ball
Carnie moved back to her shoulder and buried his head into her thin hair. It occurred to me that with her voice inside of him, he would always have more of her to remember.
You don't want to keep these? I asked, giving her a second chance on a box of photographs.
My heart, she'd said. I can turn it off.
For years, I'd believed her.
But I know the truth now. What maniacs we are—sick with love, all of us.
A Bridge Under Water
Tom Bissell
FROM
Agni
"S O ," HE SAID , after having vacuumed up a plate of penne all'arrabiata, drunk in three swallows a glass of Nero D'Avola, and single-handedly consumed half a basket of breadsticks, "do you want to hit another church or see the Borghese Gallery?"
She had plunged her fork exactly ten times into her strawberry risotto and taken two birdfeeder sips from the glass of Gewürztraminer that her waiter (a genius, clearly) had recommended pairing with it. She glanced up and smiled at him (more or less) genuinely. The man put away everything from foie gras to a Wendy's single with the joyless efficiency of a twelve-year-old. He never appeared to taste anything. The plate now before him looked licked clean. When he return-serve smiled, she tried not to notice his red-pepper-and-wine-stained teeth or the breadcrumbs distributed throughout his short beard. They were sitting on the AstroTurfed outdoor patio of an otherwise pleasing restaurant found right behind the American Embassy in Rome. They had been married for three and a half days.
Again she pushed her fork into the risotto and watched steam rise from its disturbed center. "Think I may be a little churched out."
He snapped up another breadstick, leaned back, and rubbed his mouth. This succeeded, perhaps accidentally, in clearing the perimeter of breadcrumbs around his mouth. He had small eyes whose irises were as hard as green marbles, a crooked wide nose, and an uncommonly large chin. His thick and tinder-dry brown hair sat upon his head with shaggy indifference due to how quickly they had cleared out of their hotel room this morning after his rushed shower. She did not mind that he had overslept. The only reason she had not overslept was that she had never fallen asleep to begin with. His plum-colored linen shirt was unbuttoned to his sternum, showcasing a pearl-white chest covered in pubically corkscrewed hair. She felt a sudden urge to lean forward and button him up but did not want the doing of such small tasks ever to fall to her.
He bit the end off his breadstick. "It's not a church, strictly speaking. It's more like a crypt." Now that he was gesturing, the breadstick resembled a wand. "Mark Twain wrote something really funny about it when he visited Rome. Apparently it's decorated with the bones of all the monks who've lived there. Like four centuries' worth. The chandeliers are bones, the gates, everything. All bones. It's supposed to be really creepy."
"A crypt made of monk bones. Why didn't you say so? Let's do that."
His smile softened in a pleased way that made her realize how falsely polite his earlier, larger smile had been. "Funny girl," he said. The thing he liked most about her, he enjoyed telling people when she was in earshot, was her sense of humor. He was the only man who had ever said she was funny, and she wondered, suddenly, if that was one of the reasons why she married him. She was, in fact, very funny.
It had been a good morning, uncontaminated by the reactor-leak conversation of the previous night. They had hardly talked about things today, but she knew both of them were aware they would have to. It was the lone solid thing in their day's otherwise formless future. It was the train they would have to catch.
"Okay," he said, setting down his breadstick with an air of tragic relinquishment, "I'd really like to see the creepy bone crypt."
She put her hands on her only slightly rounded belly and gave it a crystal-ball
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