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  hell hath no fury . . . Her arms were around him, her heartbreaking scar pressed against his chest, her lips against his ear . . .

  A Good Idea " . . . AND MEDEA, SO CONSUMED was she by her bitter jealousy, so desperate was she to take vengeance on her unfaithful husband, Jason, that she murdered her rival with a gift of a poisoned cloak and then went on to kill her own children. . . ." Heather Gannis glanced up at the animated face of her literature teacher, Mr. MacGregor, who was talking much louder than necessary and brandishing a paperback edition of Euripides. Jesus, why were parents so up in arms about violence on television? The seriously grisly stuff was happening in these Greek plays. She heard a snort of laughter from the back of the room. She turned quickly, recognizing the laugh before seeing its owner. Ed Fargo, her former true love, was laughing at something Gaia Moore had written on the corner of his notebook. The sound of it was corrosive in her ears. Gaia could make Ed laugh. It was a rare ability and another affront to add to the long list. Heather wasn't superstitious. Unlike the ancient Greeks,

  Choose SAM TIPPED BACK HIS HEAD AND rested it on the top of the park bench. He closed his eyes and soaked up the low, late autumn sun. For the end of November, the air was sweet and warm. Probably almost sixty degrees. Wednesdays were his favorite days. His classes ended early, so he allowed himself to hang out at the chess tables. That was one of the great things about college -- those one or two class days that left you lots of time to waste. He'd already hustled twenty bucks off an unwitting stranger, then given it right back to Zolov in a rout. It was a weird form of charity, but whatever. Hustle from the stupid and lose to the smart. 'Twas the season. "Hey, handsome." He lifted his head and blinked open his eyes. Heather was bearing down at twenty feet, beautiful as ever in her red skirt and whispery black jacket. He heard the dry acorns cracking under the heels of her boots. "Hi," he said, rubbing his eyes. "How's your day?" "Okay," she said. "The usual high school plundering of

  MARY MOSS "Why are you like this?" That is a question I've heard from a lot of adults in my life. Some of them related to me, some not. If they don't ask it out-right, I see the question in their eyes. And I'm not being paranoid. Trust me. "Like this" in my case means loud, impulsive, messed up, combative, undisciplined, annoying. Other stuff, too. The reason the question gets asked so often, with such impatience, is because there's no easy explaining when it comes to me. I come from a nice family. Two parents, not one. We're rich, not poor. We're well educated. Or I should say, they re well educated. They pay lots of attention to me. They read me books when I was little. They made me drink my milk. It s really not their fault. I have two nice brothers. They both go to good colleges now. Growing up, they only teased me and beat me up the normal amount. Why am I like this? I don't know. Some people have a lot of space between thinking and saying or thinking and doing. I don't have any.

  . . . like a woman scorned It was not of "utmost importance" that the "subject" be kept alive. That had been their mistake from day one.

  Worse Than Stupid GAIA RESTED HER HEAD IN HER hand, staring at what remained of her frozen pizza, trying to fight off a terrible wave of loneliness. It seemed mean-spirited of biology to have left fear out of her DNA but to have made her feel loneliness so acutely. The Nivens' brownstone was empty and quiet except for the odd siren or car alarm blasting from Bleecker Street. Those were sounds you stopped hearing when you lived in New York City. Like a buzzing refrigerator or the hum of an air conditioner. You incorporated them into your ears. The kitchen was sparse and orderly as usual. There was no sign, other than her plate on the faux-country wooden table, that a seventeen-year-old girl had just prepared and eaten her dinner there. Gaia was camping at the Nivens' more than actually living there. Low-impact camping. After five years in foster homes she'd learned never to settle in too much, never to get comfortable. George had been called away on business just before the Thanksgiving

  Dissolving BLOOD. SHE WAS TASTING HER OWN goddamn blood. Once she was out of Gaia's sight, Ella moved more quickly. Around to the next flight of stairs. Eighteen steps to the third floor. Right foot, left foot, right foot. Up, up, up. Her tongue felt too large for her mouth. It was too wide, too thick. As she mounted the stairs, she explored her tongue's surface with her teeth, wincing as her incisors sank into the gash she'd bitten into it when the little bitch had punched her. When the little bitch had punched her. The cut felt deep. The little bitch had punched her. Despite the pain she bit down harder now, feeling oddly energized as more blood welled into her mouth. It tasted sharp and bitter, like acid. Punched her. Her. It was acid, she decided, stepping swiftly onto the third floor. Acid, pumping through her heart, coursing through her veins. She could feel it -- couldn't she? -- burning in her cheeks, raging in her ears. It would dis-solve her. It was dissolving her. Eating her

  Go TICKTOCK. TICKTOCK. TICKTOCK. Gaia stood in the foyer. Watching the stairs. Waiting for Ella to return. Should she stay? Try to fix this gaping rupture? Was there any point? Could she make herself apologize for George's sake? Stay or go? Ella was insane. This night was insane. Stay or go? She could hear Ella's footsteps again. She was coming back down the stairs now, rounding the landing one floor above. Without realizing she'd made a decision, Gaia let her long strides carry her down the hallway. Numbly she pulled on her coat and threw her bag over her shoulder. The cold doorknob filled her hand, and she turned it with a click. "Good-bye, house. Good-bye, George," she whispered. "Sorry about this." She had a feeling as she stepped out the door that she wouldn't be coming back.

  GAIA I remember the summer I started carrying pennies. I was five years old, and we were living in our Manhattan apartment. My mom's dad got sick late that spring. He was dying, it turns out. Every weekend when we'd drive my mother to visit him in his hospital in New Jersey, my dad would take me to the Jersey shore. You see, when you're driving back into Manhattan from the Jersey side, you have to go through a tollbooth. Nowadays things are pretty high-tech, with laser scanners and special stickers you can get for your car, but back then my dad would pay using tokens. Of course, to a five-year-old, a coin's a coin. And to me, those tokens looked just like pennies. Somehow, in my little-kid brain, I concluded that in order to get back home, you needed pennies for the tolls. From that moment on, I started carrying extra pennies with me. Just in case. For some reason, I had this silly notion that my parents could somehow lose me. You know -- just take their eyes off me around a corner or

  a reason to stay Mary attached herself to Gaia by the hand, and Gaia let herself be pulled toward a waiting group that, for the moment at least, could pass as friends.

  Red Light, Green Light THERE WERE TIMES WHEN A four-dollar vanilla latte with an extra dollop of foam seemed like the answer to every single one of life's problems. Tonight it just seemed like an overpriced cup of coffee. Sitting at one of the window seats at the Starbucks on Astor Place, Gaia forced herself to take another slug of the sickly sweet concoction. It wasn't easy. Ten minutes ago it had been lukewarm. Now it was closer to cold. It reminded her of the milk left over from a bowl of sugar cereal. Outside, across Fourth Avenue, the giant clock face on the side of the Carl Fischer building showed that it was almost eleven. God, what a night. Living with George and Ella had never been great, but it was a place to be. A place to keep what little stuff she had. And her tenuous toe-hold in their house had made her a New Yorker. She liked that. Now it was gone, and she had that slightly metallic, nauseating taste in her throat that came with running away. Or drinking syrup-sweet coff

  No Folks MARY MOSS WAS EXPECTING THE girl's shoulders to jump or at least her muscles to tense. They didn't, although Gaia did turn her head quickly. "Your money or your life," Mary growled, pressing the metal tube of lipstick into Gaia's back. Mary snarled menacingly, waiting for a reaction. Gaia didn't look scared, but she didn't look quite tuned in, either. She was glowing red from a traffic light outside, and her eyes were wide and confused. Mary softened her expression and produced the tube of lipstick for Gaia to see. "Gaia, it'
s me. Mary. Are you okay?" Gaia seemed to pull her eyes into focus. She took the lipstick and examined it. "It's called Bruise," Mary offered. "Great color, poor firearm." Now Gaia was green. She handed the lipstick back. "How's it going?" Mary asked, taking the seat across the little table from Gaia and tucking the lipstick tube in the outside pocket of her backpack. Gaia looked pretty out of it. Her light hair was gathered in a messy wad at the back of h

  Just Like Sam " . . . I'M BLIND. I'M EMPTY. I'Mstupid. I'm wrong. . . ." Gaia wasn't quite sure how this had happened. She'd gone from being a bleak New York casualty, a teenage runaway, to being a frivolous club kid. Here she was, sitting in a round, red velvet booth at a downtown club surrounded by New York's young indulgents, listening to a band, Fearless, whose name and lyrics dogged her life in the creepiest way. " . . . I need you to tell me I'm not what I am . . . ." The singer was ranting. Gaia stared into her vodka and tonic and tried not to think about it too much. Most of the people at the table, including Mary, were on their third drinks before Gaia had drunk a third of her first. She didn't like alcohol very much. For one thing, it didn't taste good. Maybe that was babyish of her, but it was true. Besides, from what she could tell, the real reason people drank was to dull their fear. Not what Gaia needed. What if alcohol consumption pushed her from zero fear into negative

  Poison HEATHER FELT LIKE SHE WAS CHEWING on a lemon. She couldn't seem to get the sour taste out of her mouth or remove the pinched expression from her face. Sam sat down next to her, stiff as a two-by-four, saying nothing. That was the best strategy. They would just let this pass and get on with their night. No need to talk about it. "Who is that girl?" Sam's friend Christian Pavel wanted to know. "You mean Mary Moss? The redhead?" Heather heard her friend Jonathan Singer respond. "No, the blond one." Heather waited numbly for the conversation to be over. She tried to think of some effective way to change tracks. "That's Gaia Moore," Jonathan said flatly. "She's unbelievable," Christian said. Every person at the table waited in uncomfortable suspense to hear the precise way in which Christian Pavel found Gaia Moore unbelievable. "She's gorgeous. A total goddess. Do you know her? Can you introduce me?" No one said a word. Heather's mouth was drawn up like a twist tie. She felt like cru

  Lustful Looks SAM SAT IN THE BOOTH, AS CROSS and sullen as a sleep-deprived toddler. Too sullen to drink. Or dance. Or make small talk. He was annoyed at Heather for being his girlfriend. He was annoyed at Christian for looking lustfully at Gaia. (That was hisdepartment.) He was annoyed at Gaia for a whole list of things: 1. Not being his girlfriend; 2. Looking so spectacularly beautiful; 3. Ruining his life; 4. Ruining his relationship; 5. Not meeting his eyes for a single second tonight; 6. Not being his girlfriend. Mostly he was annoyed at himself. For blundering deeper into the thing with Heather. For being so goddamned stiff and awkward tonight. For not talking honestly with Heather about what was really going on. For having blown a perfectly good chance to do so. For still staring at the door fully forty-five minutes after Gaia had walked through it. My Dear Gaia, Having seen you so recently (though you did not see me), my pain at being apart from you is only stronger. You have g

  fun, for a change Gaia clutched the stretchy plastic in her fist as they rose under a cloud of helium, higher and higher.

  The Good Uncle WHATTHE DEVILWENT ON THERE tonight?" Loki's voice thundered. Ella stood before him, heavy with a strange mixture of shame, pride, and frustration. Her jaw throbbed, and her tongue felt like it belonged to somebody else. "We fought. She punched me. She left." Ella didn't bother to mention the part where she got out her gun and went after Gaia, fully intending to blow her brains out. Luckily that part didn't appear on the surveillance tape. "Stupid woman, have you lost your mind?" Ella cupped her jaw tenderly. There would be no sympathy from him. That was certain. "The girl hit me." "I would have hit you, too, the way you carried on," Loki said sharply. Ella held her painful tongue. It was as expected. "Absurd self-indulgence," he spat, pacing across the soft, honey-colored herringbone floorboards. Last month he had a vast loft above the Hudson River. Tonight she'd been ordered to meet him in a starkly modern apartment building on Central Park South. He'd only be there so

  A Big, Red M&M "SO WHO DO YOU LIKE?" MARY asked. "Clifford, the big red dog? Random Rugrat? Snoopy?" The night was misty. The octagonal stones around the beautiful, castlelike Museum of Natural History were slick with yellow and brown leaves. Gaia and Mary were still clutching hands like kindergarten best friends, running through the crowds, watching the enormous balloons come to life. "Spiderman is cool," Gaia observed, gazing at the balloon reaching four stories into the sky. A net above them kept the balloons on good behavior until the parade began in the morning. "Spiderman is already up, up, and away," Mary said somewhat breathlessly, pulling Gaia along. "We need to pick one that's only partway blown up." "We do?" Gaia asked. Mary raised her eyebrows mischievously. "We do." Gaia caught up even with her. "What exactly are you planning?" "Something fun. You'll see." She glanced over at Gaia. "You scared?" "Uh-uh," Gaia replied. "Here." Mary yanked her to a stop. "These ones are good

  Extra Love TWO HOURS LATER GAIA LAY BESIDE Mary on the grassy part of Strawberry Fields and watched the first light of sun spread across the sky. The air felt damp and surprisingly mild. Gaia fell in love with the place on first sight. She loved the curving pathways and the odd accumulation of humanity gathered on the handsome benches. She loved the white-and-black mosaic that said "Imagine" in the middle. "This is my favorite place," Mary said, grabbing the sentiment right from Gaia's mind. "I see why." Gaia turned her head to see Mary's face. Mary yawned and raised her arms, stretching long fingers toward the sky. Gaia caught the yawn from her. "Hey, Mary?" "Yeah." "Thanks for inviting me along on this night. It's been great." Mary turned to her and smiled. "It wouldn't have been great without you." Gaia must have been very tired because she was saying things she would never normally say. She was forgetting to censor her feelings and words, forgetting what the consequences could be.

  A Crowded Thursday THE DOCTOR TIED THE BELT OF his nondescript and greatly despised tan trench coat. In recent years he'd become attached to very fine clothes. But this coat continued to be useful to him when he was conducting his "side business." It was not only too boring to warrant notice, but of such an inferior material that it was machine washable. That part was important. Pausing briefly at the corner of Fifty-fifth Street and Fifth Avenue, he studied the information stored in the tracking device. Now, this was a very busy girl. First the West Village, then Astor Place. Then the remote East Village, then West Seventy-seventh Street, Central Park, and what appeared to be a high floor of an apartment building on Central Park West and Sixty-fifth Street. Did teenagers no longer find sleep necessary at all? He would need to follow her carefully. He wanted this job done by midnight, and her current location -- no doubt in a private home -- was far less than ideal. That whorish woman

  E D For me, Thanksgiving is a mixed bag. On the one hand, there's turkey with stuffing and my grandfather s apple pie. I love that. On the other hand, there are turnips and pumpkin pie. I'd like to know: Who really likes pumpkin pie? Let's all be honest. On the one hand, there are people like me, hanging out with my grandparents. I love them. On the other hand, there are people like Gaia, who have nobody. That's heartbreaking. If you think about it, even the first Thanksgiving was in no way a cause for bilateral cheer. I mean, sure, the Native Americans had shown the Pilgrims how to farm the land, and they were psyched about their first harvest. But what did the Native Americans have to celebrate? Alcoholism, VD, and blankets infected with smallpox.

  too nice One arm. Two arms. The fabric settled with unexpected ease over her stomach and butt, the skirt grazing a few inches above her knees.

  The Red Dress "THIS IS TOO NICE." GAIA SAID it out loud to the Victorian-colored glass chandelier that hung over the vast, pillow-laden guest bed in Mary's family's apartment. Being friends with Mary was too nice. Mary's unbelievably huge and fantastic apartment on Central Park West was way too nice.
The smell of roasting turkey and buttery stuffing was too nice. The thought of spending Thanksgiving with a real family for the first time in five years . . . too nice to think about. Gaia tried to remind herself to keep her suspicions close around her, but Mary, this place . . . it was dazzling. Can't you just enjoy something? she asked herself impatiently. Accept that some places, some people are purely nice? She didn't have time to answer herself. There was a knock on the door, and seconds later, Mary opened it partially and poked her head in. "Hi." "Hi." "Did you sleep?" "Like a vegetable." "Me too. Guess what time it is?" Gaia shrugged. She wasn't used to having someone talk to her wh

  Potato Physics "HOW ARE THE POTATOES COMING, Sam?" Mrs. Gannis's voice floated into the kitchen. Sam looked up from the huge aluminum pot. He felt like a wolf with its leg caught in a trap. He finally understood the wolf s perverse temptation to chew off its own leg. Why had he insisted, in that breezy, thoughtless way, that he would take care of the mashed potatoes? At the time, mashed potatoes seemed like the simplest thing on earth. You get potatoes; you mash them. Besides, he'd figured this important job in the kitchen would keep him out of the fray of tense Gannis-family relations. It would give him a little breathing room from Heather, too, which they both needed. It had gotten to the point where every single thing brought them right back into the danger zone. A casual question from Heather's mother about what they'd done the previous night, an innocent reference to chess, a song on the radio about a girl with blond hair. Not being in the same room with Heather or talking about a