Selected Work

Milk Teeth

(Chapter 10 Excerpt)

Mount Auburn Cemetery looked like an arboretum, where pale headstones sprang up uninvited like new teeth. I’d always imagined cemeteries mapped like New York streets, easy to navigate with numbered rows and organized lines. But this was mapped more like Boston. Tombstones scattered with no organized pattern, curving with the hillside. It was easy to get lost. 

The roads narrowed the deeper we drove in, petals and pollen swirling over the windshield. A gray stone chapel rose ahead of us, tall spires reaching upward. I wondered if Mom liked this cemetery. 

Boston Sports radio rang over the speakers, Dennis & Callahan discussing the upcoming Patriots season. A bouquet of zinnia rested in my lap. I glanced at Opung in the sideview mirror, her eyes looking out the window. 

“So I had an idea,” I said, casually. 

“Yeah?” Dad turned down the volume. 

“I know Opung’s going back at the end of summer. But I was thinking we could extend her visa? So she could stay longer.”

He hesitated. “She said she has to go back.” 

“She said that or you did?” I looked out the window. “Let’s ask her right now.”

“Gigi—”

“Opung,” I said. “Do you want to stay in America?” 

The car bumped over a divot. 

“Oh… Opung no can.” 

I tightened my grip on the seat belt. “Why not?” 

Dad replied, “Gigi.”

“You don’t want to stay with us?” 

“Opung come back,” she said quietly. 

I glanced at her through the sideview mirror. “For Christmas?”

“Ya.”

“Promise?” I asked. 

“Promise.” 

Dad locked eyes with her briefly in the rearview mirror before slowing the car to a stop. His thumb pushed the volume back up, radio filling the space where conversation would be.

After Winter

(Chapter 2 Excerpt)

Summer opened her book bag, fingers reaching for the pages. Her hand found her notebook, then her pencil case. Then the Nature Valley bar she’d forgotten about. She frowned and reached deeper. The pages were gone. She dumped the bag on her bed, granola bar crumbs raining down. She’d have to retrace her steps. Lamont, Annenberg, maybe they fell out cutting across the quad. She grabbed her keys in a panic and flung the door open. 

There stood Billie, standing in the doorway, reading her pages. She looked up, casually. “It’s a little long for act one.”

Summer frowned. “How do you know where I live?” 

Billie shrugged. “I asked around.”

“Asked who? And why do you have this?” Summer yanked the pages from Billie’s hands. 

"You left it in Annenberg.”

“This is an invasion of privacy.”

“You’re kidding, right?” 

“These pages weren’t yours to look at. I don’t even know what it means yet.” 

“Then we’ll figure out what they mean.” 

“We?” 

“We should do this together.” 

“Do what together?”

Billie’s eyes sharpened. “Finish this.”

Summer laughed, unamused. 

“I’m serious,” Billie said. “I was immediately hooked. Eleanor is incredible.” She looked at the pages once more, her expression shifting to something soft and earnest.

“I think this could be a movie.”