A waitress dropped two mints on the check between our plates.

“Did you sign the second-quarter bank authorization form?” I asked.

Natalie grabbed her purse, slid out of the vinyl booth, and walked quickly out to the street without answering.

I paid the three-dollar breakfast check and drove straight back to my apartment.

By half past eleven Thursday night, the apartment was perfectly still.

Sophie was asleep in her room with her gray stuffed rabbit tucked under her arm.

I sat at my little desk in the corner of the living room with a pair of foam headphones plugged into my laptop.