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Blue or Blue Skies

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Before our group formed, before we fell in love with the wrong people, and before success ruined everything, it was just me admiring this painting of a sand castle slowly being consumed by the tide. I didn't have to check the signature to know it was by Daryl Peters. In 1976, hardly anyone knew who he was, but I'd been following his career since his first exhibit at the Sleeping Gypsy Cafe in Cambridge. Resisting an impulse to touch the canvas, I marveled at the bold, playful strokes, and then noticed a tiny maiden waving frantically from one of the turrets.

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Of Zen and Men

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Later I would wonder--a thousand times wonder! how he had been so successful at hiding his secret life; but only after my pitiful spine-wracking sobs disrupted Reverend Goodell's gloomy eulogy, after solemn sympathy cards with flowers or angels or praying hands began collecting dust in a basket in my foyer, and exactly two months after his death, when I sat in the lawyer's office and learned that my husband William had another wife.

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In His Genes

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Andrew made himself very clear: he didn't want to move out. He liked the way things were, he loved me, and he thought I loved him too. "I do love you," I obliged with what I considered a decent amount of sincerity. "Then why?" he asked. I tried to conceal impatience; would have felt sorrier for him if we hadn't already had this conversation about a hundred times. "It's just not working out," I said, wishing he knew I meant You're a great guy but you're not who I want to spend the rest of my life with. "I need to to be on my own for a while." I'm tired of pretending I'm happy. "It's not you, it's me." It's you. It's all of you. 

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On Air

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The On Air light glows read. I've played a bunch of songs I didn't like, and a few songs I used to like but got sick of. The playlist dictates that I'm supposed to put on "Brady" by Looking Glass, the first band I think of when I hear the term "one-hit wonder." An okay song, but I'm not in the mood. Time for something deeper. I lean into the mic. "He moved away, he changed his name and he changed his religion. But we still love him. Cat Stevens, 'Oh, Very Young.'" Straying from the playlist is radio treason, but no one will say anything. I mean, they might say something, but they won't do anything. They won't fire me. I'm Eric Storm. I have the highest-rated classic rock radio show in Boston.    

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