8686 TRUE STORIES, WELL TOLD.TRUE STORIES, WELL TOLD.
Hold it closer still so that it’s almost touching the tip of his nose. Say,
Try pretending it’s a Magic Eye. When he says, What’s a Magic Eye? try
really, really hard not to get upset.
Count the days.
Tw e l v e a f t e r.
Three before.
Count them again.
( Just to make sure.)
Twelve after.
Three before.
Memorize the calendar.
Call your best friend. Call your sister. Ask when they first saw their
line, the one so thick and obvious no one could have doubted it.
Do not call your mother. You know she’s already knitting. You’ve
seen it—the products of her excitement—and you don’t want to get her
hopes up any more than you already have.Buy your husband a new pair of glasses.Lift your shirt and squeeze your breasts. Walk around the house
carrying your breasts like two swollen grapefruits. How do they feel?
Are they heavy? Are they hard, like cantaloupes? Wonder if you’ve ever
really noticed your breasts before this. The areola, the bumps. What are
the bumps called again? Have the veins always been there? Have your
breasts always been this large? Poke them. But not too hard.
Make cookies. Decide they don’t sound good anymore. But don’t
cookies always sound good? Note this.
Search for more lines. Drive to the grocery store to find them. At the
store, notice the lines everywhere.The lines of mass-produced products.The lines of people at the checkout stands.Feel suddenly dizzy.
Maybe it’s all the lines.But maybe it’s not.
On the drive home, notice the overwhelming scent of cilantro.
Realize the cilantro is in the trunk of the car. Aha! Your sense of
smell is at an all-time high. Realize it’s actually your fingertips: you
touched the cilantro at the store, and now your fingers smell like the