Sunday Stories: “Whittakers: Lake Placid”

lake

Whittakers: Lake Placid
by Nash Jenkins

Two weeks after his daughter began first grade at Peck, Skip Whittaker left his family at home in northern Jersey and found an apartment off the southern stretch of Lake Placid’s Main Street. Eighteen years had passed since the world descended upon the town of two thousand for the 1980 Olympics, to which local authorities had built a 90,000-square-foot museum in the town’s center. When Skip Whittaker arrived that October, banners bearing the Games’ interlocked rings still hung in situ from lampposts in the center of town.

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Sunday Stories: “Die Hard, Starring Frank Sinatra”

Titles

Die Hard, Starring Frank Sinatra
by John Waddy Bullion

Did you know that, in 1968, Frank Sinatra starred in a moderately successful but ultimately forgettable crime thriller called The Detective? Did you also know that when 20th Century Fox first secured the rights to the source material (Roderick Thorp’s bestselling novel), the studio’s legal department inserted a clause giving it ownership of any subsequent novels produced by Thorp featuring Sinatra’s character, Detective Joe Leland? Would it surprise you in the least to learn that Roderick Thorp wrote another Joe Leland potboiler more than a decade later called Nothing Lasts Forever, which follows Leland—now retired from detective work—as he fights off an army of terrorists that has taken an entire Los Angeles skyscraper hostage? Did you know that Thorp’s book was another bestseller, and that Fox, without lifting a finger, now found itself sitting on a guaranteed summer blockbuster? (Do you see where this is heading?). 

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Sunday Stories: “Baby’s House of Missed Connections”

Gauze

Baby’s House of Missed Connections
by Morgan Victoria

J is convinced I’m making a big deal out of nothing, but when I start bleeding out on the Williamsburg sidewalk, she shapes up a bit.

Oh god, she stops midstep, do you need to do something about that?

I elevate my foot and cradle the soft arc of my sandal in my hand. Years of yoga seem to be on my side at this moment. It’s fine, I reassure, despite being the one whose sandal has become slippery and leaving brushstrokes of red behind me. I just need to apply pressure.

J sighs, you can’t go into Baby’s like that.

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Sunday Stories: “Falling Right”

Refrigerator interior

Falling Right
by Timothy Wojcik

The problem was the raccoon in the fridge.

Natalie had been looking for a gust of fresh air and accidentally let the thing in through the window, and when chaos broke loose, the drunken throng chasing a wild raccoon and vice versa, Bart took action. He grabbed it by the scruff, threw open the fridge door, and blindly tossed the shrieking animal in.

“I’m not sure that’s a sustainable long-term solution,” Natalie said, waving their frenzied guests out of the kitchen.

“I realize that,” Bart said. “Gimme a second, I’ll think of something.”

“C’mon, farm boy,” Natalie said. 

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Sunday Stories: “Kaleidoscope”

Jar

Kaleidoscope
by Lizzie Lawson

The jar was full of souls. Charlotte didn’t believe Jaci at first, but when Jaci revealed the glass container over the dandelion grass in her backyard, Charlotte could see for herself. Still in their navy jumpers after school, the girls huddled close as Jaci unscrewed the lid. Charlotte could see wispy bubbles swimming in the glass, iridescent and slippery. 

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Sunday Stories: “Pride of Rotterdam”

Water and tree

Pride of Rotterdam
by Tom Harvey

The September wind skidded off the high tide into his face. Doug marched along the sand. He gave Hippy Saxophone Woman a quick wave, forcing his hands into his pockets, hoping to pass her before she called him a ‘fine fellow’ and asked how his mum was doing, or noticed he was wearing the same mashed-up clothes he’d worn all week and that he should be in school. She gave them a tin of Quality Street chocolates last Christmas; he kept the empty tin for storing precious things he found on the beach. So far, it just contained a little, orange, plastic horse. 

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Sunday Stories: “Winterfresh”

Gum

Winterfresh
by Kent Kosack

I quit chewing gum in eighth grade. It was spring and we were all nervous and excited for graduation and summer and high school and somehow that energy gave me the courage to approach Joey Talbot on his perch at the top of the bleachers as he watched the cheerleaders practice on the soccer field still damp from the morning rain. He’d broken up with Sara, our grade’s It girl, and I swear I’d seen him checking me out in the hallways. I could feel his eyes on me in social studies in third period while Mr. Jackson rambled on about the Great Depression. Only I wasn’t depressed. I was ecstatic, at first. Greatly. Until a month passed and he still hadn’t asked me out and the ecstasy turned into a dull thrum of anxiety and doubt and expectation. When would he ask me out? Where? How? Finally, I spotted him on the bleachers, alone, and I just went for it. I shoved three sticks of Winterfresh in my mouth and kept repeating the name like a mantra, Winterfresh, Winterfresh, trying to feel as cool and crisp as the gum as I creaked up the bleachers. 

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Sunday Stories: “Caterwaul”

Map fragment

Caterwaul
by Mary B. Sellers

I’ve always loved how weathermen don’t even try at hiding their glee, how they quite literally make their money betting on these daily disasters–waking up each morning hoping for a handful of thirty-minute-dangers spaced evenly before and after lunch, pre and post rush hour, maybe a rare midnight rogue of a spliced, bucking cell; green screens covered in cherry pixels, hornety and crude in their county-hopping anger.

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