ALL AROUND A RED RHOMB

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Antoinette Rundle, aged 42, went out to get a drink. She met her boyfriend and went into a bar. There she perused the menu, settled on a Redbreast neat, excused herself to use the restroom, and disappeared. The next day she phoned him from the Marseilles Provence Airport and explained that she had married another man and would not be returning. Rundle’s mother issued a verdict of “mercurial temperament, times ten.” She hurried to a flat file, her bracelets jingling. “I have something she drew in elementary school that I always come back to at moments like these,” she said. She slid out the top drawer and held up a map with a red rhomb and blue water all around it. The ocean was labeled “Me,” and the island “Everything Else.” Rundle’s mother laughed. “What’s the word for all of this?” she said. “Pluck? Moxie? Grit? Mettle?” She set down the map. “Ignominy? Affront? The mortification of others?” She returned the map to the drawer, slid the drawer back into the flat file, and sat down on a chair, whereupon she lowered her head into her hands and began to softly cry.