Sfr Writing Contest 2004; Fiction: Third Place; the Loveliest and Best

Santa Fe Reporter › August 03, 2009

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Summary

His name was Adri Patel, a friend and neighbor from her childhood in Long Island. He was a tall, skinny 15-year-old whose heart would bleed at the sight of her. He would stand under her window on a starry summer night calling her name. "Psst! Cutee! [Cutee]! Come out!" he'd say. "Look, the fireflies are writing your name in the trees." At 14, she was already a voluptuous study a la Botero. The idea of climbing out a second story window in a long white nightie Was, at best, daring. But it so happened that she had an accomplice, the family's 20-year-old Dominican housekeeper, Tia Sophia, so-called because she was the only childless sister out of seven and a seer of some renown back in Santo Domingo. Sophia condoned the nocturnal funny business "con toda su alma" for reasons Victoria didn't fully understand-yet. She would murmur encouraging words like, "Es mas bravo que un leon" as Victoria contemplated her descent. From the ground, Adri would gently guide her inch by inch down the trellis fortified the day before by his father's handyman and Tia Sophia's lover, Bagwandas, on a tip that the entire Cutee family was picnicking at shore. "See, Cutee," Adri would say "you are so graceful, no trouble at all. We should all have such feather feet."

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Extract

Sfr Writing Contest 2004; Fiction: Third Place; the Loveliest and Best

Victoria Cutee was a hefty girl from New York who knew the exact day of her death. That being the case she kept it to herself and continued to have her way with life. She lived in an industrial loft in the TriBeCa section of Manhattan. Touted as one of the best minds in economics, rumblings in financial circles suggested that Alan Greenspan could soon be out of a job although Victoria would be the first to concede with a roll of her eyes, "It's just numbers."

Her position entitled her friends and associates in high and lonely circles, most of t...

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