Strangers

I know it's hard being a single mother baby, he said, but we're talking fundamentals here. Homemade cookies are one of the best parts of christmas. It's an absolute fundamental.

In Monterey, at the small airport rental agency, he hired a vomit-green Ford Tempo. It was an offense to his refined sense of color. The Tempo's tempo was satisfyingly allegro on flat roads but a bit adagio on the hills.

For a better part of a decade, he had been outside society, distanced in mind and spirit if not in body. But now, for the first time since Centeral America, Jack Twist had the need, the desire, and ability to reach out to society around him, to make friends.

You couldn't be afraid of anything if you were sure you could bear the pain it might cause you.