After a wretched, wakeful night, my hot head buzzing with annoyance, I sat squirming in my study waiting for Ollie to arrive. At nine he put his head in, smiling with his usual greeting, “How are we doing, Andy?”
It is strange, looking back, to think how different things could have been. Years ago, the company I work for undertook a number of joint ventures in China. We didn’t understand the place well, but the industry was in transition, and it was...
Sommy notices his legs first, hairy and stumpy, the part not covered by his tan-colored shorts. He’s standing by the airport’s exit, watching a woman on tiptoes, a piece of cardboard held above her head. His name is Bayo, Sommy’s new...
When I left Anhui for Shanghai, at the innocent age of seventeen, the recruiter told me that the theme of the hotel where I was going to work was “rustic farm life.”
One December 24, Superstorm Mindy came in from the Atlantic and walloped America. Nowhere got it worse than New York City. That Christmas Eve day, Louise Wexler had planned to ride public transit all the way from her apartment in...
Holland spent Wednesday building a privacy fence for a tiresome academic couple in Barton Hills. Pressure-treated posts, horizontal cedar boards, stained and sealed, it was his third that week.
The hospital was uptown on First Avenue, big, pale, and brand new, its atrium lobby with windows two stories high. Ivy held her son’s hand crossing bright squares on a white floor.
Soon the first cars will arrive for Mass. I can picture them floating down the streets of our city, this suburb of Los Angeles populated by gladsome old people and families with small children and a murky middle swath to which my husband...
The King’s Cross streets are loaded, Thursday night miniskirts and Chelsea boots, pastel Hackett polo shirts and Stone Island wear, people coughing the odd virus or two in my direction.
