Laura van den Berg: The Isle of Youth: Stories

“Who are we waiting for again?” A asked.

“My sister,” I said. “The person you’re really supposed to be following.”

B slapped at a bug on his forearm. “Lady, has anyone ever told you that you have a reality perception problem?”

I watched the street. A car parked in the shadows resembled the Lincoln, but it was too dark to know for sure. I thought of the last fight I had with my husband. It started in the kitchen and progressed to the bedroom. In a fury, I’d climbed out the bedroom window and onto the roof. My husband stuck his head outside and called to me. I ignored him. A little while later, he walked down the driveway and got in his car. He left and didn’t return until morning. I stayed on the rooftop for hours, watching the black sky. Once, a plane passed over me. I wanted badly to be on one and a few weeks later I was, bound for Miami. And even with all that had happened, with everything that had gone wrong, there was still a part of me saying, Please don’t send me back to where I came from.

Before my sister appeared, a little black briefcase in hand, there were several false alarms — women who had the same slim silhouette, who walked with the same kind of swagger. It was startling to see how many people I mistook for my sister, stopping just short of leaning over the balcony and shouting her name; it was even more startling to realize that to mistake someone for Sylvia was to mistake them for myself, that there were so many women who, in the dark, could pass for me. And so when the real Sylvia got out of a taxi and moved like a shadow across the street, I didn’t call to her. I didn’t wave. Instead I remembered watching her run down that beach in Carmel, looking radiant and weightless, filling me with terror and awe.

Sylvia stood on the sidewalk, beneath a streetlamp. The light fell on her in a perfect yellow dome. She looked like she was posing for a portrait. She bowed her head. Her body heaved with a mammoth sigh. “There she is,” I whispered to A and B just before she disappeared inside.

Thank you:

To the people who first supported these stories: Jill Myers at American Short Fiction ; Susan Burmeister-Brown and Linda Swanson-Davies at Glimmer Train ; Pei-Ling Lue and Maribeth Batcha at One Teen Story ; Cara Blue Adams at Southern Review ; Bradford Morrow at Conjunctions ; Dewitt Henry and Ladette Randolph at Ploughshares ; the Julia Peterkin Award committee; the Writer’s Center.

To the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Program and the Munster Literature Centre, for helping me keep the faith.

To Spiro Arts, the Ragdale Foundation, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, for the great gift of time.

To the communities at Gettysburg College, especially Fred Leebron and Kathryn Rhett; Gilman School, especially Patrick Hastings and John Rowell; George Washington University, especially Tom Mallon; and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, especially Michael Collier and Noreen Cargill.

To Baltimore, for being the place where so much of this work got done. To the Baltimore lit gang, the best any city could hope for.

To Joe Hall and Cheryl Quimba, for lending me 3036 Guilford, where this book was finished.

To Don Lee, Elliott Holt, Mike Scalise, Nina McConigley, Jessica Anthony, Jane Delury, Shannon Derby, and Meghan Kenny, for their faith and friendship. To Karen Russell, for her luminous e-mails and support.

To those who read early versions of these stories and helped me find my way out of the forest of the first draft: Josh Weil, James Scott, Matthew Salesses.

To my agent, Katherine Fausset, for being brilliant and loyal and fearless, always with the utmost grace. Thanks as well to Stuart Waterman and everyone else at Curtis Brown.

To my editor, the genius Emily Bell, for taking a chance on me and for shepherding these stories into their final form. To everyone at FSG who helped bring this book into existence. To Nayon Cho. To Gregory Wazowicz. To anyone who did anything to help. I will be in your debt always.

To my family, immediate and extended. To my parents, Egerton and Caroline. To CJ. Every book is for you.