The wind howls outside. Windows shake. The power goes out. I have wine, she notes. I see nothing to celebrate, he says. The wind dies down.

They were boys and they sat around burping and laughing. The girls watched them from a distance. My mom’s wrong about them, one of them said

Like if someone in the group plays the marimba, he says in trying to define “inevitability.” This is why my answer is always no, she thinks.

The line stretched toward the infinite and he’d drunk too much coffee and now a hot dog vendor arrived and soon the mess would attract media