by Alex DERMODY

Nathan stared at the half-eat­en cake on the kitchen ta­ble. He was down four pounds from last month. But should he eat the whole cake? De­spite his stom­ach hang­ing slight­ly over his shorts, Nathan thought he looked okay. That would change af­ter the cake. I’ll go to the gym lat­er. Burn it all off. Hav­ing set­tled on a plan, he ate more cake. 

Nathan’s dri­ve­way was made of tiny peb­bles. He heard a crunch­ing sound as tires rolled over the stones. He froze. There was still ic­ing left. He closed the cake box, stuck it in the fridge.

The front door flew open. In stepped his big sis­ter, Beth. She set a white buck­et filled with dirty wa­ter on the tile floor. By the tail, Beth pulled out a big­mouth bass. She said, “I’ve had it with this thing.” 

“Pleased to meet you,” the bass said. “My name is Billy.” 

Beth dropped the fish back in the wa­ter. “I’m cast­ing in the pond ear­li­er when Bil­ly here sur­faces, says we need to talk.”

Bil­ly hung over the rim of the buck­et. “A woman went in your sister’s house every night this week af­ter she left for work.” 

“That’s our lawyer. With what we’re pay­ing, she should be mak­ing house calls.”

“I’ve lived in your neigh­bor­hood pond five years now. The on­ly oth­er time I’ve seen this was the Carltons.” 

“Da­mon wouldn’t do that.” 

Nathan asked, “Who’s your lawyer?” 

Beth hes­i­tat­ed. “Gab­bie York.” 

Nathan said, “Come on.” 

“So what if they have a past? That was col­lege. An­cient his­to­ry. The fish is ly­ing. Da­mon said Gab­bie was on­ly over Mon­day night. I checked the cam­eras. Her car pulled in the dri­ve­way, and she was gone thir­ty min­utes later.” 

Bil­ly said, “The lawyer parked down the street the rest of the week. She en­tered through the back, through the pool’s screen door.” 

“Lies.” 

“Why would Bil­ly lie?” Nathan asked. “Be realistic.” 

Beth balled her fists. Look­ing around the kitchen, she saw a plate of cook­ies on the counter. “You’re eat­ing cook­ies for breakfast?”

Nathan felt his face turn red. “That’s not my nor­mal break­fast. I was hun­gry is all.” 

“Poor Nathan. Keep telling your­self that.” Then to Bil­ly, Beth said, “My hus­band isn’t a cheater. You’re a liar. I’m turn­ing you in­to a sandwich.” 

Bil­ly ig­nored the threat. He was con­cerned with Nathan. “I used to have an eat­ing prob­lem. There was this house, the John­sons, and they fed the fish piz­za. I was pow­er­less. If there was piz­za in the wa­ter, I was eating.” 

Nathan was em­bar­rassed by Billy’s con­cern. Prob­lem? There’s no prob­lem. Every­body eats. So what if I eat more than oth­ers? Food makes life bet­ter. He grabbed a cook­ie. Tak­ing a bite, he said, “Speak for your­self. I’m fine.” Nathan took an­oth­er bite, but this one tast­ed strange. He chewed slow­er, his mouth now dry.

Beth said, “I’ve heard enough. I’m fry­ing Bil­ly in peanut oil.” She picked up the buck­et and made for the door. 

Some­thing didn’t feel right to Nathan. He fol­lowed Beth out in­to the morn­ing light. “You can’t kill Bil­ly. He’s just a stu­pid bass. Move him to an­oth­er pond.” 

Beth paused. She lift­ed the buck­et in­to her truck bed. “Fine.”

“North Street pond is a good —” 

“I know how to move a fish!” 

“Okay. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Beth looked ex­haust­ed. “What­ev­er.” 

Nathan went back in the house. He sat at the kitchen ta­ble, eat­ing cook­ies while go­ing over what hap­pened. He couldn’t get it out of his head. He went to the fridge and grabbed the cake box. His fork hov­ered over the ic­ing. He fin­ished the job. Look­ing in the mir­ror, Nathan felt shame. He drove to the gym. 

…

Nathan cast his line to the cen­ter of the pond. He reeled slow­ly, the wind whip­ping his gym shorts. The idea that Bil­ly wasn’t here filled him with dread. He need­ed to speak with the fish. It had been a month since he last ate a cook­ie or cake or any­thing with sug­ar. His body felt great, but men­tal­ly he was slip­ping. Be­tween the hol­i­days and his birth­day, Nathan’s crav­ings were es­ca­lat­ing. He hoped Bil­ly could help. 

A cir­cle of hous­es sur­round­ed the pond, and be­hind the pink one was a small dock. Nathan cast his line by the dock, jig­ging the bait slight­ly. He felt a large thump. His pole bent. He reeled. The fish jumped from the wa­ter — a gi­ant big­mouth bass — and splashed back in­to the pond. He was amazed, first at the fish, then at his line. The tug­ging dis­ap­peared. Nathan reeled with no re­sis­tance, but as he reeled, a small wake made its way to shore. 

“Bud­dy,” Bil­ly said. “Get this hook out of my mouth.”

Nathan held Bil­ly by the tail, the fish’s new weight strain­ing his wrist. “Bil­ly, is every­thing okay?” he asked, toss­ing the bass back in the pond. 

Bil­ly poked his head out of the wa­ter. “Things are bet­ter than okay. The peo­ple in the pink house, they throw out sour­dough bread every af­ter­noon. Have you tried sour­dough? It’s mak­ing me blow up like a whale, but I don’t care.” 

“Re­al­ly?” 

“Yeah, I’ve got it made. Be­sides hav­ing the best bread, this pond is stocked with the coolest fish. Have you ever met a trout? They’re hi­lar­i­ous. Why do you look up­set? Did some­thing happen?” 

Nathan re­gret­ted vis­it­ing the pond. He worked so hard to cre­ate this new healthy lifestyle for him­self, all to re­al­ize it was a house of cards. “I just came to check on you. I was worried.” 

“Like I told your sis­ter, I’m do­ing amazing.” 

“You saw Beth?”

“She vis­it­ed ear­li­er this week to tell me about the di­vorce. Good for her. She al­so told me about your di­et. You look great.”

“Thanks.”

“It seems like we’re all do­ing well.” 

“Are we? Bil­ly — do you know what hap­pens to fish your size? They stuff them and hang them on walls.” 

“What! Why?” 

“As tro­phies.”  

“Bar­bar­ic. Well, as scary as that sounds, don’t wor­ry. My days in this pond are num­bered. I met a la­dy fish. I know, I know. A play­er like me set­tling down. But it’s time. She’s from the pond across the high­way, so we’re mov­ing soon. I’ll lose all this weight once my sour­dough sup­ply is cut off.” 

“The pond across the high­way is be­hind a bak­ery. That’s where sour­dough comes from.” 

“Oh, re­al­ly? I had no idea.” 

“That pond is al­so a no­to­ri­ous fish­ing spot.” 

Bil­ly didn’t hear Nathan. An­oth­er fish popped its head out of the wa­ter. Bil­ly said, “This sexy scaly thing is my girl­friend, Talia.” 

Talia said, “It’s al­most time, Big Dad­dy. We bet­ter not miss the sourdough.”

“We won’t. I’ll be by the dock in a minute. Get that sweet tail over there and hold our place next to the red buoy.” 

Af­ter Talia swam away, Nathan said, “She seems… fun.”

“She’s the best. Don’t wor­ry about me, al­right? So I’m en­joy­ing the most de­li­cious bread of all time a lit­tle too much. It’s fine. I have every­thing un­der control.” 

“If you say so.” 

“Will you bring sour­dough to our pond-warm­ing par­ty next week?” 

“But you just said you were done af­ter the move?” 

“I meant af­ter the par­ty. Af­ter the par­ty, no more big Billy.” 

“Sure.” Nathan nod­ded. “I’ll see you then. Take care of your­self, Billy.” 

Nathan grabbed his pole and tack­le­box. Mov­ing through the tall grass on the way back to his truck, he tried to shake an odd feel­ing. He knew Beth’s biggest catch was mount­ed on her of­fice wall, and Bil­ly was a lit­tle big­ger than that. 

He sat in his truck. He didn’t start the en­gine. He picked at dirt un­der his fin­ger­nails, think­ing about his big sister’s di­vorce. She mar­ried a stranger. That was Beth’s re­al­i­ty. What was Nathan’s reality? 

It was a bright day. Nathan looked through the wind­shield of his truck. There was a donut shop across the street. He thought about Beth. About Bil­ly and the sour­dough. Nathan want­ed to feel good. He threw the truck in gear. He sped past the donut shop on his way to the gym. 

Filed under Fiction on July 31st, 2026

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Care to Share?

by Evan LAUGHLIN

Ro­man loves An­gela and beer and choco­late cake.

His love for An­gela is im­mod­er­ate. Her name is a son­net that echoes with­in him. He adores An­gela day and night and, if there were stretch­es of time that lay some­where be­tween the day and the night, he would adore her then as well.

Roman’s love for beer and choco­late cake is al­so sin­cere and deeply felt. His de­f­i­n­i­tion of a per­fect evening: six beers, din­ner on the couch with An­gela, a slab of choco­late cake, and a black-and-white movie, prefer­ably from the 1930s, on television.

One sun­ny day in the mid­dle of Ju­ly, An­gela breaks up with Ro­man. She tells him that he is a good man, but he has be­come too fat for her. It em­bar­rass­es her to be seen in his com­pa­ny. Sex with him now feels life-threatening. 

Roman’s heart shat­ters like a light bulb struck by a crow­bar. He ex­iles him­self from the com­pa­ny of oth­ers. His ap­petite, in­clud­ing for beer and choco­late cake, dis­ap­pears. He di­min­ish­es. Not one of the few peo­ple he still sees be­lieves him when he main­tains that his weight loss is not at­trib­ut­able to a pharmaceutical.

“You tak­ing Ozempic?”

“No.”

“We­govy?”

“Ab­solute­ly not.”

“Then it’s got­ta be the Zepbound.”

“No, re­al­ly, it’s not.”

“Liar.”

Af­ter sev­er­al such ex­changes, Ro­man finds that it’s eas­i­er on him and more re­ward­ing for his in­quisi­tor if he an­swers “yes” to the first ques­tion, whichev­er med­ica­tion is mentioned.

Roman’s weight loss al­so cre­ates a prob­lem with his pants: He now has con­sid­er­ably more belt than waist and, there­fore, ex­tra belt.

He tries pass­ing the ex­tra belt through the belt loops of his pants for a sec­ond time, but the loops aren’t big enough. They will not ac­com­mo­date a dou­bling up of belt. And be­cause his belts are made of a light brown, stretchy ma­te­r­i­al, the last thir­teen inch­es hang limply down the front of his pants. Based up­on com­ments that Ro­man re­ceives from col­leagues and passers-by, at first glance the hang­ing length of belt tends to re­sem­ble an un­usu­al­ly long and proud­ly dis­played penis.

It oc­curs to Ro­man that he could sim­ply cut the belts to a rea­son­able length. But he wor­ries that would make him look like a De­pres­sion-era hobo us­ing a length of rope to hold up his trousers.

The prob­lem de­mands a so­lu­tion. Un­less his pants are held up, they will fall down around his an­kles. (Sus­penders might work, but Ro­man knows that sus­penders make any­one look lu­di­crous un­less they are an Al­aba­ma farmer or a New York lawyer. He is neither.)

He must buy a new belt.

Know­ing that he is about to pur­chase a re­place­ment belt, Ro­man cuts a foot off the end of one of his ex­ist­ing belts with a pair of kitchen scis­sors and heads to a near­by cloth­ing store. The men’s de­part­ment has no oth­er customers.

A young sales­woman ap­proach­es him. Her nametag says “An­gela.” When Ro­man sees the name, it oc­curs to him that he should prob­a­bly pur­chase a belt on­line, like all the oth­er belt cus­tomers who aren’t in the store.

“How can I help you?”

“I think I’ll be going.”

“Come on. Some­thing be­sides the air con­di­tion­ing brought you in here. Let me help.”

Ro­man hes­i­tates. An­gela is cute. A girl with com­e­dy in her eyes.

“I need a new belt.”

“You sure do. The one you have on makes you look like a bum in a Frank Capra movie.”

It feels like the skin on Roman’s face cracks. His cheeks have grown un­ac­cus­tomed to ac­com­mo­dat­ing a smile.

“It’s be­cause I cut the end off.”

“With your left hand while suf­fer­ing from arthri­tis and wear­ing a blind­fold, ap­par­ent­ly. Take it off.”

“My pants will fall down.”

“That should bright­en up a dull day.”

“Is this how you usu­al­ly talk to your customers?”

“On­ly the good-look­ing ones.”

Some­thing in­side Ro­man shifts. He ex­pe­ri­ences, for just a mo­ment be­fore it drifts away, a faint but vague­ly fa­mil­iar feel­ing. Ro­man puz­zles over it. Then rec­og­nizes it. Hunger.

“You’ve lost a bunch of weight.”

“I have.”

Ro­man waits for the in­evitable ques­tion­ing to begin.

“Good for you. You should be proud of your­self. But it means that you’re go­ing to need a lot more than a new belt.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Take a good look at yourself.”

Ro­man faces the mir­ror. He sees a shrunk­en man. The man’s shirt bil­lows around him. The waist­band of his pants folds over on it­self in half a dozen places. His socks sag over his shoes. Ro­man has been so fo­cused on look­ing ridicu­lous be­cause his belt was too long that he nev­er no­ticed that he was look­ing ridicu­lous for oth­er rea­sons as well.

“If you buy on­ly a belt, you might as well go around wear­ing a bar­rel. You’re still go­ing to look like a bum.”

The skin on Roman’s face cracks again.

He spends more than three thou­sand dol­lars and leaves the store with a new wardrobe and Angela’s tele­phone number.

At home that evening, Ro­man cel­e­brates with a six-pack and two slices of choco­late cake, and watch­es It Hap­pened One Night alone on the couch.

Filed under Fiction on July 17th, 2026

—

Care to Share?

by Philip CESARIO

“Did I wake you?”

“Bec­ca? Is that you? Wake me? It’s eleven o’clock on a Tues­day morn­ing. Hon­ey, I’m at work. Where are you? You sound a lit­tle distant.”

“Maui. We ar­rived a few days ago.”

“Uh huh. Well, it fig­ures. I’m think­ing about whether to eat the oth­er half of my onion bagel and you’re in par­adise won­der­ing what time it is in the rest of the world. Okay, this is fair.”

“I need to talk. Do you have a few minutes.”

“What did Alan do now?”

‘Noth­ing. Noth­ing. It’s been great here. It’s re­al­ly lovely.”

“I’ll bet it is.”

“Stop. I need your help. I’ve de­cid­ed I can’t do this anymore.”

“Again? Again, your leav­ing Alan? We’re not do­ing this again. Any­way, I’m not do­ing it.”

“I mean it’s clear to me, now. I have to break away. It’s on­ly right.”

“Well, at least you didn’t say it.”

“Say what, Abby?”

“That he’s nev­er go­ing to leave…”

“Oh, no. Leave Sheila? No, nev­er. Alan nev­er said he was go­ing to leave Sheila, nev­er even hint­ed at it. ‘Whether she’s bawl­ing her eyes out or cussing me out, she’s the one that’ll be pick­ing out my last suit,’ he al­ways says.”

“How mag­nan­i­mous of him.”

“That’s not it. It’s me. I mean what is this all about?”

“Bec­ca, I think it’s pret­ty clear. By the way, how did he wan­gle a trip to Maui and keep it from Sheila?”

“Oh, we’re on a work jun­ket. I mean he is. The firm flew out the se­nior ex­ecs. A re­treat, you know.”

“Not re­al­ly, but it must be nice.”

“Well, ac­tu­al­ly, we had to fly out sep­a­rate­ly. But I didn’t mind. Fact is, he’s the one who hates to fly. White knuck­les, then he pops up as soon as he hits a lit­tle tur­bu­lence. Poor baby.”

“So, you want to leave be­cause he’s a poor flyer?”

“Ab­by, you’re not pay­ing at­ten­tion. It’s me. It’s all this. I’m just not grow­ing, and this is go­ing nowhere.”

“It got you to Maui.”

“Look, this is all very nice. I mean the place is gor­geous. The ho­tel is on the beach and the halls are open air and they have these long white cur­tains that drift down from a twen­ty-foot-high ceil­ing and waft beau­ti­ful­ly in the ocean breezes. I mean it’s de­light­ful. And I mean these peo­ple re­al­ly cater to your every whim. Why the oth­er night at din­ner — the restau­rant is out­doors, of course, and over­looks the beach and ocean — the chef came out to greet us, all be­cause Alan asked about how the gluten-free dish­es were pre­pared. He’s got that bad al­ler­gy, you know.”

“What’s your point here?”

“Oh, yes. Sor­ry. Well, I can’t do it any­more. I mean it’s not right. I mean it’s not go­ing any­where and, and I feel bad about Robby.”

“Why do you feel bad about your son? Is he suf­fer­ing? He’s in school up in Mass­a­chu­setts, right?”

“Yes. It’s won­der­ful for him. You know that I could nev­er af­ford to send him there.” 

“I know. So, this is a good thing. No?”

“Well, yes and no. I mean I love that Robby’s there. I mean you should see the stu­dent ros­ter. The thing reads like the Mayflower manifest.”

“I’m still wait­ing for the bad.”

“The bad is that Alan is pay­ing Robby’s first year’s tu­ition. God, I love him for it. But it’s just not right.”

“In whose world is it not right, Becca?”

“My world. I mean it’s not his kid.”

“Did you twist his arm? Did you have him in a choke­hold when you asked for the tu­ition money?”

“No, he want­ed to. Said it wasn’t a big deal.”

“So, when are you go­ing to tell him?”

“Some­time to­day. But def­i­nite­ly af­ter break­fast. You know, the breakfast’s here are to die for. The staff sets a ta­ble on the ve­ran­da, very se­clud­ed from the oth­er guests, but with a view of the wa­ter. And I have to tell you, my omelet has been scrump­tious. You know me and break­fast. And it comes with berries. Mm­mm, and they warm the berries. You know, on sec­ond thought, maybe I won’t say any­thing un­til tonight. We’re sup­posed to go back to Moloki­ni. That’s an is­land just off the coast where the whales mi­grate to this time of year. We took a boat ride yes­ter­day — very touristy — and we saw a whale breach the wa­ter. It was the coolest thing. So, Alan booked us again for to­day. Wasn’t that nice of him?”

“Has the sex been as good as the food or the whales?”

“You know the sto­ry. The same. It isn’t bad. It’s not like he’s re­al­ly gross to touch or any­thing. And he doesn’t screw like an old man. At least not yet. And you know, that’s not everything.”

“Maybe to you.”

“No, I mean I’ve learned a lot. He’s re­al­ly smart. We even have dis­cus­sions about art. Two weeks ago, we spent three hours at the Whit­ney. We saw the Raf­fens­berg exhibit.”

“Rauschen­berg.”

“Yeah, that’s right. Rauschen­berg. Wasn’t that nice of him to take the time to do that?”

“Isn’t that when he jumped you in the stairwell.”

“You’re al­ways go­ing down that road. He just likes the way I look, and some­times, well, he can’t help him­self, es­pe­cial­ly when I’m in a biki­ni. You know, he told me to get a tan. But not a con­spic­u­ous one. Noth­ing der­ma­to­log­i­cal­ly ir­re­spon­si­ble, he said. Isn’t that a nice way to phrase things?”

“Beau­ti­ful.”

“Oh, he re­al­ly means to look out for me. I mean, I know he wants me to look good. You know I shave off half a dozen years when we’re with his friends. I’m still stick­ing with twen­ty-nine. Do you think I can still get away with it?”

“Well, you’ve been with him over a year. Don’t you think you might turn that cal­en­dar page?”

“I know. I know. This won’t last any­way. I was think­ing I could get some­thing else?”

“Do you mean a job?”

“I could go back to mod­el­ing. Not the high fash­ion stuff. No, I mean the com­mer­cial jobs. Some­thing like, you know, the at­trac­tive mom hold­ing a new vac­u­um clean­er. Or maybe be­come a photographer.” 

“And send Rob­by to pri­vate school?”

“Maybe. Maybe I’m good around cameras.”

“Bec­ca, hon­ey, that’s not what you’re good at.”

“Well, I don’t care. My mind is made up. Uh, I think he’s get­ting up. I have to go. Wish me luck.”

“Sure. Go. Have a nice break­fast. And if you’re won­der­ing, I’ve de­cid­ed to go for it, too.” 

“Go for what?”

“The oth­er half of my bagel.”

“Oh.”

“By the way, how does your son like the school? Didn’t he be­gin class­es last week?” 

“Oh, Rob­by, he loves it. He told me he’s re­al­ly look­ing for­ward to the next four years.”

Filed under Fiction on July 3rd, 2026

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