Tumbledown (59 page)

She doesn’t respond, not with words. She knows she’s not sexy like Lolly and not beautiful like Karly, and she can only hope to have this boy as long as he remains ill, which means that she is not ethical like Barnstone, because Maura does not want him to get well. She wants him to belong to her. Without him, she is never going to be complete.

If this were a movie, she thinks, she would have a makeover and be suddenly gorgeous. He would get well and love her anyway. They would ride off in this terrible car into the sunset. But they have seen the sun set over the ocean, haven’t they? And her time at the Center—hasn’t that been something like a makeover? Not that she is gorgeous. That would take more than a makeover—a
do-over.
And nobody gets that. She unbuckles, leaning farther than necessary to let the wind have her hair. Then she slides over between the Firebird’s bucket seats, putting herself in that unsafe, uncomfortable gap to be next to him.

The author wishes to thank

Antonya Nelson & Katie Dublinski

and

Noah Boswell, Rus Bradburd, Seth Cagin, Tony Hoagland, James Kastely, Kathleen Lee, Todd Lieber, Jeff Lymburner, David MacLean, Fiona McCrae, Bill Nelson, Julie Nelson, Susan Nelson, Alexander Parsons, Lillie Robertson, Steven Schwartz, David Schweidel, Peter Turchi, University of Houston Creative Writing Program, Connie Voisine, Jade Webber, Stephen Webber, Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, Wilkinson Library,

&

Kim Witherspoon.

The Pessoa fragment is translated by Chris Daniels.

ROBERT BOSWELL
has published seven novels, three story collections, and two books of nonfiction. He has had one play produced. His work has earned him two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Iowa School of Letters Award for Fiction, a Lila Wallace/Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, the PEN West Award for Fiction, the John Gassner Prize for Playwriting, and the Evil Companions Award.
The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards
was a finalist for the 2010 PEN USA Award in Fiction.
What Men Call Treasure
was a finalist for the Western Writers of America Nonfiction Spur Award. Both the
Chicago Tribune
and
Publishers Weekly
named
Mystery Ride
as one of the best books of the year. The
Independent
(London) picked
The Geography of Desire
as one of the best books of the year.
Virtual Death
was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award and was named by the
Science Fiction Chronicle
as one of the best novels of the year. Boswell has published more than seventy stories and essays. They have appeared in the
New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Stories, Pushcart Prize Stories, Esquire, Colorado Review, Epoch, Ploughshares,
and many other magazines and anthologies. He shares the Cullen Chair in Creative Writing with his wife, Antonya Nelson. They live in Houston, Texas, and Telluride, Colorado.