The Heritage Legacy Trust compliance officer looked through Calvin’s application materials for a third time. He watched her jeweled hands thumbing the vendor contracts, the permits, the recipes, the full-page photos of So Much Bun’s pastries. “Are these gluten-free?” she asked, her first words in half an hour. She’d stopped on a pic of a glistening cherry danish that Calvin knew had gluten in its batter, its filling, its soul.“No,” Calvin said. He’d considered lying. This was the fifteenth bank he had asked for a measly $35,000 equipment loan....
All the way to the hospital, through its various wings, and along its warren of corridors, I hope that my grandfather is dead, for his own sake. But as soon as I push open the door, I see him at the end of the ward sitting up in the narrow bed looking right at me. He is bruised around the face and hands, but behind the sticky residue of his glaucoma drops, his eyes...
I was the last one to arrive, as usual. The six other women were in their folding chairs arranged around the bright green rug with its jaunty ABC’s. The only empty seat was directly above the M, next to Ash, who was already looking angry and finishing a burrito, which was against the rules (no outside food or beverage). They hadn’t started check-ins yet. They were still chatting casually in groups of two or...
