You gotta remember your lies when you’re a fiction writer, I mean talk about tangled webs, it’s one long, elaborate lie after another.

There’s something wonderfully devious about writing stories – especially in first-person – it’s like acting. It’s all about pretending and it’s glorious.

This one’s short and sweet and I hope a little haunting, not in a eerie way, but in a stick-with-you kind of way, maybe you’ll get a ripple of it later on in the day.

That’s what it’s all about, giving you that ripple.

I’ll be back in a couple of days with Chapter 3 of The Fields Next Door that weird little story full of homonyms. You can read the first two chapters now if you like, click on my pink name above and you’ll see the cover, also weird.

Thanks for being here.

The Christo Apartments by Sherry Cassells

I passed her building again yesterday on the train. It’s wrapped like a Christo – do you know Christo? – it's been in this state I don’t know how long, I hardly ever go downtown any more, this corridor it's like a slum now.

I used to text her and she’d fly out her back door onto the fire escape wearing something Zsa Zsa and wave and then she’d fold her hands over her heart and stand there like a kite. Same thing after work except she was dolled up, it was like looking at the Queen on a penny when the sun hit her face, her feet little golden triangles, we did this for twenty years.

I met her at a grocery store where I worked when I was 17. I was filling in at the checkout, afraid of being caught by the guys at school who would make fun of such a thing, and Doris, her name was Doris, she was a customer. She said you remind me of someone and I smiled, I said John Travolta? and she laughed, she said no, you remind me of my hairdresser, Millie and I said oh! Millie’s my mom and that’s how I found out she was sick, Doris said oh I’m so sorry and I didn’t say about what I just smiled the flat kind, and rang her through.

Next time I saw her was the funeral. She'd been studying under my mother and she took over the salon and that was it for maybe five years until she decided to retire due to sore feet, she still had my number and she called to give me some things she’d found while packing up, she said maybe there’s more and there was, she called again and I went to pick a few boxes up at her apartment, we went onto her little fire escape and smoked, the train went by and I said oh that’s the train I take to work and she said text me next time and I’ll come out and wave.

I thought it was cute and funny, and I said okay, and on Monday that’s what I did, and like I said we kept it up for twenty years and it’s strange, but I developed a love for her, a true love, based on gesture and movement, her increasing flamboyance, and trust.

I only realized yesterday passing by the apartment again that my love for Doris had been immense and unruly, like the giant swaying Christo ghost, and it had been entirely reciprocated, a beautiful silent thing, it was the most unconfined love of my life.