It Went Like This · 9 November 2002
It was at a party, the house of a friend, an early summer evening. Everybody was on the terrace off the kitchen, talking and drinking. There was a creak and a barely perceptible shift and everyone stopped talking at once as the terrace creaked some more and suddenly it collapsed, parting in the middle. Some held on to the railings while everybody else slid down as though in a coffee filter; except for Trixie, who stayed upright the whole time. When it was over she stood, drink in hand, on the ground beneath.
* * *