June 8, 2026
Benjamin’s Women
“Stop it! Are you nuts? Let go of me!” Elaine fought to break free. She stood at the top of the stairs in off-white organza, a little crepe hat with ostrich feathers already sliding at a perilous angle across her forehead.
“You are not marrying that… that man!...
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June 2, 2026
Whimsical whereabouts
I was taken there with three other girls, two from the Philippines and a Sudanese woman. The procedure didn’t take long. There was already another group of women inside, all entertainers, though I...
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June 1, 2026
The Fabulous Twin Sisters
'No, he don't say that, let me tell the story—'
'He say he has the power to—'
'That woman was with him, dress very poorly—'
'He has the power to take the—'
'We must rusho, big party tonight. Six hundred people—'
'No, no, not six hundred — always too...
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May 23, 2026
Laugh to Keep from Crying
“Anna, dear, you look wonderful,” Sarah announced as she collapsed into a chair. “Look who’s here… Arthur, you old fart!” She cackled at her own joke. “No, no, keep your insults to yourself. Stay away from me, you menace! Oh, Anna, before I forget,...
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May 18, 2026
‘No, no, no, no…it’s not what I’m looking for.’ Irritation marks
Evelyn’s features.
‘How about these?’ Her stout husband, in his Bermuda’s and the lime-green polo shirt, holds up a pair of sunglasses.
Evelyn looks up and instantly her face contorts with rage.
‘God! You...
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May 14, 2026
Tuesday, February 21, 1978
Hurrah, we’re in London, in the Grosvenor Court Hotel: a nice, very comfortable room with a bath, shower, television, radio, and an electric kettle to make coffee and tea. It is so lovely and costs sixty-three guilders a night.
It’s foggy here, but...
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May 9, 2026
April 1, 1962
For the first time in my life I have been really, really sad. It is the biggest sorrow I have ever had. I am a little better now, but it still shocked me very much. My dearest friend, and the boy I loved most, Frits, died on March 19.
On Monday morning at half...
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May 4, 2026
“I hear the drums going every night.”
Jetta — white-haired, nearly forty, Danish, and teetering on the edge of anorexia — sits down beside her two friends. Lena, a Finnish blonde of the same age and walking that same thin line, and Maite, ten years younger, petite,...
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April 26, 2026
Dressed to impress – hair slicked back, sharp Italian suit gleaming under the streetlights – Christo looked every bit the man of success. The old friends embraced and sat down at the terrace while Christo signaled a waiter to bring them two beers.
“What do you do these days?”...
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April 9, 2026
He went to the headquarters of the hastily established Red Cross Relief Center in the unoccupied zone of Nicosia, where he learned that his family was safe and had inquired about him several times.
“They’re fine, don’t worry,” assured the young woman at the counter, her...
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