SO, to tease it I'm posting a few snips from different POVs (which is how they appear in the ms. Only longer the sections are much longer-- like chapters? Maybe. I can't figure out what to call them.)
Eleanor:
Sex is just wet and messy, her mother had said. Trust me, you aren’t missing anything.
But as Eleanor stands off stage, watching the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier perform their pas de deux, she has her doubts.
The way they flit about together, echoing each other’s movements, it seems a sort of call and response of longing and desire and passion.
Eleanor watches his legs, the way they contract and release. The Achilles tendon. The Gastrocnemius muscle. Tibialis Anterior. Quadriceps. He is a walking lesson in human anatomy.
Rumor has it the Cavalier, a Ukranian from New York, is actually gay. And the Sugar Plum Fairy is married. But that doesn’t matter. As they move together, Eleanor is sure there is more to it all than “wet and messy.”
She watches as the Cavlier’s hands move from his partner’s arms to her waist, guiding her body with his own. Eleanor closes her eyes and listens for the crescendo, ushered in by the strings and the telltale timpani. Oh, the timpani. Tchaikovsky must have been a closeted perv she thinks.
Marissa:
Marissa considers the word, lets it roll around on her tongue like a jawbreaker, the spicy cinnamon kind that burn if they linger against the inside of your cheek for too long. Pregnant. Pregnant. She repeats it to herself as if that somehow makes it more, or perhaps less, real. The nurse hands her a stack of pamphlets, covering everything from genetic tests to her options.
The nurse looks at her with a combination of sympathy and disdain. Marissa is used to this. To people looking at her like she is a person— or object— to be both pitied and feared. But in this moment, she is grateful for the familiarity. As if nothing has really changed even though absolutely everything has.
“You have options,” the nurse repeats, placing extra emphasis on the P. Options. Like she’s spitting it out. Maybe she used to stutter, Marissa thinks.
“You mean I can pick the sex?” Marissa asks. She bites her tongue to try and hide the curl in her lips. It is her one tell.
Ben:
Ben hates hospitals. Never mind that everything about them serves as a bleak reminder of how we all exit this world— from the crumpled patients babbling incoherently to themselves in the lobby, to the trays of mushy food that taste like a combination of cardboard and Lysol, to the cold sterility of it all.
What he really hates is the smell, which will get you even if you aren’t a patient. The stench of latex and piss and death. It smells like gray and makes him long for a surgical mask to cover his nose and mouth. Like the scent of his own stale coffee breath would somehow be a preferable alternative.
Miriam:
Chivalry my ass, Miriam thought as she walked into the church. The click of her pumps against the pavement gave her a sense of purpose, like she was crushing the memories—their memories— beneath her stiletto heels.
The first time he held her hand, let his fingers trace gingerly over hers. CLICK.
The first time he kissed her, signaling the start of the New Year with the taste of cheap beer and Chapstick. CLICK.
The first time he told her he loved her, the way he’d whispered it into the nape of her neck as he draped his arm around her shoulder. CLICK.
Those goddamn pearls dripping off her collarbone. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.
