She’d been an ungainly, ostracized ten-year-old, but by her early thirties, Nine had ripened into a chiseled, radical artist. Then the pandemic hit and she reverted to the mean.
This was how she felt at forty-two in Oakland, California. Even her facial features seemed fatter and flatter, as though a truck convoy had passed over her while she lay on her back staring at the moon.
Nine had enrolled in her first sculpture class in college. Her name had been Nora then, back when she’d read Marxist theory off yellowed pages with tiny type, misunderstanding what cool was. When she’d painted her nails sparkly turquoise and invented meals like “avocado spaghetti” that consisted only of combining the two title ingredients. [ . . . ]
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