Jean
by Matthew Savoca
We sat on chairs at the park and watched little rodents run along the planter wall. It was chilly out but the sun was warm and we were feeling pretty good.
“Those are shrews right?” I said.
“I think so, yeah,” Jean said.
There were two of them and we watched them come in and out of view beneath a bush. When I looked back at Jean she was smiling at me.
“What?” I said.
She didn't respond.
“What is it? What is this face?”
“I'm going to be so discrete when I cheat on you,” she said.
“I love you, too, Jean,” I said.
Author's Note
If you're going to tell a story, you might as well be embarrassing someone, otherwise what is the point? We all know there isn't one, and it's embarrassing to pretend there is, which is why we do it. This is an excerpt from a novel that embarrasses us all.
Matthew Savoca was born in 1982 in Pennsylvania. He is the author of long love poem with descriptive title (2010, Scrambler Books) and Morocco written with Kendra Grant Malone (2011, Dark Sky Books). He builds and fixes things for money.