I got milk and newspapers from the nearby macolet, the store that sells everything. Its youthful Russian proprietor also supplied me with wine, a bottle every other day. To polish off a bottle of wine in forty-eight hours is not to have an uncontrollable habit; still, after a few months, I became defensive. “I want you to know,” I said while paying for a Tuesday-Wednesday fix, “that I buy a lot of wine because I have a lot of company.” He looked at me intently. “I'm so glad,” he said, with Chekhovian economy.
I was dispatching the wine myself, as we both knew.
From “My Junior Year Abroad” Best of Salon Travel
PEN/Malamud Award
( 2011)
Pushcart Press
(2008, 2001)
Best American Short Stories
(2006, 2000, 1998)
Matter of Choice
(2004)
Prize Stories: The O. Henry Collection
(2003, 1984, 1978)
A Certain Somewhere: Essays from Preservation Magazine
(2002)
New Stories from the South
(2001)
Wanderlust: The Best of Salon Travel
(2000)
Signs of Hope
(2000)
Antioch Review Distinguished Fiction Award
(1999)
The Writer's Handbook
(1999, 1996, 1995)
Syndicated Fiction Awards
(1991, 1987)