This selection, chosen by guest editor Joey Gould, is from The Spring by Megan Weiler (JackLeg Press 2022).
I: Summer 1996
2
(excerpt)
I wake up with a start. The phone is ringing downstairs. I reach for my watch on the nightstand and see that it’s three o’clock. I’ve been asleep for two hours.
“There you are! How wonderful!” It’s Libby, calling from Castellina, a house farther up in the hills. I smile happily at the distinctive sound of her British accent. I suddenly feel less alone.
“We saw the shutters open on our way back from the Co-op. We hoped it might be you. How long has it been?”
The Parkers came to the Mugello at the same time as my family, but they live here year-round. When I was a teenager, Libby found me a summer job in Florence. We’ve been friends ever since. She doesn’t wait for me to answer her question.
“How long are you staying? You’ve got to come up and see the progress we’ve made on the house. Can you come tomorrow for tea? Richard got a whole package of bomboloni: you can help us eat them. The studio is almost finished!”
I tell her I have no water.
“Ask Renato. He’ll know what’s up, don’t worry. It’ll all be sorted out.” Talking to Libby reassures me. She is the kind of person who gives the impression that no difficulty is insurmountable if you just forge ahead and confront it straight-on.
Megan Weiler was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Konstanz, Germany. She returned to America after high school and studied English literature at Bryn Mawr College and Yale. She has held many different jobs while writing, from serving beer to the yodeling club in Altnau, Switzerland, to helping foreign nationals in Philadelphia with immigration procedures and applications for political asylum. Her first novel, The Night Bell, was published in 2001 by Picador UK. Her stories and excerpts have appeared in Mississippi Review, Nimrod, and Common Knowledge. She lives with her husband in Nashville.
Joey Gould, who is Sundress Academy for the Arts Spring 2024 Writer in Residence, wrote The Acute Avian Heart (2019, Lily Poetry Review) & Penitent>Arbiter (2022, Lily Poetry Review), while their recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Meow Meow Pow Pow, Miniskirt Magazine, & Persephone’s Fruit. They also serve as Poetry Editor for Drunk Monkeys.
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