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- True love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops. Everybody knows that.
- It’s like looking into hell’s gaping mouth, tracks for tongue.
- A few of the men cross themselves. They left a lot behind to come to this country, but not their superstitions.
- Suddenly, the work lights dim. The men pause. Wind wafts down the tunnel and caresses their sweaty faces. It carries the faint sound of crying, and then it’s gone. The lights brighten again. The men shrug—just one of those odd things that happen in the city under the city.
- right, like you haven't just seen a rotten corpse in an abbandoned undergroud subway line. WHAT ARE THE ODDS THAT IT'S HAUNTED!!!!!!
- Lee Fan pretended to be interested in Ling’s stack of library books. “What are you reading now?” “Ways to poison without detection,” Ling muttered.
- Sam left with the Hungarian circus girl in tow. “She’s too tall for you,” Evie hissed. “I’ll bet she can bend,” Sam shot back with a grin. evie kicked him in the behind.
- Evie loved being recognized. Every time it happened, she wished she could snap a photograph and send it back to Harold Brodie, Norma Wallingford, and all those provincial Ohio Blue Noses who’d misjudged her. She’d write along the bottom of it, Having a swell time. Glad you’re not here.
- “There’s another?” Wai-Mae gasped, delighted.
- HOLY SHIT THIS IS THE MOST FRIGHTENING LINE IN THE WHOLE BOOK.
- Sam leaned forward and took both of Evie’s hands in his. He stared into her eyes as if she were the only woman in the world. Like a traitor, Evie’s stomach gave a slight hiccup.
- YOU KNOW YOU WANT HIM, EVIE!!!!!!
- He leaned in to whisper in Evie’s ear, and her stomach gave another rebellious flip. “From now on, Sheba, you won’t be able to shake me.”
- THE FAKE DATING TROPE ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!!!! you kids are playing but you know you're endgame
- The bedeviling thing about Mabel was that she always seemed to do what other people expected of her. She was the very definition of a perfectly decent girl—earnest and helpful, with an unshakable faith in her constructed belief that people were, at heart, good.
- But Memphis was nearly eighteen, with dreams of his own. Dreams he kept having to push into smaller drawers inside himself under a label of “tomorrow.” He worried that he’d never see any of them realized: never set foot inside A’Lelia Walker’s grand town house with the likes of Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen and Zora Neale Hurston, never see a book of his poems in the front window of a bookseller’s shop, never see the world outside Harlem. How could he ever get away when there was always some undertow of obligation pulling him back?
- In the waking world, I can’t even get my songs published!” “Are you sure you’re working hard enough?” Henry raised both eyebrows. “You are quite possibly the rudest person I have ever met. And I work in show business, so that’s saying something.”
- All of Wai-Mae’s stories were romances. Oh, so you’re one of those, Ling thought, the girls who see the world as hearts and flowers and noble sacrifice.
- It seemed to Theta that her entire life had been improvised and reinvented to fit whatever story she needed in order to survive. She knew about lying by omission—how you could leave out parts of yourself to be filled in by other people who only saw in you what worked for their own reinvented lives. Theta rarely corrected them. What was the point? Most of the stars in Hollywood had phony names given to them by agents and studio heads, and backgrounds invented out of thin air and a desire to sell movie tickets. That was part of the dream factory.
- “Son of a bitch, Henry!” Theta barked. A couple passing by on Forty-second Street gave her a disapproving glare. “Breeze, Mrs. Grundy! This ain’t your business,” she growled and they hurried on.
- Sam’s insides buzzed. “You know what I’m gonna ask, don’t you?” Evie nodded. “A deal’s a deal.” “You know, at times like these, I’d consider making an honest woman of you, future Mrs. Lloyd.”
- STOOOP
- “Come on. I’ll walk you to the station,” Sam said, offering his crooked arm. “Gotta put on a show for the adoring fans.” “Right,” Evie said, threading her arm through his. “For the fans.”
- right 'for the fans' i know a lie when i see one
- There’s money for Diviners, but not the Divine.”
- “You clean up nice, Poet,” Theta said. “You are…” He searched for the right word. “Incandescent.”
- Mabel’s only sin was not being Evie.
- Ling turned on him. “Are you saying that just because you’ve been trained to be polite? Or do you mean it?” Ling put up a hand. “Don’t answer out of habit. Be truthful.” “You really aren’t much for social niceties, are you?” “Why should I lie? What good does that do?”
- “I think being friends with you will be challenging,” he said at last. “‘Will be challenging’?” Henry shrugged. “I suppose you’re stuck with me now, Miss Chan. I apologize in advance.” Ling’s smile was big and goofy. Henry whistled. “That smile of yours is a real beauty.” Ling shook her head, letting her hair cover her face. “It’s stupid.” “Right. What I meant to say is, that stupid smile of yours is a real beauty.” This time, Ling actually giggled. “The creature laughs!” Henry said. “I’m not such a killjoy!”
- CUTIES!!!!!!
- Evie looked so beautiful in her marabou feather–trimmed midnight-blue dress, a sparkling band of rhinestones resting across her forehead, that for a moment, it squeezed the breath out of him.
- a true vision, indeed. That dress must be so beautiful and i love me some rhinestones too
- Sam put up his hands in a gesture of apology. “Okay. That’s fair. Abso-tive-ly fair. Let’s say the tables were turned. If I were about to walk off a cliff, what would you do?” Evie pursed her lips. “Push?”
- Abso-tive-ly
- “But why not take pride in this country? It’s the envy of the world. A place where any man can realize his dream. We, the dreamers, built this nation.”
- It still made Bill furious to think about the healer using his gift on that old drunk and not doing a goddamn thing to help Bill.
- r u for real
- “Looking for truth makes a man hafta look at himself along the way.”
- “Evil, I know you—you’ll sort out this boy trouble. Frankly, it’s the least interesting thing about you.
- Have you ever heard of the shadow self?” Evie and Theta shook their heads. “It’s a dark side, isn’t it? Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, if I’m not mistaken,” Mabel said, and she took some satisfaction in knowing this. “Yes. That is so.” Dr. Jung blew out puffs of spicy tobacco. “Every one of us has a conscious self. This is the face that we present to the world every day. But there is another self, which remains hidden even from our own minds. It contains our most primitive emotions and all that we cannot abide in ourselves, all that we repress. This is the shadow.”
- But she wasn’t sure she wanted the responsibility of loving anyone right now. The truth was, she was afraid that when she fell hard for a boy, she’d lose herself along the way. She’d seen it happen to lots of girls. They’d go from drinking gin, driving fast cars, and boldly shimmying in speakeasies to these passive creatures who couldn’t make a move without asking their beaus if it would be okay. Evie had no intention of fading behind any man. She didn’t want to slide into ordinary and wake up to find that she’d become a housewife in Ohio with a bitter face and an embalmed spirit. Besides, things you loved deeply could be lost in a second, and then there was no filling the hole left inside you.
- All Sam and Evie could see was each other.
- “To hell with it,” Sam said and wrapped Evie in his arms, kissing her fiercely.
- OMGGGGG MY BABIES!!!!! YESYESYESYES
- Wai-Mae was the ghost.
- I KNEW SHE WAS NOT TO BE TRUSTED!! WHY DOES NOBODY LISTEN TO ME????? from the second she said 'ANOTHER ONE???' and her eyes almost popped out of her head, i knew there was something sketchy about her
- Sweetly, she kissed his lips, and then she plunged the slim blade into Henry’s chest, just above his heart. Henry gasped from pain, and she breathed her dream into his open mouth. It flowed into Henry, siphoning away his memory and cares and will, along with his life.
- WHAT THE FRESH HELL IS THIS BITCH DOING????? GET AWAY FROM HIM DON'T TOUCH HIM
- “Gee. Like a library in here. Hello!” Evie called, letting her voice echo down the tracks. “Can it, Evil!” Theta snapped. “If those… things… are down here, you really want ’em sniffing after us?” Evie bowed her head, cowed. “I just like how my voice sounds.” Theta rolled her eyes. “Ain’t that the truth.”
- That was the trouble with letting people in—once you’d taken off the armor, it was hard to put it back on.
- “I don’t want to touch a thing on that.… that…” she said, wagging a finger generally in the corpse’s direction. “That.”
- She could see every freckle on her skin. He’d chosen Evie. It didn’t matter that Evie was liable to break his heart, that she could never care for Jericho the way Mabel did, or that Mabel had volunteered her time to help with the exhibit. It didn’t matter that Evie could have any boy she wanted, and would. He’d chosen her. The realization sucked the air from Mabel’s lungs. Every day, Mabel Rose worked to make the world a little fairer. But the hard truth was that there was some unfairness you couldn’t do anything about. You couldn’t make a boy like you just because you liked him so very much.
- oh sweetie i know it hurts
- And she hated this dress. Evie had been wrong—it didn’t suit her disposition at all. That was just the way Evie wanted to see her. The way everyone wanted to see her: Good old Mabel. Reliable, predictable Mabel. Chipper Mabel. When she got home, she was going to burn this dress.
- The ghosts watch these ministrations. They remember and yearn; some remember and regret. But they remember. They wish they could tell the citizens the secrets they know about the past, about mistakes, about love and desire, hope and choice, about what is important and what is not.
oct 15 2015 ∞
nov 25 2015 +
nov 25 2015 +