Hilary Masters

Men looking down. Men sitting in chairs and looking down with appreciation, suspended pleasure. Some wryly study the industry at their feet; the meticulous polishing of leather as the bootblack's cloth snaps like a pennant in the wind. Something li [...]

For Claire Only Nick Jones may have looked on Eva bare, though some of us claimed the vision during those bull sessions in the Eisenhower era. "Shameful, all that talk," Eunice says the other morning, lips pursed above her tea cup. Lately, we've s [...]

It is "a fine feeling," M.F.K. Fisher notes, "to have a long-held belief confirmed. It adds a smug glow to life in general." But what about a long-held belief that remains unconfirmed? Suspicions appear in the darkness of solitary watches, easily mag [...]

The green balloon rose through the tree. Hendrick remembered thinking some kid his age must have let the string slip through his fingers; distracted by the puppet show or the clog dancers or some other event at the park fair, so the balloon had esc [...]

"How's your martini?" she asked. He nodded and brought the glass to his lips. The pale, near colorless liquid mirrored the hill across from the terrace. He drank the view. He could almost taste the spruce trees, the pond, the road down to the villa [...]