And the plaza's filled with old ladies with shawls talking about yard sales, and nice boys in their polo sweaters with their next door neighbors in their tennis skirts, and quiet old men playing pinochle with their bored and anxious grandchildren, and artists frantically scribbling in their notebooks, and the boy with the sad and soulful eyes. I wish he had his notebook so he would shut up, but he's pretty so I won't hold him to that. I don't hold him to much, but that's how we do.

He talks about T.S. Eliot - he talks about stuff like that a lot, because that's how he does. I wear sunglasses because that's how I do. I drink coffee ("black as a moonless night") because he is boring and I want passersby to think that I'm a private investigator or an FBI agent. Because really, who wants people to think they are who they really are? Not I, said the fly.

"Not I, said the fly," says the boy. He always has had a quick wit about him. That's one of the reasons I like him so much. The other one is that his jacket matches my shoes. They're both brown, and they both smile when the sun shines on them the right way.

And so I take a drag from my cigarette (Pall Malls, because Kurt Vonnegut and old men smoke Pall Malls) and stare at the boy with the sad and soulful eyes. It seems like all boys have sad and soulful eyes anymore, and I think it's because emotion always gets you girlie action. Girls like guys who pretend to feel, and boys who want girls aim to please.

I'm wearing sunglasses so as to not give too much away, and so I'm free to watch other people while he talks about poetry, and literature, and other things I don't care to hear him talk about. I put the "sell" in T.S. Eliot and the "jam" in James Joyce , but he doesn't seem to notice, because he seems to think they're the hippest things since they put the roller in roller rink. Which, to me, wasn't really that hip.

He's switched to Hemingway, I see, by the look in his eyes. They've gone from soulful to tragic. He never really could get Hemingway, and Hemingway could never really get him. Mainly because Hemingway's dead, and when he was alive, he was drunk a whole lot.

I had a friend once who said that the only good thing Hemingway ever did was put a bullet in his brain. She was not a fan of "The Old Man and the Sea", but really, who was? High school kids just read it because it's the shortest story that somehow, miraculously, counts as a novel to English teachers.

I am so happy that I am wearing sunglasses! The sun's not out, but I look mysterious, and there's a hairy Italian man behind my date who is gesturing wildly who I am watching. Oh, how I wish I was Italian! Gli italiani sono gentili!

I put out my cigarette in the ashtray politely provided by the city, and am ready to be on my way. I don't mind interrupting the boy with the sad and soulful eyes; I realize that he will feign sadness, but that even he realizes that he has nothing important to say.

"You know, you put the "dick" in Charles Dickens," I say, getting up.

"You would say that," he says, crying.

"Ha, ha." I laugh.

"Boo-hoo." He cries.

And I go on my way, thinking about Chuck Yeager and how it must feel to break the sound barrier.

My next-door neighbor told me he broke the sound barrier once. He said he went to the top of the biggest hill in the neighborhood, the one no kid got down alive, and rode his Red Rider wagon down it, no hands, feet flying in the air, screaming the whole way. At the bottom of the hill, he hit a rock, flew off the wagon, and broke two bones in his arm. When he spoke of it to the rest of the kids after he got out of the hospital, he sounded like an old war veteran, sitting on his back porch, spinning tales to anyone who would listen about his trip. No one ever doubted that he broke the sound barrier, there in our own neighborhood, in his Red Rider wagon.

I still kind of believe it, but take my education for what it's worth. I don't believe anything they teach us in school, especially about Hemingway.

When I was a kid, I thought I put the "rad" in Ray Bradbury, but I really only put the "uck" in Pearl Buck. I was a nasty kid, and really, the only good thing about my childhood was the fact that I fished a lot. I still fish a lot, but no one wants to come with me anymore, and it just seems like a sad and lonely endeavor, a testament to my present situation, whatever that may be.

So I walk away, fuming a little, and reminiscing about how nice it all used to be, so foldable and exact. Now my life is a napkin made of sugar, and it goes to pieces everywhere all the time and gives little children cavities and it doesn't help clean up anything. I am in the generation of the tragically hip. We're like the Israelites, desperately trying to find the land of plenty and really doing nothing but complaining and eating sand and wishing Moses would quit sermonizing so much in that lispy baby voice of his. There is no water but only Rock.

O, the trying times of a desperate age! I am so Romantic I could die. Instead, I will watch Anna Nicole with a pickle in my mouth. It's almost 8 o'clock. I have an appointment. I'm meeting my sister.

My sister used to think that there were ghosts in our basement. For a long time, I thought she just told me that to scare me, to keep me away from the basement and to toy with my fragile childlike mind. But when I turned fourteen and she came back from college to give me my cake and my Sam Goody gift card and she refused to go into the basement to get the camera for mom, I realized that she really did believe there were ghosts in our house. I asked her about it and she told me too shut up and eat my stupid cake. I grew red and ate my stupid cake in aggravated silence, while gleaning a new respect for my older sister and beginning to seriously question the existence of ghosts for the first time in my solely realistic life.

I read that Hemingway had out-of-body experiences a lot. I suppose if that's possible, then ghosts in my basement really aren't that far-fetched.

I go to The Slice, which is a stupid name for a lousy pizza place, where I meet her. She has green eyes. I've always hated her for having green eyes. I have brown eyes. I don't mind them much, but I'm the middle kid; I'm supposed to be jealous. It's the "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha" idea, and so when I turned eighteen I bought colored contact lenses. The brown in my eyes made the green in the lenses muddy and horrible.

She smiles at me, greets me awkwardly. She is wrinkled, and her face is caked with makeup. She's not that old; I forget when her last birthday was, but she still smiles a little when she sees me, and I suppose I like her more than I like most people. She calls me Paperino, even though I'm a girl. She heard it once on tv and thought it was the funniest thing ever, and I never figured out if it was a term of endearment or an insult. I don't really care, we're sisters.

We sit, she offers to buy me a soda, I decline. I look at my nails, which are dirty. She asks me if I remember the notes I used to give her and the stories I wrote for her when we were kids together. I say yes, of course, even though I can't think of any. She kind of laughs.

"You know, you make me want to put the "hug" in Victor Hugo."

I wish she wouldn't, but she does, and I realize that she now wears the same perfume mom used to wear. She's living the American dream, in a trailer, and she talks about how her husband bought a 6 foot tall model Statue of Liberty to put in the front lawn.

"You know, with the war..."

She's crying. She tells me it's nice to see me. I mutter something like "likewise" and vaguely wish I could be with Hemingway right now, completely drunk, scribbling madly into a notebook, or pounding on a typewriter, or hell, just sitting there wondering exactly when my life fell apart. Drunk, because Hemingway always was. I make a mental note to stop by BFS on the way home, even though BFS seems kind of antithetical to Hemingway. A sigh escapes me. I'm tired.

"Did you drive here?"

I did.

"Could you take me home?"

I suppose I could, even though I don't particularly want to. I wonder how she got here, and realize I don't have the energy to ask. I usher her to my car; it's parked outside, and I drive her to her house.

"You know, there's usually a fire in the neighborhood - you want to put the "smore" in Sir Thomas More and check it out? Like old times?"

I cough, mutter something about being sick, say arrivaderci, and drive away.

Hemingway had a philosophy that every man should make a list of three things he wanted to do before he died, and do them. No one's ever found Hemingway's list, and part of me doubts he had one, but I think it's a good philosophy, nonetheless. I stop by the gas station to get wine and whiskey, because Hemingway always drank half a bottle of wine before breakfast, and he could never write without a bottle of whiskey. He also had a houseful of six-toed cats, but there really isn't much I can do about that. Getting back into my car, I suddenly realize that I have no list of three things I want to do before I die, think of the events of the day, and feel oddly bereft.

I rummage through my glove box, find a pad of paper and an pencil with Army of One written boldly on the side, and write "Hemingway List" on the top. I suddenly have this terrifying feeling that my future is imminent, that each passing second is another missed opportunity. I have this compulsive urge to do something amazing, to throw whatever boring rambling idiocies I've made my life to be away and finally be passionate about something. I want direction and fervor, and I want to end my immense dissatisfaction. After tapping my pencil on the pad for a couple minutes, I write:

1. Go to Mexico, where the tequila flows like water and the girls all wear flowers in their hair and everyone takes a siesta at noon on the hot summer days.

2. Write the Great American Novel and die tragically after never quite ending it; make my surviving friends piece together the remnants of the final scene of the book; have critics ponder my untimely end and its impact on the literary community.

3.

I leave the third one blank, partly because my whiskey's calling my name, partly because I can't think clearly, and partly because I want to keep at least one option open, forever. Mainly though, I left it blank because my pencil broke.

My sister always told me I put the "shake" in William Shakespeare, and I loved her for it. I love her for it still, I suppose, even though I can't really bring myself to relate to her anymore. And as for the boy who lets me listen to him talk, I guess I still love him for his humanity, and his vanity, and my sanity. I throw my purchases in the back of my car, put my keys in the ignition, and pull out of the BFS parking lot, feeling a little out-of-body myself.

So I drive home, gripping my steering wheel tightly, and watching the streetlights hit my face in my rearview mirror. I wonder if tonight's going to change the course of my life, if this is a pivotal moment I should be paying attention to. I wonder if anyone will ever fish with me again, and I wonder if I'll ever one day be miraculously Italian. But over all this, really, all that's going through my head is Hemingway's shortest story ever - six words long.

"For sale. Baby shoes. Never used."