A Night Out

The following is from Joshua Ferris’s collection of stories, The Dinner Party. Each of these stories uncovers the sometimes awkward and hilarious misunderstandings that happen between strangers and lovers alike:

Tom and Sophie waited twenty minutes in a ripe sauna for a transfer at West fourth. When at last the train rolled into the station, they boarded a car full of infernal heat. They went through the doors to the next car over, but it, too, lacked air- conditioning. The whole train did. There was a rancid smell. They returned to the first car. It seemed cooler there, somehow. But there was no escape.
Slogging out of the subway, they passed a fat woman on the stairs, begging help from anyone willing. Tom absentmindedly rubbed the downy dollar bill folded in fourths between his fingertips. A found thing: He had been worrying it since they left Cobble Hill.
“That one’s not well,” he said, eager to change subjects as they reached the street. “What was that on her face, a staph infection?” continue reading