Edna Millay went to the pool one day only to
discover that someone with herpes had used her lip balm. At least, that was her
suspicion. She was lounging by the shallow end at the Club, sipping from a
margarita and enjoying a quality read by Jodi Piccoult, when she discovered
that the very central indentation of her bottom lip was below a level of
optimal moistness. She reached for the small pot of lip balm in the depths of
her purse, enriched with shea butter, lavender, and tears from ethnic children,
but when she dipped her finger into the balm and applied no more than a pinky’s
tip to her bottom lip, she could taste something different, something viral, something
immediately infectious. She immediately disposed of the balm, flinging it
across the length of the pool. Though for liability purposes, we must omit the
rest of this story from the published account, given that the balm allegedly
hit and punctured the now destroyed eyeball of one Peter T. Bloomington, who
also, coincidentally enough, had a raging case of herpes at the time.
Michelle Meyers
The Curfew
Jesse Ball