Every night at eleven, Larry fed the machine on the fourth floor a dollar and pressed B4. Every night it kept the dollar and gave him nothing. Thirty-one years. Tonight, his last shift, the janitors threw him a little party. Afterward he pressed B4 from habit. The machine shuddered, coughed, and dropped forty-one Hershey bars.

Somebody found the red mitten in the snow and hung it on the fence by the bus stop, thumb up, hitchhiking. All week it waved at traffic. On Friday a woman stopped, pulled its twin from her pocket, and held them together a long time. Her daughter had been gone since Christmas. Asleep upstairs. Grounded.

The book came back in a padded envelope, thirty years late: Charlotte's Web, stamped DUE MAR 3 1969. Inside was a check for fifty dollars and a note. I was nine. My father was sick. I needed to know how it ended for somebody. The head librarian framed the note. She never cashed the check.

The best man stood, unfolded his speech, and saw it was a grocery list. Eggs. Bread. Coffee. Lightbulbs. He looked at the bride and groom. "Eggs," he said. "You'll break some. Bread. Share it. Coffee. You'll need it. Lightbulbs." He paused. "Keep one burning for whoever's coming home late." Afterward, nobody believed it wasn't written.

The client wanted the radio spot to mention the free parking, the new deli counter, the anniversary sale, the owner's grandfather and the jingle. All in thirty seconds. Stephan cut adjectives alone until three in the morning. The announcer read it once, perfectly, in twenty-nine seconds. "Good," said the client. "Now add the phone number."

Six-fifteen. The radio read school closings alphabetically, like a man counting money. Albert Lea. Anoka. Brainerd. Gavin lay under the covers, fists clenched. Mankato. Moorhead. Owatonna. His mother appeared in the doorway holding his snow pants. Rochester. St. Cloud. Stillwater. Gavin closed his eyes. Wayzata. His mother sighed and hung the snow pants back up.

For two years after his mother died, Perry kept her voice on the answering machine. You've reached the Howes. Leave a message, and eat something. His sister finally called it morbid. So he recorded his own greeting. It sounded thin. That night he called home from the corner phone, listened, and added: and eat something.

Every year on her birthday he drove to the pay phone on Lake Street, put in a quarter, and dialed the number of the house they'd lived in. A stranger always answered. This year a little girl picked up, giggling. "It's my birthday today," she told him. He hung up, smiling. Wrong number. Right number.

George and Joe sat in the ice house on Mille Lacs from five in the morning until dark. Neither spoke. Neither caught anything. At sunset George reeled in and said, "Good talk." Joe nodded. Both men had been widowers since last spring. "Same time tomorrow?" Joe asked. It was the longest conversation either remembered having.

"Where do you see yourself in five years?" the interviewer asked. The applicant, eighty-one, adjusted his hearing aid and thought about it. "Honestly? Probably dead. But until then I'd like to answer your phones. My wife passed, the house is too quiet, and I type sixty words a minute." He started Monday. He's still there.

By Tuesday the widow's kitchen held eleven hot dishes. Tater tot, tuna noodle, chicken and wild rice, three kinds nobody could identify. Doris couldn't eat. She couldn't stop crying. Her neighbor Annie came over without one and just washed all the pans. Thirty years later, Doris brought nothing to Annie's funeral. She washed the pans.

From her desk Lisa could see one window in the building across the street. For a year the woman in it ate lunch alone, same as Lisa. In March Lisa taped up a sign: HI. Next day, a sign back: HI. By June they ate together, downstairs. Turned out they worked for the same company.

The roll had been in the camera since 1991. Murray finally took it to the drugstore. One hour, the sign said. He waited in the car. Twenty-four prints. Snow. A Christmas tree. Twenty-two pictures of his wife, laughing, blurry, telling him to put the camera down. He'd always said she photographed badly. He'd been wrong.

His father had promised him a Twins game for nine years. Something always came up instead. Work. A cold. Rain, somehow, at a domed stadium. This summer Darren finally bought two tickets himself, drove two hours, and picked his father up at the county nursing home. The old man cheered every single out, even theirs.

He wrote her fifty-five words every night for a year, on index cards, and left them on her pillow. Little stories, mostly. Some were about her. On the last night he wrote only four: Will you marry me? Below were fifty-one numbered blanks. She sat up until morning with a pen. She filled every one.

Our tooth fairy ran out of quarters, so she left a dollar and a note under Carrie's pillow: Inflation. In the morning Carrie came downstairs holding the note, frowning. "Mom," she said, "what's inflation?" I explained. She thought about it, went upstairs, and wiggled every tooth in her head for a week. Not one budged.

At three in the morning the only customer at the truck stop was a trucker who ordered pie and asked the waitress to sit. She did. He showed her pictures of his grandson. She showed him hers. At five he left a ten-dollar tip and an empty plate. Same booth every Thursday since. Married now.