“She couldn't tell where his pupils ended and the irises began; looking into those eyes was like looking into a well where children had drowned.”

“You may stay. But Jessica, please watch what you say and do. Don't look them in the eyes for long. Speak only when spoken to. Yes, sir; yes, ma'am.""Sit up. Arf," I teased."What about her?" Jessica cried, pointing in my general direction. "She's more in need of an etiquette lesson than I am.""Yeah," I said, "but I'm the Queen. With a capital fucking Q. Hey, you're looking me in the eyes for too long! Eric, make her stop!”

“I looked up. Mom looked down at me with the compassion/practicality combo that was her trademark.”

“Have you lost your teeny tiny mind, you too-tall, too-skinny, too-crazy jerk?”“Oh, look who’s talking, Miss Let’s Blunder Around the Time Stream and Hang the Consequences! Thanks to you, we’ve got a dead Marc and alive Marc in the same timeline . . . in the same house! Thanks to you, I got chomped on by a dim, blonde, undead, selfish, whorish, blood-suckingleech when I was minding my own business in the past.”“Don’t you call me dim!”“Um. Everyone. Perhaps we should—” Tina began.“Wait, when did this happen?” Marc asked. He had the look of a man desperately trying to buy a vowel. “Past, an hour ago? Past, last year? Helpme out.”“Oh, biiiiig surprise!” Laura threw her (perfectly manicured) hands in the air. “Let me guess, you were soooo busy banging your dead husbandthat you haven’t had time to tell anybody anything.”“I was getting to it,” I whined.“Then after not telling anyone anything and not being proactive—or even active!—you grow up to destroy the world and bring about eternalnuclear winter or whatever the heck that was and how do you deal with your foreknowledge of terrible events to come? Have sex!”“An affirmation of life?” Sinclair suggested. Never, I repeat, never had I loved him more. I was torn between slugging my sister and blowing myhusband. Hmm. Laura might have a point about my priorities . . . but jeez. Look at him. Yum.“—even do it and what do you have to say for yourself? Huh?”“You’re just uptight, repressed, smug, antisex, and jealous, you Antichristing morally superior, fundamentally evil bitch.”Laura and Marc gasped. My husband groaned.”

“I zoomed in on the shoe department like a blonde homing pigeon. Shoes, shoes everywhere! Ah, sweet shoes. I truly think you can take the measure of a civilization by looking at its footwear.”

“Somehow, when I wasn't looking, somehow because it's electronic mail, none of the basic grammar rules applied.”

“I trudged around on the muddy river bottom for half an hour, patiently waiting to drown, before giving up and slogging my way back to shore.”