Painted Cities [antikvár]

DAYDREAMS My memories come in negative. My mother had a box of photographs, but I don't recall ever seeing any of them. Instead, what I recall are her negatives: the orange-tinted strips of color film that she kept tucked in the developers' envelopes. Some of these envelopes she'd labeled—Christmas 1974; Florida 1972. Others she hadn't, and she would Hft these out of the photo box and say, "All right, let's see what these are from." She always went for the negatives, never the actual prints. My memories compete with reality. I know my uncle Juan had a cream-colored Lincoln. We waxed it every fall, every spring. I used to sit in the backseat while my uncle cruised with his girlfriend, Letty. They hardly spoke a word, only listened to music: the O'Jays, Earth, Wind and Fire. Sometimes my uncle would look back at me. Then Letty would look back too, and then they would look at each other, and smile. When it was dark and we had dropped Letty off, I used to sit in