Bill Gaythwaite

Bill Gaythwaite’s short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Subtropics, Chicago Quarterly Review, Grist, The Meadow, Oyster River Pages, Atticus Review and other literary magazines. Bill has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize.

Give or Take

Nina and her daughters are waiting for the slowest elevator on the lower campus. Emma is stomping around, pressing the up button and yammering “come, come, come” in her four-year-old fashion, while Carmen, age eighteen months, is sound asleep, stretched out in the stroller, one shoe dangling perilously from her stockinged foot. Nina exhales theatrically as she watches their blurry reflections in the elevator’s chrome doors, wondering whether Oscar will be pleased to see them once they reach his office.