Marie Anne

Ears Leading

Mona hated her roommates. When there was milk for coffee, it got left out or slopped. Both roomies insisted on continuous cable news, overruling Mona when she reached for the remote. Sometimes, when she was in bed and they were still up—they were always up—she caught her name woven into sarcastic laughter. But what Mona hated most about the invaders—personified pressures as real as school bullies—was the regularity in which she had to squeeze between the two of them, Freddy Financial and Angela Anger, on the roller coaster that wound around the neighborhood and through the strip mall that housed a No Frills grocery, a charity outlet, and an assortment of independents including a vet clinic specializing in cats.