"It's not a purse, really. What I have now is a gigantic, pink, floral-printed Vera Bradley bag big enough to hold a human head. If this bag were a person, it would be somebody's dowdy, gray-haired great-aunt. Smelling of mothballs and butterscotch candies and insisting on pinching your cheeks."

"I could feel my knees and neck wobbling, as if they'd been packed full of grease and ball bearings. I set one hand against the wall to steady myself so I wouldn't start to slide sideways. I remembered reading somewhere about how a news crew had interviewed someone caught in the '94 Northridge earthquake. How long did it go on? The bland, tan newsman asked. The woman who'd lost her home and her husband had looked at him with haunted eyes and said, It's still happening."

"'Julian,' she said. Perfume, her mind whispered. Be quiet, she told it...