Photo by stefan moertl on Unsplash
by Mary Lynn Reed
Even after the boys grew their hair long and started singing in falsetto, Jules refused to give up her plaid flannel shirts and ripped blue jeans. “It’s a phase,” she said, not caring how many ill-fitting polyester suits they poured themselves into on Friday nights, or how irresistible the beat from their stereos became. The world had split in two, and every day someone else fell victim to the shiny silver ball – but not Jules. She scrawled “Disco Sucks” in thick white chalk across the driveway. Her brothers couldn’t turn her, her mother couldn’t either. She made it through.
Mary Lynn Reed’s fiction has appeared in Colorado Review, Fourteen Hills, and many other places. Her debut short story collection, PHANTOM ADVANCES, was published by Split/Lip Press in 2023. She co-edits the online literary journal MoonPark Review with her wife.
