"A syrupy, peach-colored dawn pried back the previous night’s thunderheads in sickly, gray chunks, as if the sky were reluctant to hand over summer to a landscape this far north."

"We hose down coffee urns. Refill ketchup bottles,
where flies already swarm to fatten."

"He came in wearing a pork pie hat, the ripped top painted like a ladybug."

"Amyn had described wearing a wrapper to Kayla in hundreds of ways, but the word that she remembered hearing most often was 'electric.'"