Things Beloved: Two Short Novels

The Better Boat

Wandering the coast, 12-year-old Anthony comes upon a man kicking a sailboat. The derelict boat is stranded high on the shore, so the man sells it to Anthony for a dollar. In an idyllic Rhode Island summer, Anthony falls in love with sailing and gradually learns how to do it. He mostly learns by making mistakes, many of which are pointed out by Teresa, his know-it-all cousin visiting from the landlocked Midwest. Aurora, the dollar boat, turns out to have an astonishing and emotionally complex history, one that chronicles loves and losses far greater than that of a boy for his beloved sailboat.

The Observatory

The impending sell-off of an obsolete telescope gathers five middle-aged friends back at their college’s astronomical observatory. Trespassing, they gaze at the moon through the lenses and argue about whether Pluto is a planet until their nostalgia is interrupted by a stranger outside the dome. They discover that the dome and its telescope have already been sold to this shadowy financier. His intention is to bulldoze the entire site. But he offers the former astronomy students a diabolical deal to save it.