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The shape and the sight of her remind him of an avocado. Curved lines and limbs and speckly mottled and unsmooth the feel of her. Ripened. Fleshy and firm and faintly insolent; with a dark green pebbly wrap. He looks at her and she is bruisable. Usable and worstable. In his dry mouth there is a too-rich taste, slightly nutty. She is something that should be taken in a small bowl, whisked with lime juice and oil and seasoned with sea salt and ground pepper. Tell me what they did to you, he says, struggling to be tender. She stands behind the marble topped table, loud truncated clicking noises when the knife cuts through the avocados, hitting cool hard marble. Making dices and slices. What did they do? She laughs, mirthless, cutting an avocado lengthwise with a paring knife, scooping out the smooth oval seed, like a shiny caramel teardrop. She holds the seed up between her thumb and her index finger. They pitted me Jimmy, she says, in her best Lauren Bacall voice. She always calls him Jimmy when she's trying to be light-hearted. Something about an old boyfriend where it went horribly wrong, in a funny, almost black but really, more of a darkish green sort of way. She always uses her Lauren Bacall voice when she is trying too hard. Another name for avocado is alligator pear, she says suddenly, thinly. Snap snap Jimmy. You take out the core so it can't grow again and you leave a shape that you can't describe. A shape that is really a hollow. Cover story by Krystin Low