Fiction | March 01, 1989
Eating Air
Ellen Lesser
This story is not currently available online.
When the ride got bumpy over the Adirondacks, Rachel’s hand automatically reached for the bakery box, strapped in on the seat next to hers. She’d been traveling with the box for so many hours, it had become a sort of companion. Maybe like traveling with a sleeping baby, she thought–the way you’d instinctively check, touch, adjust it. She smiled to herself, imagining Susan’s face when she saw her coming in through the gate with the outsized white box, held ceremonially in front of her. For the upteenth time she pictured the towering creation inside, mentally crossing her fingers that the moats and turrets of meringue cream hadn’t gotten mashed by the box top, that the green candied cherries still sat primly aloft on each turret. The most extravagant Key Lime Pie on Miami Beach, the paper’s veteran food writer had assured her. God knew what the thing tasted like, but it was a vision.
If you are a student, faculty member, or staff member at an institution whose library subscribes to Project Muse, you can read this piece and the full archives of the Missouri Review for free. Check this list to see if your library is a Project Muse subscriber.
Want to read more?
Subscribe TodaySEE THE ISSUE
SUGGESTED CONTENT

Fiction
May 17 2022
Gone
Gone Linda Wastila The late May morning I drove east from Chapel Hill, I didn’t pay much mind to the tracts of yellowed corn and soy or the tobacco-curing… read more

Fiction
May 17 2022
The Cadence of Waves
The Cadence of Waves Trent Hudley Leon showed up the day of the blackout in December of 1998, toward the end of some extreme El Niño weather we’d been having… read more

Fiction
May 17 2022
Palace Rock
Palace Rock by Mason Kiser On Mondays, we ruled the sea. Lightning lashed the whitecaps, and thunder shook the hull, and rain fell so slantwise that it ripped to shreds… read more