Fiction and Drama Jill Crawford Lightning bolt. Heart on fire. Sailboat. Statue of Liberty. John Sandroni, February . 2024, oil on canvas. 30 × 36". Photo by Dario Lasagni. Courtesy of the artist and Paul Soto, New York. S he’s first to arrive at the macaron shop. The café isn’t full, but she takes a table outside, under the awning, away from the drizzle. She’s wearing a long flimsy dress and sandals and has neither coat, nor brolly, nor shades (as they call them here). A long dress will convey grace and decency. The bright clumped sky makes her squint. Tourists gather at the entrance of the shop to take photos. There would be nothing to stop a vehicle from careening off the road into them. Lately, Lexi’s usual apprehension about the demise of everyone she loves has graduated into a broader and vaguer fretting over the deaths of animals and people unknown to her, long gone, online, fictitious even. Sabrina, the girl she’s tutoring, laughs at her for being a mushball.…