Excerpt from Matrimony by Joshua Henkin, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"A B-plus!"

"That's exactly what he said. He wanted at least an A-minus."

"Thomas Jefferson!" Mia said. "You have very arrogant dreams." She placed her foot behind Julian and pushed him over her leg so he tumbled backward to the floor. As he fell, his legs kicked up and his testicles did, too. "Be careful," she said. "I was on the wrestling team in high school."

"You were?"

"Field hockey," she said. "Close enough."

"Come," he said. "Let's shower."

She stepped into the stall and raised her face to the water, holding her hair in a fist behind her head. He took her by the shoulders and drew her close to him, feeling the press of her nose against his face.

Afterward, in class, he missed her already and he'd only just seen her. And when he saw her again she said she'd missed him, too. She loved everything about him, she said: the tiny dimple on his right elbow, the way his hair was so straight coming down over his forehead, all of it dark brown it was almost black except for a little patch of blond above the left ear. "I'm one-two-hundredth albino," he told her. She loved his toenails, she said, and the way in his sleep he wrapped her hair around his fingers. That was how she liked waking up in the morning, with her hair twirled taut around him.

Excerpted from Matrimony by Joshua Henkin. Copyright © 2007 by Joshua Henkin.