THE PLOT: In a bistro in Paris a young woman (A) tells her three girlfriends (B, C, and D) about the affair she had with an American tourist, who returned home promising to write, and hasn't. It's been over two weeks; something must have happened to him. (She has just learned she is carrying his child, but she doesn't tell her friends.) B tells her to call him; C to e-mail him; D to forget all about him. Enter a fat American couple; each of them has a different speech impediment. They order food. The man chokes. A performs the Heimlich maneuver on him, and saves his life.

BEATRICE BATTLES BACON
Samuel Frederick

BORINGS BISTRO between boulevards, bizarrely but beguilingly busy. By bar bountiful bibition. Béatrice, bibaciously bibbling beer, balefully bewails Bostonian beau beside buxom, ball-less, Betty-buddies Belle, Bébé, Blondchen. Beaver been bruised by boocoo banging, brags Béatrice. Bébé: Bawdy! (Baby beginning biological being, Béatrice believes, but bosom-buddies benighted.) Bonking benissimo! But, blue Béatrice blurts briskly: Beau bailed. Back being bashful bachelor: Beacon Boulevard, Boston. Blondchen: Beside bourgeois blood-brood? Béatrice believes Blondchen blunders: been biding beau’s budding bi’bdominal brief. But: brief-box barren. Beau battered, bleeding, broke? Bellicose but benevolent bavardage begins. Belle: Buzz Bostonian! Bébé: By botbrief! Bitter Blondchen: Bastard! Better be Béatrice-beyond-beau! Better booze, breaking beau’s brain-branding.

Boise-bedded buddies bestride bistro. Big blubbery Boiseans! Both banter bafflingly. Boise broad breaks badinage bit by bit: B-b-b-bah! Boyfriend blabs Bogartisms: bahthsth! Boiseans bid bistro bring beef, beans, bacon, bread, beverage. Begin banquet. Brash boyfriend bites big. But bacon blocks bronchi, barring breathing. Béatrice brings Boisean boyfriend’s bacon bolting barward by belting bulky boy’s belly. Blood banked. Biolysis balked.