_ Issue 3 _ 2007 - 2008   Third Place Carissa DiGiovanni At the Caliente Tropics Resort in the whirlpool, the Canadian man who’s hitting on Robyn tells us he sells high-end meats at a very high-end mall, tells us Elvis used to come here in its heyday, and the Rat Pack too. He’s telling us, us girls, and his nephew whose name he can’t tell us. We are all— the four of us, and the hot tub— under a big, tiki-lit Easter Island mask of shitty fake wood, and I forgot my bathing suit so I have to sit on the edge of the scratchy white tub, with my skirt rutched up and just my legs in the pool. (I push Robyn’s back with my toes in time to his crassest comments.) But, up here I’ve got a better view than everyone and as I stare past the plastic yellow slats of the lounge chairs, and see the snow slope against sand-covered mountains, while pine trees stretch in needled worship underneath, back to the meat dude I think I can see the six-point flash of Sammy Davis’ necklace as he jumps off the pink diving board in the big pool. And maybe the ruin of blue suede shoes, floating where Elvis flung them in its shallow end. So there could’ve been a heyday. _ ___ _ Table of Contents _ Contest Winners and Finalists _ Allison Joseph _ Maureen Tolman Flannery _ Carissa DiGiovanni _ Dion N. Farquhar _ Willa Granger _ Sandra Soli _ Gerald R. Wheeler _ Poetry _ Michele Battiste _ Radames Ortiz _ Brady Rhoades _ Jennifer Weathers _ Helen Wickes _ Fiction _ Allen Gee _ Michelle Panik O'Neill _ Creative Nonfiction _ Susana Chavez-Silverman _ Susana Chavez-Silverman _ Liz Dolan _ Author Bios