Transact Frgn Currency

Written in the first person and in a clear voice distinguished by a curiously plaintive bravado, these seven distinctive stories all concern a personality seeking to assert, or possibly find, itself. After a frightening visit to an eye doctor, teenager Charlotte wanders into a bar for a Coke and encounters older, sophisticated Chris, involving herself in a relationship that will undermine her already fragile self-perception. The same Charlotte, now in her 20s, in flight from a man whose passion has cooled, takes refuge with Cinder, whose plethora of beaux points up Charlotte's lack of romantic relationships. The woman in the title story dumps her job and her apartment in response to a phone call from an old lover and rushes to spend Christmas with him in Canada, only to wait for him to return from a visit to his former wife and their small son. In its own fashion, each of these tales is an eloquent lesson in traveling light, heavy though the inner burden may be. (March 17)