For most people who live around here, the reflexive response to the phrase "meet me" is to conjure up images of Judy Garland and start singing about the 1904 World's Fair.

But in Margaret Hermes' story with that phrase as its title — part of this sharply drawn collection — the two words are more of a cause for suspicion than for a singalong.

Deborah is going through her husband's pants pockets before putting them in the wash when she finds a matchbook cover with two words scrawled on it: Meet me. Later, feeling around in the dark before dawn, husband Rob finds the same cover, curses at Deborah for smoking despite her promise to stop, then sees the same loaded phrase.

Whose matchbook cover is it? What do the words mean? In Hermes' talented hands, those questions don't matter as much as the mistrust that both husband and wife have, almost reflexively, for each other. And so it is with most of the characters in "Relative Strangers," where family relationships are rarely happy and often barely civil.

In fact, the collection's title could just as easily be "Strange Relatives," or better, "Estranged Relatives." In tale after tale, children are sent off to live with their childless aunts and uncles for the summer. Or a maiden aunt has a past that is really unimaginable. Or couples break apart after staying together for no apparent reason.

Despite the sad plights, Hermes rewards readers with deftly drawn portraits and an economy of language that perfectly matches her short-story template. Take this description of the Meramec River, back in the time when environmentalists and local residents teamed up to battle plans to bottle it up with a dam:

"Plenty of city people and not a few local boys treat the river like a moving Mardi Gras, drinking their way from the time they put in until their take-out point at the end of the day. A lot of Budweiser floats down the Meramec."

Or this brief characterization of Bette Trimble, a high school valedictorian with no one to share her love of reading:

"Bette was still a reader and by now she had read the extended works of all the authors who had piqued her interest in high school. She could have discussed Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'Marble Faun' if anybody else in Tallapoosa had read it."

Hermes, who grew up in Chicago and lives in St. Louis, has been widely published in literary magazines and university journals. Readers of "Relative Strangers" will want to help spread her words to a wider audience.

Dale Singer is a staff writer for the St. Louis Beacon.

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Margaret Hermes

When • 4 p.m. Feb. 12

Where • Left Bank Books, 399 North Euclid Avenue

How much • Free

More info • 314-367-6731

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'Relative Strangers'

Stories by Margaret Hermes

Published by Carolina Wren Press, 167 pages, $15.95 (paper)