His body took the suggestion of sleep and drifted off.
“Pssst,” she said, sharply. “Open your eyes.”
“No.”
“Ouvrez vos yeux.” Her voice pranced into his ear. “I know you’re awake.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.” She poked his forearm with the book.
“I’m not. You’re dreaming. You’re having a dream in which I am pretending to be asleep and you are pretending to be awake.”
“I finished it.”
“I’m happy for you.”
If he stayed still, he had a shot of getting back to sleep. He could ride those roads all the way home, tires scattering blanched gravel into the corners of his mind. He tightened his arms around his chest and breathed through his nose, air drifting deeply into his lungs.
“It’s sad.” Her hand was warm on top of his, the only living point of contact in the cold, dry dark. “But it’s not unbearably sad.”
Acknowledgments
I am deeply indebted to those who helped usher this novel into existence. Thank you to Sean McDonald, Jonathan Galassi, Eric Chinski, Jeff Seroy, Sarah Scire, Taylor Sperry, Nora Barlow, and everyone at FSG. Sean, you have the precision and patience of a diamond cutter. Your faith and guidance have been the greatest gifts. I am also grateful for the constant support of Jay Mandel (astonishing agent and banner human), Catherine Summerhayes, Anna Deroy, Laura Bonner, and Jocasta Hamilton.
Ethan Rutherford, Jennifer Jackson, and Sara Vilkomerson: I couldn’t ask for more thoughtful first readers. You are living lessons in generosity. Harry Heymann (tech support) and Lisa Salzer (jewelry repair): You lent me your smarts when I needed them most. Andrew Mariani, Michelle Quint, Reyhan Harmanci, Nathaniel Rich, and Meredith Angelson: Thank you for allowing me to blanket America’s dining-room tables in manuscript pages and water glasses. Thanks also to the staff at the Château de Miromesnil for entertaining a hundred unanswerable questions and letting me move into the big house.
In the Department of Inanimate Gratitude: I swiped the name Kezia from Katherine Mansfield’s “The Doll’s House.” The translation of “The Necklace” I consulted the most frequently can be found in the Modern Library’s The Necklace and Other Tales. Paul Ignotus’s The Paradox of Maupassant, Francis Steegmuller’s A Lion in the Path, A. H. Wallace’s Guy de Maupassant, and Michael Lerner’s Maupassant were all useful biographies, and François Tassart’s Recollections of Guy de Maupassant was especially vivid and unintentionally amusing. Thank you to the Wertheim Study at the New York Public Library, where I first read many of these titles.
Finally, to my family and friends who are like family: What big, bottomless hearts you have. How unbelievably lucky I am to know they are always within reach. Mabel loves you and so do I.
A Note About the Author
SLOANE CROSLEY is the author of the New York Times bestsellers I Was Told There’d Be Cake and How Did You Get This Number. She lives in New York City.
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I Was Told There’d Be Cake
How Did You Get This Number
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THE CLASP
Copyright © 2015 by Sloane Crosley.
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Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint lyrics from “Common People,” words and music by Nick Banks, Jarvis Cocker, Candida Doyle, Stephen Mackey, and Russell Senior. Copyright © 1995 by Universal/Island Music Ltd. All rights in the United States and Canada controlled and administered by Universal – Songs of Polygram International, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.
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EPub Edition: August 2015 ISBN: 9781443445054
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The Clasp Page 31