Objects of Desire

by Clare Sestanovich

  “I don’t sound like myself,” Leah said.

  There were too many hard, clean surfaces. Kate looked from the phone to Felix. Leah’s grey eyes and yellow eyelashes. She didn’t want to say the wrong thing. Eggs? she mouthed.

  “I’m hearing my own echo.”

  The fridge was still in plastic, silver and unsmudged. There was a sink-shaped hole in the counter.

  “I’ll take you to a different room,” Felix said. “With softer things.”

  He carried the phone into the hall, the voice coming out of his palm, tinny and getting quieter, then gone.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book began in my head, where it would have remained were it not for the people who understood what it might be, who insisted on its becoming. Some of them have marked up these pages with pen; all of them have marked my work with their support.

  Bill Clegg wrote the email that said send the rest, and changed everything. He is my guide, my guardian. Annie Bishai edited these stories with all her heart, which made them better, but also deeper. Kishani Widyaratna and Gillian Fitzgerald-Kelly brought them across an ocean. The entire team at The Clegg Agency and at Knopf—especially Simon Toop, David Kambhu, Victoria Pearson, John Gall, Amy Hagedorn, Elizabeth Bernard, and Morgan Fenton, and many whose work was invisibly invaluable—helped the book take flight and land safely.

  Versions of these stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Paris Review, and Electric Literature. Willing Davidson, Christopher Beha, Emily Nemens, and Halimah Marcus edited them with generosity and grace.

  Henry Finder and David Remnick do with words and ideas what I admire most: they open up worlds. Mine is wider because of them. Jess Henderson, Leily Kleinbard, Sharan Shetty, David Wallace, Hannah Wilentz, and R. L. Lipstein have taught me so much about what a story is.

  The teachers and students at the NYU Creative Writing Program first made me doubt that I could write a book, then helped me believe it.

  Navy, Emily, Emma, Lucy, Zanny, and Dylan are true compasses, truer friends. Alice understands more than anyone the joy of playing pretend. Ben is my oldest coach and most loyal fan.

  Eddie is everywhere—in the margins of every book, on the other side of every dream. I’m always writing you a letter.

  My parents taught me to read and write—and then, to revise. Their patience and wisdom and love make all the difference.

  For turning a work of fiction into something real: thank you all.

  A Note About the Author

  Clare Sestanovich is an editor at The New Yorker. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Harper’s, and Electric Literature. She lives in Brooklyn.

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