Read The Objects of Her Affection for Free Online

waitstaff dropped everything to shimmy and lip-synch along with Donna Summer’s soaring voice. Twirling, grinning, dapper in bow ties and soda jerk hats, the waitresses and busboys looked as buoyant as root beer floats. It was early; Sophie, Lucy, and Elliot were the only ones in the restaurant. It was a show just for them, and Lucy clapped along and laughed: delighted, appreciative, but not the least bit surprised.
    ***
    Brian pointed out, quite rightly, that they could probably hire two guys to pull up the carpet for less money than they were paying the babysitter. But Sophie wanted to be the first one to tear into the wrapping and finally see what the house was made of. She didn’t mention that she was also planning to take a crack at the drop ceiling, and maybe the wallpaper, if they had time.
    It was hot, filthy work. They started in the master bedroom, on the third floor, where the summer heat pooled under the roof. They tore the carpet away from its tacks with a shuddering jerk, releasing plumes of dust into the air, then sliced it into manageable pieces with utility knives and heaved the rolls into the rented Dumpster out front, along with the padding and Ukrainian newspapers. “I feel like we’re waxing the house’s legs,” Sophie said as they caught their breath, surveying the smooth, grayish floor in Lucy’s room.
    “If the house were a one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old woman,” said Brian. He pulled his dust mask down around his neck.
    “Just wait until it’s sanded and varnished. It’ll come back to life.” Sophie picked up a crowbar and began prying the toothy nail strips from the perimeter of the floor, energized by thoughts of darkly gleaming planks. She wondered if she could do the refinishing herself—she loved the idea of smoothing polyurethane into the wood like a salve, slowly coaxing supple beauty out of the grain. She thought about the floors of her childhood—thin, buckled carpet, reeking of mildew and cigarette ash. In the St. Louis apartment, when she was twelve, she’d ripped out the bedroom carpet herself, but underneath there was nothing more substantial than a plywood subfloor, which she’d painted black. The landlord, Mr. Crowley, didn’t return their deposit.
    Creepy Crowley. She remembered how he used to let himself into the apartment when she was there alone, pretending he had to fix a leak or check the thermostat. He’d stand in her bedroom doorway, jiggling the keys in his pocket and sucking on his teeth while she played Atari. She always ignored him; after a while he would leave. Eventually she discovered that if she sneaked into the apartment through the bathroom window and didn’t turn on any lights, he wouldn’t come.
    Sophie struggled to pry up a stubborn nail strip, working the crowbar around its edges. She had almost no memory of her parents in that apartment. Randall must have worked at an office in St. Louis. And Maeve, of course, rarely made it home in time for dinner. She was like Brian—oblivious to the passage of time while she worked, lost in her world of wing flaps and wind tunnels. Sophie remembered eating peanut butter sandwiches in the fading gray light that slouched through the kitchen’s louvered window, never knowing exactly when to expect her parents. Normally she would have turned on the radio for company, but she didn’t want to risk attracting Mr. Crowley. She wasn’t sure if she’d felt, then, the sense of unfairness that now dogged her—that she’d wasted so many afternoons dreading the sight of Crowley’s yellowed, short-sleeved shirt in her doorway, unable to articulate the menace it contained, but feeling it nonetheless. She’d mentioned it once to Maeve, but when Maeve asked if Crowley had ever said or done anything, Sophie had to say no, and that was the end of it.
    She gathered a pile of nail strips and maneuvered them into a trash bag, trying not to tear the plastic. Then she stood staring at the floor, lost in thought. “What’s