Excerpt from Your Face in Mine by Jess Row, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

We've stopped at the end of the dried goods aisle, the aisle of staples, and I'm teetering on the edge of the snacks aisle: lychee gummies, shrimp chips, dried squid, mango slices in foil, and three or four rows of Pocky, that bizarre Japanese name for pretzel sticks dipped in coatings of one or another artificially flavored candy. Pocky comes in cigarette- sized packs with flip- top lids, and there is, in addition to strawberry, raspberry, and vanilla, Men's Pocky, plain chocolate, in a distinguished pine-green. It's never been clear to me whether this is an elaborate inside joke on the part of the manufacturer or a sincere message to the consumer. There is Men's Pocky, but not Women's Pocky. Am I supposed to be reassured, not having to make a choice?

Racial reassignment surgery.

Yeah, of course, surgery. But it's more than that. It's a long process.

Meaning, I have to say— I strain to form the words— meaning you were always black. Like a sex change. Inside you always felt black.

Damn, he says. You get right to the point, don't you? I don't remember you being this direct, Kelly.

Martin, I say, without quite being able to look at him— I cast my eyes up to the stained ceiling tile, the fluorescent panel lamps dotted with dead flies— we're not going to see each other again, are we? Isn't that the point? You wanted a new life. I'm certainly not going to intrude.

Anyone can get a new life, he says. It's easy to fall off the map. I don't recall you ever trying to track me down. And all of you guys left, anyway. Am I just repeating the obvious here? I never thought I'd see you back in Baltimore. You get hired by Hopkins?

No, I say. I'm not an academic. Not anymore. I work in public radio.

No kidding? You mean, what is it, 91. 1? The Hopkins station?

No, the other one. WBCC. 107. 3.

Oh, yeah. Right. Way up at the top of the dial. I always wondered why there were two.

Are you a listener?

Heck no, he says. I listen to XM. No offense, I like the news sometimes, but not all that turtleneck- sweater, mandolin, Lake Wobegon stuff. Not my thing.

Yeah. I understand.

You do? You understand?

I read the surveys, runs through my mind, that's my job, I know the demographics. I could break down our audience into the single percentiles. Look, I say, I mean, it's not a secret. It's a problem. We think about it every day. We want to be a station for the whole city, you know, Baltimore, and we're just not. It's an issue. I'm trying, believe me.

He whistles through his teeth. Maybe you're the man for me, he says. I need somebody to help me with this project. This idea I have. A communicator. He takes a slim billfold from his front pocket— the long, old- fashioned kind, meant to fit in a blazer— and takes out a glossy orange business card. Martin Wilkinson, Orchid Imports LLC.

You changed your name.

You know many brothers named Martin Lipkin?

It's just one in a long list of inconceivable things I've had to conceive of in the last fifteen minutes, so I nod nonchalantly.

And what, you sell orchids?

No, no. Electronics. My wife came up with the name.

Okay, I say, nodding again, a yes- man.

So you'll email me? Can I buy you lunch?

Is that really a good idea? I ask him. I mean, I know you. Aren't I kind of a liability? A piece of personal history?

I trust you, he says, staring at me, boxing me in, so that I'm forced to look straight at his coffee- colored pupils— just the same as before, at least as far as I remember. Listen, he says, we can act like this never happened. If that's what you want. Either way, you'll respect my privacy. I know that much. So I'm just asking: you want to come with me a little further down this road, Kelly? You curious? You want the whole story?

Excerpted from Your Face in Mine by Jess Row. Copyright © 2014 by Jess Row. Excerpted by permission of Riverhead Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.