Excerpt from The Blondes by Emily Schultz, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

She handed the keys over the partition between us. I remember being relieved I wasn't on the fourth floor anymore-there was no elevator in the place; it was a long, steep climb every day; and I suspected they'd put me there to give me the exercise. In spite of this, I'd lost no weight since my arrival. And every time I got to the top of those stairs, my chest would heave like an old engine.

"What we look like?" the concierge asked, a hint of distrust in her voice. "Like, you study advertising or something?"

"Yeah," I said with some resignation. "Like advertising."

"So you make ad campaigns?"

"No. It's complicated. I just look at them."

"They give you a degree for that?" she asked.

I nodded. "Communication Studies, PhD."

That's when she told me there was someone in three-oh-six. She told me that I'd hafta share the bathroom, that it was in the hall between our two rooms. "But it's only for the one night. She'll be out tomorrow."

I said fine, and the landlady slid me a form. I printed my name, then signed it in cursive for her:Hazel Hayes.

A smile played across her lips when I passed the document back, and she said, not derisively but as if it had only just occurred to her: "Maybe I should go back to school."

She was a decade or more older than me. I thought her name was Natalie, but couldn't have said for sure. I still don't know. Let's say it was. I forced my lips up at Natalie as if I'd never heard that kind of response to my thesis before. "Maybe!"

It pays to be polite. Especially to someone who brings you clean towels.

* * *

It's surprising what the mind remembers, and what it forgets.

My new room had velvet drapes, peach. The light came through, giving the white space inside a soft, womb-like glow. It felt hidden, and I immediately liked that. The bed was the same as the one in my previous room, a double with an old gold frame and a quilt, and beside it was the same basic round table that would become my desk. I had bought my suitcase in Toronto's Chinatown for twenty-two dollars before I left for New York, and now I unloaded it once again and placed my things into the dresser. The drawers were not deep, but I didn't have many clothes, so it worked out. When I was done with the clothes, there was nothing left in the suitcase except the paper bag with the drugstore initials. I'm sorry to tell you I didn't remove it. Not then.

Instead, I flipped the suitcase shut and unzipped the side pocket, where I had stashed some of my books and photographs. I had a fabric CD case, full of sleeves that contained DVDs people had given me or I had downloaded over the years. Schlock and art movies kissed inside the plastic sleeves. I wish I still had them, but the government seized them. They're gone now, like everything.

I also had the journals. They contained articles with titles such as "Beauty's Moral Majority: A Meaning-based Explanation for Complexions Used in Advertising," "Barbie's Secret Plan for World Domination," and "Metaphor in the Microprint," which was an examination of metonymic progression in beauty product ingredients-i.e., how to come up with a comforting phrase for "includes placenta" or "exactly like Preparation H but for facial use." Things I hoped to reference in my own work. It's strange to think how, only a few months later, they seem hopelessly archaic.

In the side pocket of that suitcase were two photographs. I hadn't taken them out in my last room. Bringing the first was an accident-or at least, not my choice. My best friend, Larissa, had presented it to me when she drove me to the airport in Toronto. Presented is the only word for it. The way Larissa gave gifts always made them seem bigger and grander than they were. This photo had been housed in a cheap dollar-store frame but gift-wrapped in expensive Japanese paper.

"In case you need something to stare at in New York besides the brick wall of the building next door," she'd said, which, I have to admit, turned out to be not inappropriate.

Excerpted from The Blondes by Emily Schultz. Copyright © 2015 by Emily Schultz. Excerpted by permission of Thomas Dunne Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.