Excerpt from Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I was unfamiliar with this section of Chinatown, as much as anyone can be unfamiliar with an island on which one resides. The area a few blocks over was experiencing a mini-resurgence in the form of vegan provisions and upscale boutiques manned by Parsons students (the prices could be guessed by multiplying hanger distance and overhead). This was perplexing to me, as there was nothing to resurge. The neighborhood had been fashionable for years. Whatever businesses opened now did not arise from cheap rents or a triangulation of community and so ladling on layers of practiced nonchalance made it feel as if people with no sense of history had planted a flag in a neighborhood where the denizens had been drinking natural wine since 2005.

All this cool I wanted to avoid. All this cool made me tired.

So I made a left, toward Houston, into a less self-consciously trendy zone. There were remnants of a street fair, racks of stiff leather jackets spilling out onto the street. I passed an art gallery with no art, a dive bar with no sign, and buzzers with no names. Eventually, I spotted the telltale yellow of an electric awning. This was a high-class bodega; the kind with enough energy bars to set the mind to calculating how long the body could last if trapped inside. I waited behind an elderly man as he selected lotto numbers and a pack of Merits. The hem of his pants dragged along the floor as the cashier suffered him patiently. Atop the register was a wide-eyed plastic cat, its paw moving up and down in silent protest.

When it was my turn, I felt compelled to be extra sane. I forwent matches in a tone that suggested I was giving up my inheritance.

"I'll take a lighter, too," I said. "Please."

The cashier slid one across the plastic counter. I gave the metal wheel a quick roll.

"Don't light that in your pocket," he warned.

"I wouldn't dream of it."

Actually, I would dream of it and often did. I worried that I'd be mindlessly playing with a lighter in my pocket and set myself on fire. I thought about it so much, it was a miracle it never happened.

I walked back along the same side of the street, packing the cigarettes against my palm. I got a disproportionate kick out of pleasant interactions with strangers. I suspect it's because these were the kinds of interactions I wished I could see performed by every man I'd ever dated. Or vice versa. So many of my past relationships devolved into fights on public transport or long chains of undignified texts and I'd think: If only I could see you, flipping through your mail. Or booking airline tickets. And if only you could see me, wishing the driver a good night. Or either of us, reciting our social security numbers to prove we are ourselves. Where did these seductively functional people go when sex got in the way?

It was then that I spotted my ex-boyfriend Amos.

Amos was standing outside the restaurant with a taller friend. The two of them shared a square of sidewalk, the friend running his thumb under the strap of a messenger bag to relieve the weight. I could tell they'd just come from inside. Larger forces had protected us from seeing each other, but larger forces had done all they could. When I left and came back, they'd washed their hands of me.

Excerpted from Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley. Copyright © 2022 by Sloane Crosley. Excerpted by permission of MCD. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.