Excerpt from Real Americans by Rachel Khong, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

How are you?

"Lei hou ma!" I called back. "I'm okay," I added, in English.

Mrs. Chin's hair, newly permed, shimmered with auburn highlights—Mr. Peng's handiwork. From a plastic bag with a happy face on it, she pulled out a bun. The yeast smelled sweet. Did I want one? I shook my head. Not today.

The bell on the café door gave its meek ring. I ordered my regular latte—the latte I shouldn't have been buying, because I didn't make any money. I sat to drink it. A dark-haired man held a bagel to a child's small mouth, waiting for the child to accept a bite. I followed his gaze to the New York City street, where nothing appeared out of the ordinary: people, pigeons, bags of trash. Holding the bagel steady, the father's mind traveled elsewhere. It was a look I remembered my mother wearing when I was a child—one I resented. How dare she think of anything but me?

The father and child began to speak in another language I couldn't make out. Then the man turned, suddenly, catching me in my stare. I dropped my gaze, feeling my ears redden.

There were the regular café sounds: the low rumble of milk being steamed, the crinkling of paper bags when pastries were slid in. A man in his fifties, a Wall Street type, ate a cookie noisily and peered at his pager.

I returned to the register to order the coffee I brought to my boss every day. It was a dark roast stirred with two pink packets of Sweet'N Low, made paler with half-and-half, until it was "the color of Halle Berry," he'd instructed proudly on my first day, as if that wasn't a terrible thing to say.

On the four blocks to the office I dodged tourists wearing backpacks and bucket hats, holding red bags from the discount designer store. They moved slowly, their faces stupid with awe. I walked fast, with purpose, gripping the cup of coffee, which burned through its cardboard sleeve, proud to be inured to a cityscape that instilled marvel in everyone else. When I entered the immense glass building, I did so with a sense of importance and authority: I worked here. I was an unpaid intern, but still.

Our building was new, a futuristic marvel of glass and steel that curved slightly upward. The elevator was a point of pride. It took me to the twentieth floor within minutes, where I handed Jerry his coffee, which he accepted in his sausagey pink fingers without a word. The flesh on his ring finger bulged around his wedding ring, the way trees grew around old signs or objects. I remembered a photo from the magazine, from somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—a tree growing bark over a boy's bicycle, as though swallowing it. The boy who'd owned the bicycle was an old man by now. Jerry nodded, to indicate the coffee was to his liking.

I spent the next four hours brightening images. When Jerry left early, as he did every evening, I opened Usenet. I had never posted before, so I created a username: TimelessinNY. I typed out my question: Does anyone ever feel like time gets stuck? I have these moments when time won't move. A minute lasts forever. Awaiting responses, I searched for "jobs for art history major." Curator, docent, teacher. It was difficult to picture myself as any of those things. I would be graduating in the spring, and what I wished for was some clear way forward—some passion, like my parents had, that would give my life meaning. I had not inherited their gift for science or, sometimes it seemed, for anything at all.

Before I left for the day, I checked the message board for replies.

There were none.

* * *

At the company's holiday party, the tree was false and towering. The Santa was Latino, his red velvet suit emblazoned with the company's logo. A boy band's Christmas album played too loudly. Our larger parent company had rented out a floor of a hotel in Chelsea, lined with windows, giving us a 360-degree view of Manhattan. With money they weren't paying me, I thought. Before leaving for the party, I'd noticed a run in my only pair of black stockings. I drew a line on

Excerpted from Real Americans by Rachel Khong. Copyright © 2024 by Rachel Khong. Excerpted by permission of Knopf. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.