Alissa Nutting - Tampa

Most of my time is spent on the beach by the resort hotels or at an open waterfront bar where I sit in wait for disgruntled teenagers fed up at being in a hotel room with their family—sometimes they come out at dusk for a solitary walk. I look for the telltale pallor that implies they’re on vacation; I’m not willing to take any risks on local boys. Instead I give them a name like Mindy or Jenna and tell them I’m on vacation too, state that I’m in college and ask questions that assume they are as well. A few lie and pretend they actually are but most laugh and confess they’re only fourteen, then feel flattered when my interest doesn’t wane. We find the pool-supply sheds of their hotels or one-person fast-food restrooms, dark corners of the beach where two bodies on a towel won’t draw attention. When they insist on a phone number I give them a fake; if they’re adamant about meeting up the next day, I tell them to meet me at a snow cone hut on the opposite end of the beach and never appear.

For now, my youth and looks make this easy. I try not to think about the cold years ahead, when time will slowly poach my youth and my body will begin its untoward changes. I’ll have to pare down to certain types: the motherless boys, or those so sexually ravenous they don’t mind my used condition. Eventually I’ll have to find a better-paying job in an urban area with runaways hungry for cash whom I can buy for an evening. But that won’t be for many more years; there’s lots of fun to be had between then and now.

I’m certainly mindful not to press my luck too far. On slow weeks, I’m training myself to be more content with memories. I have a near-photographic recall of my good times with Jack and Boyd and still think of them often, exactly the way they were when they entered my classroom. Sometimes the thought that they’re now nearly eighteen wraps around my images of their younger selves like a snake, and my stomach reels as I imagine them fully grown. If a vacationing Boyd were to stumble into my bar one night, I would have a visceral reaction of nausea—it would be no less horrifying than seeing a three-hundred-year-old corpse reanimated. The two of them are still my favored fantasy, if only by aggregation—after all, I had them each so many times—but occasionally the subconscious knowledge that they are basically adult men now is so bothersome as to make masturbation difficult. Some nights, in order to orgasm, I have to reimagine history and tell myself that neither of them made it past the eve of my arrest alive: that Jack suffered a fatal wound at my hands in the woods, and Boyd, bleeding alone from the skull in Jack’s bedroom, succumbed to shock and died.

I have enormous gratitude for my agent Jim Rutman, whose encouragement and support nurtured this book from its inception. Your warm humor, avuncular counsel, and savvy feedback have been indispensible assets on this journey, and your unflinching bravery and restrained poker face when exposed to my office décor and fast-food habits are likewise noteworthy of admiration. Thank you for excelling in humanity on all accounts. A hearty thanks also to Dwight Curtis, Kirsten Hartz, Anna Webber, and everyone involved in helping this manuscript find its way.

I’m likewise indebted to my genius editor Lee Boudreaux, who could not possibly be smarter; the brilliant wisdom of your comments was a continually energizing wind, and the nuclear glow of your enthusiasm brightened each day of this great adventure. A boisterous, thundering thanks goes to Karen Maine, Andrea Molitor, Michael McKenzie, all the phenomenal people at Ecco/HarperCollins, and Kathleen Schmidt. Equal thanks go across the pond to Lee Brackstone for his immediate enthusiasm, vision, and belief, as well as the keen notes and fabulous insight that helped shape the book’s final version.

Thank you to the relatives, friends, and peers who surround and support me—I am so lucky to be encircled by a fantastic group of fellow writers, academics, artists, and eccentrics who make a rich creative life possible. Thank you to my family.

For all your unconditional love and support, thank you to my husband, Shawn. You could not be more essential to me, in every way. And thank you to Sparrow, who was my literal copilot for much of the editing of this book. Welcome, my love. You are already my everything.

Alissa Nutting is an assistant professor of creative writing at John Carroll University. She is the author of the award-winning collection of stories Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Oprah, Tin House, Fence and Bomb , among others. This is her first novel.

Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls

First published in the United States in 2013 by HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022

First published in the UK in 2013 by

Faber and Faber Ltd

Bloomsbury House

74-77 Great Russell Street

London WC1B 3DA

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

Copyright © Alissa Nutting, 2013

The right of Alissa Nutting to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

ISBN 978–0–571–30335–9