“[A] bizarre and endearing debut . . . We can’t remember the last time we met a character this singular or read a book this funny.”-- “Sleek and darkly comical . . . with the melancholic wit and whimsy of Miranda July.” Cross the jet bridge with Linda, a frequent flyer with an unusual obsession, in this “audaciously imagined and surprisingly tender” (Rachel Yoder, author of A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Linda is doing her best to lead a life that would appear normal to the casual observer. Weekdays, she earns $20 an hour moderating comments for a video-sharing platform, then rides the bus home to the windowless garage she rents on the outskirts of San Francisco. But on the last Friday of each month, she indulges her true passion, taking BART to SFO for a round-trip flight to a regional hub. The destination is irrelevant, because each trip means a new date with a handsome stranger--a stranger whose intelligent windscreens, sleek fuselages, and powerful engines make Linda feel a way that no human ever could. . . . Linda knows that she can’t tell anyone she’s sexually obsessed with planes. Nor can she reveal her belief that it’s her destiny to “marry” one of her suitors, uniting with her soulmate plane for eternity. But when an opportunity arises to hasten her dream of eternal partnership, and the carefully balanced elements of her life begin to spin out of control, she must choose between maintaining the trappings of normalcy and launching herself headlong toward the love she’s always dreamed of. Both subversive and unexpectedly heartwarming, <Sky Daddy< hijacks the classic love story, exploring desire, fate, and the longing to be accepted for who we truly are....

Autorentext

Kate Folk is the author of the short story collection Out There. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Granta, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, and Zyzzyva. A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, she’s also received support from the Headlands Center for the Arts, MacDowell, and Willapa Bay AiR. She lives in San Francisco.

Leseprobe
Chapter 1

Call me Linda. My tale begins in January, when I was invited to a Vision Board Brunch hosted by my coworker Karina Carvalho. According to Karina, the vision boards, crafted from common drugstore materials, could be used to manifest anything a person wanted in life. I was receptive to the idea, as I’d always subscribed to the notion of an intelligent universe, a web of predestination in which we all were tangled. Only such a cosmic force could bring about my dream of marriage to a plane—what others vulgarly refer to as a “plane crash.” I believed this was my destiny: for a plane to recognize me as his soulmate midflight and, overcome with passion, relinquish his grip on the sky, hurtling us to earth in a carnage that would meld our souls for eternity. I couldn’t alter my fate, but perhaps, with the vision board’s help, I could hasten its arrival.

Karina had told me about previous VBBs, which her friend group convened at the start of each quarter, but this was the first one she’d invited me to, and I took it as a sign she wanted to deepen our friendship. I was so excited to see the evite in my inbox, I RSVP’d “yes” before considering the risk of revealing my dream to a gathering of normal women. I suspected Karina’s friends would balk at a vision board comprising only photos of planes, or worse, crashed planes strewn in postcoital debris. The imagery might offend Karina most of all, as she was fearful of flying and had vowed never to set foot on a plane again. It was this quality that first drew me to her when I came to Acuity, where we both worked as content moderators for a video-sharing platform. I’d found her trembling in the break room, and learned that she’d just witnessed gruesome footage of plane wreckage in her queue of flagged videos. I comforted her, resisting the urge to inquire about the specifics of the wreckage and whether it could be viewed elsewhere on the internet. I’d always considered aerophobes my spiritual comrades, their fear and my desire flip sides of the same coin, and from that day forward, I knew Karina and I shared a special bond.

As the VBB approached, I’d reached an impasse. I couldn’t truthfully present my vision, nor did it seem wise to craft a fraudulent board. I didn’t want to give the universe the wrong idea, which might cause it to mix up my destiny with another person’s, as when a traveler picks up the wrong suitcase at baggage claim. I began to think it was safer not to attend, though I knew Karina would be disappointed.

On Thursday, Karina and I went to our usual happy hour at the sushi place on the ground floor of our office building. The VBB cycled venues, with a different member hosting each quarter, and this Sunday, it was Karina’s turn.

“I’m making three types of mimosa,” she said, her brown eyes gleaming beneath fluffy mink lashes. “Celia will be at work, so we’ll have the whole house to ourselves.” Karina lived with her fiancé, Anthony, at his mom’s house in Daly City. Like me, they lived in a room off the garage, though unlike mine, their room had a window. I’d never been, but I’d seen pictures of the space, and it looked cozy: tile floor, tulip wall sconces, Scarface poster, Anthony’s immaculate sneaker collection lined against a wall.

“Will Anthony be there?” I asked.

“Probably, but he’ll stay downstairs.” Karina frowned, setting down her sake cup. “Don’t you like Anthony?”

I recalled previous happy hours during which Karina had expressed dissatisfaction with Anthony, always for good reason. There were the flirtatious Instagram messages she’d discovered between Anthony and his coworker at the fastcasual pizza restaurant. There was his novelty T-shirt business, into which Karina had sunk large sums of her earnings, with little promise of her investment ever paying off. There was his habit of forgetting important dates, such as Karina’s birthday and their anniversary. I’d learned to be cautious when speaking of Anthony, to discover exactly where Karina stood on the subject of the man on that day before voicing any sentiment.

“I’ve only met him a few times,” I told her now. “I like whoever you like, Karina.” I was impressed by my own diplomacy. Perhaps I’d overheard someone saying this on the bus.

“Well, he likes you,” Karina said. “He’s always asking, ‘What’s Lindy up to?’”

“That’s nice of him.” I was surprised to hear that Anthony held any opinion of me. I took a sip of sake. “I’m not sure I can make it on Sunday,” I said carefully.

Karina’s eyes narrowed. “Why not? I thought you were coming.”

“My landlords are having a garage sale,” I lied. “They want me to help out.”

“You really don’t want to miss it,” she said, gnawing an edamame shell. “The Q1 VBB is always the most powerful. It sets the tone for the whole year.”

I told Karina I’d try my best, though I’d already decided against going. While it pained me to squander an opportunity to nudge the universe on behalf of my destiny, the risk of exposure was too great. I could not do anything that might compromise my position in society—my job and my housing—which in turn would threaten my prospects of marriage to a plane.

From happy hour, I took BART to SFO, hoping the AirTrain would boost my spirits. I planned to ride the Red Line’s loop for …