#ReadWithMC (opens in new tab)-Welcome to Marie Claire's Virtual Book Club. It's a pleasure to meet you, and for the month of January, we will be reading Daniel Evans' "The History Revision Room" (opens in a new tab), a collection of six fascinating short stories and one novel centered on race, grief, love, and identity. Read an excerpt from the book and learn how to join the virtual book club here (opens in new tab). (You really don't have to get off the couch, just click here to join the virtual book club).

When Lissa was seven years old, her mother took her to see a movie about a mermaid who wanted legs. An entire ocean for one man. Lissa was born in a landlocked state, and now, at age 30, working in the gift store in the lobby of the Titanic seemed the most oceanic job she could find. The Titanic was not a metaphor, but a replica of the actual Titanic, with a mini museum on the lower level. [The ship-shaped building was built in the late 90s and was the pet project of an enterprising educational capitalist who wanted to create a visually stunning attraction with a rigorous attention to historical detail. To preserve history, he told the public, and to capitalize on renewed interest in the disaster, he told his investors. He planned to build to scale, but that plan did not stand up to initial cost estimates. With only a quarter of the rooms that the actual Titanic had, most of those rooms are now unfurnished and used as storage rooms, and the custom-made bed frames were sold used during the last recession.

At the end of the summer season, a second-rate pop star rented the entire building to film a music video, shutting down normal business for three full days. Lissa was planning to take the day off, but when the director of the video came to finalize plans for the space, he stopped in front of the store glass, stared for a minute, then walked in and said, "You, you're perfect."

She agreed to remain on site for the shoot and canceled the doctor's appointment, which had already been rescheduled twice. My colleague Mackenzie huffed and puffed on board for the remainder of the afternoon and dove into the director's field of vision herself, but it didn't work out. Mackenzie sometimes worked the gift store counter with her, but that was only occasionally. Whenever there was a princess party, Mackenzie would put on a costume dress and chaperone as princess-on-deck. Lissa had never worked a party. Only once did someone bother to explain this to her (she had not asked), but it was a supervisor mumbling about historical accuracy, i.e., no black princesses.

"We can't have six-year-olds having tea parties on the Titanic getting the wrong idea about history," Lissa said with a straight face.

"I guess they want diversity," Mackenzie said after the director left, air-quoting diversity.

The next day, Mackenzie genuinely conciliated: "Maybe he wants to fuck you. He must think you're exotic."

Not so much exotic as exotic. The theme of the music video is sea monsters, and all the performers, including Pop Star and Lissa, are painted with green body paint, sprayed with glitter, and filmed through a Vaseline lens to create the illusion of being underwater. Pop Star didn't want a boat; he wanted a shipwreck. Lissa wore her usual uniform, worked the counter, and only used costume makeup to make herself look like herself.

Most of the real action took place on the upper deck; during the two days of filming, Lissa only saw the pop star from a distance through the glass, while her longtime backup dancer gossiped about her during coffee breaks. The pop star dedicated the video to her ex-lover, who she told the tabloids had let herself go and looked like a monster in recent photos. The video, about letting herself go, showed her on screen green, fat, and nearly naked. The pop star was skinnier than Lissa had ever been in her life. Lissa understood why she had been chosen and not Mackenzie. The store needed someone who looked like she knew what she was doing behind the counter. She was behind the scenes.

But the director apparently wanted to fuck her. But that was superfluous; it was more like the whim of a guy who always wanted to fuck someone. When not filming, the pop star, her assistant, and the dancers moved together like a flock of fireflies, leaving the director, the technical crew, and the hair and makeup artists to fend for themselves in less glamorous ways. After the second and final day of business, Lissa's last day of shooting, she was closing up store when the director showed up and asked if she wanted a drink.

"Sure," she said.

"I haven't been here long enough to find a good bar, but I have a nice bottle of scotch at the hotel," he said.

Lissa saw the opening. She had been here the whole time. She could tell him where the good bar was. She didn't say. In the hotel bathroom, she scrubbed off her stubbornly remaining green makeup and tried to look as respectable as possible as a woman about to fuck a strange man. When she came out, he was pouring them both drinks, seemingly unaware that she had returned to her full human color. As she took a sip and put down her drink, he reached for her hand and began to trace something on it with his palm.

"Are you trying to divine my fortune?" she asked.

He said. 'But I have a lucky feeling that you are going to make someone very happy.'

It was so sickening, almost endearing.

The first time, he used a condom from the hotel romance kit. It consisted of a single condom and a package of after-dinner mints in a tin with a rose sticker on it; the second time he pulled it out, but not the third time.

"Was it safe? I mean, I know I'm safe," he said. 'But are you doing anything?'

she said. 'I don't have ovaries.'

"Hmm." [My mother died of cancer. So I had mine removed. For safety. Look at the scar."

She turned over and pointed to a faint line across her abdomen.

"I'm sorry," he said, placing his palm on her stomach.

"It's okay," she said.

"No need to pretend it's okay," he said.

"We don't need to be friends," she said.

THE OFFICE OF HISTORICAL CORRECTIONS by Daniel Evans. 288pp. Riverhead Books. Copyright 2020 © Daniel Evans. Reprinted by permission.

If you prefer audio, listen to the excerpt below (opens in new tab) and continue reading in Audible (opens in new tab).

The audio is an excerpt from The Office of Historical Corrections by Daniel Evans, courtesy of Penguin Random House Audio. Narrated by Jonise Abbott-Pratt."