The Summer of Lost Letters

by Hannah Reynolds

  I pushed open the door, and my tension sluiced away.

  Light, air, and faint classical music filled the store. My shoulders relaxed. I breathed easier in rooms full of books, as if the paper retained the capacity of the trees they’d once been. So many books filled this room, more than in my own or my parents’ or our living room, even though we had a wall of built-in shelves. The shop had alleys of books, towering cases of books. You could get lost here. You could be found.

  A woman sat behind the front desk, reading a jacketless hardcover. I smiled with an excessive amount of brightness. “Hi. I’m Abigail Schoenberg. I’m here for the summer?”

  “Oh, perf.” She unfolded with unexpected grace to her feet. “Liz!” she hollered toward the back, then smiled. “I’m Maggie. Let’s get you set up.”

  Maggie was the daughter of the family friend of the acquaintance of my hometown librarian’s sister-in-law (all real connections). She wore a white-and-pink polka-dot dress and a headband, and her partner, Liz, had short purple hair and wore all black. A peanut-butter-and-jelly couple, Mom would call them. Perfectly paired opposites. They had three full-time staff, and hired more during the summer. The other seasonal employees were returning college students; I’d been lucky to get a spot.

  It took only ten minutes to decide I adored Maggie and her noisy cheerfulness. She showed me how to run the register, how to check the shelves for what needed to be pulled and what restocked, how to read the maps for which books belonged on the display tables. One table featured World War II novels, their covers showcasing women with short bobs and long coats. O’ma. I’d spent half the night thinking about her photo. What had her life been like here and at Golden Doors?

  Maggie trained me as people flowed through the store, effortlessly switching from instructive mode to helpful bookseller. Most of the time she seemed to know exactly what the customer wanted before they did. Once, someone said, “I heard about this book on NPR,” and without any other details, Maggie plucked a book from behind her, and it was the right one.

  “How—what—I’m speechless,” I said.

  Maggie laughed. “It’s the book du jour right now. Also, this is as close as I’ll ever get to magical powers, so I need to revel in it whenever I can.”

  She won over even the most difficult of customers. A twentysomething woman dismissed Maggie at first, then finally admitted she was a fantasy reader looking for a new author.

  “N. K. Jemisin?”

  “Read her.”

  “Sharon Shinn?”

  “Read her.”

  “Kate Elliott?”

  “Read her.”

  “Nnedi Okorafor?”

  “Read her.”

  Yet with each rejection, Maggie became more and more excited. “Katherine Addison,” she said. “The Goblin Emperor.”

  The woman paused. Tilted her head. “Hm. No. I don’t think I have.”

  After the customer departed, novel in hand, Maggie collapsed in an overstuffed armchair by the fireplace and small café. She fanned herself with a magazine. I couldn’t decide if it was an affectation or not. I perched on the arm of the chair across from her. “I’m impressed.”

  “I know.” Maggie dropped the magazine to a side table and waved her other arm grandiosely. “As the keepers of knowledge, it is our sacred duty to unite texts and readers.”

  Liz looked up from the computer on the other side of the room. She took care of inventory and finances, and had built their website, where she maintained the blog and user outreach. Maggie handled more of the store’s in-person interactions. “You’re so weird.”

  “I’m brilliant. A wizard. She’ll love the book. And remember the lady from last month who said her son didn’t read, and I convinced her to buy Pawn of Prophecy and she came back three days later and bought the entire series? And the Malloreon?”

  “She’s been dining out on that story for weeks now,” Liz told me.

  “Because it’s wonderful. Like me. So, Abby, this is your first time on Nantucket?”

  I nodded.

  “You’re going to have so much fun. God, I would have loved to have been seventeen on Nantucket.”

  “No, you wouldn’t have,” Liz said. “You were an angry baby goth at seventeen.”

  “True,” Maggie said amicably. “I’ve mellowed in my old age. I’ve become basic.”

  I loved Maggie and Liz’s banter, yet the closer we came to the end of my shift, the more tension wound around my body, pulling me tight and stiff. By four thirty, I started every time the door chimes heralded a new customer.

  And after half a dozen false starts, they heralded him.

  It was almost a surprise, I’d gotten so used to it not being Noah. I froze in the middle of the Mystery aisle, the book in my hand half-shelved. Noah’s determined gaze fastened on me almost immediately, and he stopped on the other side of my cart of books, his hair wind-mussed. “So you do work here.”

  “Yeah.” I shoved the book firmly into place. “But I can’t leave until five.”

  “Fine.”

  I shelved another book. And another. Then I looked at him again. “Are you just going to stand there?”

  He shrugged. “Gotta kill these ten minutes somehow.”

  “Hm.”

  “You could help me find a book.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Sure.”

  “What kind of book?”

  “You’re the bookstore girl.”

  “Well, what do you normally read?” I looked him up and down. “James Joyce? David Foster Wallace?”

  “Why are you smirking?”

  “I’m not smirking.”

  “I like sci-fi,” he said, which surprised me. “John Scalzi. And Le Guin.”

  “Huh.” I reconsidered him. “Interesting.”

  He gave me a wary look. “Why?”

  Because I’d been being judgmental and now I need to reevaluate. “Have you read the Ancillary books? By Leckie?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “If you like Le Guin, you might like her. And maybe the Expanse books by Corey.” Always good to recommend a book made into a TV show. I pulled the first books in both series and brought them to the register, taking his card when he handed it over. “Platinum. Cute.”

  He scowled.

  Payback for mocking my license picture, bro. I studied his name. “Noah Ari Barbanel.”

  “You want to memorize the number, too?”

  “I’ll think about it.” I handed the card and books back, receipt tucked beneath a cover.

  “No bag?”

  “We’re in the middle of an environmental crisis.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nantucket’s going to be buried beneath the waves in several centuries.” I made a falsely apologetic moue as I delivered the tidbit, imparted to me by Jane alongside the cedar-shingle facts.

  He looked annoyed. “You don’t need to lecture me about Nantucket.”

  “Noah!” From the back room, Maggie emerged. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “Hi, Ms. M.” He smiled, and I looked away. Rather unsportsmanlike of him to be incredibly wealthy, well-read, and stunningly good-looking.

  “How are you? Did you just arrive?”

  “Last week, yeah. How are you?”

  “We’re great, ramping up for the season. Have you met Abigail? She’ll be here all summer.”

  Now he turned the smile on me, but it sharpened. “We go way back. We’re about to head out, actually, if she’s done with her shift?”

  “Oh, really?” Maggie looked at me curiously. “What are you two up to tonight?”

  “Just some casual interrogation,” he said lightly.

  Why did I feel hot and embarrassed all over? “I’ll go grab my bag.”

  Once we were
outside, he slipped his books into my purse. “Since you denied me a bag.”

  “Hmph. You know Maggie?”

  “It’s a small island. Cross here.”

  We crossed Main and headed toward the harbor. “Where are we going?”

  “We’re walking.”

  “Anywhere in particular?”

  “Nope. So what’s your deal?”

  I swallowed. “Straight to it, huh.”

  “You have me on pins and needles.”

  “Fine. What do you want to know?”

  “Let’s start with the basics.” He fixed me with his gaze, and since he had at least a head on me, I had to crane my neck back to meet it. The sun cast a golden halo around his curls, as though the universe itself had decided to surround him with angelic light. “Why were you in my grandfather’s study?”

  We’d reached the wooden wharves, and I looked out at the harbor. Nantucket Sound lay flat as glass today. Small skiffs bobbed gently above their reflections. The ocean looked tamed, pinned down by boats, hemmed in by docks and land. A lie. The ocean could never be tamed. “He knew my grandmother.”

  “Okay . . .”

  I shoved my hands in my dress’s pockets and met his eyes. “He wrote her love letters. I found them a couple of months ago.”

  Surprise widened his eyes. “You think my grandfather’s writing your grandmother love letters?”

  “No, not now, decades ago.”

  “When?”

  “From 1952 to 1958. She was eighteen at the beginning and he was twenty-two.”

  Noah shook his head decisively. “Couldn’t have been him.”

  “Really? Because it was from an Edward at Golden Doors.”

  “Edward’s a popular name. It might have been a gardener, a cook, a cleaner—”

  Good lord, a regular Downton Abbey of staff. “And he wrote about painting light.”

  “What?”

  “In one of the letters, he wrote about painting the light on the ocean. I saw one of your grandfather’s paintings in his study.”

  Noah scowled. “Maybe they weren’t love letters.”

  “Um.” I thought about some of the more, ah, romantic passages. “They were love letters.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Why?” I took a stab. “Because Edward married your grandmother in 1958?”

  “How do you know that?” he snapped.

  I took a step back, surprised at his ferocity. “It’s this newfangled device I call Google.”

  “Well.” Noah pressed his lips into a fine line. “He did. So he wouldn’t have been writing love letters to another girl the same year.”

  Oof. I stared at the soft-looking texture of his polo shirt. “I hate to break it to you . . .”

  “Don’t.” He started walking

  “What? I’m not passing judgment. But it’s a possibility.” I hurried a few steps to catch up with his long-legged strides. “Aren’t you curious?”

  “About if my grandpa was cheating on my grandma? No.”

  “Maybe your grandparents didn’t meet until Edward and my grandmother ended. And, uh, married really fast.”

  “My grandparents dated for years before they got married.”

  I paused. Years? But Edward and O’ma had written love letters for six years. And some of the letters had been rather steamy. And he’d definitely never mentioned a Helen. “Maybe they were on and off? Or took a break? Which, totally reasonable. Who wants to stay with one person their entire life?” When he shot me a skeptical look, I expounded. “It’s unrealistic to think your first love will be your final love. People change, you know? Maybe you’re totally, madly in love one day, and then you’re not.”

  He looked at me with a little more interest, as though seeing me as a person instead of a problem. “I take it you went through a breakup recently.”

  “Rude.” I sighed. “My boyfriend dumped me four months ago. It’s fine. He wasn’t so impressive.”

  “Then why were you dating him?”

  “Great question.” Matt and I hadn’t been friends first—I ran in a low-key artsy/nerdy crowd, whereas he’d focused on racking up achievements, be it soccer captain or president of National Honor Society or debate club. We’d been partnered together in Chem, and things had rolled from there. “He looked impressive on paper. Which I guess was his whole point. It turned out being in a relationship got in the way of building up his college resume.”

  “Rough.”

  “Not my fave life experience, yeah.”

  We walked a few more paces. “Okay,” Noah said, “so you think since your relationship didn’t work, no relationships work, and so my grandfather must have cheated on my grandmother?”

  “Oh my god, are you for real? You’re extrapolating way too much.”

  He laughed.

  “Why are you laughing?”

  He grinned at me. “Good use of extrapolation.”

  “Thanks. I think.”

  “And so you came to my house to—what?”

  “Oh.” I shoved my glasses higher on my nose. “I didn’t mean to snoop, honest. But I’ve been trying to get in touch with your grandfather for months—”

  “What?” He stared at me. “You want to talk to my grandfather?”

  “Yeah. If he was writing my grandmother letters—”

  “No.” Noah shook his head firmly. “Don’t drag him into this. What’s your grandmother say?”

  “She died. Last year.”

  “Oh.” He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks.”

  We stood in silence a few moments before another question burst out of him. “What do you want from my grandfather?”

  “To know about my grandmother. We had no idea she’d ever been to Nantucket. We don’t know much about her family; she barely said anything about them. Maybe this guy—your grandfather—knows more about her, more about them. Besides, it’s wild to think she was in love with someone when she was my age, then never mentioned him again.”

  “Because you plan to tell future generations about Impressive on Paper?”

  A reluctant laugh burst out of me. “No. Though I’m not sure I’d say we were in love. I mean, not the way these two were. Also—” I hesitated.

  “What?”

  I lifted my chin, aware this part could be contentious. “He had one of her belongings. A necklace. I want to know what happened to it.”

  He looked out across the flat, endless sea, then back. “No.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I get being curious about your family’s past.” He shoved his hands in his pocket and gazed down at me. “But prying into things from decades ago? This isn’t worth talking to my grandfather about.”

  I bristled. “I didn’t realize you got to decide which conversations have value and which don’t.”

  “Look.” He sighed. “I’m sure you’re a nice girl. But you’re not from here. You don’t have the full picture. This isn’t an adventure where you can play Nancy Drew. My grandparents are real people, and they don’t need you stirring things up.”

  “I’m not trying to ‘stir anything up’—”

  “Aren’t you? Because I’d say coming to an island for the whole summer says otherwise.”

  “I just want to talk to some people—”

  He pinned me with an authoritarian stare. “‘People’?”

  I hesitated, flustered. “Well, yeah. Your grandfather, and anyone else on the island who was alive then and might have known her—there’s some names and places in the letters—”

  “So you’re definitely planning to stir things up.” He looked furious. “This isn’t your family. This isn’t your island. Stay out of this.”

  Frustration gathered in my stomach, hot and tight. Usually I tried to reserve my attitude fo
r my family and present everyone else with a softer, politer facade. Girls were supposed to be nice, after all.

  I was so tired of being nice.

  “You know what, Noah Barbanel? This isn’t up to you.” Our gazes tangled, angry and stubborn both. “You can’t dictate what I do. I don’t need your permission to talk to people.”

  He pressed his lips together. “I could pay you not to.”

  “Are you kidding?” Fury flashed through me, hot and sharp. Who did this guy think he was? “You can’t buy me off.”

  “Why not?”

  “Screw you.” I didn’t even know how to react; I’d been robbed of whatever small articulateness I’d ever possessed.

  “I’m not trying to insult you. Think about it.”

  “I’m not going to think about it! You can’t go through life paying people off to get what you want. That’s not how the world works.” At his skeptical look, I corrected myself: “It’s not how the world should work. Not if you have any integrity.”

  His jaw hardened. “You do not have the high ground here, Abigail Schoenberg. You broke into my home. You went through my family’s things.”

  “You’re right. I messed up. But I have a right to try to find out about my grandmother’s history.”

  “And I have a right to protect my family’s privacy. I’m telling you, Abigail. Leave them alone.”

  “This isn’t about your family! It’s about mine.”

  “Really?” His eyes were flinty. “Because I don’t see your family on Nantucket. They’re not the ones who’ll have to deal with any fallout.”

  “What fallout? I just want to ask questions!”

  “Don’t.” His gaze bore into mine, hard as fossilized wood. “I can make your life difficult if you insist.”

  I stepped back. “Are you threatening me?”

  “I’m just saying. I can help you or hinder you. Your choice.”

  “Screw you, Noah Barbanel.” I pulled his books out of my bag and held them out. I couldn’t even articulate my rage. “Seriously, screw you.”