by Abbi Waxman
“I do?”
Polly leaned back against the nearest bookcase and nodded. “Do you remember the time the Spin studio flooded and you were completely thrown, because you had scheduled a Spin class and you weren’t sure if you could fit anything else in?”
Nina tugged her away from the bookcase, straightened the books, and frowned at her. “Well, Spin takes eighty-two minutes, and that’s what I had allotted.”
“Exactly. The very fact that you know Spin takes eighty-two minutes . . .” Polly paused. “Wait. Spin class is forty-five minutes long.”
Nina nodded. “Yes, but it takes three minutes for me to walk there from here, seven minutes for me to change, a minute to adjust the bike and get a towel, two minutes afterward to cool down enough to leave the gym without dripping on everything, fourteen minutes to walk to Chipotle and get a salad, and then ten minutes to walk home from Chipotle to my place.”
“How on earth can you predict that getting dinner will take fourteen minutes? What if there’s a long line, or their salad bar catches fire?”
“They don’t have a salad bar. Plus, lettuce isn’t the engine of combustion you seem to think it is.”
Polly looked exasperated. “That’s not the point. I’m saying life is unpredictable. Any number of random things could happen.”
“Of course,” said Nina. “My plan is based on averages and experience. It takes that much time, like, most of the time, so I plan accordingly. I can be flexible. I can roll with the punches.”
Polly snorted. “What about when Phil got worms and you had to take him to the vet?”
“That’s a great example,” replied Nina, starting to be a little stung. “I cleared my schedule completely that day. No hesitation at all.”
Polly laughed. “Yeah, because you couldn’t work out how to reschedule everything to allow for the vet appointment, so instead of trying, you canceled it all.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that you’re inflexible.” Polly smiled at Nina. “And that you’d rather blow it all up than spend time fixing things. But it doesn’t really matter, unless you care that you missed out on a date because of it.”
Nina shook her head. “He wasn’t right for me, anyway. He didn’t read.”
“Reading isn’t the only thing in the world, Nina.”
“It’s one of only five perfect things in the world.”
“And the other four are?”
“Cats, dogs, Honeycrisp apples, and coffee.”
“Nothing else?”
“Sure, there are other things, even good things, but those five are perfect.”
“In your opinion.”
“Yes, of course in my opinion. Everyone has a different five perfect things.”
Polly thought about it. “I can get behind that. Mine would be movies, steak frites, Jude Law in his thirties, clean sheets at night, and indoor plumbing.”
“Mine would be making a profit, keeping a bookstore open, books that get shelved, orders that get filled, and employees who don’t stand around talking,” said Liz as she appeared suddenly behind them.
“See?” said Nina airily, picking up a list of customer orders. “Everybody has five.”
Sixteen
In which Nina reads, and texts, and reads again.
There are people who have no time for books. Nina had met those people; usually they came into the bookstore to ask for directions and would then look about confusedly when they realized they were surrounded by these strange paper oblongs. Maybe they had rich fantasy lives, or maybe they were raised by starfish who had no access to dry printed material, who knows, but Nina judged them and felt guilty for doing so.
She had always been a bookworm. There was a picture hanging on her bathroom wall that showed her lying on a rug somewhere, fast asleep, surrounded by books. She had been around one, maybe. She was still traveling around with her mom at that point, going where she went and sleeping where she slept. But even then, the only constant thing—apart from Candice Hill and her camera, of course—had been books. On her shelves somewhere she had The Tale of Peter Rabbit (the single story, not a collection) in English, French, Tagalog, Russian, Greek, Hindi, and Welsh. They hadn’t visited all those countries together, but once Nina was settled in Los Angeles it became somewhat of a thing for her mom to send her Peter Rabbit from wherever she was working. Nina still found herself occasionally hunting online for languages she didn’t have, although it felt like cheating to order them all on eBay. Besides, she didn’t have the shelf space.
Shelf space was always a problem for the dedicated booklover. Nina had three large floor to ceiling bookcases, a stroke of good fortune that made her friends gasp when they first walked into her apartment. One entire bookcase was Book of the Month selections, which was a problem, because they kept coming—monthly, naturally—but space was running out. Louise had given her a membership when she turned eighteen, and she had tried very hard to restrict herself to only one a month, but that still meant she now had over 120 beautiful, hard-backed books in that one section alone. Another section was books that had been signed by their authors; again, an easy hundred of those. She was strict about only including books she’d had signed in person; buying them already signed didn’t count. In a totally separate, smaller, glass-fronted bookcase were rare first editions or interesting printings, which was a much smaller collection, because Nina could only afford those occasionally. One time an elderly customer who’d been coming to Knight’s for years brought her a first edition of The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran, and pressed it into her hands.
“I’m too old to read the print now, Nina. You should have it. I was given it when I was not much more than a child, and it was special then. I think my mother bought it when she was young.”
Nina had been incredibly touched. “But don’t you want to give it to your son?” She’d met him, once, when he came in with his mother, but she couldn’t remember much about him.
The lady had smiled and shaken her head. “He would be more impressed that it’s worth a little money than by the book itself, and that’s not right. You take it, then I know it will be well taken care of.”
And it was, carefully covered with an acid-free slipcover and frequently admired. It contained Nina’s favorite saying: You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts. She wanted to wear it on a T-shirt, embroider it on a pillow, or maybe tattoo it on her wrist. But the trouble with wordy tattoos is that people start reading them, then you have to stand still while they finish, and then they look up at you and frown and you have to explain yourself . . . Way too much human interaction, plus also the needles, the pain, the fear of the needles and pain. So, no tattoo, but an embroidery wasn’t out of the question.
Another wall was dedicated to books Nina had already read, which were obviously alphabetized by author and then subordered by date of publication. A few years earlier, while recovering from a broken heart, she had purchased a little stamp kit, library tickets, and library ticket pockets, and spent five weekends in a row organizing her library. It turned out that her heart was only slightly dented and that five weeks is exactly how long you need to spend distracting yourself in order to realize it. Plus, now she could keep track of every time she reread her books or, on the rare occasion she had a friend who could be trusted, when she loaned them out.
Libraries were her favorite places, and when she traveled, she would start out at the local library, thus immediately identifying herself as a total nerd. They say you always remember your first time, and Nina definitely did. Walking into the Los Angeles Central Library to get her first library card, when she was eight or so, was still a memory she treasured. The entry hall of the library was as beautiful as any cathedral, and Nina had looked around and realized she would never run out of things to read, and that certainty filled her with peace and satisfaction. It didn’t matter what hit the fan; as long as there were unread books in the world, she would be fine. Being surrounded by books was the closest sh
e’d ever gotten to feeling like the member of a gang. The books had her back, and the nonfiction, at least, was ready to fight if necessary.
So, Thursday night was reading night, the best night. She had a routine: She left work, she picked up dinner, she got home, she ate, she showered, she put on pajamas and special fluffy socks that she preheated in the microwave, and then she curled up in her enormous chair and read until her eyes crossed.
That night she was reading The Human Comedy by William Saroyan. Liz had been horrified when Nina had said she’d never read anything by him and insisted she take it home immediately.
“Some people say he’s too sentimental, but I think he’s one of the few writers brave enough to write about the intense beauty of love and joy and the ugliness and fear they sometimes cause.”
Nina had looked at her and raised her eyebrows. Liz had shrugged. “See, that’s the kind of statement one makes after reading Saroyan; you can’t help it.”
Nina was enjoying the book; the writing was beautiful, the characters were real, the situations were bittersweet, but it was after an hour or so of reading that she came across a line that struck her so forcefully she had to close the book for a moment: “I’m lonely,” the young character Ulysses said, “and I don’t know what I’m lonely for.”
Nina knew that double whammy: the emotion itself and the frustration of not being able to put it into words. She’d read somewhere that if you can’t put language around an experience or feeling it’s because it’s from your earliest childhood, before speech, when everything was inexplicable and overwhelming. She often felt that way when she was alone in a crowd of people. She’d look at their faces, and ideas would hover on the edge of her mind just out of sight. If she tried to capture them, they’d dig themselves deeper like sand crabs, glimpsed for a second as the feelings washed over her and then were gone.
Impulsively, she pulled out her phone and tugged the little slip of paper with Tom’s number from her pocket. Without giving herself time to think it over and change her mind, she texted him.
“Hi, this is Nina. From the bookstore.”
Then she closed her phone and went back to her book. It buzzed. The phone, not the book.
“Hi.”
Hmm, not exactly an inspiring response. But then, “I don’t know any other Ninas, so you don’t need to qualify yourself.”
She sat and thought for a moment, then typed, “I’m sorry if I seemed rude today.”
“No problem.”
She smiled wryly. He wasn’t saying, no, you weren’t rude, don’t worry about it. He was saying, yes, you were rude, but I’m prepared to accept it and move on. “I have a lot going on right now.”
“So I could see.”
Was he mad at her? It was so difficult in text, and she wondered if her generation’s reliance on written communication was making them better writers or simply more confused people. Body language told you so much; text on its own was subject to misinterpretation in every way possible. You’d think they’d all get very good at subtlety and vocabulary, in order to make their brief conversations more precise, but she hadn’t noticed that trend.
He texted again. “Between chapters?”
He’d remembered what she was doing that night, but did that mean anything? Only that he had a good enough memory to hold a fact for a few hours; let’s not read too much into that, Nina. She pushed down her fluffy sock and scratched where the elastic had been.
“Yes,” she replied. “Something I read made me think of you.”
Dammit. Why had she said that? Now he was going to ask her what, and she was going to have to come up with something, because if she told him it was a line about loneliness, she would suddenly a) reveal too much about herself and b) look like a loser. A lonely, lonely loser.
“Well, it’s nice to hear from you.”
Nina sighed. He’d deflected, thank God.
A few miles away, sitting on a barstool and half watching a soccer game on TV, Tom creased his eyebrows. He’d wanted to ask her what she’d read, but then he’d gotten worried that it would develop into yet another conversation where he felt like an illiterate peasant. He’d managed to dodge that bullet. Now what? It was her turn, so he waited.
Nina knew it was her turn, but she wasn’t sure what to say. At this point she had two broad options: continue the conversation, or sign off. If she signed off, Well, just wanted to apologize for today, she could feel better about herself, but she’d still have to avoid him at quiz night. If she continued the conversation, she . . . wasn’t sure what would happen.
She went with a question. “What are you doing?”
“Watching soccer in a bar on my own.”
Apparently, he wasn’t scared of being seen as a lonely loser, so confidence points to him. “Who’s winning?”
“Not me, that’s for sure.” Even the text looked rueful.
Nina smiled. Tom added, “However, the pistachio farmers of California are gaining ground. I’m surrounded by shells and feel vaguely regretful, despite the fact that I’m chock-full of fat-soluble vitamins.”
He was calling back their conversation at Trivia Night. She blushed, thinking of their kiss.
“Did you know California produces ninety-eight percent of the pistachios in America?”
There was a pause. Then he said, “And they’re only one of two nuts mentioned in the Bible.” She raised her eyebrows, but then he added, “I have Wikipedia, too.”
“I wasn’t using Wikipedia. I have a lot of facts in my head I can’t get rid of.”
“That sounds annoying. And it explains your trivia success.”
“Yes.” She paused again. Did she want to talk about trivia league? Did she want to talk about the contents of her head? That’s one positive thing about texting; you can pause and consider your options, whereas in face-to-face conversation, a silence of three minutes would be weird.
New text from Tom: “What did you have for dinner?”
This she could handle. “Sushi.”
“Huh, me too.”
“So in a way we did have dinner together.” Again, Nina, not a great response.
“And yet, in another, more literal, factual way, we didn’t.”
“True.” She reviewed the conversation. He was quicker and funnier than she had expected.
Suddenly: “Hey, I have to go. Thanks for reaching out.”
And just like that, he was gone. In the bar miles away, Tom stood up to greet the woman who’d said yes to his invitation, while wishing he could be continuing to text Nina instead. He put his phone away, so he wouldn’t look at every notification and be rude. It was tough, but he was a grown-up, so he managed.
After a moment or two of waiting in case he came back, Nina shoved her phone down the side of the chair cushion and picked up her book again.
Three hours later, the book finished, her cheeks a little pink because it was so sad and lovely and sad again, Nina stood up and stretched. Coming out of a book was always painful. She was surprised to see things had remained in place while she herself had been roaming other towns, other times. Phil had been asleep the whole time on the end of her bed, and now he raised his head and blinked at her.
“Coming to bed?” he asked silently, yawning until the tips of his whiskers touched.
Nina nodded and padded around for a moment, turning off lights, checking her door, going to brush her teeth and deciding she couldn’t be bothered, that kind of thing. Finally, she climbed into bed and then had to get out again because she felt bad about not brushing her teeth and because she needed to find her phone so she could set her alarm. For once remembering where she’d put her phone, she slid it up from under the chair cushion and saw she’d missed a message from Tom.
“Good night, tiny bookworm,” it said.
Smiling, she set her alarm and went to sleep.
Seventeen
In which Nina eats dinner with a new friend.
“One time,” said Liz, around a chocolate croissant, “I
had to push a guy out of a moving taxi cab. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, the cab driver was listening to the radio rather than me, and, in my defense, we weren’t going very fast. It was Greenwich Village at eleven on a Friday night. We were crawling along. The guy barely even bounced.”
“Was he upset?” asked Nina. It was Saturday afternoon, during one of those 4 P.M. lulls that sometimes happen. Polly and Nina were sitting on the floor behind the counter, sorting books and listening to Liz’s stories about Dates That Went Wrong.
“Well, he called the next day and asked if I wanted to go out again, so apparently not very.” Liz turned and looked out of the store window, thinking of her twenties and not missing them at all.
“And did you?”
“No. I asked if he was out of his mind and hung up the phone.” Liz smiled. “That was back when you called someone on the phone and had to physically lift a receiver to talk to them.”
“Weird,” said Polly.
“Yeah,” said Liz, “you couldn’t hide behind a veil of casual, the way you guys all do. But you could slam the phone very loudly, which was satisfying.” You could also have a private life, she thought to herself, and not get haunted forever by poor decisions, but decided not to rub it in. It wasn’t as though millennials didn’t know what they’d lost; they simply weighed it up against everything they’d gained and decided it was probably a wash.
Unaware of her boss’s philosophizing, Polly shuddered. “One time I ended up in bed with this guy who was trying to decide whether or not to enter a Catholic seminary, or whatever you call Priest School. I thought I’d provided a pretty convincing four-hour case against celibacy, but the next day he called and said he would pray for me.”
“Wow. You tipped someone over into the priesthood?”
Polly shrugged. “Maybe he thought after me it was all downhill, and he might as well devote himself to giving back to the world, after the world had given him one incredible night with me.” There was no hint of sarcasm in her voice, no self-deprecation at all.