by Abbi Waxman
Millie looked up at her, thoughtfully. “Is there coloring on it?”
“Yes, and a word search.”
“Well then, yes, please.” She looked at Nina. “I love a word search.”
“Who doesn’t?” said Nina. “And Mad Libs.”
“Yeah!” said Millie, clearly tickled to have found a kindred spirit. Word geeks love to discover one another. Come upon. Identify. Recognize. Etc.
Archie cleared his throat. “Actually, we don’t usually hang out. Eliza reached out to me after the meeting at the lawyer’s a couple of weeks ago, and we decided it might be fun.” He looked at Millie and then back at Nina. “I brought her to lunch because I can’t talk about books anymore. I’m exhausted. I thought you could take over.”
Millie smiled at him and patted his hand. “It’s OK, you knew quite a lot about Harry Potter.”
“And if you’d read The Hunger Games, I would have been able to talk about that, too.” He grinned. “But your mother is a sensible woman.”
Nina said, “The Hunger Games is great, but maybe a little bloody for a . . .”
“Ten-year-old,” said Millie. She took a sip of the lemonade Vanessa had delivered. “But I wanted to talk to you about Daddy, anyway.”
Nina’s smile faded a little. “You know I never met him, right? I didn’t know him at all.”
Millie frowned. “You didn’t?”
Nina looked at Archie, who shrugged. “No one even knew I was alive before your dad died. He was never my dad, really.”
Millie was silent, processing this. “He wasn’t married to your mom at all?”
Nina shook her head. “You know the other families, though?”
Millie turned the lemonade glass around slowly on the table. “A bit. I’ve met Archie before, at the holidays, but I wasn’t paying all that much attention, honestly.” She looked up at Nina, her eyes clear. “I mean, I’m a kid; it was Christmas.”
“I came to see you in the hospital when you were born,” said Archie.
Millie smiled. “You did?”
Archie nodded. “I was a teenager, so I was pretending to be really cool about it, but you were deeply ugly as a baby.”
Millie giggled.
“Your mom kept asking if I wanted to hold you, and I kept saying no. I was worried you would suddenly attack.”
Millie giggled harder, then stopped. “I miss my dad,” she said.
Nina nodded. “I bet you do. What was he like?”
Millie smiled. “He was amazing. He played with me all the time. He was pretty old, but he came up with the best games. He watched my favorite shows with me, that kind of thing. We would read together every single day. He sat with me at night when I went to sleep, because sometimes I get scared of the dark.” She looked at Nina quickly but found no judgment there. “And sometimes he would set up my toys in funny ways. Long lines of Littlest Pet Shop animals marching across the floor, dinosaurs dressed in Barbie clothes, you know? That kind of thing.”
Nina smiled. “That must have taken some effort.”
“Yeah, dinosaurs have shorter arms than Barbie.”
“Everyone has shorter arms than Barbie.”
Millie nodded. “He rolled up the sleeves. My mom works a lot, but he was kind of retired, so he picked me up from school. Now my babysitter does it. She’s OK.” A little lemonade had spilled on the table, and she drew a starfish. “It’s been over a month now, but I’m always sad to see her car.”
Nina wasn’t sure what to say. She was surprised by Millie’s description of her dad. Their dad. For the first time, she wished she’d met him and impulsively reached across the table and squeezed Millie’s hand.
“He sounds great. I’m really sorry I didn’t know him.”
Millie looked up, her eyes shiny. “Yeah, you would have liked him, I expect.” She took a breath. “Lots of people did. He was my best friend, outside of school.”
“Who’s your best friend in school?” Nina was curious.
“Oh, you know, it changes.” Millie looked at the table. There was a sudden stillness to her shoulders, and Nina looked at Archie.
“Do you like school?”
Millie shook her head, and suddenly burst out, “Not really. I have friends, sometimes, but most of the time no one talks to me. Which is fine, honestly, because I’m happy on my own; it’s totally fine. Really fine. And no one wants to talk about books, except sometimes Harry Potter because they’ve read it, but honestly, I don’t know if they really read properly because they don’t know anything, and if I say, well, what about The Candymakers, or Calpurnia Tate, or Penderwicks, and they’re like, what’s that, then I feel bad.” She subsided.
“Bad for them because they haven’t read those books, which, by the way, are all awesome, awesome books? I love all of those.” Nina felt herself relaxing further; this was her favorite topic. She wished she didn’t feel so much identification with Millie, though; it was giving her flashbacks to her own school years. Recess and lunch, finding a spot to be alone, and then half wishing someone would find you.
“Bad that I can’t think of anything to say if it isn’t about books.” Millie looked crestfallen. “They want to talk about Pokémon or whatever, and I like Pokémon, but I don’t know all about them like I do about books.” She looked at Nina somewhat pleadingly. “It’s hard to find stuff to talk about sometimes. It gives me a tummy ache.”
“Well, we can talk about books whenever you like,” Nina said. “Do you think your mom would let you join a book club at the store? I have a whole group of girls your age who love all those books and lots more.” She remembered that Millie and Eliza lived in Malibu. “It’s a long way to come.”
Millie looked hopeful. “I can ask her.”
Archie added, “You can also ask the other kids questions; that’s what my mom told me, and I think it was good advice. Ask people if they have a dog, or if they like birds, or if they’re allergic to anything, or if they still believe in Santa Claus, or whatever pops into your head.”
“The only thing that pops into my head is books,” said Millie, worriedly. “And if I ask them a load of questions, they’ll think I’m even stranger than they already think I am. Last week a boy at school said I was weird, and nobody else said I wasn’t. Nobody said anything.” Her voice broke a little on the last word, and suddenly Nina was furious.
Trying to keep her voice calm, she asked, “What did he mean, weird?” She looked at Archie and saw he felt the same way.
Millie shrugged. “I don’t know. Weird. We had been talking about Aragog—you know, the spider?” Both Archie and Nina nodded. “And then I started talking about Charlotte from Charlotte’s Web, and all the bugs in James and the Giant Peach, and this other book about a boy and a beetle at the Metropolitan Museum of Art . . .”
“Masterpiece,” interjected Nina.
“Yes, and the cockroaches in the Gregor books, and I said bugs are interesting because they’re smaller than kids, right, and the way characters treat them is like how we get treated by grown-ups, and then he stared at me and said I was weird.” She looked at the table. “I thought it was a reasonable theory.”
Archie took a drink of water. “Well, I’ll be honest, Millie. That’s not what I would call weird, it’s what I would call smart, but ten-year-old boys aren’t famous for their insights into literature.” He put his glass down. “Or their manners.”
Nina was gazing at her little sister and wasn’t prepared for the rush of affection she felt for a girl she’d met only half an hour earlier. She reached across the table, again. “Listen, I’ll call your mom myself. You have to come to my book club, and then we can go have dinner afterward and talk about all this stuff.”
“How often is the book club?”
Nina frowned. “Once a month.”
“Oh,” Millie said. “That’s not very much.”
“But maybe your mom will let me pick you up after school sometimes, and we can hang out and chat. I don’t mind coming out to Malibu.�
�� She almost choked on the sentence, but found it was actually true.
Millie looked happier. “That would be awesome. I don’t really have anyone to talk to, now.”
“Well then,” said Nina. “I’ll make it happen. We can do it on Thursdays,” she added impulsively. “I have nothing planned on Thursdays.”
“Really?” said Millie, squeezing her hand.
“Yes, really,” said Nina, confidently. “Thursdays can be our night.”
Twenty-two
In which Nina gets a shock.
The Larchmont Spring Festival was, as you might expect, an annual affair. There was cotton candy and sno-cones, there were hot dogs and burgers, and the scent of burning onions blended beautifully with Los Angeles’s signature perfume: sunscreen and money. There were even ponies to ride, though it was hard to reach them through the animal rights protesters complaining that there were ponies to ride.
Knight’s was closed for the day, but Nina, Polly, and Liz always went to the Festival and mingled with the punters, as Liz put it.
“It’s a community event,” she said. “Get out there and commune.”
This year, Nina invited Tom to meet her by the carousel and tried not to be filled with childish glee when she saw him. But it was hard; she was a smitten kitten, and she was starting to be OK with that.
He pulled her into a hug and kissed her firmly. Polly, who was tagging along, grinned and demanded a hug, too.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said, but thankfully, didn’t elaborate.
“What do you want to do first?” he asked them. “Pony ride? Corn dog on a stick?”
“I want to go in a giant floaty ball,” said Polly, confidently.
A major draw for the children of Larchmont was a vast paddling pool of water in which floated maybe a dozen large, clear inflatable balls. You climbed into one, they blew it up around you, and then you rolled yourself into the water and wobbled about and got wet and overheated, and thirty seconds after you realized sunstroke and suffocation were distinct possibilities, your time was up. The kids loved it, but Nina rarely saw adults in there, because, you know, wisdom.
Polly was ready to embrace it, though.
“I think it looks like fun, and every year I want to do it and every year I talk myself out of it, but not this year.” She took a breath. “This year I’m going to ignore my inner voice and go for it.” She looked defiantly at Nina and Tom, but they just shrugged.
“Honestly, you’re overthinking it. Go, be your best self, and get into a smelly ball of plastic,” said Nina.
Polly went off to do that, and Nina and Tom wandered over to the sno-cone stand.
“Sno-cones don’t really make a lot of sense,” said Nina. “They’re only ice and sugar water, yet they’re deeply pleasing.” She sucked on a mouthful of shavings. “They started in Baltimore, you know.”
Tom smiled at her. “I didn’t know that. What else do you know about the humble sno-cone?”
“Well, they’re regionally distinct, of course.”
Tom nodded.
“And they became widely popular during the Second World War because all the ice cream was sent to the soldiers.”
“It was?” Tom frowned.
“Oh yes,” said Nina, warming to her theme. “Ice cream is the frosty treat of choice for the military industrial complex.”
Tom stared at her. “You know, I’ve never met a woman who throws the phrase ‘military industrial complex’ around with such confidence. It’s very sexy.”
Nina flicked ice at him. “You should look it up; it’s fascinating.”
“I’d rather you explained it to me. You’re much nicer to look at than Wikipedia.”
“Wash out your mouth,” she said, and then turned as someone called her name.
“Nina!” It was Millie Reynolds, clutching the hand of her mother, Eliza.
“Hey!” Nina was thrilled and bent down to hug her little sister. “Tom, this is my sister, Millie.”
“Is this your boyfriend?” asked the little girl.
“Yes,” replied Tom, shooting Nina a sideways glance. “I think it’s acceptable to say that, isn’t it?”
Nina nodded, feeling unusually relaxed. Maybe it was the sno-cone; maybe it was the sunshine.
“You know, Archie’s here somewhere with his little boy, Henry . . .” Millie giggled. “He’s my nephew.”
“I’ll let him know we found you,” said Eliza. She smiled at Nina. “Millie told me about your book club. I think it sounds like a good idea. I’ll see if I can make it work.”
“Great,” said Nina. She grinned at Millie, who gave her a quick thumbs-up.
Suddenly, Liz appeared, moving quickly.
“Hide me,” she said. “Meffo’s here. He’s cornering people left and right. He just trapped the toy store owner in front of the funnel cake stand.”
Everyone but Nina frowned in confusion, and Nina started looking around for an escape route. She spotted their landlord moving slowly up the street, scanning the crowd left and right like a cop car cruising a shady neighborhood.
She had an idea. “Look, Polly’s about to get into a giant inflatable ball. Go take her place.” Nina pushed Liz toward the long line to get into the attraction. “Go on!”
Liz scrambled over to where Polly literally had one foot in a ball and rapidly explained the situation. The blower guy was harder to convince, and the line of parents was muttering darkly, but Liz’s panic communicated itself, and Polly stepped aside. Liz was launched just in time; Meffo was among them.
“Hi, Nina,” he said, smiling politely at everyone. “Is Liz at the Festival? I’ve been looking for her.”
“I don’t see her right now,” said Nina, which was true.
The landlord sighed. “Can I speak to you privately?” he said, drawing her to one side. “Please tell your boss that time is up. I’m going to rent the store.”
Nina frowned. “Surely, we’re not that late on the rent, Mr. Meffo?” She’d always kind of assumed the dance about the rent was just one of those things, a normal part of business. Liz certainly never seemed all that worried, not that she discussed business with her. “It’s the first of June, I get that, but May just ended yesterday.”
Mr. Meffo looked at her curiously. “The rent for May isn’t the issue, Nina. It’s the rent for last December I’m looking for.” He looked sad. “Knight’s hasn’t made rent in over six months.”
Nina stared at him and shook her head. “But we’ve been busier than usual. I thought . . .”
Meffo shook his head. “I’m sorry, Nina, but the store is barely staying afloat. I have a lot of affection for Knight’s, but at a certain point I have to be realistic.” He walked away, and Nina watched him, the sounds of the Festival drowned out by the pounding of her own heart. Then she turned and studied her boss paddling around in circles, barely staying afloat herself.
A little while later, Liz, Polly, and Nina sat in the darkened store, talking quietly.
Liz was uncharacteristically somber. “It’s true, I’m afraid,” she said. “Despite everyone declaring the death of books, business is really good, just not quite good enough.” She smiled at her employees. “Your generation is filled with awesome book readers. But the rent has gone up and up and I can’t get ahead. I’m sorry. I had to keep the lights on, and I didn’t want to fire either of you.” She hung her head. “I kept hoping something would turn up.”
Polly said, “Maybe Nina will inherit a zillion dollars and she can save the store. Isn’t that what happens in movies? Miraculous inheritance?” She looked at Nina. “When is that will reading? It could happen, right?”
Nina shrugged. “It’s next week, but I don’t know if I inherited anything or, if I did, whether my crazy niece will let me have it without a fight. Mr. Meffo sounded pretty definite.” She looked at Liz, not wanting to criticize, but needing to know. “Did you ask the bank for a loan?”
Liz laughed. “Of course, that’s how I paid the rent two year
s ago. Last year I mortgaged my house for a third time, so we were good until December. I tried to find a buyer for my kidneys, but I’m too old.”
“You can have one of my kidneys!” said Polly, clearly meaning it. “I only need one, right?”
“Yes,” said Nina. “The other kidney gets larger to compensate. In fact . . .”
“I’m not taking your kidneys or your money,” interrupted Liz, firmly. “This is my business, not yours, and it’s mine to lose, unfortunately.”
“I could do porn! We could buy lotto tickets!” Polly was starting to cry. “I love this job.”
Nina was surprised. She knew she loved her work, loved the store as the safest place she’d ever been, but she hadn’t realized how much it meant to Polly. She thought about the customers, about Jim hanging out in the natural history section, about the reading hour and the bookmarks, and suddenly she was crying, too.
When Nina emerged from the bookstore, she found several members of her new family standing nearby, talking and laughing with Tom. Peter saw her first and came to meet her. Nina was trying to hold it together, but she needed to go home and think about things in peace. The crowd in the street was overwhelming, and the smell of burning sugar was making her head swim.
Peter hugged her tightly. “Hey there, I heard you had to step into work for a bit. Everything OK?”
Nina nodded. “Yeah, it’ll be fine.” She looked up at him, resplendent in a summer suit. “I didn’t even know you were here.”
Peter looked shocked. “Miss the Larchmont Festival? Are you mad? Last year there was a near riot over the ponies, as the competing forces of nostalgia and progress went to war over childish ignorant bliss versus animal rights. It was a rich vein, anthropologically speaking.” He looked around. “This whole Festival is fieldwork for me, plus I get to eat funnel cake.”
Nina leaned over and brushed powdered sugar from his lapel. “You do seem to be entering into the spirit. Powdered sugar is hard to get out of seersucker, though. It gets into the tiny little dimples.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” He lowered his voice. “I like your boyfriend, by the way, very nice.”