by Abbi Waxman
Lydia lived on 16th Street, in a nice residential neighborhood, where presumably she could wreak havoc with her neighbor’s peace and quiet. Nina’s intention was to drop off the letter and walk away as swiftly as possible, but as she approached the front door, it opened and Lydia stood there.
“Are you coming to kill me?”
Nina stopped, halfway up the path. This woman was seriously off her rocker, but she couldn’t help admiring her bold welcoming of possible death.
“Yes, Lydia,” she said. “I am going to kill you using this deadly envelope, and then I am going to feast on your entrails.”
“Paper actually has a great deal of strength, if properly folded.”
“I’m aware of that. There’s something called buckypaper, which has a tensile strength greater than steel.”
Lydia narrowed her eyes at Nina. “How do you know that?”
“I read.” Nina held up the envelope. “This, however, is a regular envelope, which I haven’t treated with poison or booby-trapped in any way. I found it in the car your grandfather left me, and it’s addressed to you.” She shrugged. “I am merely the messenger, so, you know, don’t shoot me.”
A cat had appeared in the doorway, next to Lydia. It decided to irritate its owner by walking down the pathway and greeting the visitor. It was extremely friendly and looked like a leopard.
“Is this a Bengal?” asked Nina, bending to stroke its head.
“Yes,” said Lydia, watching from the door.
The cat had grown tired of being petted and now sat next to Nina’s feet and started washing itself.
“What’s its name?”
“Euclid.”
“The founder of geometry?”
“No, Euclid O’Hara, who works at the pizza joint on Montana.” Lydia snorted. “Yes, the father of geometry.” She turned, suddenly, and went into the house. “Come on, then, come in.”
Nina started walking in.
“Bring the cat,” said Lydia, from somewhere in the house, but the cat was already coming. Cats hate to miss anything.
The hallway of Lydia’s house was dark but opened into a large, sunny room at the back that made Nina stop short. Books lined every wall and stood in stacks on several large tables. Books were open on a desk, books were piled on the floor, and there were even two books open on the arms of a chair that looked potentially as comfortable as hers.
“Wow,” she said and stopped herself from saying, I guess you like books, because it was something people always said when they came to her place, and it irritated her.
Lydia turned to face her, catching her gazing openmouthed at the shelves. “I like books,” said Lydia. “I don’t like people.”
“Me neither.”
Lydia shook her head. “That’s not true. You’ve already become closer to my family than I am, and you just met them. You might be shy, you might be introverted, even, but you like people.”
Nina opened her mouth to object, but closed it. Lydia might be right.
“Now, a true misanthrope,” Lydia continued, “hates and despises people, and I don’t hate them. I simply don’t like them much, in the same way I also don’t enjoy oysters. Unfortunately, they’re harder to avoid than oysters.”
Nina nodded in understanding, gave a small smile, and held out the envelope. Lydia stepped forward to take it.
“Thanks.”
There was a pause, then Nina asked, “Aren’t you going to open it?”
Lydia gazed at her aunt for a long moment, then sat down on the chair with the two open books. Nina sat down on the sofa, and Euclid jumped up next to her.
“Do you have a cat?” Lydia asked.
“Yes,” Nina said. “His name is Phil.”
Lydia said nothing, just raised one eyebrow in the exact way Nina did. So Nina did it back at her, and suddenly Lydia laughed.
“I may have to admit that you’re related to me after all. You like books, you like cats, you clearly enjoy a useless fact, and you raise your eyebrow exactly the same way I do.” She looked at the envelope. “I don’t know why I’m going to open this. There’s almost nothing it can contain that will make any difference to me.”
“Maybe it’s a really good recipe for banana bread.”
Lydia snorted. “Or maybe it’s a bomb.”
“Why would your grandfather leave you a letter bomb?”
Lydia looked at her witheringly. “Why would he leave me a recipe for banana bread?”
Nina shrugged. “Maybe it’s an apology.”
“For being a crappy grandfather? Too little, too late, don’t you think? Unless this envelope contains Hermione’s Time-Turner and a promise that he’ll actually pay attention to me this time around, it’s just paper.”
“But don’t you want to see?”
“No,” said Lydia, but then she opened the envelope and tipped the contents into her lap. She sat silently and looked, then picked up a birthday card.
“I gave this to him when I was ten or so.” She picked up a friendship bracelet of red and yellow threads. “And I gave this to him much later.” Finally, she picked up a folded piece of paper and opened it up.
“ ‘Dear Lydia,’ ” she read, “ ‘If you’re reading this, I’m dead, I’m afraid.’ ”
“Huh,” said Nina. “He said that in my note, too.”
Lydia looked at her over the piece of paper. “Well, it was true in both cases, right?” She continued to read:
You were always the smartest of my grandchildren, and the one that made me most nervous. I worried you saw right through me, saw how shallow I was and judged me for it. Now I think I was wrong, and I am more sorry than I can say that I never got to know you better. You’re a very special person, Lydia, and I hope you can forgive me. I realize you’ll probably say this is too little, too late, and you’ll be right. But it’s the only thing I can do, because no one can turn back time. Except Hermione, of course.
Lydia looked at Nina and her mouth twitched. “That’s creepy.”
Nina shrugged. “People make book references. What can you do?”
Lydia continued reading:
By the way, you and Nina would probably really get along. You should have dinner or something. I’ve put a gift card for AOC in the envelope. Hopefully, it’s still in business and you two can start to be friends.
Lydia looked up at Nina and frowned. “Such a manipulative bastard, even dead. It’s funny how people behave badly their whole lives and then think they can say sorry and it’s all erased. Not that AOC isn’t a great restaurant.” Euclid left Nina and wandered over to jump on Lydia’s lap. “He left my mom and her sister when they were really young, and my mom was kind of ruined by it. My grandma is a total witch—did you catch that?”
Nina nodded. “It was subtle, but yeah, I noticed.”
“She made my mom’s life difficult, and my mom made my life difficult, and now I make other people’s lives difficult, and maybe it’s time the whole cycle stopped.” She sighed. “I just find people so . . .”
“Scary?” asked Nina, sympathetically.
Lydia looked at Nina for a long time. “No,” she said. “Deeply irritating and fun to torment.”
“Oh,” said Nina.
Suddenly, Lydia tore the letter from William into a dozen tiny pieces and threw them in the air. “So much for Grandpa.” She grinned. “Fancy a cup of tea?”
At the back of Lydia’s house was a wide, curving garden. Sitting there, sipping an excellent cup of tea, Nina smiled cautiously. “What do you do for work?” She waved inside at all the books. “Are you a teacher or something?”
Lydia shook her head. “No, I work at the RAND Corporation. Do you know it?”
Nina nodded. “Originally started by the Douglas Aircraft Company to research new weapons, it is an international think tank that has produced over thirty Nobel Prize winners.” She paused. “RAND is actually short for research and development.” She paused again, and hesitated. “I’m actually a little bit obsessed with RAND,
because they do all this secret stuff and probably have a room with one of those big maps on the floor with lights and tiny models.”
Lydia laughed again. “I can take you there, if you like.”
“Really? There’s a room with a map and tiny little models?”
“No, but there’s a reasonable cafeteria.”
Euclid walked to the middle of the lawn and sprawled, making sure everyone could admire him.
Nina asked, “What do you do at RAND?”
“Oh, it’s thrilling,” said Lydia. “I research global traffic patterns.”
“Wow,” said Nina. “That really is incredibly boring.”
Lydia laughed. “Not to me, which is why I do it. I don’t see cars; I see patterns. And it’s not even only cars; it’s how people move around in general.” She sipped her tea and reached for a cookie. “I love it. Do you love your work?”
Nina thought about it. “Yes, I guess I do. I sort of fell into it, rather than chose it, but it suits me very well. I live a very quiet life, I walk to work, I read a lot, I have a trivia team, and I have a cat.” She turned up her hands. “It’s all pretty good.”
“No boyfriend? Or girlfriend?”
Nina shook her head. “No. There was someone but I messed it up.”
“How?”
Nina took a deep breath. “I get anxiety,” she said.
“Like Archie?” asked Lydia.
Nina nodded. “I broke up with him before we’d even really started. I got overwhelmed and threw him out of the boat.” Suddenly, her eyes were prickling. “It’s so stupid.”
“It’s not stupid. Anxiety is the most common mental illness in America, with over forty million sufferers.”
Nina stared at her.
Lydia shrugged. “I share an office with a mental health researcher. RAND is actually full of people like us, nerdy obsessives with good memories.” She took another cookie and started eating it. “But why don’t you explain to him and see if you can start it up again? Do you want to?”
Nina nodded, then shook her head. “I don’t know. I really like him, and being with him actually feels good, but there’s too much going on. I thought I was pretty much alone, and I was OK with it. Good with it, even. Now I have all of you guys to deal with, and a boyfriend was too much.”
Lydia gazed at her. “You’re an idiot. We’re family; you can ignore us completely. We’re like succulents: Minor occasional attention is entirely sufficient. You should absolutely get him back.”
“He’s ignoring my texts.”
“Have you considered the old-fashioned, in-person conversation?” Lydia put down her teacup.
“No,” said Nina. “Besides, he’s competing in a trivia competition this evening; the final of the Southern California Quiz Bowl. I don’t want to put him off.”
“Wow,” said Lydia. “That is both the lamest and the nerdiest excuse for inaction I’ve ever heard. I can’t decide whether to smack you across the face or burst into applause.”
Nina opened her mouth to respond, when her phone rang.
“Can you come right away?” It was Liz, and she sounded frazzled. In the background, Nina could hear yelling.
“What’s going on?”
“Well, Meffo came by and posted a notice that the store was closing and was going to be replaced by a pot-infused makeup emporium called Puff and Pout.”
“You’re joking. A pot dispensary?”
“No. Artisanal makeup, custom made for each customer from a range of natural minerals and pigments, infused with CBD oil and locally sourced organic marijuana.”
“Did you memorize that?”
“No, I’m reading from the notice. Their slogan is Look fantastic, feel even better.”
“Wow.”
“Then people started reading the notice, and all of a sudden there was a crowd outside with placards, and now the police are here and it’s all gotten a bit out of hand.”
There was the sound of breaking glass.
“Oh dear. Gotta go.”
“Was that our window?” Nina had visions of crowds of zombies swarming the store, which didn’t make any sense, but that’s what popped into her head.
“No, Meffo’s windshield. I stashed him in the office for safety, but there wasn’t much I could do about his car.” Then she hung up.
Nina turned to Lydia. “How fast do you think we can get to Larchmont Boulevard?”
Lydia grinned. “In K.I.T.T.? With me driving? Twenty minutes.”
Nina shook her head. “No, in a regular Trans Am, because K.I.T.T. is a fictional character, during rush hour, and with me driving.”
Lydia made a face. “Forty minutes.”
“Fine, you drive.”
Twenty-eight
In which things get a little out of hand.
Here’s a useful tip: Driving through Los Angeles in a fast car with a genius researcher is not enjoyable, unless you are one of those people who drinks five Red Bulls and snorts coke before getting in the front seat of a roller coaster and sticking both arms in the air. Nina started reciting “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” as they sped through Beverly Hills, and by the time they reached Larchmont, she was reading the line about rolling the bottoms of trousers, and that tells you how fast they were going. Furthermore, apparently the way to beat traffic in LA is to treat straight lines as abominations and Tetris your way through the side streets. It didn’t help that Lydia was calling out street names as she went, like a pool shark calling a pocket.
As they turned onto Larchmont Boulevard, it was immediately clear something was wrong. Pedestrians on both sides were looking south, toward the bookstore, and Nina began to get what Han Solo might have called a Bad Feeling. She was still nauseous from the car ride, but this was something more.
There was a crowd of maybe twenty people in front of the store, plus two cops, all of whom were watching an argument between a middle-aged woman who Nina recognized from the store (historical fiction) and a younger woman who was wearing a long, fringed skirt, a top made of birds’ wings and macaroni, and a large felt hat with a brim the size of Poughkeepsie. Birds could have perched comfortably on it, if they were able to forgive the bird wing corset.
“I question your assumption that makeup is less culturally valid than literature,” the young woman was saying, as Nina and Lydia got close. Ah, thought Nina, it’s a Larchmont Liberal Street Fight.
The older woman frowned. “I am not in any way questioning the validity of your products, culturally or otherwise, and far be it from me to cast aspersions on the career goals of a fellow woman, but this bookstore has been here for nearly eight decades and is a cornerstone of our community.”
“Progress is inevitable,” replied the woman.
“That is both true and irrelevant to our discussion,” said the older woman, whom Nina was mentally referring to as the Reader. “We don’t need another beauty products store on Larchmont, and we certainly don’t need a pot shop.”
“We’re not a dispensary,” replied the other woman, whom Nina had internally named Bird Wing Betty. “We create makeup infused with potent botanicals that make you feel as good as you look. We are one hundred percent organic, local, and legal.”
There was murmuring in the crowd. Clearly, Bird Wing Betty had some supporters. As if to prove it, a group of about a dozen similarly dressed young people suddenly appeared.
“We saw your post on Instagram,” said one, coming up to Betty and touching her upper arm. “I’m so sorry the boomers are harshing your vibe.”
“Total drag,” said another. “I brought you some royal jelly and an apple cider vinegar shot to alkalinize you.” She handed over a tiny bottle that reminded Nina of Alice in Wonderland.
The cops sensed an opening. “Ladies,” said one of them, an officer who looked like this was a pleasant change from moving homeless people off the streets, “I’m afraid you don’t have a permit to protest, so you need to break this up and go home.”
“No,” said the Read
er. “We’re staying here to show our support for reading.”
“Dude, we’re all about reading,” said one of the new young people, “but bookstores are so nineties. Stories live in the cloud now, free like birds. Don’t tie them down in the physical realm.”
The Reader snorted at her. “You’re stoned.”
The girl snorted back at her. “You’re old, but at least I’ll sober up.”
Another guy in the crowd said, “Go back to Santa Monica, you wannabe hippie counterculturalists.” Which, let’s face it, are fighting words, albeit unnecessarily long fighting words.
And then it happened. Someone—no one was ever sure who it was—threw a ball of cardamom, fig, and Brie ice cream, which hit Bird Wing Betty right in the . . . bird wings. Finally, thought Nina, they got that ice cream trebuchet working.
One of Betty’s friends turned and tossed a shot of cayenne and lemon juice in the face of a bookstore supporter, who cried, “My eyes,” and staggered backward. Another ball of ice cream arced overhead and nailed one of the cops, who didn’t take it very well. Nina turned to see who was throwing the frosty artillery just as another scoop glanced off her head and hit Betty, this time in the face. Betty stomped her foot.
“I. Am. Lactose. Intolerant!” she cried.
“No, you’re just completely intolerable,” replied the Reader, and pushed her.
Nina reached up and felt her head, which was sticky. She heard giggling. Lydia was amused.
“You’ve got a little . . . something something . . .” Lydia wiped a little drip from Nina’s forehead and tasted it.
“Huh,” she said. “Mint chip. Surprising.” She opened her mouth to continue and took a gluten-free cupcake right in the cake hole, which was also surprising. She sputtered.
Nina grinned. “Don’t talk with your mouth full, Lydia.” A mini cupcake—or it might have been a brownie; it was moving too fast to tell—whizzed by and knocked off the Reader’s glasses.
The cops, who had been well trained (though, admittedly, not for a food fight), started pushing through the crowd, looking for the troublemakers. This made the people on the outside of the crowd, who couldn’t see very well, assume something more serious was going on. They started to run or, at least, move swiftly away. This was Larchmont, after all; no need for unseemly panic.