The Lending Library

by Fogelson, Aliza

  “Young Marcel was very anxious, and linden leaves are thought to be relaxing, even sedative. Someone probably prepared the tea to calm him down. Isn’t that sweet?”

  “I should try that sometime with Deandra,” Melissa said. “She wakes up soooo early. At this point, I would gladly grow a linden tree from scratch even for one weekend morning to sleep in.”

  “Well, linden trees grow about two feet a year, so you’d only have to wait a few more years before you could sleep in,” Sam, our resident garden expert, said and laughed.

  I would always have a special place in my heart for the madeleine dipped in tea, which had opened up Marcel’s memory of his childhood town like a magical pop-up book. Of course, if I had a French pastry death match, the madeleine would lose. I’d probably trade for the peacock of the café dessert menu: tarte Tatin—deep amber caramel jellied around slabs of apple atop a thin, crispy layer of pastry. Sublime. The Foodie Book Club would mean a chance to share some of the lesser-known treasures to be savored too.

  My stomach growled loudly. I knew I would love this group. It had been the first book club I’d dreamed up, soon after opening the library, because . . . well, if there’s one thing I knew and felt comfortable talking about, it was food.

  “Why don’t you start a food-related book club?” Kendra had suggested when I was rhapsodizing about a dark chocolate and sea salt caramel eclair I’d eaten.

  “You’re so right. Books and food, two of my favorite things! What more could a girl want?”

  One corner of her mouth quirked upward. I knew what she was thinking. Minutes earlier, she’d had to snatch an old picture of her baby nephew out of my hands. “Oh my gosh, look at those teeny, tiny fingernails!” I cried. “Can you even believe that little beanie with a whale embroidered on it and how mini it makes his head seem? I can’t get over the fact that he’s already two. His skin is so peachy. Is it as soft as it looks?”

  Maybe my other favorite, babies, could be a part of the club too? Of course I didn’t really want to do that; babies plus food plus books sounded a little too Hansel and Gretel-y.

  It had taken me longer to get this book club together than the story circle because I wanted to make it just right—to pick a book that would generate conversation and to get the attendees excited about what was to come. Now, at our first meeting, all the members really seemed to be digging their teeth in. Not just metaphorically. I’d encouraged the ladies to start by keeping their food contributions simple, so Sam had made Little House on the Prairie hardtack, which actually tasted worse than it sounded. But it was the thought that counted!

  Out of respect for Sam’s efforts, I waited for everyone to finish the hardtack before I brought out a dish inspired by another otherworldly beautiful passage in Swann’s Way. The ladies leaned forward to peer at the serving dish crowded with spears of asparagus snowed over with shavings of parmesan cheese. Sam grabbed the tongs.

  As they munched, I read aloud:

  “What fascinated me would be the asparagus, tinged with ultramarine and rosy pink which ran from their heads, finely stippled in mauve and azure, through a series of imperceptible changes to their white feet, still stained a little by the soil of their garden-bed: a rainbow-loveliness that was not of this world.”

  A woman named Chloë, who owned a gourmet food store, sighed. I was sitting next to her. I planned to do so at each Foodie Book Club gathering. For one thing, she always listened politely, and although she didn’t speak often, she had insightful things to say when she did. For another, she was French.

  She also smelled amazing. Her perfume reminded me of one of my favorite streets in Paris . . . scents of Christmas and tea and tin.

  “Ahem.” Chloë cleared her throat gently, quietly enough for me alone to hear. I was leaning so close to her that my chair was about to tip over. I sprang back. No one else was looking at me. They were all thinking about purply asparagus. And as long and challenging as Proust’s book was, each of the attendees promised to read a sample thanks to what they’d heard and tasted at the club.

  Drat these glittery pipe cleaners! I was wrestling with a handful of them, trying to come up with a new project for my art classes at school, when Maddie called. She was up to speed on the Shep situation, or lack thereof.

  There’s nothing Maddie liked better than a challenge—especially when it came to men.

  “Hey, I have an idea. How about I come next weekend to brainstorm the next tactical maneuver for Operation Hard Hat? And to celebrate a certain someone’s birthday.”

  “Don’t remind me.” I groaned. You’re being a spoilsport, I scolded myself. “No, really, sounds great. That’ll help get my mind off aging.” I wasn’t sure I believed that, but maybe saying it would make it true.

  I had lots of reasons to feel cheerful. My friends. My family. My house. The lending library.

  Still, when Maddie hung up, I shimmied the toile-covered box out from under my bed. I opened the top. I pulled out the calendar inside. For the second time since Maddie had broken the news, I marked a big X over another month that had passed, which meant that at the very most I had just fifteen months to get pregnant in time to give birth by my thirty-fifth birthday.

  It wasn’t helping matters that Shep hadn’t returned to the library. I knew he kept up his impressive reading pace because he sent his friend Mike to ask me for a biography of Rilke, whose poetry I had told him I loved. I swallowed hard when I saw the request on the paper, trying not to read any sort of a message into his choice.

  “Here you go, Mike.” I gave him the Rilke book and three comics.

  Mike smiled at me. He was a handsome man in his early forties with a baby-smooth face despite all his years working in the sun on construction sites. I had often seen him in the little town square on weekends chasing his children around while his wife, Lula, from my Foodie Book Club, stifled a huge won-the-jackpot grin behind her tabloid magazine.

  “Shep’s got a pretty poetic spirit himself for a construction worker,” Mike offered, gesturing toward the flap of the book. “I don’t know who this Rillkee fellow is, but Shep seemed pretty keen on getting to know more about him.”

  I giggled nervously, wondering if Shep had read any of Rilke’s actual poems yet. Like the one where the bed is a rose. My mind flashed to a scene of me, Shep, and his scent tangled up in a bed of petals.

  With a wink, Mike was gone, leaving me to my thoughts and to the sounds of the Watson twins, Joey and Sandra, fighting over who got Are You My Mother? and who got The Poky Little Puppy. Like the trusty library helper she was, Elmira went and resolved the dispute before I even had a chance.

  Shep reappeared at the library the night before Maddie’s arrival. He was wearing a coat and tie and dark jeans. My breath caught as I looked at him. I coughed to hide it. The expression in his eyes was unreadable: excited or frantic.

  “Going somewhere fancy?” I teased.

  “Yes, I . . . um . . . ,” Shep stuttered, clearing his throat before he tried again. “I’m going to meet the parents of my . . . girl . . . friend.”

  I could feel my face fall. Of course.

  He looked startled by my reaction. Trying to cover, I improvised. “Sorry, I’ve just been having these weird pains all day . . . in my spleen.” Brimming with a tangle of emotions, including a whole lot of unwarranted disappointment, I found myself grinning somehow at my lame excuse. It made me think of Coco’s appendix postcard.

  Shep tentatively returned my smile. Then something flickered across his face that strangely resembled disappointment too. The two of us were a regular collection of mood rings. I replied, “Don’t worry—I’m sure it’s nothing. And that’s great, Shep,” I lied, wanting to hurry up the leaving part now. “So what can I do for you?”

  He cast his eyes around the room as though he’d forgotten why he’d come. “I . . . um . . . I wanted to say that I’d come by tomorrow because I need to ask you for some new recommendations.”

  He had come to tell me that he would com
e back to ask me for some recommendations? “I won’t be here tomorrow, but Kendra will be if you want to check with her,” I suggested reluctantly.

  Shep frowned and said, “Okay. When will you be back?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “Are you going somewhere for the holiday weekend?” He was trying not to check his watch. I wondered why he was lingering. I decided to rescue him as graciously as I could.

  “Yes. Are you meeting . . . them . . . at seven? You’d better run if so. It’s four minutes to . . .”

  “You’re right. Well, bye, Dodie. Have a good weekend.”

  “You too, Shep. See you.”

  The next four minutes before I could close the library may not have been long enough for Shep to arrive on time, but they certainly felt very long to me.

  Maddie honked her horn at ten as she pulled into the driveway. “Whoa there,” I said. “How early did you get up?”

  “Do the math . . . if you can, birthday bookworm,” she replied through a gum bubble as she walked through the front door. “It’s not really that much earlier than I usually get up.” She flung her overnight tote beside the stairs. I had the same one, covered in pink flowers and green leaves. I smiled at her.

  “Hey, travel husband.” She hugged me.

  “Hey, travel husband,” I parroted, smiling even wider.

  Maddie and I had decided years before that there were too many wonderful things to see and do in the world to wait around for a reasonably sane member of the other sex to do them with. Why wait to go to romantic spots—which of course were also some of the most special, magical, beautiful ones—until a love connection appeared? Our sisterhood friendships with each other were special, magical, and beautiful enough in themselves.

  Plus we were good travel companions. We’d taken trips to Paris—which Maddie loved almost as much as I did, if that were possible—Spain, England, the Caribbean, and a bunch of other locations together. We’d watched sunsets the color of a Henri-Edmond Cross painting creep across the sky with palm trees swaying or bateaux mouches cruising or fountains darkening beneath them. We’d shared cheap hostel rooms that were way too tight for two people or way too big and full of random strangers talking at all hours. And I had never felt deprived by the absence of a male significant-other traveling partner. Whoever, wherever he was—and I did believe he existed, even if he wasn’t a certain someone who was meeting his serious girlfriend’s family—would make new memories with me in these gorgeous spots and in others. At least, I hoped it would turn out that way.

  “God, you look smashing, Do,” she exclaimed, eyeing me up and down. “Country life certainly suits you!”

  I smacked her on the bum. “Very funny. Kendra’s in the kitchen, and she’s dying to meet you. Get your tuchas in here.”

  “Only if you promise not to manhandle it the way you usually do. You haven’t made a very good start,” she teased, then swatted my own derriere as soon as I turned to bring in her suitcase, two other totes, and duffel from the stoop.

  “Hi! I’m Kendra. I’ve heard so much about you.”

  “Maddie. Likewise! Great to meet you.”

  “Are you moving in?” Kendra deadpanned, cocking her head toward the bags in the entryway.

  “Nope, I just couldn’t trust that you would have anything of use here,” Maddie sniped. Kendra looked a little taken aback. She’d see soon enough that my sister gave as good as she got.

  “New York snob,” I countered.

  “Going on thirteen years,” she replied, puffing up. “And, if I may remind you, you were one too.”

  “Was not!”

  Maddie appealed to Kendra. “How many times has she complained to you that there’s no good Malaysian food around here? Or that she wishes the community center would do a performance of La Traviata?”

  Kendra grinned, looking at Maddie with amusement and me with affection.

  “Screw you both.” I laughed. I poured some syrup onto the beautiful banana chocolate chip birthday pancakes Kendra had made us, handing a plate to Maddie.

  As the two of them bantered and traded funny stories, I was content to listen. I’d known they would hit it off; they reminded me a lot of each other.

  I showed Maddie a bunch of my favorite spots in town. She loved Chatsworth. On Saturday, we drove to a couple little nearby Connecticut towns to poke around in their shops.

  Naturally, I wanted to check out all the bookstores. Especially one called Gregorson’s. The sign out front looked like it had been carved in the Middle Ages for an apothecary or blacksmith. I rubbed my hands together in anticipation. I loved places like this, little spots with a feeling of history.

  The door creaked open, and Maddie and I were met by one of our favorite smells in the world—the scent of wood burning, eternal and primal. A delicious floral odor radiated from the bouquets drying in the corners of the room and hanging from old wooden beams that looked like they’d been transported from a barn. All the books on the few shelves had clearly been chosen carefully.

  I ran my fingers over their spines as I walked past. Many of them were leather bound and stamped in gold.

  My eyes fell upon a book down the row. Nestled in between an investigation into the New Deal and a copy of The Canterbury Tales was my favorite book in the entire world. A story so sad, so full of misunderstood love and longing, self-sacrifice, and beauty, that every reading of it left me uplifted and wrecked, devastated and motivated to be a better, more selfless person. It was a book written by Alexandre Dumas fils, and it had never been even as remotely famous as any of his father’s work like The Three Musketeers or The Count of Monte Cristo. The story had served as the basis for La Traviata, one of the most popular operas of all time—and the one Maddie had just teased me about since I had dragged her to it two out of the ten times I had seen it at the Met. And yet the book had remained almost unknown—rarely translated and hard to find in the United States. It was The Lady of the Camellias.

  I pulled it off the shelf. When I was thinking of my favorite books, I’d fleetingly considered lending this one to Shep; I had a copy at home that I treasured. I hadn’t dared to. The story was so full of unrepentant ache that I feared it would give too much away. I was becoming afraid that if he discovered my growing feelings for him, it would be impossible for us to be friends. Would it be so bad to buy another copy of the book and save it, though? Just in case . . . in the future . . .

  I opened it. The glue crackled a little in protest; the pages separated after being compressed for a long time on the shelf. On the very first page, written in a small hand that could have been from a decade or even a century ago, read the following words:

  To S.

  Love, D.

  I breathed very slowly through my nose, carrying the book up to the counter. Seeing that I was finally done, Maddie set down the beach read she was skimming (last page first!) and announced, “My treat.”

  I didn’t trust my voice, so I nodded.

  “You already have this one. It’s your favorite,” she observed.

  I squeaked, “Not this particular edition.”

  Maddie shrugged and said, “Let’s go eat. Birthday pig-out!”

  We shared a carbfest of wild mushroom pasta with goat cheese, butternut squash risotto with sage sauce, and triple-cream burrata mozzarella for dessert. Utter gluttony seasoned with Maddie’s salty sense of humor.

  After our late arrival home, we slept in. Maddie finally appeared while I was finishing the book review section of the paper at the kitchen table. “Mornin’, sailor.” I tipped my cup at her. “Tea?”

  “Later,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “Take me into the library!”

  “Like that?” I joked. Her hair was giving birth to more hair, and her pajama legs were tucked into her fuzzy socks like pirates’ pantaloons. “I mean, it is Sunday, and it is an extension of my house, but it’s open today since it’s a holiday weekend.”

  “Good point. I’m gonna go get dressed.”

  “Don’t yo
u want brunch first?”

  “Are you kidding me? I want to see the library stat!”

  I smiled as she padded back upstairs.

  “Wow,” she kept saying as she walked around the stacks, glancing at the full shelves. Not that it took very long in the small space. Still, she looked impressed. “You’ve really done it, Do!”

  I threw my shoulders back like a proud mother hen. “Thanks!”

  Lula’s husband, Mike, and his cousin Ramon, who were on Shep’s construction team, were asking Kendra if any new books had come in this week. My heart leaped to see Shep’s coworkers there without him. Maybe he wouldn’t be back before Tuesday. I couldn’t think too much about whether he was timing his visits with my presence. It seemed too good to be true. I needed to remind myself that it didn’t matter since he was taken.

  Right as we were about to doze off that night, Maddie’s phone rang. Her eyes lit up as she hit speakerphone.

  “Guess who?” came a crackly voice.

  “It’s really hard to guess when I see a weird international number come up on my phone!” Maddie joked. With all her interesting global boyfriends, I would think it wouldn’t be that easy, actually.

  “Hello, sis!” I said. “Where are you?”

  “Benin. How’s my favorite librarian?”

  “Fantastic!”

  “And how’s your new man, Maddie?”

  “Which one?” She smirked, then said, “Just kidding. I haven’t had a date in two weeks!”

  I had no response to that.

  “Listen, girls, I’d love to chat more, but I don’t know how long I’ve got the line for, so I wanted to share some news.”

  “Bring it on,” Maddie said.

  “Mark and I have decided to adopt.”

  My stomach jumped. “Really?” I said at the same time Maddie cried, “I knew it!”

  “We’re going to apply for an international adoption.”

  “Wow. A child that you met while you were there?” I asked.

  “No, no, we’ll apply through the system in Liberia. There are so many kids that need a home already waiting in orphanages.”

  “What does the timeline look like?”