The Love Book

by Nina Solomon

  Lawrence, still on his own roof, turned off his weed whacker. “Don’t move,” he called over, “I’ll be right there.”

  A few minutes later, he appeared at the top of a ladder with a cat carrier. Mrs. Beasley cowered under the eaves, but with Lawrence’s gentle prodding she was eventually coaxed into the box. Cathy put her foot on the first rung. “Mrs. Beasley! Are you okay?” she shouted. In the distance, an approaching siren could be heard.

  Lawrence laughed. “Just like on Leave It to Beaver.”

  But he wasn’t laughing when the fire truck stopped in front of her house and Sean jumped down from the cab. Cathy smoothed her hair and tucked her shirt into her skunk scrubs.

  “Thanks again, Lawrence,” she said. “You saved the day.”

  He turned to go. She hoped it was the weight of the ladder that was making his shoulders slump. Walking toward Sean, Cathy felt as if she had been struck by a giant tuning fork. Every cell in her body was vibrating, awake. Sean took the carrier from her hand and let her lead the way to the house. “Nothing sexier than a woman in scrubs,” he said.

  When he lifted her in his arms as if she didn’t weigh a thing and carried her upstairs, quoting Shakespeare—“Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow / As seek to quench the fire of love with words”—she was glad she’d remembered to close the curtains. The sight of Lawrence with a power saw would have definitely ruined the mood. And this time, when she excused herself to give the Liquibead one last try, she hit the mark.

  Ten minutes later, there was a crash that sounded like metal garbage cans being knocked over by raccoons, and then a call for help. She peeked through the blinds.

  Lawrence! He was lying on his back on top of the garbage cans. What did the guy expect? Who in his right mind wears tasseled loafers to work on a roof?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  NESTING INSTINCT

  BEATRICE HAD FINALLY RETURNED to her Lark Street row house after a month helping Libby convalesce. Though loath to admit it, New Jersey had grown on her. That morning, she’d embarked on a decluttering project (how on earth had she amassed so much junk?) when, out of the blue, Malcolm called.

  “I’m driving up to Albany for an ornithological emergency tomorrow,” he said. “Any chance you can put me up for the night?”

  “An emergency? What kind of emergency? Did Mr. Fox get in the chicken coop?”

  It turned out Malcolm had organized a group of environmental conservationists and biologists to oversee the Dunn Memorial Bridge rehabilitation project and make sure the peregrine falcon’s nest wasn’t disturbed. He’d been there last spring to assist in putting leg bands on the falcon chicks, five in all. Beatrice was aware of the baby falcon webcam—she had a friend who’d sent her the link—and last year had even watched the live feed of Mama peregrine disemboweling a squirrel and feeding it to one of her baby fuzzballs, a touching if grisly maternal gesture.

  She said sure even though she had never been keen on overnight guests. But Malcolm was Freddy’s brother, so she couldn’t very well say no. Besides, it was only one night.

  “I’m a very good houseguest,” he said. “You’ll barely know I’m even there.”

  Somehow she doubted that Safari Man could ever fly under the radar.

  * * *

  Albert had been the last person to sleep in the guest room when he became too sick to walk up the stairs. French doors opened onto a small courtyard with white wrought-iron chairs, a Paris street lamp, and a steel obelisk for climbing plants—Beatrice’s little Parisian sanctuary—but Albert had often felt too chilled to go outside. Underneath some bed linens was the rubber sheet still in the packaging she’d bought when he became incontinent. Not long after, a few days before Thanksgiving, Albert’s eldest son came to pick him up. Albert had kissed her and thanked her for the love and said he’d see her after the holidays. But both of them knew that would be the last time before he died.

  Never in a million years did Beatrice think she’d ever be saying this, but now that she was home, she actually missed having someone around. She and Freddy had been speaking every day since he’d been released from the hospital. But talking on the telephone was different from having someone to gripe about things with, to annoy, and to blame when things went wrong. A stolen moment here and there didn’t quite fill the gap. If Libby hadn’t fallen off a horse, Beatrice might never have known she even had a gap.

  She’d put on some pounds taking care of Libby, the same fifteen pounds she’d lost and regained since college, and would probably continue to. There was something about the goal being within sight, but just out of reach, the striving and yearning to realize some fantasy image of herself, that was more seductive than attaining it. Once she achieved her goal, then what? She’d just put the pounds right back on and continue the cycle. She was tired of yo-yoing.

  She dusted the banister on her way upstairs. Her landlord had recently painted the halls and stairwells and white dust had settled on every surface as if last weekend’s snowstorm had blown in through the leaded glass windows. But there were happy sights, like the bluebells and a few fuchsia tea roses, still blooming in the garden despite it being almost the first week of November.

  Beatrice’s clutter purge continued for the rest of the afternoon. She moved her bed away from the wall where it had been crammed in underneath the eaves. Albert used to swear every time he hit his head getting out of bed in the morning. Maybe she’d read it in The Love Book or in a magazine at the physical therapist’s office waiting for Libby, but apparently it was better feng shui to be able to walk around both sides of the bed and also significantly reduced the likelihood of concussion.

  She emptied an antique milk crate to improvise a nightstand for Freddy, who was coming up next weekend when his wife was in Oregon visiting the grandchildren again. She took down an oil painting above the bed of a girl sitting by the shore and hung instead a colorful bark painting of two birds she’d bought at a market in Mexico. But there would be no pink crystal swans and husband-and-wife tortoises, however much Cathy tried to persuade her that pairs were good for relationship harmony. This wasn’t Noah’s Ark, for goodness sake.

  She was carrying down another bag of castoffs to take to Goodwill the next morning when Malcolm pulled up in a maroon station wagon. Such a solid, dependable family car, the kind that tells a story of a marriage, like fingerprints: a wife who drove her three boys to baseball practice every afternoon; delivered platters of Christmas cookies for Boy Scout jamborees; and cut coupons for her weekly shopping trips. So dependable and so boring!

  He was wearing his birder outfit: green windbreaker, tan walking shorts with green knee socks, and his safari hat. An overgrown Boy Scout, carrying two bags from King Kullen. His legs were very pale and slightly pasty looking. Shorts were definitely not his best look. She’d never liked pale skin. Freddy was always tan. She’d assumed it was a result of playing so much golf, but seeing how pale his brother was, she wondered whether his healthy glow had been cosmetically enhanced.

  “What do you have there, Malcolm?” she asked from the top of the stoop. She was not a cook and didn’t plan on learning today.

  He started up the limestone steps. “I thought you might like some cranberries from the bog behind my house on the Cape.”

  Cranberry sauce was the one thing she actually knew how to prepare and was her standard Thanksgiving offering. She might not be able to cook, but she could definitely stir.

  “Come on in. Sorry for the mess.”

  “You have a lovely place,” he said. “Charming, just like you.”

  “Pshaw! Enough of that. Your room is right back here.”

  Malcolm put his overnight bag on an old steamer trunk she used as a coffee table and looked out the French doors. “Asters and goldenrod still blooming, I see.”

  “The weather’s been so mild.”

  “Ever see hummingbirds in your garden?”

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  “I’m sure there’ve bee
n a few nosing around. They’re easy to miss. You really have to pay attention.”

  She didn’t know why, but she was suddenly feeling uncomfortable. They’d shared that suite at the Hanover Inn for two nights and there hadn’t been an awkward moment. Why now?

  “There are fresh towels in the powder room. There’s only one bath and it’s upstairs. I guess I should get back to my clutter-removal duty. If you need anything, give a holler.”

  “Any interest in tagging along?” He chuckled. “Birder humor. But seriously, we could use all the hands we can get.”

  Beatrice thought about the thirty years of clutter still waiting to be sorted and organized. The weather was crisp and sunny and though she was not, and planned never to be, ornithologically inclined, she could use the air. “Well, gee. That might be fun!” she said. “I don’t want to be cooped up all day.”

  “A birder in the making!” Malcolm beamed.

  “Don’t count your chickens!”

  “Toucan play at this game!”

  “I call fowl!”

  * * *

  On the ride over to the Dunn Memorial Bridge in his boat of a car, Malcolm filled Beatrice in on the latest details of Freddy’s recuperation. She tried to act as if it was news to her and that she hadn’t just spoken to him that morning. In the stark sun coming through the moon roof Malcolm’s skin looked even pastier than it had before, and the holes in his safari hat cast a web of shadowy dots on this face as if he were in very low-definition. He seemed to wear that silly safari hat everywhere, even inside. It reminded her of Monsieur Homais in Madame Bovary asking permission to keep his fez on for fear of “contracting a coryza,” a nasal congestion and bird disease which, considering where they were going, made her chuckle.

  In the pocket of the passenger-side door was a pair of mini binoculars. Beatrice lifted them to her eyes and looked out into the distance, but all she saw was her own nose.

  “Those were Winnie’s,” Malcolm said. “You’re welcome to borrow them.”

  “I prefer my own two eyes to see things, thanks.”

  “Put them around your neck in case you change your mind. You’ll probably need to adjust the diopter. It should be on the right-hand side somewhere.”

  “Listen, I’m not turning into one of you, so you might as well stop trying.”

  She realized she might have been a tad brusque, so when Malcolm launched into an ornithological lecture, she listened politely, contributing a well-timed “You don’t say” or “Fascinating!”

  “It’s really a terrible shame, but in the 1960s, because of the use of the pesticide DDE, peregrine falcons nearly stopped being a nesting species, but thankfully, because of work by the DEP, the species has been gradually repopulating as more captive birds have been reintroduced.”

  DDE. DEP. Beatrice felt like she had just picked some lousy tiles from a Scrabble pouch.

  “It might also interest you to know that instead of nesting on cliffs, falcons adapted and became urban birds, building nests on window ledges and under bridges, up and down the Hudson River in places like New York City and Albany. But this requires monitoring by environmentalists to make certain that their nesting boxes are protected from urban disturbances like construction or bridge renovations.”

  “Fascinating!” Beatrice fiddled with the strap of the binoculars, winding it around her index finger like a tourniquet.

  “And I don’t know if you’re aware of this,” Malcolm continued, “but peregrine falcons bred in captivity, more often than not, choose wild mates.”

  This was the one fact that she really did find remotely interesting. She supposed she could be considered the wild one in the relationship, definitely by Freddy’s mother’s antiquated standards. She hadn’t been good enough for his mother’s born-and-bred-in-captivity Highland Park society son.

  Once at the site, Malcolm’s whole demeanor changed. His eyes sparkled as he greeted and coordinated the two groups in attendance for the bridge climb—all volunteers from the Audubon Society and the Peregrine Fund. At the last minute, Beatrice had put Winnie’s binoculars around her neck. There might be something she wanted to get a closer look at. She zipped up a dark green Audubon windbreaker and joined the group inspecting the nesting boxes and perching bars (basically lookout spots from which the falcons waited for unsuspecting prey). Another group was making sure that the aging webcam was in working order. Malcolm’s passion and devotion to the cause was infectious, and the other volunteers, though decidedly odd, were very pleasant characters, definitely birds of a feather. Before she knew it, she’d offered her legal services on a committee next spring, realizing only later when her cell phone rang and she saw that it was Freddy that she might not even be in Albany during next year’s nesting season. She let the call go to voice mail. She’d get back to him later when she had some privacy.

  After the inspection was completed, Malcolm suggested that the group visit a birdhouse in Washington Park, in the historic district, which happened to be just two blocks from Beatrice’s apartment. The rest of the conservationist group wanted to go to the Albany waterfront with the hope of spotting some snowy egrets and green-winged teals and, with any luck, a brown pelican. Malcolm bid the others, “Adieu! Until spring migration!” and he and Beatrice were off in his Subaru, which was without a doubt one of the sportier cars of the birder set.

  The structure was more a high-rise condominium than birdhouse. Over thirty feet high, it was a hodgepodge of rustic and whimsical houses intricately carved, some like gingerbread houses, others miniature Swiss chalets, arranged helter-skelter one on top of the other. Beatrice lifted the binoculars to her eyes. In magnification, the birdhouse looked like an Alpine village. She could almost imagine herself entering one of the tiny cottages with a front porch and calling it home. And she knew exactly which one Cathy would choose: a Victorian confection right next door.

  Beatrice was half-listening as Malcolm told her about the artist William B. Schade, and how he had carved the birdhouse out of a single piece of cedar. It reminded Beatrice of Jenga, the game she used to play reluctantly with her sister’s children at holidays. She was always pulling the wrong block out, often on purpose, causing the rest to come crashing down. In many ways, her own life often felt like a game of Jenga with a touch of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. When one block was removed, another popped up in its place. Here in the park with Malcolm, though, everything seemed simple. The birdhouse was a magical construction, a tiny world unto itself. And to think she had lived within walking distance for thirty years and had never seen or heard of it! What other treasures could be hiding right under her nose?

  * * *

  Back at Beatrice’s, Malcolm made a fire in the wood-burning stove and Beatrice poured two glasses of Caol Ila, knowing he would appreciate it. She had friends from the DA who could down a bottle of single malt like soda pop. For these dilettantes, and for Freddy, she deigned to keep a bottle of Dewar’s in the liquor cabinet.

  Freddy! She’d completely forgotten to call him back. She told Malcolm she had to take care of something upstairs and went to call him.

  “Has my brother bored you to tears yet?” Freddy asked.

  Beatrice put her feet up on the ottoman. “We’re having a pleasant enough time.” She was actually having a splendid time, but with Malcolm and Freddy’s rivalry, there was no point rubbing it in. She thought of that silly commitment quiz in The Love Book and it occurred to her that she’d been keeping herself on a short leash, but calling it freedom, and she had to be the one to cut it.

  “Listen, Freddy, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  “Should I be sitting down?”

  “I’ve had a change of heart,” she said, not intending the pun. “I know I said a lot of things, but the truth is, I do want to marry you.”

  “Darling, you’ve made me the happiest man in the world.”

  They both agreed that Muriel didn’t deserve to be hurt and that if they approached this “dis-union” in the kindest, mos
t honest and heartfelt way, everyone would wind up reaping the benefits. There was no rush. Everything in good time, but by February 14, Beatrice’s seventieth birthday, his health permitting, they planned to be officially engaged and married the following September.

  “The world is our oyster,” Freddy said before they hung up.

  Beatrice let the smarmy line go. She had to cut the man some slack. He was still recuperating from a heart attack. Hopefully, he’d be back to normal by February 14.

  After dinner, roast rosemary chicken with fresh cranberry sauce, which Malcolm prepared while still wearing his birding outfit, and another glass or two of scotch, Beatrice began to feel all warm and fuzzy about her future life with Freddy; her brother-in-law-to-be Malcolm; and this odd new sisterhood she was cobbling together with the women in the soul mate group. Yes, she was tipsy, but even if she didn’t see them very often, she felt a kinship with each of them, and their nearly daily emails had forged a bond between them that matched or even exceeded ones that spanned decades. They were more open with each other than with anyone else in their lives, at least that’s how Beatrice felt. They were helpers, fellow travelers, dare she say cocreators?

  Around eleven, the phone rang. It was Cathy. Maybe it was the scotch, or this right-out-of–Norman Rockwell domesticity, but Beatrice suddenly wanted to share her good fortune with someone and whom better than Cathy? She wouldn’t believe it. It was even more improbable than Beatrice moving to New Jersey.

  She handed Malcolm the receiver. “Would you mind hanging this up? I’m going to take this on the extension upstairs.” Malcolm nodded, barely looking up from his iPad.

  Sitting in her striped armchair under the eaves, looking out over the garden, she debriefed Cathy. Before she knew it they were talking wedding gowns, bridesmaids, and registering for wedding gifts.

  “Whoa, Nellie,” Beatrice said. “I’m getting married, not having a lobotomy.”