by Amy Meyerson
I wanted to go, but I could still hear the girl’s tone as she’d said, “Nice to meet you,” like she wouldn’t be meeting me again. I could picture her facial expression, and that of the big-haired man as they regarded me from afar, the absentee family arriving too late. I couldn’t stand the thought of their continued disapproval, no matter how much I wanted to go to Prospero Books.
“My parents are expecting me home,” I said.
“Why don’t you come by my office tomorrow?” He handed me his card. “There’s the matter of the will to discuss.”
“The will?”
“Your inheritance.”
“My inheritance?”
Elijah unlocked his car and opened the driver side door. “How’s ten tomorrow morning?”
I nodded, speechless. Curiosity spread through me like a fever. Delirium. Euphoria. The feeling of Billy. My instincts were right. First Billy called me home with the card, The Tempest. Now, the next clue was waiting for me in Elijah Greenberg’s office, in the form of my inheritance.
* * *
By the time I found my way back to the I-5, it was after seven on the east coast. Jay was either home, resting up for another early morning of soccer camp, or at the bar around the corner from our apartment, drinking off eight hours of cocky teenage boys. I decided to take my chances.
“Hey, babe,” he answered on the fourth ring. Jay had never called me babe. Sometimes he called me M or Mimi after he heard Dad’s nickname for me. Never babe or hon or dear, endearments manufactured for the masses.
“Hey yourself,” I said.
“I just finished cleaning the kitchen. It will still be to your standards when you return.” The apartment had taken on new levels of cleanliness when I’d moved in. OCD clean, Jay called it, a habit drilled into me by Mom, who believed company-ready should be the natural state of any household.
Jay sighed as he flopped audibly onto the couch. I heard the television turn on, and bit my tongue before starting in on that fight again. Jay did everything with the television set to soccer, or when there wasn’t a match, to football, baseball, basketball, even hockey if he was so desperate. The only time he didn’t have sports on was when we were having sex.
“This a bad time?” I asked coldly.
If Jay intuited that I was annoyed, he decided to play dumb. The television blared in all its glory. “Trevor was out sick today, so I was on my own. Who gets sick on their second day of work? I want to get him a job as my assistant coach. With this bullshit, no way the school’s going to hire him.”
I didn’t want to talk about Jay’s friend Trevor.
“As long as you keep putting out a winning team, they’ll do what you want to make you happy.” I slowed down again when I reached downtown, about a half mile from the entrance to the 10. I shouldn’t have called. Jay was in his I-want-to-chill-at-the-end-of-a-long-day mode, which barely included me when I was home and not at all when I was a phone call away. It was something we were working on, breaking him of his single habits and me of mine, although most of mine were stored in a warehouse somewhere in South Philadelphia.
“Sorry, I’m being a jackass. The funeral was today, right?”
“Just coming from it. I didn’t know anyone there.”
“Did you expect to?”
“No. It still upset me that I didn’t.”
“Well, there’s no reason why you would have known anyone. That shouldn’t make you upset,” he said. Soccer fans screamed through the car’s Bluetooth.
“Turns out I was right, though. My uncle left me something in his will.”
“So I guess this means you won’t be coming home tomorrow?”
“Who said I was coming home tomorrow?” I shook the steering wheel as though it might make traffic move, but I was trapped on the freeway, hostage to our conversation.
“I figured after the funeral you’d come home.”
“Didn’t you tell me not to rush back?”
“Was that me?”
“I believe your exact words were ‘take the time you need.’”
“For which you called me a sentimentalist,” he retorted.
“Touché,” I said, and Jay laughed. “A few more days. Billy’s lawyer will give me the next clue. I’ll figure out what Billy wants to tell me about him and Mom, and I’ll be home before you can even miss me.”
“I already miss you.”
“Well, then, before you can go back on your word to keep the apartment in tiptop shape. The end of the week at the latest,” I promised.
* * *
Mom insisted on going with me to meet Elijah.
“I can go alone,” I said as she handed me a French omelet. I’d told her that Billy had left me something in his will, not that he’d already given me a clue, nor about the hunt that lay ahead. “If it’s going to be difficult for you, I’m happy to go on my own.”
“I’m coming with you,” she said. “End of discussion.”
She took off her apron and disappeared upstairs to get ready. I watched her go, feeling like a teenager about to get caught for going to a party or getting a clandestine tattoo. Jay was right. I should have told Mom about the clue before I came home, before Billy became something I kept from her.
Elijah worked on Larchmont, so Mom and I sat in I-10 traffic, crawling our way east. I watched her eyes shift between the rearview and side mirrors to the congested road ahead. She rubbed her cheek the way she did during suspenseful scenes in movies.
“Miranda, please stop staring at me like that. Really, I’m okay.”
I continued to watch her more furtively, sneaking sideways glances that she likely saw. Despite her best efforts, she wasn’t okay. I didn’t understand why she wanted to hide her feelings. I braved a lingering look at her and thought, not for the first time, that I didn’t really understand my mother at all.
Mom exited the highway and headed north on La Brea past furniture stores and lighting warehouses.
“The funeral was pretty weird yesterday,” I said, realizing she hadn’t asked me about it.
“Billy always was a bit eccentric,” she said distractedly.
“I keep remembering things about him.” I circled my way toward the conversation I wanted to have with her. I needed to tell her about The Tempest before we got to Elijah’s office and he did the job for me. “Remember the time he built a simulator in our backyard to teach me about hurricanes? Or when he set up the sprinklers to create a rainbow?”
“He was always good with you,” she said almost forlornly, almost like she missed him.
“We were so close, then we just stopped seeing him.”
“We were close.” Mom paused to collect her thoughts. The massive storefronts narrowed to boutiques, cafés and frozen yogurt shops. When she stopped at a light, she added, “But Billy was unreliable. He was always running off. I wouldn’t know if he was alive or dead, if he was coming to dinner, if he’d left the country. I was worried all the time. It got to be too much.”
“What does that mean, ‘it got to be too much?’”
Mom leaned over me to read the names of the streets that ran perpendicular to Larchmont. “Keep an eye out for Rosewood.”
I wanted to tell Mom that she couldn’t weasel her way out of the conversation that easily, to remind her of Prospero’s words—You must now know farther—to let her know that Billy was intent on revealing the past to me, and I wanted to hear it from her first. Mom never responded to anything that smelled remotely of a threat. If she didn’t want to talk to me about what had torn them apart, nothing I could say would change her mind, not even if I told her that Billy had planned something for me.
A few blocks later, we found Rosewood and parked outside the law offices of Elijah Greenberg. June Gloom sat heavy in the sky, dreary and somber. Throughout June in Los Angeles, the morning’s haze promised an overcast day,
but without fail, it burned off, and when the afternoon became sunny, it was all the more spectacular for the bleak morning. Today, however, as I studied the sky, I didn’t see a hint of a beautiful day to come.
Elijah guided us into his office where we sat in firm leather chairs as we waited for him to find the right file among a large pile of files on his desk. Mom absentmindedly tapped her foot, shaking her leg so violently I could feel the vibration in the seat beside her. I put my hand on her knee to calm her. She flinched, turning to me with an expression of fright I hadn’t expected.
Elijah opened a folder in slow, deliberate motion. “As you know, Billy was the sole proprietor of Prospero Books.” This caught my attention. I edged forward, curious to see where this was headed. Elijah cleared his throat and read from Billy’s will. “‘I, Billy Silver, hereby bequeath my property, 4001 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, subject to any mortgages or encumbrances thereon, to Miranda Brooks.’” Elijah handed me a set of keys. “The property includes the bookstore and an apartment on the second floor. I’ve had it prepared for you.”
The keys were cold and smooth, their notches worn from use. I’d expected a map or one of Billy’s riddles, but the keys to Prospero Books? I was a middle-school history teacher. I didn’t know anything about running a business, let alone a business as specialized and important as a bookstore. But I couldn’t focus on those pragmatic concerns. Prospero Books. I could still remember its sweet and musty smell, its feeling of springtime throughout the year. After all these years, I would get to return to that smell, that feeling, again.
I looked over at Mom, sitting erect beside me, alert as prey being stalked. Her eyes darted across the will, reading it upside down. She was so still that if I touched her she might have shattered into a thousand pieces.
“Mom?”
She shook her head. “It’s okay. Let’s keep going.”
Elijah closed the file and opened the desk drawer beneath his computer. “In addition to the store, he also asked me to give you this.” He handed me a copy of Jane Eyre.
The cover depicted Jane’s silhouette, her profile dark against the beige background. I ran my finger along the contour of her face. I’d read the novel in high school, again in college, had logged the love between Jane and Mr. Rochester as one of literature’s best, even if Mr. Rochester was by all modern accounts a bit of a creep. If it had been one of the Boxcar Children books, a copy of The Westing Game, it would have reminded me of the afternoons I’d spent in Prospero Books drinking hot cocoa from an oversize mug as Billy read over my shoulder, together trying to reason the clues Mr. Westing left for the tenants of Sunset Towers. But Jane Eyre? I’d never read it with Billy. I had no idea why he would have left it for me now.
I angled the book toward Mom, and she leaned over to see the title. Her face remained stoic. I couldn’t tell if the title meant anything to her, either.
The novel’s spine was split in several places, and the middle bulged awkwardly where an antique key was nestled between the pages. On the page behind the key, a few sentences were highlighted.
One does not jump, and spring, and shout hurrah! at hearing one has got a fortune; one begins to consider responsibilities, and to ponder business; on a base of steady satisfaction rise certain grave cares, and we contain ourselves, and brood over our bliss with a solemn brow.
Did Billy know I would feel bliss, that I would rush into excitement? Fortune. Responsibilities. Grave cares. A solemn brow. Was he reminding me that my new fortune arrived because of his death? I skimmed the text around the highlighted section and remembered: Jane did not jump and spring and shout hurrah! at hearing she’d inherited a fortune from her uncle, John Eyre. Her uncle! Her father’s brother whom Jane didn’t know. Instead, Jane expressed her dismay that she couldn’t have a fortune without her uncle’s death, that she’d dreamed of connecting with him and now never would. But Jane’s uncle had searched for her. He’d been unable to locate her before he died. Billy hadn’t gone looking for me until he was already dead. If he had, in the modern age of the internet and Facebook, he would have found me easily. If he’d thought of me, why hadn’t he come looking? Why did he wait until we no longer had a chance to reconnect?
“Is that it?” Mom asked Elijah with the impatience of a student I’d held after class.
“Well, there are several details about the store to discuss. If you’re in a rush, Miranda and I can set up another meeting.”
“That would be great.” Mom motioned me out.
“I’ll call you,” I told Elijah. As I stood, the cover of Jane Eyre fluttered open. I noticed something written inside the front cover. Cursive writing, nearly faded: Evelyn Weston. I could picture that name in all caps, carved into the gravestone beside Billy’s. So, Billy hadn’t been buried alone, after all. But who was Evelyn Weston?
* * *
On the I-10 West, Mom drove in the far left lane five miles below the speed limit. Cars passed us on the right, drivers honking their horns and raising their fists as they raced past.
“You want me to drive?” I asked, knowing she wouldn’t let me.
“I’m fine.” She slammed the gas pedal, and the car lurched forward with nervous energy.
“I can’t believe Billy left me his bookstore.”
“It’s inexcusable,” Mom said as she pulled onto the ramp for the Bundy Drive exit. “Putting that kind of burden on you.”
“It’s not a burden. I loved Prospero Books.”
“Loving something and being responsible for it are two very different things.” She gripped the wheel so forcefully her knuckles turned white.
“Why do you think he left me a copy of Jane Eyre?”
“I have no idea.” The gift seemed to anger her regardless of whether she knew what it meant.
“Was it an important book to Billy?”
“I just told you I have no idea.” Mom turned on the radio to a top forties station, a type of music I knew she didn’t like. We listened to syrupy vocals and catchy rhythms until Mom pulled into the driveway of our Spanish Revival. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you,” she said as she stopped the car. “I don’t think Billy considered how much this would hurt me.”
I twisted the antique key I’d found in Jane Eyre between my fingers. It was oxidized almost completely black. It had to open an old safe or jewelry box tucked away in the other part of my inheritance, Prospero Books. And it had to have something to do with the name left in cursive font in the front of the novel.
“Do you know who Evelyn Weston is?”
Mom jolted. “Where’d you hear that name?”
“At Forrest Lawn. Billy was buried next to her.”
“You saw Evelyn’s grave?” Mom appeared nervous, suddenly frantic.
“Was she Billy’s wife?” It was the only logical reason he would have been buried beside her.
“She was,” Mom whispered as she stared at our familiar white house. The lines around her eyes were more pronounced than they’d been last time I’d seen her. Everyone said I looked like Mom. We had the same curly hair, same narrow builds. Her face was longer and narrower than mine; her speckled brown eyes were more golden than mine had ever been. I’d never be as pretty as Mom.
“Was she someone he met after us?”
Mom turned toward me, confused. “You said you saw her grave?”
“I didn’t look at it very closely. I don’t remember anyone ever mentioning her.”
“He was married to her before you were born. She died a long time ago.”
“And Billy never remarried? He never had a family?”
“He only ever wanted Evelyn.”
“Why’d he name the bookstore Prospero Books? Did it have anything to do with me?” As a child, I thought Prospero Books was named for me, an homage to my namesake, like Prospero Books lived and breathed with me, like when I wasn’t there, it cease
d to exist.
“It was open before you were born.” Her tone remained even.
“Did you name me after the bookstore?”
“I named you after Shakespeare.”
“You and Billy just happened to pick the same play?”
“It was Evelyn’s favorite play.” She smiled, shrugging off her sadness. “How much of a disaster do you think the kitchen’s going to be after your father has had free rein of it all afternoon?” Mom patted my leg and stepped out of the car into the bright afternoon.
I watched her navigate the pathway to the front door, piecing together the details I’d just learned. Billy had a wife before I was born. Her name was Evelyn Weston. She loved The Tempest. I was named for Shakespeare’s Miranda and for Evelyn’s. Evelyn Weston must have also loved Jane Eyre. Mom had to know this. Even without seeing Evelyn’s name in the novel, Mom had to know why Billy left it to me. I didn’t know how it hadn’t occurred to me before. Mom was keeping a secret.
* * *
“Don’t expect your mother’s cooking,” Dad warned as he put the eggplant parmesan into the oven. “Will you let her know dinner’s almost ready?”
I found Mom outside, holding a pair of shears as she decided which flowers to cut for the table. Behind her, the sky was ignited a rich orange lined in pink. I couldn’t see the setting sun, but it left its legacy across the sky.
“Tonight’s an amaranth night,” Mom said, watching the sky. “Amaranth’s not right.”
“It’s carmine. And cerise,” I said. Being raised by Mom, I could name more colors than most people knew existed. That was my skill as the daughter of a decorator, but I didn’t want to talk about shades of pink, the glorious hues of Southern California sunsets. “Dad says dinner’s close.” I snuck a final glance at her, trying to remember when she’d become that way, hesitating before she responded in conversation, when she’d fallen into the habit of covering her mouth as she laughed, when she’d replaced her red nail polish with nude, her crimson lipstick with vitamin E stick. She still listened to Jefferson Airplane and Fleetwood Mac, still meditated for ten minutes each morning, but at some point, everything she owned had faded to muted shades of pink.