by Amy Meyerson
I’d assumed Billy was home, too, listening to my messages and deleting them. I’d thought he’d betrayed me when I’d gone to Prospero Books. I thought he’d told Lee to call Mom. Instead, he returned from Chile to an answering machine full of messages, Mom’s interwoven with mine: Mom made me return the dog. She’s such a bitch; How dare you use her against me; Me and Mom are done. I’m going to stay mad at her forever; We should talk about what happened—we need to find a way to fix this; I tried, Uncle Billy. Really, I did; Don’t you dare shut me out; You know Mom. You know how she is; We’re done. This is your last chance to have us as your family.
“After I saw the story on the news,” Mom said, “you remember, on the car ride home from the bookstore, how I told you I thought we could work it out?” I’d heard something different. In my memory, she had said she didn’t know if they could. We had competing recollections of the past, but one wasn’t more right than the other. “When I saw the story about the family on the news, I realized the letter wouldn’t have helped. We were never going to work it out.”
For the next several months, Mom mourned Billy. She started seeing a psychologist, who assumed her brother was dead. Mom didn’t disabuse him. After a few sessions, he inferred that Billy was still alive. He’d pressed her on why she’d misled him. Mom didn’t go back to therapy. At that point, she hadn’t spoken to Billy in six months. Sometimes, they’d gone two even three months without talking, never half a year. When six months turned into seven, eight, a year, she stopped skimming the newspaper for shock waves across the world.
I heard car wheels crunch against the gravel as Dad pulled into the driveway. Mom closed the box and returned it to her closet. From the window, I saw Dad push open the car door with his leg, and slowly heave his body out of the car. He walked around to the trunk where he steadied his weight to lug a pile of wood out of the car. I didn’t hear Mom walking up behind me until her hand rested on my shoulder.
“And Dad?” I couldn’t imagine what this had been like for him.
“You know your father. Talk to him about someone from history who was adopted and he’ll understand.”
Eleanor Roosevelt was adopted. Nelson Mandela, too. Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton, John Lennon. Dad and I often spoke through history. Before I started college, he reminded me of Lincoln’s work ethic. The first time I was dumped, he told me about Thomas Jefferson’s young heartbreak. But rock stars and first ladies, political prisoners—no one’s adoption could stand in for mine.
“Maybe I should have a direct conversation with him?”
“Yeah,” Mom agreed. “That’s a good idea.” We watched Dad rest the wood against the house as he struggled to get the key into the lock. He pushed open the door and disappeared inside. The weight of Mom’s hand was growing heavier on my shoulder. I didn’t shrug it off. I let her continue to rest it there, feeling connected to her, grounded.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It was dark by the time I got back to Silver Lake. The store’s gate had been pulled down, most likely by Malcolm. I found the lights and walked around the bright, quiet bookstore. My bright, quiet bookstore. The sketch Malcolm had drawn of me was on the recommendations table beside the books I’d selected. In the black ink, I looked confident in ways I’d never been. I didn’t remember picking all of the titles on my side of the table. I was drunk and nervous and delighted by Malcolm, by what was building between us. I’d grabbed any book that might define me as a student of history. I’d always seen American history as the origins of my life, but it was a passion I hid behind. One that masked my relative disinterest in a more personal history, a past I should have known. The books on that table didn’t represent me. Now, I had other books that did.
I took the books off the table and restocked them in the American history and biography sections. I browsed literature, feminist fiction, young adult, pulling down Jane Eyre, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Frankenstein, Fear of Flying, Persuasion, The Grapes of Wrath, Bridge to Terabithia. Those books might seem an arbitrary collection to a customer, even the regulars. I would know they weren’t random. Malcolm would, too.
Behind the front desk, I found the binder with the financial records for the first half of August. The numbers were worse than I’d expected. We were selling in a day what we should have sold in an hour. I imagined Malcolm printing out those numbers, watching them get smaller and smaller. He must have panicked, even if he hid that panic from everyone. He must have doubted we could save the store. He must have feared that, soon, everything would change. It would change, but not everything had to change for the worse. I left a notecard on the desk for him to find in the morning. It read simply, I’m sorry.
* * *
In the morning, Malcolm knocked on the apartment door, holding two cups of coffee. He handed one to me and I invited him inside. We sat on the couch, steadily drinking our coffee, waiting for the other to set the tenor of our conversation, whether it would be reconciliatory or a continuation of our argument.
Malcolm put his mug on the chest in front of the couch. “You know, this is the first time we’ve been up here together. It’s the first time I’ve been up here since...” He braided his hands, resting them in his lap.
“You found him?”
I followed Malcolm’s eyes to the floor by the door. “I heard a thud, so I came up.”
“I had no idea.” I wanted to hug him, to squeeze his hand, to comfort him in some way, but I didn’t know if he would let me. Our eyes wandered around the living room. “I haven’t changed much. I think I’ve been afraid to change anything. I have to now, now that I’m staying.”
Malcolm choked on his coffee. “You’re staying?”
“Don’t worry, I’m not trying to take your job.”
“No, I wasn’t.” He inched closer to me, as if I wouldn’t notice.
“I just couldn’t leave.” I inched closer to him until our legs touched. Malcolm didn’t reach out for me, and that made me more certain that he would, eventually.
“You’ll make the apartment yours, with time.” His fingers ran down the side of my face, and it was exhilarating in its innocence, maddening in its tenderness.
“I’m sorry.” His face was so close to mine that my exhales became his inhales.
“I’m sorry, too.” I waited for him to ask me how I was feeling about Billy, if things were okay with my family. Instead, he pressed his lips into mine. He kissed me urgently, like he wanted to make up for the time we’d lost in our anger.
“I’m glad you’re staying,” Malcolm said.
“I’m glad I’m staying, too,” I told him. “What are we going to do about the store?”
“We’ll figure it out,” he said, and I trusted the we, that we would do it together, that we’d try.
* * *
August into September was a whirlwind. Malcolm and I bought tickets to more Dodgers games, walking together from the store through Echo Park where he showed me every Mexican bakery that had disappeared, the murals that had been painted over, the new graffiti that he consecrated as art. Every Sunday, the Brooks Family Cookout seemed to outdo the ones of my youth. Mom made homemade pickles and jam for a cheese course, hand-churned ice cream for dessert. Over grilled lobster and whole fish, Mom talked about the books Evelyn got her to read, not only Fear of Flying and Jane Eyre, others by Umberto Eco, Milan Kundera. Dad remembered the time Evelyn brought an author to their house, a writer as famous for his drinking as he was for his prose. He’d broken a mirror by careening into it, shards cutting into his shoulder, staining his white shirt red. They had to take him to the emergency room where the nurses posed for pictures with him. When he sobered up, he announced to Dad that he had an idea for his next novel. It went on to win the Pulitzer.
September days stayed long and hot. The neighborhood returned from family vacations and camping trips, from summer music festivals. After too much day drinking, too many
screaming children, they were eager to resuscitate their minds with the help of our website, our frequent buyer programs, our book clubs. Malcolm’s Literary LA was written up by LA Weekly as a Top Things to Do This Fall after it had turned into a pub crawl. Malcolm guided packs of pale, malnourished-looking men to the bars where Charles Bukowski picked fights, to Raymond Chandler’s regular haunts in Koreatown. Lucia seized control of our Instagram account with an enthusiasm that was extreme even for her. She spent hours organizing piles of books into sculptures and crafting the perfect foam arrow through a heart of what she was calling her signature cappuccino. Charlie organized several book fairs for the fall, at elementary and middle schools across the city. I started an American history book club, which turns out was as much teaching as I needed, sitting around one of the mosaic tables with adults who were old enough to appreciate history, old enough to understand how the choices of the past shaped the present.
I didn’t even realize that Labor Day had passed and schools across the country were back in session until Malcolm and I helped Charlie load up his dented sedan with boxes of picture and chapter books for a book fair we were hosting at an elementary school. We waved goodbye like proud parents, and I realized that school in Philadelphia must have started, too. I imagined my principal giving my replacement a tour of our campus, telling her about the nightmare of a former teacher who had bailed on them at the last minute. I saw my replacement as me, only younger, more eager, with straighter hair. I imagined Jay, now the veteran teacher, training her, telling her which students to watch out for, which parents to cajole, which ones would never show up for parent-teacher night. She would laugh as he listed the nose pickers, the overachievers, the slackers and the kiss-asses, an energy building between them that would soon lead to more.
Malcolm relinquished some of the control of the store over to me, and I became the official buyer for our history, politics and social science books, the head organizer of the gala. Nearly every day we were fielding calls from people who wanted to buy tickets, even after they had sold out, from vendors who wanted to donate three-course dinners, wine tastings, massages and facials, a bread-making class. Together, those donations didn’t add up to the money we still owed, even after the ticket sales, but silent auctions were designed for people to overpay. We had to hope they would. Our patrons were our last chance.
Despite the stories Mom and Dad told about Evelyn, they still hadn’t been to Prospero Books. I’d invited them to readings, to book club gatherings, even to Lucia’s crochet circle. I asked Dad if he would serve as an adviser to my newly formed history book club. Although he emailed me reviews of books he thought the club might like, he never met with us. And Mom was constantly in motion. Running from houses to antique shops to lighting stores. Once this project is over, I’ll stop by, she’d promised, then she’d sign on a new project before the last one finished, fearful that any downtime might turn into an involuntary retirement. While she insisted she was merely busy, I could tell she avoided Prospero Books, fearful that it held too many memories of Evelyn or possibly too few. But our gala didn’t belong to Evelyn; it didn’t belong to Billy; it didn’t even belong to me. It belonged to everyone who didn’t want to see the store disappear.
* * *
At last, the day of the gala had finally arrived. The scent of cinnamon and chocolate wafted through the café as Charlie and Lucia covered the tables with linen and set out plates of truffles and mini apple tarts a bakery had donated for the event. We were still a few thousand short on October’s payments, but the Mexican restaurant down the block had donated platters of flautas, the flower shop had compiled arrangements for each table. A local artist had painted a temporary mural on our picture window, a literary map of LA with Prospero at its epicenter. It seemed like anyone who could offer something did. The entire neighborhood had gone above and beyond anything we could have expected, and that was the surest guarantee of any that the night would be a success.
When Charlie saw me arrive downstairs, he took off a top hat and bowed. I lifted the thin fabric of the white dress I’d found at a thrift shop to resemble the white nightgown Miranda wore in every staging of The Tempest, and lowered my head, a wreath of flowers fastened to my hair. Lucia’s simple white dress was similar to mine but her hair was unadorned and she carried a cookbook. Tattoos peeked out of her sleeves like undergarments. She said she was Tita from Like Water for Chocolate. Tita could make people feel through her food.
Malcolm walked out of the kitchen holding a tray of pies. His hair was hidden beneath a cowboy hat. Yellow aviators tinted his eyes turquoise. An unlit cigarette dangled from his mouth.
“What?” Malcolm said when he caught me staring. “You said I couldn’t be Philip Marlowe.” Malcolm sauntered away in his best approximation of Hunter S. Thompson’s strut, muttering lines Thompson may have said.
For the first hour, people milled around in their costumes, imbibing and nibbling sweets, scribbling bids for the silent auction.
Joanie and Chris were dressed as Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, who, Joanie often insisted, should have ended up together.
“Hopefully everyone gets so drunk tonight that when Halloween comes around, they won’t remember we’ve already worn our costumes,” Chris said.
Joanie jokingly shoved him. “You’re not supposed to go around telling everyone.”
Chris shrugged and wandered off to talk with Malcolm and Ray the screenwriter, dressed as Sherlock Holmes.
Joanie and I stood by the door, taking in the growing crowd. We hadn’t seen each other in a few weeks. Since her play had ended, she’d been on countless auditions, landing a small role in a studio film. I wasn’t even sure she was going to make it to the gala, but this was my big night. She would support me as I’d supported her, constantly from a distance. We watched a woman dressed as Edgar Allan Poe snuggle up to a woman dressed as Jack Kerouac. A lorax ate tart after tart, cleaning off an entire plate. Dorothy from Oz chatted with Dorothy Parker.
Joanie scanned the room. “You got a good turnout.”
“Let’s hope it’s enough,” I said.
“Did you finish Billy’s quest?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“It led me here.” I waited for Joanie to press me for more information. Instead, she squeezed my hand.
Sheila took the stage wearing a voluminous dress with a white hat and parasol. She was Caroline de Winter from the portrait in the minstrel’s gallery at Manderley. “Or maybe I’m the second Mrs. de Winter or Rebecca. Or maybe I’m them all,” Sheila said. “Thank God no one recognizes me. Otherwise, they’d see my arrogance in pretending to be so young.”
Everyone stopped talking as Sheila approached the podium. There weren’t enough seats, so people squeezed onto the floor, covering every inch of Prospero Books.
“This is something new. I’m not sure where it’s going. It’s inspired by this place.” Sheila cleared her throat and shuffled the papers in front of her. “People sell aging as graceful. Because the process happens slowly, we’re encouraged to embrace it as we would an aria. You can accept aging with dignity and civility, but the daily injustices of growing old have very little music to them.” Sheila continued to detail the realities of aging—panting while climbing a set of steps, a hangover from a modest glass of wine. The crowd laughed at her self-deprecating confessions as she replaced grace with something more human. Soon, her reading turned and I found myself listening to an essay about me. She changed my name, left Billy and the store out of it. The essay detailed what it was like to befriend someone thirty years younger than she. I glanced over at Joanie, and she winked. I searched the room, realizing most people didn’t understand how her piece connected to Prospero Books. Malcolm stood behind me and rested his hand on my shoulder.
“You’re a muse,” he whispered.
As Sheila continued, the bell on the door interrupted her reflections on The Th
ree Sisters. My parents stood tentatively in the entryway, surveying the crowded room. Mom in a pink blouse tucked into khaki pants, Dad in a blue-and-white-striped golf shirt. They could have been parents in an Updike or Cheever story. Mom’s eyes lit up when she spotted me, and that familiar sensation flooded me. I wanted to run into her arms, to be young again, but too many bodies blocked my way. Dad indicated that they would find me when Sheila was finished reading.
Sheila ended her essay full circle, with the stupidity of those who argued that age was merely a state of mind. “You’re only as old as you feel, they say between shots of cortisone and fists full of aspirin. I feel old, and I am indeed old. You are young, and I will not hate you for it. I will not pretend that I wish I were you.” Sheila took off her glasses and accepted the crowd’s applause. “I’m still working out that last part.”
Malcolm hopped onto the stage and became the auctioneer, jiggering as he goaded the crowd. Bidding for a dinner with Sheila started at fifty dollars.
“I didn’t realize I was such a cheap date,” Sheila said. Several people bid, but Dr. Howard outbid them all. He trotted onto the stage, twisting the mustache he’d grown for his Shakespeare costume. He raised his arms in victory as he grabbed Sheila’s hand, twirling her before holding her in a dip. The crowd went wild.
People wove in and out of conversation. I found my parents, still by the door, taking in the coordinated dance of the crowd. Mom sipped her red wine, her eyes darting around the room. She motioned with her chin toward the green brick. “That was Evelyn’s favorite color. The brighter the green, the better.” I hugged her the way she always held me, never wanting to let go.