I walked home in the late-afternoon sun, down the tree-lined streets of Fairfax with its rows of charming cottages and meticulous hedges and lawns, past the president’s mansion, a turn-of-the-century Craftsman covered with red cedar shingles, and around the corner to my apartment, the top floor of a three-story Victorian. “The Garret,” Larry called it whenever he visited.
The place reminded me of my undergraduate dorm room, a tiny single on the top floor of a Gothic dormitory, with diamond-shaped window panes oxidized green around the edges and tendrils of ivy that crawled in through the gaps in the stone. I remembered how Adam could always pinpoint my window from across the quad. “See?” Adam had said. “That’s your room over there, to the right. The window that’s dark.” Sure enough, there was a row of windows lit up like a string of Christmas lights, with one light missing. My room. “That’s how I know you’re not there,” Adam said. “That you’re here, with me.”
I sighed. My apartment now was dark, but no one was around to notice if I was home or not. No one except Jellyby, who was waiting for me by the front door, mewling for her dinner. I ran my hand over her back and down her plume-like tail, then walked to the kitchen, where I scooped out some dry food and watched her eat. I poured myself a glass of wine from a half-empty bottle and sat on my couch, watching the sun go down.
On a whim, I stood up and walked to my bookcases, packed floor to ceiling with novels and reference books and journals, the tools of my trade. I cast my eyes on a far corner of one bookcase, running my fingers along the dusty spines until I found what I was looking for, a slim, well-worn Penguin Classic with its distinctive black binding.
*
THE BOOK HAD BEEN a gift from Adam my senior year.
Our relationship had begun slowly at first, over coffees and dinners, talking about class and about the books we were reading and the papers we were writing. Over the summer, between my freshman and sophomore years, Adam returned to Los Angeles to work construction, and I returned to Florida to help my father run credit checks and field tenant complaints. Out of boredom and loneliness, we wrote each other long letters, mine filled with gripes about my father and sister, his filled with descriptions of his coworkers and high school friends. He usually signed his letter “abrazos,” but sometime that summer, it changed to “besos.” When we returned to school in the fall, he came straight to my dorm room from the airport, his luggage in hand. When I answered the door, he was standing there trying to catch his breath, unshaven, his hair longer than I remembered. I reached out to give him a hug, but he grabbed my hands and pulled me closer. I felt myself stop breathing. Adam was looking at me so intensely that I nervously dropped my eyes. “Anne,” he said, and I looked up, my whole face aflame. The next minute, he was kissing me full on the lips, softly at first, then with growing passion. I felt the scratchiness of his stubble and the warmth of his lips and I went limp with joy.
Over the next few years, we became serious about charting our future together. Back then, both of us were planning to go to graduate school, me in English, him in education. While studying together in the campus library one evening, Adam asked me to find a reference book for him while he put more money on his copy card. I took the stairs down two flights and wandered into the deserted stacks, breathing in the cool basement smell of old books. The motion-sensor lights switched on row by row as I scanned the catalogue numbers. At the correct row, I skimmed the book spines for the number Adam had jotted down for me on a slip of paper, my eye eventually coming to rest on a paperback book that looked curiously out of place among all the drab green and brown library-bound hardcovers. The book had no identification number, but it was in the spot where the book Adam wanted should have been. Pulling it out, I saw that it was a pristine copy of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, my favorite novel, which I’d recently lost on the train to New York. I looked up, and Adam stepped out from behind a neighboring stack, smiling broadly.
“You replaced my book!” I said, holding it to my chest.
“Open it,” he said.
I did and found a slim silk bag tucked between the pages.
“What’s this?” I asked, tugging at its strings. A delicate pink-and-gold cameo ring fell into my palm.
Adam came over to me and closed his hands over mine.
“Annie,” he said, “will you marry me?”
I looked at him, my heart painfully thumping in my chest.
“Aren’t we too young?” I asked.
“I’m twenty-six, Annie. I’m ready to get my life started. And I want it to be with you. I know it’s not a diamond—I can replace it with something nicer, once I pay off my student loans—”
“No! Don’t you dare! It’s—it’s perfect.”
Adam took the ring from my hand and dropped to one knee on the linoleum floor of the library, surrounded by a thousand silent books.
“I love you, Annie,” he said, looking up at me. “Will you marry me?”
I felt myself overwhelmed with emotion. He loved me as much as I loved him—more, even, if that were possible.
“Yes,” I said, my eyes filling as Adam slipped the ring on my finger. He stood and swept me up against the book stacks, knocking a few books onto the ground. A little while later, we crept out of the library, guiltily glancing at each other and stifling our laughter as a reference librarian looked at us, eyebrows raised, as we scurried past the circulation desk and into the cool autumn night.
*
THE BOOK WAS NOW yellowed with age and soft from use. I flipped to the title page. Persuasion, by Jane Austen. Written underneath in pen was the note:
For Annie,
I have loved none but you.
Besos,
A
Staring at the familiar handwriting, the slanted capital letters scrawled across the page, I felt a surge of bleak certainty. Adam had once cared for me. He had loved me enough to write dozens of letters, to give me books, to want to marry me one day. And it was my fault that I’d turned him away. I’d listened to others instead of trusting myself, and in the process, I’d hurt him badly. So badly that it was no wonder he wanted nothing more to do with me. I was a traitor, weak-willed, and so, so naive. I didn’t deserve him.
I threw the book to the ground, where it landed facedown, pages ruffled, prostrate. I stared at it for a few seconds. Then, feeling guilty—it wasn’t the book’s fault, after all—I picked it up, dusted it off, and mutely shoved it back into my bookcase.
From: Stephen Culpepper
To:
Subject: Presidential Inauguration
Date: September 10
Dear Esteemed Colleagues,
As you are well aware, the inauguration of President Martinez will take place this Saturday, September 15, and will serve as an official convocation for the beginning of the school year. As such, the entire department is expected to attend in full regalia (gown, hood, and cap).
Faculty members are expected to arrive no later than 2:00 p.m. Many of you have not yet RSVP’d to the reception afterwards at the President’s House. Please do so magna cum celeritate.
I am, yours faithfully,
Steve
* * *
Editor, “Piers Plowman” Reader (Cambridge UP, 2011)
Coeditor (with Ron Holbrook), Early Medieval Grammar (CLIO Press, 2006)
Editor, Journal of Anglo-Norman Studies (2005–present)
Member, Medium Aevum, the Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature
*
From: President Adam Martinez
To:
Subject: A Message from the President
Date: September 10
Dear Members of the Fairfax Community:
Many thanks for your warm welcome to campus. I have only been here for a couple weeks, but I have already been struck by the passion and commitment of Fairfax students, faculty members, and staff. I very much look forward to the year
ahead.
The coming months will see the launch of several ambitious projects essential to Fairfax’s future. Tiffany Allen, Director of the Office of Development, is in the midst of planning a major fund-raising campaign, with a public launch in October of this year. As college costs continue to rise across the country, this campaign will focus on defraying the cost of tuition through scholarships, grants-in-aid, and an expansion of the college endowment. As well, we will begin a major multiyear program to renovate Chandler Library, update student dormitories, and transform the plaza outside the Student Center into a central meeting place that will host outdoor activities, student groups, and other community events.
I will be in touch in the months ahead with more news and other announcements. In the meantime, please stop by my office with any questions, thoughts, or concerns you might have. My door is always open.
Sincerely,
Adam Martinez
*
From: Sallie Mae
To: Anne Corey
Subject: Your Sallie Mae Statement is Available
Date: September 7
Dear ANNE COREY:
Your monthly statement is now available. Please log in to your account at SallieMae.com to view and pay your bill.
Total Payment Due: $498.04
Current Amount Due Date: October 13
Balance: $96,194.25
As the nation’s No. 1 financial services company specializing in education, we appreciate the opportunity to serve you.
Sincerely,
Sallie Mae Customer Service
*
From: Linda Hacker-James
To: Anne Corey
Subject: book proposal and query
Date: September 7
Dear Dr. Corey,
I’ve read your proposal and am afraid we will have to pass on your manuscript. While Ivory Tower: Nineteenth-Century Women Writers and the Literary Imagination has an interesting premise, we do not believe there is a market for such an esoteric topic. I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
Sincerely,
LHJ
chapter four
MY PHONE RANG AS I pulled into the parking lot of the Huntington Library in San Marino. It was my sister, Lauren.
“Hello?” I said, meanwhile trying to angle my car into a spot near a bank of eucalyptus trees.
“Anne! Where are you?”
“At the library. I have to work on my book.”
“You’re not done with that damn thing already?”
“It takes time, Lauren. It’s a slow process—”
“I just got a call from the Y. It’s about Dad.”
“Oh no. What happened?”
My dad went to his local YMCA in South Florida every morning to swim laps in their pool. He was constantly complaining about the temperature of the pool and the lack of towel service, and he’d recently been reprimanded for fighting over a locker with a fellow member.
“Did he get into another fight with someone?” I asked.
“No, worse. They had to pull him from the pool this morning because, well, he wasn’t wearing a suit.”
“He wasn’t wearing a suit? You mean, he was naked?”
“Yup. He’d apparently forgotten to put it on. He had his cap and goggles on, but no swimsuit.”
“That’s awful! He must have been so embarrassed!”
“Nope. He just went back into the locker room, put on his swimsuit, and then hopped back into the pool as if nothing had happened. The director at the Y called because he’s worried it might be a symptom of dementia and wants us to get him checked out ASAP. I’m flying out to Florida the day after tomorrow—can you come?” Lauren asked.
“I can’t,” I stammered. “I have to teach.”
“Can’t you get someone to cover your classes?”
“I could. It’s just, um”—and here I lowered my voice, filled with shame—“I’m kind of broke right now, and I’m not sure I can afford the plane ticket.”
My money situation was a particularly sore spot with Lauren. Like my father, she had always thought my choice of career a foolish one. While I’d gotten a PhD, racked up debt, and hopped from one temporary position to another, she’d gotten her MBA, landed a high-paying job in marketing, and married a hedge fund manager named Brett. She was now a stay-at-home mom to three young boys and lived in a huge house in Los Angeles. Not once had she ever offered to cover a plane ticket or spot me some cash, seeing my poverty as a character flaw that should not be condoned.
“Oh,” Lauren said, her voice snippy. “Fine. I’ll just deal with it myself.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
I hauled myself out of the car and made my way to the reading room. The previous day, Steve had reiterated to me, yet again, the importance of my landing a book contract.
“Publish or perish, as they say,” he’d chuckled, and I’d stifled the impulse to throttle him.
“Easy for you to say,” I wanted to cry. “You didn’t have to write a book to get tenure. Back when you were coming up, your adviser just had to pick up the phone and recommend you for a position and bam! You had a job!”
But I smiled at him pleasantly, left his office, and managed to get home before having a nervous breakdown. I’d since roused myself from my pool of self-pity to drag myself to the Huntington, where I was finishing up some research on my book. My personal life was a mess, I told myself, but maybe my professional life was still salvageable.
I flashed my reader badge to a security guard in a blue blazer and then stashed my belongings in a locker, taking only my laptop and phone with me to the reading room, a glass-enclosed space where readers were hunched over manuscripts and other documents, some of them using magnifying glasses. The reading room had a long and intimidating list of rules. No food or drink, no pens, no cameras. Always use gloves and a cradle, use special weights to keep the pages open, don’t bend the pages, don’t put things out of order, don’t even breathe.
I submitted a request slip to the archivist and, as I waited, scrolled through my manuscript on my laptop. My book was about nineteenth-century women writers, but it might as well have been about spinsterhood and romantic rejection. Jane Austen never married, though she did once receive a marriage proposal from an unattractive, oafish guy with the unfortunate name of Harris Bigg-Wither. Charlotte Brontë was plain, tubercular, and always falling in love with married men. She eventually settled for a nice guy she didn’t really love, but then she died of pneumonia while pregnant with her first child. And George Eliot, according to good old Henry James, was horse-faced and “deliciously hideous.” Thumbing her nose at polite society, she had a long-term relationship with a married man, but when he died, she ended up marrying a much younger guy who jumped out of a window during their honeymoon—maybe because he was depressed, or maybe, people joked, because he was fleeing her carnal embrace.
For the umpteenth time, I wondered why I couldn’t have written a book on, oh, sanitation reform in Charles Dickens’s novels. “Book topics are always autobiographical,” Larry used to tell me. “Thanks a lot,” I’d snapped at him.
The archivist approached me with my requested item—the library’s first edition copy of Jane Eyre. It was a triple-decker, meaning it had originally been published in three volumes. The books arrived enclosed in a green folding case, their faded brown-and-gilt spines lined up like an encyclopedia. I slid on a pair of gloves, pulled the volumes out one by one, placed them gently on the foam cradle, and opened the dry old pages, using weighted velvet cords to hold the corners down.
JANE EYRE
An Autobiography
Edited by
CURRER BELL
In Three Volumes
VOL. 1
LONDON:
Smith, Elder & Co., Cornhill
1847
It was strange to be treating a book so delicately. I knew that f
irst editions were rare, fragile, and very, very expensive, and I was careful to touch it with the utmost delicacy. My own copy of Jane Eyre received no such treatment. It was crosshatched with pencil markings, bound together with tape, dog-eared and brimming with Post-it notes. All my thoughts, from when I was a teenager to today, were in those pages. “Gross,” I’d written in the margins when Rochester was first introduced (what had I been thinking?). On other pages, I’d doodled hearts and question marks, notes to my friends (“so bored. luv ya!”), and some half-hearted lecture notes: “St. John—pronounced SINJIN” and “bildungsroman: novel of development.”
In college, when I reread the novel for Dr. Russell’s class, I tried to blot out the hearts and the dumbest comments (“JTT is so hot”), and I aggressively annotated the novel to compensate. “Governess Novels: genre that includes Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey and W. H. Thackeray’s Vanity Fair” and “Gayatri Spivak: Bertha Mason and ‘the axiomatics of imperialism.’ ” The notes were helpful when I later used the novel in my dissertation and then taught it to my students. Meanwhile, the book became rattier, every page marked with something, whether a note to read a passage aloud in class, a student comment I’d found interesting, or a reference I’d looked up. It was a history of my reading life.
The book in front of me, in contrast, was pristine. Of its original owner, I knew nothing other than that he or she was probably wealthy. Triple-deckers weren’t cheap, costing about $100 for the whole set when they were first produced. Part of me wondered if anyone had ever read it, or if it had simply been forgotten in someone’s wood-paneled library until a book dealer spied it in an estate sale. I began typing up some notes on my computer, carefully flipping the pages of the original to double-check quotations.
At lunchtime, the reading room emptied out. I returned my materials to the archivist’s desk and joined the flow of people heading to the café at the adjoining museum, where our reader’s badge got us a 10 percent discount on food and beverages. As I crossed the courtyard, I saw a large placard standing outside the museum’s main lecture hall. It read:
By the Book Page 3