The Bookish Life of Nina Hill (ARC)

by Abbi Waxman

  “Aren’t you so excited?” He hugged himself. “I am beyond thrilled. When Sarky called, I thought it was Christmas. You’re totally going in my syllabus.”

  “Sarky? Sarkassian the lawyer?”

  “Yeah, we call him that.”

  “Do you see a lot of him?”

  “More than you would think. I’m afraid you’ve inherited one of the more bizarre family setups. Did you eat? You’re going to need all your mental faculties.”

  “Oh,” said Nina, faintly. She reached for her coffee. “I wasn’t hungry.”

  “Here, have half my panini. No one needs a whole panini.” He looked around the room and spotted the guy who had smiled at him earlier. “I think that guy is checking you out.”

  “No,” said Nina, “he’s checking you out.” She picked up half of his sandwich and bit into it. Pesto ran down her chin and Peter handed her a napkin.

  “He’s not, but it doesn’t matter. I’m spoken for.”

  Nina giggled. “You are?”

  Peter nodded. “I’m betrothed.”

  “How old fashioned of you.”

  “Here’s the thing,” said her nephew. “I am an old man in a young and, let’s face it, gorgeous man’s body. I was born fifty-six. It was very hard for me to be young. I hated it. It’s only very recently I feel like I’m becoming who I was supposed to be, which is a middle-aged professor of Anthropology with elbow patches.”

  Nina looked at his jacket and raised her eyebrows.

  He made a face at her. “OK, so this jacket doesn’t have them, but I will find one that does, or find patches I can add, or something. That’s not really the point; I’m wearing patches on my elbows all the time, even when I’m naked, metaphorically speaking.” He shrugged. “The professor part is fine—I’m on the faculty at UCLA; and the age part is fine—I’m thirty-three. Not yet in my prime, but getting there.” He suddenly looked concerned. “Do you understand what I mean, or do I sound completely nuts?”

  Nina shook her head at him. “No, I totally get it. I think I was supposed to be born in the nineteenth century, or maybe Edwardian England. I should be wearing empire-waisted tea dresses and sitting in a window seat watching for carriages.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-nine. I’m your aunt, but younger than you; how is that possible?”

  Peter stared at her, then frowned. “When’s your birthday?”

  “June 30.”

  He let out a low whistle. “Oh crap. That’s not going to make things any easier.” He leaned down and started rooting around in his briefcase, a large brown leather messenger bag that looked like it had seen some heavy use. He finally found what he was looking for and unrolled it onto the table: a long, laminated piece of paper covered in some kind of diagram. It was highly complicated.

  “You laminated it?” asked Nina. Not that she didn’t love a laminator—she really did; she could frequently be found randomly laminating pretty pieces of fabric or paper to use as bookmarks. “Your margins are really even.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “No one’s ever noticed my margins before.”

  “You have beautiful margins,” smiled Nina. “But I’m still not sure why it’s laminated.” She paused. “I’m not completely certain what it is.”

  Peter looked surprised. “It’s us. I mean it’s our family. It’s laminated because I use it in class to explain how to construct a kinship diagram.”

  “A kinship diagram?”

  “A family tree is what we call it in the West, but in many cultures, degrees of kinship extend way beyond immediate or even secondary family.”

  “Ah,” said Nina, having no response to that.

  “However,” said Peter, pointing to parts of the chart, “our chart is actually relatively shallow but very wide, which makes it interesting.” He noted her bemused expression. “Perhaps only to me. Our family is extremely matrimonially extended, so it’s a good demonstration of how interpersonal relationships are affected by changes in legal status.” He shrugged. “Or not, as the case may be.”

  He was clearly serious about this, but then he looked at her and grinned. “And now I get to redo the whole thing and add you, and as you are illegitimate—no offense—it’s even better. I get to use dotted lines!”

  “No offense taken. Can you give me a broad overview? I still don’t understand the whole family bit.” Nina was starting to wish she’d brought notepaper. “I’m having a hard time believing it.”

  Peter nodded, finished his coffee, and said, “I can imagine it’s a bit of a shock.” Then he pulled a dry-erase marker from his bag.

  “I have that brand,” said Nina. “I find they streak so much less.”

  “They really do, and I can’t believe we’re discussing it. Just think, we would be friends even if we weren’t related, drawn together by our love of quality office supplies.”

  He leaned forward and poked his pen at the top of his chart. “OK, so here’s William at the top, and here, ranged from left to right, are his three wives. The main reason the family is so wide is that he married for the first time at twenty and the last time at sixty, and had kids each time, and those big gaps of time allow for three generations to be born, obviously.”

  Nina had no idea what he was talking about, but nodded. “Obviously.”

  Peter looked at her keenly, clearly used to students pretending to understand him. He sighed and reached into his bag again. “Here, let’s try this instead. It sometimes helps.”

  He slid a piece of paper across to her and handed her a pen. It was a FriXion, she was pleased to see, and then she was mildly embarrassed that she even noticed.

  “Put William at the top, and then draw a horizontal line all the way across.”

  She did so.

  “Now, from left to right, leaving space, write Alice, then Rosie, then your mom’s name—what is it, by the way?”

  “Candice.”

  “OK.” He made a note on his laminated chart, the tip of his tongue poking out happily, like a little kid. “And then finally Eliza. Done that?” He looked over and nodded. “OK, now draw another horizontal line under their names, and put a big ONE on the far left.”

  Nina did so, feeling on familiar ground now she was dealing with paper.

  “I like your lettering,” said Peter. “Now, under Alice write Becky and Katherine. Under Rosie write Archie. Under Candice write Nina, and under Eliza write Millie. Then put another horizontal line.”

  He sat back and puffed out his breath. “That is your generation. Those are your siblings, and they range from the oldest, my mother, Becky, who is fifty-nine, to the youngest, Millie, who is ten.”

  Nina gazed at him. “No way.”

  “Way.”

  “But … how is that possible?”

  He shrugged philosophically. “It’s possible because men can father children until they’re really old, and for some reason—and this is less easy to explain—your father was so charming he persuaded three women to marry him and at least one other that we know of to sleep with him. Mind you,” he added judiciously, “I only knew him as an old man; he was pretty handsome in his youth.”

  Nina said dryly, “I imagine my mother wasn’t the only one.”

  Peter shook his head. “I imagine you’re right, but so far you’re the only child out of wedlock we know about.” He looked serious for a moment. “But here’s the problem: Archie is thirty, and his birthday is in January.”

  Nina looked at him, confused. “So?”

  “So you were born while his dad was still married to his mom. In fact, based on your birthday, William slept with your mom while his wife, Rosie, was pregnant with Archie.”

  “Oh.” Her mother had been right. So much for not remembering all that much about it.

  Peter nodded. “‘Oh’ is right. And Rosie, sadly, is dead. Of cancer. A decade ago. And William and she seemed very happy together, and that’s been the story all along, that Rosie was the love of his life, that they would have stayed m
arried and had more kids and it was all a big tragedy. And now it turns out he cheated on her and we have living physical proof. Which is you.”

  “Awesome.”

  “Yeah,” said Peter. “Not entirely sure how Archie’s going to feel about it, but there’s not much we can do to change it.”

  Nina was silent.

  “Shall we carry on?” asked Peter. “There are two more generations to go.”

  She nodded. “Let me get more coffee and maybe a bun of some kind.”

  “Excellent idea. Grab me something fattening while you’re up there, will you?”

  Nina went and stood at the counter. She was feeling something new, something she was finding it hard to quantify. She turned and looked at Peter, who was texting on his phone and smiling at something. She liked him so much already, not in an ‘I wonder if we’ll be friends’ kind of way, but in a … she wasn’t sure what it was. She got two more lattes and two chocolate éclairs.

  “Ooh, good choice. I can see genetics are still working in our favor. There is nothing—nothing—that isn’t improved by laying a thick piece of chocolate frosting on top of it.”

  Nina nodded, and realized what it was. They were related. She’d never experienced a relative before, apart from her mom, and Candice had never really warmed to the role. Presumably, if she and Peter had hated each other on sight it would have sucked, but she knew already that they were going to be connected forever. There was no confusion, no potential attraction, no time limit. It was a relationship she could understand and rely on. She felt … relaxed. Which of course made her feel slightly worried. It shouldn’t be as easy as this to like someone, right?

  “Shall we continue?” She drew a third horizontal line, some way below all the names, and put a big two on the side.

  “What an excellent student you are,” Peter said, around a mouthful of éclair. “OK, so Becky had Jennifer and then me, Peter.” He waved at himself, even though they were two feet apart. “Katherine had Lydia, which is somewhat amazing, because my aunt Katherine is a piece of work. She may have eaten her husband; he disappeared completely. According to my mother, one day he was there and the next day he was gone, leaving all his worldly possessions and his car keys behind.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “Yeah.” He paused. “He took the dog, though.”

  Nina nodded. “Not a total loss then.”

  Peter continued, “My grandmother, Alice, is a nightmare. She looks like Miss Havisham, you know, from Dickens, but talks like something out of a Coppola movie. My mom is great, proving genetics aren’t everything, but Aunt Katherine continues to be a strangely dressed homicidal maniac.”

  “Wow, don’t hold back. Say what you really think.”

  “You’ll see. My sister Jennifer is awesome—you’ll love her—but my cousin Lydia is a fiend in human form, despite being a genius. Or maybe because she’s a genius. She’s not as bad as her mom, but let’s call her challenging. OK, let’s get on with the chart. We have years for backstory.” He licked the last of the chocolate off his fingers. “But remember, don’t go near my grandmother without a shiny shield to look into. One direct glance and it’s masonry all the way.”

  “Damn.”

  “True story. Anyway, let’s press on. Draw another line and put a three.”

  Nina did so.

  Peter turned his head to see her piece of paper. “You could totally take my class. OK, we’re nearly done. Now you’ve reached my group; me, my sister and Archie’s little boy, Henry, who is two. No one else has any kids, so that’s it for nieces and nephews.”

  “Great.” Nina pushed the piece of paper away, but Peter pushed it back.

  “Oh no, you’re not done. You need another horizontal line. I don’t have kids, but my older sister Jennifer has three, Little Alice, JoJo, and Louie. They’re nearly teenagers, and they are—drumroll, please—your great-nieces and great-nephew.”

  Nina looked at him. “Wait, I’m someone’s Great-Aunt Nina?”

  Peter laughed. “Yes. You are their Great-Aunt Nina. Which would be amusing to them if they didn’t already have a Great-Uncle Archie, and a Great-Aunt Millie, who’s younger than they are.” He pointed his finger at her. “And THAT is unusual, even to me.” Then he pushed his cup and plate away and started to roll up the chart. “I’m exhausted. Shall we go to the gift store? I hear they have paper clips shaped like rabbits and those old-fashioned pencils with all the colors inside one on top of the other.”

  So that’s what they did.

  After the shopping was over, Nina exchanged phone numbers with Peter and went home. She felt anxious about a potentially angry brother she hadn’t even met yet, and worried that, through no fault of her own, she had ruined someone else’s life. It was a whole new level of awkward, and she was someone who was pretty familiar with awkward. It had taken her previous record—the time she’d attended a Bar Mitzvah by accident when she’d walked into the wrong synagogue (Beth EL is not the same as Beth AM, in case you were wondering) looking for a friend’s wedding—and smashed it completely. She felt discombobulated, to use a word Liz liked, as if millions of voices had suddenly cried out in—no, wait, that’s Star Wars. She felt like she’d had a heart transplant. The original organ that usually felt stable in her chest, beating its way along and only occasionally skipping a beat (hello, Michael Fassbender), had been replaced by something that didn’t feel as though it had been installed correctly.

  Nina told Phil the cat all about it, and he was horrified. “Your dad isn’t Richard Chamberlain from The Thorn Birds?”

  She stroked his head and shook her own.

  “Or Magnum, P.I.?”

  Nina looked over at her wall. Phil wasn’t really saying any of this, of course, because he’s a cat and cats don’t talk, but his voice in her head was listing her dream dads. She had head shots of all of them on her wall; a tribute both to their stellar work on television, and to the hopeful and imaginative little girl she’d once been. The two he’d mentioned were there, but also Commander Riker, whose real name she could never—no, wait, Jonathan Frakes; Bruce Willis (Moonlighting, not Die Hard); Alan Alda in M.A.S.H.; and her personal favorite, Mark Harmon from St. Elsewhere, though his character ended up dying of AIDS, which was a bit of a blow at the time. For her, not him.

  Throughout Nina’s childhood, TV had been her second best friend, after books, and she had watched what her nanny Louise had watched, which meant mostly ’70s and ’80s shows, not counting Star Trek: TNG because Louise was a die-hard Trekkie. She even liked Deep Space Nine.

  When Nina had been around ten, she’d gotten it into her little head that maybe one of these characters was her dad, and it became a game, sort of. She liked calling it a game, anyway, because if she actually thought about how much effort went into researching whether or not the potential dads in question were in Los Angeles when she was conceived, that would seem weird. Once she’d clarified that they were, she would cut out their picture and stick it in a box she had for the purpose. The Dad Box had become a bit of A Thing for a while, because Nina had been an anxious kid, and had frequently needed to sit on the floor and dream about possibilities outside of her daily experience.

  Not that her daily experience was dreadful; it wasn’t like she was ice fishing in the Bering Strait, or using her tiny child fingers to pick solder out of abandoned electrical products, but sometimes walking down the halls of elementary school had been terrifying. She had panicked a lot, and could still remember the time Louise called her mom and talked to her in a quiet voice about it. Then she’d hung up, turned to Nina, and said, your mom says breathe in a paper bag and tough it out. Then Louise had sat and rocked Nina on her lap, and she’d cried—little Nina, not Louise—and a few days later Louise had gone out and bought a laminating machine and laminated the dads. Nina would take one to school with her every day, rotating through the roster so none of them would get upset, but anyway, that’s not the point. The point is none of these witty, urbane, caring men were
her dad. Her dad was just some guy who sounded like a total phallus.

  Phil pointed out that the sins of the fathers are not the sins of the child, and Nina replied that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, then they both fell asleep on the sofa. It had been a difficult day.

  Seven

  In which Nina meets a brother.

  As was often the case, Liz got hung up on the details.

  “You’re the love child that’s going to derail the whole plot of their lives?”

  Nina nodded. “I’m afraid so. I didn’t do it on purpose.”

  “Of course not, but how often does one get a chance to be Jon Snow?”

  “Does that mean I know nothing?”

  “I think that was always the case; your illegitimacy has no bearing.” She smiled. “But maybe you’ll inherit a million bucks and we’ll be able to pay off Mephistopheles.” She pointed her finger at Nina. “You could be like Little Lord Fauntleroy. Characters in books are always inheriting a fortune.”

  “It doesn’t usually end well. Think of Charlie Kane in Citizen Kane. Or Isabel Archer in The Portrait of a Lady.”

  Liz shrugged. “You’re forgetting the greatest family of inheritors ever, the Beverly Hillbillies. Elly May Clampett’s life was filled with joy. Joy and plenty of gingham.” She looked Nina up and down. “You could totally pull it off.”

  Nina asked, “Do we actually owe Mr. Meffo a million bucks?” She hoped not; she loved her job at the store. Loved everything about the store, in fact.

  Liz shook her head. “No, it just feels like it.”

  It was still pretty early. The store was open, but the only customer they had was a guy who lived nearby and had some kind of developmental disability. His name was Jim, and he had the sweetest smile and often hung out in the natural history section for hours looking at pictures of animals. Everyone knew him on the boulevard, and watched out for him and said hi, and as far as Nina knew, he thought he was a prince occasionally visiting his fiefdom to check on the peasants.