The Bookish Life of Nina Hill (ARC)

by Abbi Waxman

  “It usually does. Anyway, Archie is pretty distracted right now, what with the baby.”

  “He has a baby?”

  “Not yet. You didn’t notice how pregnant Becca was? I guess she didn’t stand up. Their little boy is two, and the new one is due any minute. I don’t think he’s thinking all that much about his father.”

  But Peter was wrong.

  When Nina came out of work at the end of the day, Archie Reynolds was standing in the street waiting for her. Even after only meeting him twice, it was a pleasure to see his face. Her brother. Her older brother. Better late than never, she supposed.

  He half smiled at her. “Hi, sis.”

  She went to shake his hand and then realized that was dumb and hugged him. This was a benefit of family she’d never thought of: more hugging. Once her nanny Louise had moved away, there wasn’t really anyone around she could just, you know, hug on to. Her friends hugged her when they said hello or good-bye, but it wasn’t like she could scooch up next to Polly in the store and lean on her for twenty minutes. She stepped away from Archie and realized she was related to someone she wouldn’t have picked out of a lineup two weeks earlier. Presumably, she would get used to it. Most commonplace things started out strange: Electric light! Running water! Watching ALL the episodes one after the other!

  In turn, Archie looked at her closely, seeing elements of his father’s face in hers, wondering if it would ever not seem strange that he’d actually been in this bookstore many times without noticing those same similarities. He must have seen Nina before; there had been a stretch in his son’s early life when they’d come to Knight’s once or twice a month, after the weekend farmers’ market. He may have talked to her, certainly smiled at her, purchased books from her, without ever even thinking about her for more than a moment or two. How many people do we encounter every day who might be related to us, or simply people who might have become the best friends we ever had, or our second spouses, or the agents of our destruction, if we only spent more than seconds with them? He realized he was staring.

  “It’s weird, right?” Nina had been staring at him, too. “This whole thing is really a bit upsetting.”

  Archie nodded. “It is. I wanted to talk to you. Are you rushing off somewhere?”

  She had been on her way to yoga class, but any excuse not to feel inflexible and clumsy was welcome. And to be fair, she was only going so when she got to book club later on she could say she’d been to yoga and feel OK eating as many cookies or cupcakes as she wanted. She shook her head. “No, not at all. Do you want to get coffee?” She pointed across the street. “We could go back to our usual spot.”

  “Excellent.” Archie turned to cross the street. He pulled open the door of the café and said, “By the way, our whole family should be bowing our heads in shame for letting Lydia bully you like that yesterday.” He held the door for her. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s OK,” said Nina. “Is Lydia always like that?”

  “Aggressive and ridiculous?” He laughed. “Yeah, pretty much. She’s not mellowing with age, that’s for sure.”

  They sat down at the same table.

  Vanessa wasn’t working that day, but Nina waved at Andi, another waitress she liked a lot. Andi grinned at her and brought over a menu.

  “You don’t need this, obviously, as you probably know it better than I do, but maybe your friend … ?”

  “I think just coffee, thanks.” Archie was still finding it hard not to stare at Nina.

  “Me too,” said Nina.

  Archie cleared his throat. “You know, if things had been different, we would have grown up together. You’re only a couple of months younger than me. Why didn’t your mother want us to know each other?”

  Nina was surprised. “I don’t think she thought about it that way, to be honest.” She shrugged. “It’s hard to know, with her; she’s not super forthcoming about her motivations. She said, when I asked her essentially the same thing, that she didn’t think your dad would have been a good father.”

  “He was your dad, too.”

  “So you all keep telling me. I’m not sure that simple biology makes someone a father, though. Don’t you have to do some actual fathering? I mean, yeah, he provided a sperm, but after that nothing. I always thought parenting was more active than that.”

  Archie paused while Andi put down their coffees. “You said your mom was away a lot when you were a kid.”

  “She still is.”

  “But you consider her your mother, even though someone else did most of the mothering.”

  “Yeah, true.” Nina shrugged. “I guess there are as many ways to mother someone as there are mothers. Mine wasn’t there physically, but she sent a lot of cool postcards.” The postcards had been a regular feature of Nina’s childhood she’d mostly forgotten. They would show up once or twice a month, with a brief message (You’d hate it here, or Everything smells of cheese, or Been throwing up for days, weather’s good, though), and signed Mum in big, loopy handwriting. Louise and she would examine the stamps, look at the photo, and stick the cards to the fridge. She wondered where they were now, then remembered she’d cut off all the stamps and given them to a fifteen-year-old boy she’d had a crush on. Epic fail in terms of dating strategy; he’d looked at her strangely, thanked her, and never spoken to her again, and now she couldn’t remember what she’d done with the cards themselves. She dragged her attention back to Archie.

  “But your … our … father wasn’t even heard from until two weeks ago. For a serial cheater, he was a man of his word.” She smiled ruefully.

  Archie didn’t. “I’m really struggling to get my head around it, but I’m also finding it hard to understand why I’m struggling to get my head around it, if you can follow that. He cheated on his first wife … Why would I think he wouldn’t cheat on my mother?”

  Nina made a face. “Because he loved her?”

  Archie shrugged. “I don’t think his cheating was actually anything to do with his wives, or how he felt about them. I think he liked other women and was selfish about it. We talked about it once, when I was older and about to get married myself. My wife is …” He blushed, suddenly. “Very beautiful, as you saw the other day. I was deeply in love with her when we got married, still am, actually. But my dad took me out to dinner and told me that I would cheat on her one day.”

  “How did he know that?”

  Archie’s mouth twisted. “He didn’t. He genuinely thought every husband cheated, maybe every wife, too. He said the lure of fresh flesh was too strong. He implied it was pointless to resist it.”

  “That seems to be kind of an overstatement. What made him so certain?”

  “I’m not sure. He had this central belief in the importance of sex, I think. He thought it was the driving force behind every great story, every great event.”

  “You disagree?”

  “I don’t know. I think it was his driving force.” Archie looked at her. “Mind you, he had lots of them: sex, women, cigarettes, money, booze. He drank a lot—you know that, right? He was an alcoholic. I didn’t realize it when I was a kid, but it was obvious looking back. He was very anxious in the mornings; he woke up shaking, and would hide in the bathroom a lot. My mother said he had low blood sugar, and would bring him orange juice and treat him like a baby.” He drank his coffee. “But actually, he was hungover, and waiting until he could get to the office and have a drink.”

  “Great,” said Nina. “It’s probably just as well I don’t drink very much then.” A sudden flash of the kiss with Tom crossed her mind.

  Archie nodded. “I think Becky and Rachel both stopped drinking pretty young; not sure about the others.” He finished his coffee and looked around for Andi. “It’s genetic, you know.”

  Nina nodded. “And did you?”

  Archie frowned. “Did I what?”

  “Did you cheat? On your wife?”

  He shook his head. “Not yet. But now that I know about you, I worry that it’s predetermine
d, like the drinking. If he couldn’t control himself, maybe it will be the same for me. I didn’t think so, but you kind of messed up a lot of what I took for granted.” He caught Andi’s eye and mimed a request for more coffee for both of them. “Sorry, I know it’s not your fault.”

  Nina shrugged and pressed on. “But you thought he didn’t cheat on your mother. You thought there could be exceptions.”

  “Yeah, because she died pretty young, right? I thought maybe he’d managed to keep it in his pants long enough. But he didn’t, not at all. He cheated on her with your mom, and who knows who else, and that was years before she got sick.”

  “Yeah, but look at me. My mom can’t stay in one place for more than a month, and I’ve barely left the state. Just because he was a jerk doesn’t mean you have to be.”

  “Maybe not.”

  Nina tried changing the subject. “When is your baby due?”

  “Next month.” He pulled out his phone and flipped through some photos. “This is my son, Henry, and there’s Becca.” The photo showed an adorable little boy with tiny glasses on, and the beautiful blond woman she’d seen at the lawyer’s office, both grinning at the camera like idiots.

  “They look happy,” said Nina.

  “They are,” replied Archie. “Long may they stay that way.” He put his phone away and rubbed his face with his hand. “Do you ever worry that you are going to mess things up?”

  “What kind of things? I mean, yes, of course, all the time, but what specifically?”

  “I worry I’m going to lose control of my life, that I’m going to make a massive mistake and it’s all going away. I don’t know why, but things have been hard, with Becca pregnant and Henry being only two and work …” He put his hands on the tabletop, but not quickly enough to prevent Nina from seeing that they were shaking.

  “Do you get anxiety?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I do. I used to get it worse, but I take medication for it now. You?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I have Xanax for when it’s really bad, and sometimes it does get really bad. As long as I keep on top of things, it’s manageable, but I don’t do well with surprises.” She took a breath. “I’m easily thrown; I guess you could put it like that. I feel like I don’t have a deep well of calm. I feel like I was lightly misted with calm, and it doesn’t take a lot for it to evaporate.” She grinned. “Not sure this metaphor is going to last all that much longer, either.”

  He smiled at her. “My wife has the deep well of calm in our house. She’s like Lake Calm, in fact. I’m more like you.” He shrugged. “Dad was not in any way calm; he revved very high indeed, and then his blood mixed with the cyanide that runs through Alice’s veins produced Rachel, who is truly horrible, but also Becky, Peter’s mom, who is the kindest woman on the planet. One more generation down you get Peter and Jennifer, who are awesome in every way, but also Lydia, who’s a total nutjob. Genetics are funny things, right?”

  Nina put her hands flat on the tabletop, across from his. “We have similar hands, look.”

  “Mine are bigger.”

  She looked up at him. “No shit, Sherlock.”

  He laughed. “I don’t know why I’m even telling you all this.”

  “I’m your sister?”

  “Yeah, I guess. And you can’t stop being my sister, even if you know how anxious I get. I … I felt like maybe you would understand.” He studied the tabletop.

  Andi delivered their lattes. Nina took a sip and wiped the foam off her lip with the back of her sleeve. “Understand why you’re wigged out about suddenly discovering something upsetting about a guy who, let’s face it, had already caused a lot of trouble even before this all came out?”

  He nodded.

  “Wouldn’t anyone understand? A week or so ago I thought I was the child of a brave, creative, brilliant world traveler and never understood why I was shy, nervous, and basically unwilling to travel outside my zip code. Now I know where some of that came from, but I’ve also inherited potential alcoholism and an inability to remain faithful, so, you know, not exactly a win-win.”

  Archie grinned suddenly, and anyone watching them would instantly have known they were related. “Yup, that’s about the size of it. You’ve probably inherited money, too, of course.”

  “Unconfirmed. And not if Lydia has her way.”

  Archie rolled his eyes. “Lydia’s angry all the time; you’re just today’s focus. It’s a pity, because she’s really brilliant. Brain like a steel trap, but sadly, she mostly uses it for storing up imaginary insults and injuries.”

  “That’s awesome. What a lovely family you all are.” Nina arranged a small pile of sugar packets into a tower.

  “We all are,” said Archie with a grin. “It’s your family, too.” He stuck out his finger and knocked over her tower of sugar packets.

  “Not if I don’t want it to be.” Nina smacked his hand and started rebuilding.

  Archie called for the check. “Good luck sticking that cat back in the bag.” He looked at her hands. “You’re single?”

  “Very much so. I don’t have time for a boyfriend right now.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “Is it?” Nina thought about Tom. “I meet people, but no one I want to give up anything for.”

  “Your life is so full of excitement and adventure?”

  “Are you kidding? I have a weekly book club, a regular movie night, a dedicated physical wellness practice at least one night a week, a cat … I am living the dream.”

  He laughed and signed the check. “You’re a lucky woman.”

  “Yeah. And now I have you lot to contend with. A man would have to be pretty special to squeeze into my life.”

  Archie got to his feet and stretched the exact same way Nina usually did. “Well, maybe one of us will introduce you to someone worth canceling book club for.”

  Nina followed him out of the café. “I seriously doubt that. You’ve heard the phrase fact is stranger than fiction?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, it’s also much less attractive. I’ll stick with my fictional love life, thanks. In both senses of the word.”

  Archie stopped on the sidewalk. “I’m parked up there. Do you want a lift home?”

  Nina shook her head. “No, thanks, I like walking.”

  “Cool, we’ll talk later.” He hugged her, and in that brief embrace she felt a warm, reassuring acceptance. However mean Lydia might be, Archie and Peter were certainly making up for it. She’d never had brothers, obviously, and had never dated a man long enough to reach the point where she could take him for granted, and hug for no reason beyond affection, and she suddenly felt elated to have it in her life now. I have a big brother, she thought again. I am a little sister.

  She watched her brother disappear up the street, his walk strangely familiar. She flicked a glance at her watch; great, the yoga class was completely over, so now she could go home, feed the cat, get into her are-they-pajamas-or-are-they-just-comfy-pants, and head to her friend’s house for book club.

  Yup. Nina Hill was living the dream.

  Fifteen

  In which Nina is too organized for her own good.

  Thursdays were Nina’s favorite day. After work on Thursdays she had nothing scheduled. Literally, from 6 to 10 P.M., she had written Nothing in her planner. Which actually meant reading, because when she had nothing to do, reading is what she did. Sometimes people tried to get her to do something instead, but she was fiercely defensive of her nothing.

  So when she looked up from the pile of books she was reshelving and saw Tom entering the store, her first thought was she couldn’t go out with him that night, because she had nothing to do. Her second thought was that he hadn’t even asked her out, and she had no reason to think he was going to ask her out. Her third thought was that she was apparently getting a little full of herself and needed to pull herself together. And her fourth and final thought in this parade of small thoughts was that he was walking toward her and she should
probably say hello.

  “Hi there,” she said. He was taller than she remembered. Or she had shrunk, one or the other.

  He smiled at her. “Hi.”

  “Are you looking for a book?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not a book person, remember? I’m not illiterate; I just don’t read much.” He turned up his hands. “Sorry.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Maybe you haven’t found the right kind of book yet.”

  “I’m not trying very hard,” he said, easily. “Anyway, I came in to see if maybe you’d like to go out for dinner?” He was impressed with his relaxed, assured tone. There was absolutely no way she could guess he was as nervous as a shortsighted fly at a spider convention. Crushed it.

  “Uh … sure.” Nice, Nina, way to sound enthusiastic.

  OK, well, she doesn’t sound all that interested, but let’s press on. “What day works for you?” He remembered the feeling of her in his arms, the kiss, the invitation … It didn’t look like that girl came to work today.

  “Let me get my planner.” Nina carried the remaining books back to the counter and dug underneath for her planner.

  “Wow,” said Tom, once she’d pulled it out. “That is a serious planner.” He thought about his own planner, which was a small section of his brain that rarely had anything to do. If he had more than two or three things to remember, he might jot them on a Post-it, but that was about it. This girl might be a little hard-core organized for him. What would she be like in bed? Two minutes on this nipple, please, then forty seconds of …

  Nina looked at her planner as if seeing it for the first time. It was big and heavily accessorized. It had bookmarks sticking out at various points; it had ribbons and tabs; it had a pocket full of special, planner-sized equipment.

  “I enjoy being organized,” she replied. “It’s just …” She opened the planner to that week, and Tom frowned when he saw how full the page was.

  “Wow,” he commented. “You’ve got a lot going on.”

  “Yeah.” Nina nodded, suddenly a little embarrassed. “Uh, this week isn’t good. How about next week?” She flipped over a few pages. “No, that’s pretty full, too.”