by Abbi Waxman
“I gave this to him when I was ten or so.” She picked up a friendship bracelet of red and yellow threads. “And I gave this to him much later.” Finally, she picked up a folded piece of paper and opened it up.
“‘Dear Lydia,’” she read, “‘If you’re reading this, I’m dead, I’m afraid.’”
“Huh,” said Nina. “He said that in my note, too.”
Lydia looked at her over the piece of paper. “Well, it was true in both cases, right?” She continued to read:
You were always the smartest of my grandchildren, and the one that made me most nervous. I worried you saw right through me, saw how shallow I was and judged me for it. Now I think I was wrong, and I am more sorry than I can say that I never got to know you better. You’re a very special person, Lydia, and I hope you can forgive me. I realize you’ll probably say this is too little, too late, and you’ll be right. But it’s the only thing I can do, because no one can turn back time. Except Hermione, of course.
Lydia looked at Nina and her mouth twitched. “That’s creepy.”
Nina shrugged. “People make book references. What can you do?”
Lydia continued reading:
By the way, you and Nina would probably really get along. You should have dinner or something. I’ve put a gift card for AOC in the envelope. Hopefully, it’s still in business and you two can start to be friends.
Lydia looked up at Nina and frowned. “Such a manipulative bastard, even dead. It’s funny how people behave badly their whole lives and then think they can say sorry and it’s all erased. Not that AOC isn’t a great restaurant.” Euclid left Nina and wandered over to jump on Lydia’s lap. “He left my mom and her sister when they were really young, and my mom was kind of ruined by it. My grandma is a total witch—did you catch that?”
Nina nodded. “It was subtle, but yeah, I noticed.”
“She made my mom’s life difficult, and my mom made my life difficult, and now I make other people’s lives difficult, and maybe it’s time the whole cycle stopped.” She sighed. “I just find people so . . .”
“Scary?” asked Nina, sympathetically.
Lydia looked at Nina for a long time. “No,” she said. “Deeply irritating and fun to torment.”
“Oh,” said Nina.
Suddenly, Lydia tore the letter from William into a dozen tiny pieces and threw them in the air. “So much for Grandpa.” She grinned. “Fancy a cup of tea?”
* * *
• • •
At the back of Lydia’s house was a wide, curving garden. Sitting there, sipping an excellent cup of tea, Nina smiled cautiously. “What do you do for work?” She waved inside at all the books. “Are you a teacher or something?”
Lydia shook her head. “No, I work at the RAND Corporation. Do you know it?”
Nina nodded. “Originally started by the Douglas Aircraft Company to research new weapons, it is an international think tank that has produced over thirty Nobel Prize winners.” She paused. “RAND is actually short for research and development.” She paused again, and hesitated. “I’m actually a little bit obsessed with RAND, because they do all this secret stuff and probably have a room with one of those big maps on the floor with lights and tiny models.”
Lydia laughed again. “I can take you there, if you like.”
“Really? There’s a room with a map and tiny little models?”
“No, but there’s a reasonable cafeteria.”
Euclid walked to the middle of the lawn and sprawled, making sure everyone could admire him.
Nina asked, “What do you do at RAND?”
“Oh, it’s thrilling,” said Lydia. “I research global traffic patterns.”
“Wow,” said Nina. “That really is incredibly boring.”
Lydia laughed. “Not to me, which is why I do it. I don’t see cars; I see patterns. And it’s not even only cars; it’s how people move around in general.” She sipped her tea and reached for a cookie. “I love it. Do you love your work?”
Nina thought about it. “Yes, I guess I do. I sort of fell into it, rather than chose it, but it suits me very well. I live a very quiet life, I walk to work, I read a lot, I have a trivia team, and I have a cat.” She turned up her hands. “It’s all pretty good.”
“No boyfriend? Or girlfriend?”
Nina shook her head. “No. There was someone but I messed it up.”
“How?”
Nina took a deep breath. “I get anxiety,” she said.
“Like Archie?” asked Lydia.
Nina nodded. “I broke up with him before we’d even really started. I got overwhelmed and threw him out of the boat.” Suddenly, her eyes were prickling. “It’s so stupid.”
“It’s not stupid. Anxiety is the most common mental illness in America, with over forty million sufferers.”
Nina stared at her.
Lydia shrugged. “I share an office with a mental health researcher. RAND is actually full of people like us, nerdy obsessives with good memories.” She took another cookie and started eating it. “But why don’t you explain to him and see if you can start it up again? Do you want to?”
Nina nodded, then shook her head. “I don’t know. I really like him, and being with him actually feels good, but there’s too much going on. I thought I was pretty much alone, and I was OK with it. Good with it, even. Now I have all of you guys to deal with, and a boyfriend was too much.”
Lydia gazed at her. “You’re an idiot. We’re family; you can ignore us completely. We’re like succulents: Minor occasional attention is entirely sufficient. You should absolutely get him back.”
“He’s ignoring my texts.”
“Have you considered the old-fashioned, in-person conversation?” Lydia put down her teacup.
“No,” said Nina. “Besides, he’s competing in a trivia competition this evening; the final of the Southern California Quiz Bowl. I don’t want to put him off.”
“Wow,” said Lydia. “That is both the lamest and the nerdiest excuse for inaction I’ve ever heard. I can’t decide whether to smack you across the face or burst into applause.”
Nina opened her mouth to respond, when her phone rang.
“Can you come right away?” It was Liz, and she sounded frazzled. In the background, Nina could hear yelling.
“What’s going on?”
“Well, Meffo came by and posted a notice that the store was closing and was going to be replaced by a pot-infused makeup emporium called Puff and Pout.”
“You’re joking. A pot dispensary?”
“No. Artisanal makeup, custom made for each customer from a range of natural minerals and pigments, infused with CBD oil and locally sourced organic marijuana.”
“Did you memorize that?”
“No, I’m reading from the notice. Their slogan is Look fantastic, feel even better.”
“Wow.”
“Then people started reading the notice, and all of a sudden there was a crowd outside with placards, and now the police are here and it’s all gotten a bit out of hand.”
There was the sound of breaking glass.
“Oh dear. Gotta go.”
“Was that our window?” Nina had visions of crowds of zombies swarming the store, which didn’t make any sense, but that’s what popped into her head.
“No, Meffo’s windshield. I stashed him in the office for safety, but there wasn’t much I could do about his car.” Then she hung up.
Nina turned to Lydia. “How fast do you think we can get to Larchmont Boulevard?”
Lydia grinned. “In K.I.T.T.? With me driving? Twenty minutes.”
Nina shook her head. “No, in a regular Trans Am, because K.I.T.T. is a fictional character, during rush hour, and with me driving.”
Lydia made a face. “Forty minutes.”
“Fine, you drive.”
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Twenty-eight
In which things get a little out of hand.
Here’s a useful tip: Driving through Los Angeles in a fast car with a genius researcher is not enjoyable, unless you are one of those people who drinks five Red Bulls and snorts coke before getting in the front seat of a roller coaster and sticking both arms in the air. Nina started reciting “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” as they sped through Beverly Hills, and by the time they reached Larchmont, she was reading the line about rolling the bottoms of trousers, and that tells you how fast they were going. Furthermore, apparently the way to beat traffic in LA is to treat straight lines as abominations and Tetris your way through the side streets. It didn’t help that Lydia was calling out street names as she went, like a pool shark calling a pocket.
As they turned onto Larchmont Boulevard, it was immediately clear something was wrong. Pedestrians on both sides were looking south, toward the bookstore, and Nina began to get what Han Solo might have called a Bad Feeling. She was still nauseous from the car ride, but this was something more.
There was a crowd of maybe twenty people in front of the store, plus two cops, all of whom were watching an argument between a middle-aged woman who Nina recognized from the store (historical fiction) and a younger woman who was wearing a long, fringed skirt, a top made of birds’ wings and macaroni, and a large felt hat with a brim the size of Poughkeepsie. Birds could have perched comfortably on it, if they were able to forgive the bird wing corset.
“I question your assumption that makeup is less culturally valid than literature,” the young woman was saying, as Nina and Lydia got close. Ah, thought Nina, it’s a Larchmont Liberal Street Fight.
The older woman frowned. “I am not in any way questioning the validity of your products, culturally or otherwise, and far be it from me to cast aspersions on the career goals of a fellow woman, but this bookstore has been here for nearly eight decades and is a cornerstone of our community.”
“Progress is inevitable,” replied the woman.
“That is both true and irrelevant to our discussion,” said the older woman, whom Nina was mentally referring to as the Reader. “We don’t need another beauty products store on Larchmont, and we certainly don’t need a pot shop.”
“We’re not a dispensary,” replied the other woman, whom Nina had internally named Bird Wing Betty. “We create makeup infused with potent botanicals that make you feel as good as you look. We are one hundred percent organic, local, and legal.”
There was murmuring in the crowd. Clearly, Bird Wing Betty had some supporters. As if to prove it, a group of about a dozen similarly dressed young people suddenly appeared.
“We saw your post on Instagram,” said one, coming up to Betty and touching her upper arm. “I’m so sorry the boomers are harshing your vibe.”
“Total drag,” said another. “I brought you some royal jelly and an apple cider vinegar shot to alkalinize you.” She handed over a tiny bottle that reminded Nina of Alice in Wonderland.
The cops sensed an opening. “Ladies,” said one of them, an officer who looked like this was a pleasant change from moving homeless people off the streets, “I’m afraid you don’t have a permit to protest, so you need to break this up and go home.”
“No,” said the Reader. “We’re staying here to show our support for reading.”
“Dude, we’re all about reading,” said one of the new young people, “but bookstores are so nineties. Stories live in the cloud now, free like birds. Don’t tie them down in the physical realm.”
The Reader snorted at her. “You’re stoned.”
The girl snorted back at her. “You’re old, but at least I’ll sober up.”
Another guy in the crowd said, “Go back to Santa Monica, you wannabe hippie counterculturalists.” Which, let’s face it, are fighting words, albeit unnecessarily long fighting words.
And then it happened. Someone—no one was ever sure who it was—threw a ball of cardamom, fig, and Brie ice cream, which hit Bird Wing Betty right in the . . . bird wings. Finally, thought Nina, they got that ice cream trebuchet working.
One of Betty’s friends turned and tossed a shot of cayenne and lemon juice in the face of a bookstore supporter, who cried, “My eyes,” and staggered backward. Another ball of ice cream arced overhead and nailed one of the cops, who didn’t take it very well. Nina turned to see who was throwing the frosty artillery just as another scoop glanced off her head and hit Betty, this time in the face. Betty stomped her foot.
“I. Am. Lactose. Intolerant!” she cried.
“No, you’re just completely intolerable,” replied the Reader, and pushed her.
Nina reached up and felt her head, which was sticky. She heard giggling. Lydia was amused.
“You’ve got a little . . . something something . . .” Lydia wiped a little drip from Nina’s forehead and tasted it.
“Huh,” she said. “Mint chip. Surprising.” She opened her mouth to continue and took a gluten-free cupcake right in the cake hole, which was also surprising. She sputtered.
Nina grinned. “Don’t talk with your mouth full, Lydia.” A mini cupcake—or it might have been a brownie; it was moving too fast to tell—whizzed by and knocked off the Reader’s glasses.
The cops, who had been well trained (though, admittedly, not for a food fight), started pushing through the crowd, looking for the troublemakers. This made the people on the outside of the crowd, who couldn’t see very well, assume something more serious was going on. They started to run or, at least, move swiftly away. This was Larchmont, after all; no need for unseemly panic.
The ice cream bandit sent a last volley over the heads of the thinning crowd, and both Nina and Lydia were in the line of fire. Professional hit, double scoop.
Lydia, who had decided to see the funny side of it, clutched her arm, which was covered in sprinkles. “I’m hit,” she cried, and staggered backward.
“Cold . . . so cold . . .” said Nina, channeling the heroic death of so many matinee idols. She made it to the bookstore front door and did a creditable death slide down it. Then she remembered why she was there.
“Come on,” she said, scrambling to her feet. “We’ll go around the back.”
“Really?” whined Lydia. “But this is so fun.”
“Quit it,” said Nina. “Let’s go.”
They darted across the melee and ran down the narrow lane behind the stores of Larchmont Boulevard. Nina pulled out her keys and once inside the store discovered Liz and Mr. Meffo hiding out in the back room. Even though the ice cream had been outside, the atmosphere in the room was decidedly frosty.
“Are they gone?” asked Liz.
“The crowd is dispersing, yes.”
Liz turned to Mr. Meffo. “Well then, sir, you are free to leave.”
Mr. Meffo got stiffly to his feet. “Thank you for the brief sanctuary, Elizabeth.”
Liz shrugged. Wow, thought Nina, I bet it was fun in here for the last hour or so. Mr. Meffo looked at Liz and seemed as though he was about to say something, but simply turned and left the store.
Liz sighed. “I wanted to ask him to give me more time, but I couldn’t find the right words. It’s always so easy in books and so hard in real life.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” said Lydia. Then she turned to Nina. “However, that is no excuse for not at least trying to go talk to your boyfriend.” She held up her finger. “You may have hoped I had forgotten what we were talking about, but I haven’t. You need to gird your loins, screw your courage to the sticking place, and remember a turtle only travels when it sticks its neck out.”
Liz and Nina looked at her. “It’s a Korean saying,” explained Lydia, shrugging.
“You’re right,” said Nina, suddenly feeling bolder than she’d ever felt before. Lydia was a woman of action, and she was related to Nina, so Nina must have woman-of-action genes somewher
e. Besides, now Nina had a family. She had friends. She had money. She had a bitching car. She’d survived a terrifying drive in that bitching car, and there was nothing she couldn’t do, or at least try to do. “Let’s go.”
She and Lydia turned and left. Liz watched them go, then went to get paper towels and window cleaner. Fortunately, all-natural, artisanal ice cream is much easier to clean off than the factory stuff.
Twenty-nine
In which Nina takes things public.
You would have thought there was something monumental going on, judging by the crowd outside the bar. Mermaids wrestling in creamed corn. Kitten juggling. Instant Pot flash mob. Something. But it was really only the Southern California Quiz Bowl Final, and after ten minutes of wriggling, Lydia and Nina managed to push their way to the front.
Howard the QuizDick had really gone above and beyond for this one, and there was even a camera crew from a local affiliate station. Howard had decked himself out in a silver sequin dinner jacket and successfully bid on eBay for one of those microphones that looks like a half-finished lollipop on a long silver stick. Whatever it was, he was bringing it.
Nina could see both teams sitting on either side of the podium, which was bigger and more impressive (and hopefully drier) than the last one.
“Ladies, Gentlemen, and the great Undecided, welcome to the Final of the Southern California Quiz Bowl. For the first time we have a challenger from San Diego, the California Quizzly Bears, facing off against local heroes, You’re a Quizzard, Harry.”
Nina looked along the Quizzard team bench . . . no Tom.
Lisa was there, though, and she noticed Nina. She frowned and got to her feet.
“Competitors must remain in their positions,” said Howard.
“Don’t be silly, Howard,” replied Lisa. “I’ll be back in a minute. I have to see why we’re a team captain short.”
“There are no substitutions once the clock has begun,” warned Howard officiously.