All Stories Are Love Stories (26 page)
Read All Stories Are Love Stories Online
Authors: Elizabeth Percer
“Just go. The fog's coming in, and you'll lose daylight. Stop fussing over me.”
“You'll freeze down here.”
“I've got my flask and my stool. I'll be just fine.” Franklin frowned, gesturing to Gene to hand him Muppet after he unfolded the chair they'd brought. “Look,” he gestured across the street, “I can watch the kids trying to plant a community garden.” A bunch of twentysomethings with spades and rakes were earnestly clearing a vacant lot. “Though someone should tell them the soil's too uric on Castro. Unless they want asparagus.”
“Are you sure you'll be OK?”
Max tucked a blanket around Franklin before his lover shooed them off. “Go. I didn't wait an hour for a bus with you two to have you dillydally around me.”
He was already calling across the street as Max and Gene trudged up Liberty. Max was grateful for the excuse of his weakened leg. It made the emotions already brewing in him look like strain.
At the top of the hill, Max found the number he was looking for, pulled out a key, and let them both in after figuring out the trick of the lock. Once inside the door, neither one of
them said a word. Gene put a hand on Max's shoulder. “Do you want to look around alone?”
It was as beautiful as he might have expected, and it still held her scent. As Max walked across the front room, the sun-soaked wooden floors creaked under his weight. The windows looked out in three directions. Her father hadn't left many of her things, but a love seat and a table remained by the windows facing south. The best view.
“She didn't specify furniture, I see,” Gene said, trying to sound practical. “Franklin will help you with that.”
Still Max didn't speak, staring out at the city, one hand on the sofa, another on the window frame.
Gene joined him. “I can see why she left it to you.”
Max nodded. “It was her home.” And now it was his.
Gene smiled, spying a sign in the distance directly in their line of sight: San Francisco Brass and Winds, Since 1886. “Huh.” He was grinning. “Hard not to believe she didn't buy it with you in mind.”
Max had seen that, but his throat clenched when Gene saw it, too. It's one thing to dream privately, another to have someone dreaming beside you.
“Here.” Gene fished something out of the Franklin Supply Bag he carried everywhere these days. He placed a framed picture on the table by the sofa. “I rescued it from the hospital.” Anita looked like her mother, Max decided, taking in the dimples, the wild hair.
“I wish,” Max started, finding it difficult to continue, “I wish I'd met her.” Seen her. Smelled her. Held her.
“It's not too late,” Gene said.
“Maybe it isn't,” Max agreed, thinking of how Vashti stayed with him long after he would have expected, how sweet that staying was.
“I mean, for a child.”
Max looked at him blankly.
“I'm just saying. This would be a great place to raise a kid.”
Max stared back out the window at the city, half-alive and half-dead, but still more alive than it had been a few months ago, even a few days ago. “You think I could be a father?”
Gene shrugged. “Hey, anyone can adopt these days. Even brokenhearted, gimpy bachelors.”
Vashti had wanted him to be a father. It was the one thing he wouldn't give her, because he was afraid. He was still afraid. But he didn't think it would stop him anymore. He looked around the apartment, knowing she could have given it to Javi, or her father, or just left it to be sold. But she'd left it to him. That whole, huge, beautiful place. A place that was never designed to be lived in alone.
“You know,” Gene said when Max was quiet for too long, “someone's going to have to teach you how to use that kitchen.”
“You're going to teach me how to cook?”
“God, no. But Franklin's been teaching me. On a hot plate. In the Richmond. Maybe he could teach us both here. If I know anything about a good kitchen, it's that it needs to be used.”
Max considered Gene's advice. “I guess a child will need a good meal at least once a day.”
“At least.” Gene looked like he might laugh.
“Hey.” Max smiled. “You must know we're facing a steep learning curve.”
“Good. It just so happens that I specialize in that very thing.”
When the sunlight was almost gone, they closed up the house and walked down the hill together in the thick fog. Neither said very much, but what they did not say spoke to a rare peacefulness, a trust so solid that even if they could not see each other, they both knew the other was there.
This book was lucky enough to have been shepherded by three extraordinary editors: Maya Ziv, who was equal parts tireless champion and brilliant coach from start to finish; Jillian Verrillo, who hit the ground running and proceeded to knock it out of the park; and Emily Griffin, who stepped in at the eleventh hour to contribute her invaluable advice and expertise along the final road to publication. Endless thanks must also be offered to Lisa Grubka, my agent, who always goes way above and beyond the call of duty to guide, encourage, and promote me.
There are always extraordinary people working behind the scenes on any book. Cindy Achar, Nikki Baldauf, Victoria Mathews, Melissa Chincillo, Sylvie Greenberg, Gregory Henry, Gregg Kulick, Fritz Metsch, Laura Maestro, Diana Meunier were instrumental to the production of this one. Thank you to each one of you for your unique and indispensable talents. And many thanks to Jonathan Burnham, who makes such a difference in the world of literature and the lives of its devotees.
Pages of thanks could be written about each of the following, but space allows for only the briefest of mentions:
Adam Kendall and Brian Montone at the Nob Hill Masonic Center; Joan Baranow; Cheryl Barton and Meghann Dubie; Meg Waite Clayton; Jennifer Chung & Friends for
translation assistance; Vickie Chang; Keith Ekiss; Robin Ekiss; Barbara Hoffert; William Kenney; Mia Lipman, copyediting superwoman; Susan Elia MacNeal; Rosie Merlin; Timothy Peltason; Captain Ron Pruyn and the tireless firefighters of Station 41; Zachary Schulz; Patrick Stull; Lisa Taner; Susan Terris; Julie Vance; Liz Whaley; Marilyn Yalom; and Dr. Mary Lou Zoback, geologist and reader extraordinaire.
And finally, my nearest and dearest: Aurora Serna, who takes care of my beautiful babies when I cannot; Dawn Wells Nadeau, whose constant friendship defies reasonable expectations; my in-laws, Tom and Judy Percer; my beautiful sister, Shayna Schulz; my other beautiful sister, Rachel Wachman; my amazing brother, Gabriel Wachman; and the two people who somehow managed to raise us all: my father, Amnon Wachman, and my mother, Ann Wachman. Finally, my greatest stories are inspired by my children, Aidan, Arielle, and Liam, and my husband, Adrian, who teaches me every day more about love than I could ever imagine.
ELIZABETH PERCER
is the author of
An Uncommon Education
. Her poetry has been published widely, she has twice been honored by the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Foundation, and she has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize. She received a BA in English from Wellesley and a PhD in arts education from Stanford University, and she completed a postdoctoral fellowship for the National Writing Project at Berkeley. Her academic publications on art, the education of the imagination, and writing have been published and presented internationally. She makes her home in the San Francisco Bay Area, right above the San Andreas Fault.
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ALL STORIES ARE LOVE STORIES
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Copyright © 2016 by Elizabeth Percer. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books..
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
FIRST EDITION
Translation of Latin inscription on page 77 © Kristina Milnor
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Percer, Elizabeth, author.
Title: All stories are love stories : a novel / Elizabeth Percer.
Description: First edition. | New York : Harper, [2016]
Identifiers: LCCN 2015045247| ISBN 9780062275950 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780062275998 (ebook)
EPub Edition March 2016 ISBN 9780062275998
Subjects: LCSH: EarthquakesâCaliforniaâSan FranciscoâFiction. | Disaster victimsâCaliforniaâSan FranciscoâFiction. | Interpersonal relationsâFiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Literary.
Classification: LCC PS3616.E685 A79 2016 | DDC 813/.6âdc23 LC record available at
http://lccn.loc.gov/2015045247
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