Book Lover, The (10 page)

Talking about it was a revelation, like the old cliché of a weight being lifted from your shoulders. But it was true. Hearing herself say Thomas’s name out loud, and how over the long lonely years, there’d never been another man, sounded like something from a novel. The aged spinster throwing away her last years on a fantasy. The sorry satisfaction of having but a dozen hours a year to play it out at their meetings. Of course there were the letters. And maybe that was the problem, she confessed. At times his letters seemed so intimate there was a danger of reading between the lines, of concocting a person who perhaps existed only in her mind.

“But why do you think you won’t see him again?”

“The last time I saw him he had a bandaged hand. And then he wasn’t at our book meeting. He’s never missed one in five years. And now…now he wants to see me, during visiting hours. I think maybe he’s gotten into some trouble, maybe there was a fight, and he won’t be doing the book orders anymore.” She sighed. “No one knows about him. My kids would think this was all insane. And when I say it out loud, well, it does sound insane. But it’s such a relief to talk about it.”

“What did he do?”

“Actually, I don’t know. It’s ridiculous, I know, but back in the beginning, when I first began going, I knew the only way I’d be able to deal with them as real people was not to know what any of them did to get themselves in there.”

“You don’t strike me as the impetuous type, Ruth. There must be something about him.”

She said nothing for a long moment, as Lucy continued cutting one tiny clump of hair after another, taking her time. “He’s intelligent, kind and gentle. Doesn’t that sound crazy? He’s in for a fifteen-year sentence, that I do know, because he’s been very open about it.”

Lucy blew on her shoulders and brushed them with her hand. Then without even looking she snipped a strand of her own hair as she said, “And you would miss him if you can’t see him anymore?”

Ruth looked at her a moment. “Yes, I would. I’d miss him very much.” She stood up and walked to the mirror. “It’s perfect, thank you. Me minus the ragged ends.”

Lucy smiled. “You’re more than welcome.”

“Now, how about a cup of coffee, and maybe a corn muffin.”

“I really should go.”

“You barely ate last night, you must be starving.”

Lucy put the scissor down. “I haven’t had a corn muffin since college. I used to live on them.”

“Sit down then, it’ll only take a few moments.” She opened the cabinet to pull out a skillet. “So tell me, where are you off to next?”

“Well, our signing was sort of the focal point of this trip. But I’ll probably head to my mother’s in Pennsylvania, although she has no idea I’m coming. And she’s going to be…upset.”

Ruth turned to her. “Because you’re coming?”

Lucy gave her a rueful smile. “Because she doesn’t know what happened.”

“What did happen, Lucy?”

“Well…” Lucy gave a long sigh. “In the last month or so I’ve been like one of those clueless wives in a chick lit paperback who has no idea her life is falling apart until one morning it hits her smack in the face like a two by four and…let’s just say I’m still digging out the splinters.”

“Ouch.” She knew Lucy was trying to make light of things, but she couldn’t hide the pain in her eyes. Ruth could see that all too clearly.

“You’re not the only one with a criminal in your life, Ruth. Although where David is going, or maybe already is by now, I’m sure is a far cry from where your Thomas is-one of those white collar prisons referred to as a ‘camp,’ kind of like where Martha Stewart went.”

As the corn muffins burned, the coffee grew cold, and the pots of water boiled away, Lucy told her everything. That her husband’s weekly poker games had apparently escalated into a huge gambling problem. He’d been stealing money from client trust accounts to try to pay off his debts, for which he was now going to jail. And he wanted a divorce.

No wonder she’d fallen apart.

“All this time I thought David was never home because he was building up his practice. That he was cranky and not himself because he was exhausted and under a lot of stress. Because if you knew him before, you’d have bet money,” and she paused and let out a bitter laugh, “well, you’d never believe he was capable of anything like this.”

Ruth said nothing. But of course she knew that people often did things you’d never expect of them. Horrible things. Things that destroyed others, and themselves. She knew all that first hand.

“My mother has always been a bit emotional. And she adores David,” Lucy continued. “She always says he’s the best thing that ever happened to me. To her, really. Ironic isn’t it? But you have to understand something about David. He likes taking care of people. His father died young and he was an only child, very devoted to his mother, which I thought was wonderful. They say if you want to know what kind of husband a man would make, watch how he treats his mother…but now he’s like this man I never knew.”

“He’s admitted everything?”

Lucy nodded. “I could understand him being ashamed but he’s not, he’s just so cold and…angry toward me.”

“You know my son did the same thing after his accident, pushed us all away, and he seemed so distant, as you said, but I think maybe that’s a natural reaction when your world is falling apart, you know? They tend to take it out on somebody close to them.”

Lucy sat there shaking her head. “Why would he do this? Let himself get so caught up in something illegal. This was a man who four years ago found an emerald ring on the beach with his metal detector, and even though no one would have known if he kept it, he brought it right to the police station without thinking twice, because someone might be grieving over its loss. He was the one who insisted we buy my mother a car, and help finance her condo. I would have bet my life that David was the most honest, caring person in the world. It’s the reason I married him. And I probably would have stood by him, if he’d let me.”

Ruth waited as Lucy stared out the window. It was nearly light out now, and the raucous waking of the birds in her yard filled the air.

Suddenly Lucy shook her head, as if waking from a trance, and gave another little laugh. “This is strange, isn’t it? How we barely know each other? How we’re telling each other these secrets. It feels like—”

“Like a book,” Ruth said, and Lucy nodded.

And it did. As if they were two characters, strangers on a train, or a bus depot, or in this case, in a house in Warwick, spilling their innermost thoughts to each other.

She smiled. “People are always coming into the store and telling me things. Things they say they’ve never told another soul. I think sometimes it’s just a lot easier spilling our secrets to strangers.”

“That’s true. Someone who will just listen, and not judge. But you are a good listener.”

“So are you.” She smiled. “Now, how about we try those corn muffins again?”

Lucy nodded, returning the smile. Her face looked lighter, less troubled, and Ruth felt a shift in herself as well.

WHILE THEY ATE, THEY TALKED ABOUT BOOKS, the ones that had influenced their lives, the ones they still wanted to read. They both claimed Gatsby as their favorite, which Lucy thought amazing. But then Ruth told her it wasn’t surprising, as it had been picked the number one book for the twentieth century, which Lucy hadn’t known.

“In fact, Fitzgerald even mentioned Warwick in the book. I thought he’d just made up a name, but I did a bit of research and it turned out it was right here. Back then, thanks to the railroad, this town was in its heyday, where rich city people had summer homes. One of the characters, Jordan, had come to a party here and wrecked a car.”

“That is so neat,” Lucy said.

“Did you know when Gatsby came out it got mostly terrible reviews and one paper called it something like ‘Fitzgerald’s latest dud’.”

“God, no wonder the man drank.”

“It wasn’t until after his death that his books began to really become appreciated. Oh, and one of my other favorite books in the past few years,
The Help,
was rejected by sixty-five agents.”

“I loved that book. I guess that gives me a little hope.”

“Then there’s
The Bridges of Madison County,
which was originally self-published.”

“I had no idea,” Lucy said, clearly delighted.

“Don’t get me wrong, Lucy. What you’re doing isn’t easy. Most self-published books aren’t very good. I must get ten a month, and I don’t have time to read them because I have so many others to get through.”

“Then why did you read mine?”

“Honestly? I didn’t realize it was self-published when I first began reading it. But you had me in the first chapter.”

“I know this is an uphill battle. I just wonder sometimes if I really have the stomach for it.”

“Oh, don’t give up, Lucy.”

“I’m not going to. Not yet, at least.”

“And I’m glad you had a real book printed up, otherwise I probably would never have read it.”

“I could have self-published it for almost nothing online, but I wanted a real book, something I could hold in my hands with a cover and pages and that I could see on a shelf in a bookstore. That’s really my dream.”

“Well, we’re kindred spirits, there. I love a real book, too. Even the smell of it.”

Just then the timer went off on the stove.

“Listen, I should really be on my way and let you get back to your life,” Lucy said, getting up and carrying her plate to the sink.

Ruth walked over, touched Lucy’s arm. “I have an idea. If you’re not ready to go to your mother’s, I have a cabin at a lake nearby. It’s sitting empty, has been for years. If you don’t mind rustic, you’re welcome to stay there for a while. Until you figure things out.”

Lucy began shaking her head.

“You have to come back next week for your signing anyway, and this way you won’t be too far.”

Lucy suddenly leaned over and hugged her, then stepped back quickly, looking a bit embarrassed.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite like you, Ruth. But I couldn’t.” Five minutes later, she was gone.

                            
8

L
UCY DROVE DOWN WIDE TREE-LINED STREETS, with big old houses like Ruth’s and spring flowers everywhere. She pulled over as she neared Main Street and the shops ahead and reached into her purse for her cell phone. She’d forgotten she’d turned it off yesterday when she went into the bookstore. Powering it on, she saw the voicemail alert and her stomach lurched, wondering if it could be David. If he’d somehow come back to his senses. Because in the past few months, it was as if an alien was inhabiting her husband’s body.

But it was her new attorney, Carter Mayfield, letting her know that he was filing the divorce papers. There were only two grounds for divorce in Florida: the mental incapacity of one of the spouses for at least three years; or that the marriage is “irretrievably broken.” That was certainly the easy choice, she’d told Carter at their first meeting. She just hadn’t realized it.

She sat there now, drumming her hands on the steering wheel, thinking about the call she had to make to her mother. There was nowhere else to go, really. And she should have called her before she even left Florida, but she’d just kept putting it off, waiting, hoping that things would change. Her mother didn’t know about David’s arrest, or the fallout since. For that matter, her mother didn’t even know she’d gone back to writing, much less that she’d published a book. Lucy knew better than to burden her with unpleasant news if there was a chance the outcome might change.

The year she’d turned eleven, when her father told her he was leaving one night after they’d moved into the duplex in Morristown, Lucy kept thinking he wouldn’t really go. It was just him talking after one of her parents’ fights. Because he wouldn’t just be leaving
her
as he always referred to her mother, he’d be leaving Lucy and Jake and Charlie as well. And he’d been so excited for weeks before, talking about the porch and yard, how she’d have her own bedroom in the attic. She’d never had her own room; they’d never lived in anything but small apartments, and her father had always talked about what he’d do with his own little “patch of earth.”

That night she lay in her room too wound up to sleep or even read, even though she was almost halfway through her very first Nancy Drew book. Instead she stared at the sloped ceiling, the faded pink flowers, loving even the dusty wooden smell of the beams. She couldn’t wait for summer, hoping they’d still be living there so she could prop the tiny windows open and look down at the world below. Or up at the stars. She wanted to somehow make a window seat, something she’d been dreaming about ever since she’d read Pollyanna.

When she heard the steps creak, an unfamiliar sound that startled her at first, she sat up, then saw her father duck, even though he was short, as he reached the top where the ceiling slanted to meet the wall.

“I love my room, Daddy, I’m so happy we’re here,” she’d said as he sat on her bed.

He’d smiled, told her he was going to pay up for a year, that’s why he’d been working so much. But then he coughed, and as he stared out the tiny window, he broke the news that he had to leave. That he wanted to take her with him, but he’d be working a lot and of course the boys were too little and would be lonely without her. He went on, but she didn’t hear much of it, except that they would all be better off, there’d be no more fighting…

“Let’s just keep this our little secret for now, all right, Lucy Goosey?”

She’d said nothing to her mother, praying it had all been a bad dream. But a week later, when she came home from school, she found her mother in the closet in her bedroom, slumped to the floor, sobbing in a cloud of cigarette smoke.

“Did you know about this?” her mother had asked.

Slowly Lucy shook her head. Then she went downstairs to wait for her brothers to come home. She’d poured them cereal, turned on cartoons, and sat staring out the kitchen window at the little “patch of earth” her father had always wanted, her whole body still, as if everything of substance had evaporated within her and she was weightless. They were evicted three months later.

Now she rolled down the car window, letting the cool air in. Her mother loved David, and would somehow make this Lucy’s fault. She sat there for several minutes, trying to come up with the right words. Then she opened her cell phone again.

“Hello?” her mother answered on the third ring.

“Hi Mom, it’s me,” Lucy said, after a little burst of static. “Can you hear me okay?”

“Sure, I can hear you. Why are you on the beach?”

“No, uh, actually I’m—”

“Oh, hang on a minute, Lucy,” she interrupted, and then Lucy could hear the muffled sounds of her talking to someone else, obviously with her hand over the receiver. “Okay, I’m back. Now, you’re walking on the beach? Isn’t it raining? I hear you’ve got a tropical storm nearby.”

Just then there was a loud noise in the background, as if something had fallen.

“What was that, Mom?”

“Oh, Lucy, you caught me at a bad time. I have…someone…” she hesitated a moment, seeming flustered. “Lucy, I’ve met someone. And he’s moving in here with me.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now. Artie is just wonderful. We met at a consciousness raising group. You remember, like the kind I used to go to?”

After her father left, her mother became a big fan of Gloria Steinem. She badmouthed men for so long that Lucy began to wonder if she liked women. Then she got a better position at a more upscale beauty parlor, telling them to call it a salon. Once or twice she went out on a date. If there was anything further that happened with a man, Lucy and her brothers had no idea.

“So, he’s a nice guy?”

“He’s like no man I’ve met before. In fact, he’s so nice I assumed he was gay at first. He cooks, he cleans. He listens. And he massages my feet every night while we watch TV.”

“Well,” Lucy said, her mind reeling, unable to wrap itself around this major world change. “I’m glad for you, Mom. You deserve it.”

“Hold on,” her mother said, and then without her hand on the phone, she called out, “Artie, come say hi to Lucy.”

A second later he was on the line. “Hello, Lucy. I just want you to know I’m gonna take real good care of your Mama. And one of these days, I’m bringing her down to Florida to finally visit you.”

He didn’t sound old. He sounded sweet and friendly, with a boyish voice.

“That would be nice, Artie. Or maybe I’ll come up and see you two.”

“It’s been too long,” he said, as if he were part of the last five years, where she had avoided her mother, her old friends, and everyone associated with the life she’d left behind.

“Well, I look forward to meeting you soon, Artie. I’m gonna run and let you get back to unpacking.”

“Isn’t he nice?” her mother whispered a moment later. “Now get off that rainy beach and call me soon. We’ll make those plans for a visit.”

Lucy snapped the phone shut, imagining the rainy beach in St. Augustine. Having no idea what to do now. She’d just assumed she could go to her mother’s. The whole day loomed ahead, as did her whole life, and there she sat in Warwick, New York. She got out of the car and headed up Main Street, toward a diner she remembered seeing yesterday. She’d grab a cup of coffee for now and consider other options.

She’d forgotten how quaint the old northeast towns could be compared to Florida, where it seemed everything was new, except for St. Augustine, of course. Main Street and West Street were lined with the kinds of stores that used to thrive in downtowns, before the explosion of malls. Stopping under the marquee of an old theater, she looked up. The Darress, she read, thinking it sounded awfully similar to duress, which couldn’t be a good thing. Peeking in, she saw that the lobby was a camera shop now. In its era, the theater was probably a focal point for entertainment in the area.

As she walked toward the bridge she’d crossed yesterday, she passed an appliance store, dog groomer, consignment shop, and Akin’s Pharmacy, where she stopped and peered through the window. It was like a time warp. All it needed was the old-fashioned soda fountain. She was surprised it was still in business, recalling passing a CVS a few blocks outside of town yesterday.

She turned and kept walking, enjoying the mild May morning, the quiet of the downtown, the feeling that she could perhaps be anyone who lived there, enjoying a stroll. A block later she stood on the bridge, looking down at the creek rushing by. A family of geese coasted downstream on the current. In the deep, cool shadows of a sycamore a heron perched on a rock, waiting patiently. The tea-colored water was clear and shallow, and sunlight shone through to the rocks scattered across the muddy bottom.

It reminded her of the jigsaw puzzles she loved as a kid, struggling to find the right shades of brown, or green if it was a woodland scene, and slipping one piece after another into place until there was a whole. There was a feeling of satisfaction in that. Until her wild brothers tore it apart. It was the same pleasure she’d felt with numbers, too, solving one problem after another, like those puzzles.

Now here she was years later, and her life seemed like one of those thousand-piece puzzles tossed across a floor, as she struggled to somehow put it back together again. Once again this trip, the stops at bookstores, the focus of her existence now on nothing but the book, seemed like folly. And the delay in looking for a real job, a permanent place to live, seemed…insane. If she lived frugally, though, she’d have enough money to last a year, thanks to an old 401k account from her first job, which David hadn’t been able to touch.

David had put them into a financial black hole. Carter had warned her that figuring out the entire financial picture could be a lengthy task. Of course he knew all about David when she’d called him a week after that awful night. St. Augustine was like a small town, really, and David Barrett was THE topic of the moment for the local legal profession. But she liked Carter, he was honest and a real southern gentleman, so she left it all in his hands.

She turned and kept walking, eventually reaching the bookstore, which wasn’t open yet. She glanced at the big window. Just inside the door was a poster for her upcoming signing, and she wondered suddenly if she really would come back. As much as she liked Ruth, it was hard to imagine returning, or picking up the immediate intimacy they’d established. She noticed, then, a copy of her novel displayed in the window, with a row of hardcovers and other new releases. It hadn’t been there yesterday.

She couldn’t help but smile. Who was this woman? This kind stranger who felt a bit like a fairy godmother? Or maybe the older sister she’d always dreamed of, though Ruth was probably closer to her mother’s age. But Ruth was nothing like her mother.

Lucy had refused her offer several times. But Ruth kept insisting that if Lucy changed her mind, she’d find the key under the mat, that is if the door was even locked. She’d handed her a map she’d sketched and directions that looked overwhelming. Then she offered to drive her to the cabin, which was on a lake about forty-five minutes away, just so she could see it. Of course Lucy said no, she couldn’t waste any more of Ruth’s time; she had her family brunch and all those potatoes cooling.

Lucy pulled the map from her purse now and stared at it. Maybe she should at least take a look.

* * *

THE ROAD WOUND ALONG WARWICK TURNPIKE like a roller coaster, as Lucy drove up and down mountains toward New Jersey on this golden day.

Descending on a sudden curve, she caught a slash of silver in the distance, a body of water glittering in the sun, and her breath caught. The lake was surrounded by tall trees and hills, and a moment later the road paralleled its western shore. She kept driving, the water on her left, a dark jewel set in the mountains, flashing with sunlight between the trees.

When she spotted a marina up ahead, she pulled in and opened the atlas, then looked over Ruth’s directions again. This wasn’t the right lake. Northern New Jersey, where it passes imperceptibly into New York State, is dotted with lakes all through its mountains and valleys. This was Greenwood Lake, apparently, which was completely different from Upper Greenwood Lake, Ruth had cautioned. You would assume from the name that it was further up north, and you’d come to it first, but now, on the map it was actually down lower to the south. But apparently the elevation was higher, hence the name. Needless to say, it was a bit confusing, as Ruth had warned.

Lucy wasn’t really going out of her way much. If she didn’t like the cabin, she’d simply head east toward the Jersey shore and stay in Spring Lake or even farther down on Long Beach Island, where she and David used to spend a week each summer. But the thought of staying alone in a B&B or a hotel seemed so depressing.