Book Lover, The (41 page)

                            
48

T
HE DAY AFTER SHE SENT THE QUERY LETTERS, Lucy received four rejections. Two more came over the following days. A week later, walking through her mother’s condo complex, she began to think that perhaps all these fast rejections, and being unable to write an ending to her new book, were simply the universe—oh how her mother would loathe this-telling her to give up. That the writing was literally on the wall and it was time to pack it in.

A heated debate ensued in her head as she walked, watching the gray autumn clouds skittering away, unveiling bright blue skies. There was still hope for the remaining few queries, wasn’t there? And if she could just let the doubts go for a while, and let her mind relax and allow her creative juices to flow, as they usually did when she walked, the ending would come to her.

Coming to the gravel path that meandered through the complex’s small wooded border, she stopped a moment and couldn’t help thinking about the similar path at the Raptor Center and her final visit there. She continued walking, her mind drifting to that afternoon she’d left the cabin for good. It wasn’t far off the drive to her mother’s, and she knew she wouldn’t chance returning another time when Colin might be there. As she’d pulled into the parking area and walked into the shaded path, she couldn’t help remembering that first day Colin brought her there months ago, when he was just a stranger, a handicapped man she had no clue how to relate to. Never imagining she’d return one day grieving not for her husband, as she’d been then, but for him.

She’d walked past one aviary after another, familiar now with the occupants: Lady, the great horned owl and foster mother to so many, the red-tailed hawk, peregrine falcon, snowy owls, and even the albino starling. As she got closer to the aviary where she knew she’d find the bald eagle, she noticed a small group of people. And then one turned and smiled.

“Lucy, how did you know?” Susan asked, walking over.

“Know what?”

“Well, then I guess this is a happy coincidence. We’re about to introduce Kit to Scarlett.”

She looked at her, confused. Scarlett, it turned out, was the female eagle she’d seen that first day in the cage. For some reason, she’d never known her name.

Just then Randy came up the path, carrying Kit on his gloved hand. They all watched as he opened the cage door and stepped inside. A moment later he set Kit, who as a male was smaller than Scarlett, on a long branch at the other side of where she sat, higher in the cage, watching what was happening with those alert yellow eyes. Randy slowly walked to the alcove of the aviary and stood there, waiting.

Scarlett looked from side to side, and did nothing for long minutes. Kit opened his broad wings and she could still see the slightly crooked angle to the one. Somehow, in one quick move, he made a flying lurch to the other branch where he landed beside Scarlett.

“He’s flying!”

“Just a bit,” Susan whispered, and she realized she’d spoken too loud.

Kit began sidling up to Scarlett, but she lunged at him. Again he tried, and again she pounced, more fiercely this time, spreading her wings in a posturing display. It was easy to see her own injury in her deformed left wing. Then Kit charged at her and she pushed him with her beak, as if trying to topple him off the branch.

“They’re really solitary creatures, you know,” Susan said softly. “They have very large territories and typically only get together during mating season.”

“Do you think they will?”

“Oh, no, they won’t mate in captivity. That was never a possibility.”

She couldn’t help thinking of the eagles in the CD Colin had given her. Their incredible aerial ballet in which they bonded—a sort of foreplay before mating. Then their diligence in preparing the nest for their young, the constant search for food. None of that was possible here, she realized with a jolt of pity.

“It doesn’t appear his wing will improve much more, so he’ll stay here for display and educational purposes. And there’s nothing wrong with that,” Susan said.

“What if you didn’t have room for him, what would have happened?”

“His choices were either pair him, or euthanize him. Fortunately, we had a spot here. They’re doing okay so far, but this ‘getting to know you’ will go on for days. Their first time together, two bald eagles could actually kill each other trying to take control. Hopefully after a while, Scarlett will give it up.”

“How old is she?”

“About twenty. She’s been here since she was four. They found her down south, near an old flooded rice plantation, hence her name.”

After a while, Randy removed Kit. Susan told her that tomorrow they’d do it again. It was hard not to look up, above the aviary and the treetops, where hawks circled in the warming air. It seemed almost cruel that just above these caged eagles, among the most powerful birds in the world, others soared freely. She’d left, regretting deeply that she wouldn’t get to see the rest of Kit’s future unfold.

Now as she continued walking, thinking about the eagles and her own first notion that they would somehow fall in love, or at least mate, images of those wounded birds in their cage, and then of Colin and her at the lake, began to blur. She remembered what Ruth had said—that as strong as he seemed Colin was still just a few years from his accident, from the devastating changes in his life. She’d seen the occasional mood shifts. Yes, he did have a long road ahead of him. But it was one that she would have been willing to share.

And in that magical, mysterious way that things brewed in her head, it suddenly came as she stopped there on the gravel path—the conclusion she’d been struggling with for the new book. The ending to Catherine’s own story. Quickly she pulled her recorder from her pocket so she wouldn’t forget the words that were already writing themselves in her mind. As she began talking into the microphone, her cell began to ring in the other pocket and she hesitated, not wanting to lose the train of thought. But she grabbed the phone anyway and recognized a New York area code. She answered immediately.

“Is this Lucinda Barrett?” a pleasant woman’s voice asked.

“Yes it is.”

“This is Renee Wilson from The Valerie Sampson Agency in New York. I’m Valerie’s assistant. We received your query letter and we’d like to take a look at your novel,
A Quiet Wanting.”

“Oh…yes, of course.” She’d prayed for one lousy response to her ten e-mails, but a phone call?

“We’d like a two week exclusive, would that be all right?”

“Yes, of course.”

The assistant asked for a copy of the book to be sent right away, and a moment later they hung up. Lucy closed her eyes, clenched her fists and nearly sank to the sidewalk before reminding herself not to get excited. This could end up just one more rejection. But they called! They wanted to read the entire thing! That was something.

Two weeks came and went. Then three. As the trees began to flame with color, and autumn took firm hold, she began to worry that Renee Wilson at The Valerie Sampson Agency had forgotten about her. She’d finally heard from one other agent who’d sent a tepid e-mail asking for the first three chapters, but was honoring the exclusive she’d agreed to, despite the temptation.

She was actually quite proud of that decision, because the old Lucy would have sent those chapters. The old Lucy would have rationalized that no one would know, really, and she would be fearful of missing an opportunity. What if she got rejected by the first agency, after all, and the second one lost interest waiting?

Because as the weeks wore on and she kept digging into her past mistakes, it became more and more clear that her sins of omission, her little white lies, all of it was the result of one thing, really. Fear. She was afraid if David knew that she wanted children, he wouldn’t marry her; she was afraid if Colin learned she wasn’t divorced yet, he would turn back to Gloryanne. She was afraid if Ruth found out that she was in a relationship with Colin, and wasn’t yet free, that she would turn on her. She’d deliberately led people to believe
A Quiet Wanting
was with a real publisher because she was afraid they wouldn’t read it. It was so easy to make excuses for all of it, because she’d been doing it since she was a kid, when her father would give her a wink and say time after time, “Let’s not worry your mother with this.”

Now here she was, thirty-nine years old and all alone, because she’d been too afraid to be honest with anyone she loved. She didn’t trust them to love her enough back to hear the truth, and not turn away.

* * *

SHE CALLED DAVID AGAIN, to tell him it was time for him to let go, and he should acquiesce gracefully or Carter would take him back to court. David told her that he was coming up for Ben’s anniversary, and wanted to see her, too. She agreed, but told him nothing was going to change because she was in love with someone else. He seemed surprised, but after all, they’d been separated a long time. She then explained that even though it hadn’t worked out with this other person, it made her realize a lot of things. She needed to start over.

She wasn’t holding back anything anymore. Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to right every wrong. It had already started, she realized, with her mother. When she told her “I love you.”

A week later, she was halfway to the grocery store, famished and tired of canned soup and cheese and crackers, when her cell phone rang. She recognized the New York number immediately and pulled over as a horn honked behind her.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Lucinda, this is Renee Wilson from The Valerie Sampson Agency,” she said, as if Lucy wouldn’t remember her.

“Yes, hello.” Her heart was racing.

“Valerie asked me to call and see if you could come in to sign.”

Sign? SIGN????

“You mean you want to represent me?” And then the phone began to ping, warning that it was about to die.

“Yes. Can you come in Friday, say ten in the morning?”

“Yes, of course, I’m not far at all.”

She hung up just before the phone died, and before going to the grocery store, pulled into the liquor store to pick up a bottle of champagne. How she longed to tell Ruth and Colin. This was a huge moment. Even if she didn’t get as far as a publisher, at least she had an agent who now believed in her book.

Tonight she would celebrate, even if it was all alone, and hopefully after a few glasses of bubbly, finally be able to get some sleep.

But as she got out of the car, a wave of nausea rolled through her stomach, followed by a scorching taste of bile in her throat. She sat back down in the driver’s seat and took a few deep breaths, as it gradually dawned on her—she’d felt this hollowness in her middle before. This need to eat, and yet the inability to swallow a thing. It wasn’t nerves these past few weeks, but something very different taking hold of her body.

Another miracle she’d all but given up on.

                            
49

R
UTH OPENED HER FRONT DOOR AND THERE STOOD THOMAS IN a navy blue suit with a striped tie, and she felt her breath catch. She’d never seen him dressed up before and she noticed now that his hair was growing in and that his sideburns were flecked with gray. He looked distinguished, and downright handsome.

“Don’t you look beautiful,” he said softly, and reached a hand to her face, his finger tracing the curve of her cheek.

She took his hand and held it there a moment. She felt beautiful, too. Not because she’d had her hair done yesterday, finally. Not because she was wearing a new red dress that lit up her face, as the saleswoman had proclaimed, and she had to agree. But because of the way Thomas made her feel.

“Come in, let me just get my coat. Are you going to be warm enough in your suit?”

It was cold out, and they were going to walk. And then she realized he probably didn’t have a dress coat.

“I’m fine, Ruth. Don’t worry about it.” Then he took his other hand, which had been behind his back, and held out a small white box. She opened it to find a perfect gardenia corsage.

“Oh, Thomas.” She pulled it to her nose and closed her eyes, inhaling the sweet, tropical fragrance.

“They were my mother’s favorite flower. My father always gave them to her.”

She stood there as he pinned it to her coat.

As they walked down the steps and turned toward Main Street, Thomas took her hand, and a thrill of anticipation ran through her. Here she was, Ruth Hardaway, turning sixty-five in a few months, who for all intents and purposes should have been thinking of retirement; whose chance at romance should have been long over. Maybe, Ruth thought then, you had to live without something for a very long time to really know how precious it was.

“This is a beautiful town,” Thomas said as they strolled through her neighborhood, past the stately old colonials with wide porches and colorful mums in bloom. When they were nearly to Main Street, she stopped on the small bridge over the Waywayanda Creek and pulled two pennies from her pocket.

“Make a wish,” she said, handing one to Thomas.

Closing her eyes, she tossed hers in the small stream, then looked down as Thomas’s hit the water. They looked at each other, smiled, and turned toward the store.

When they reached The Book Lover, Thomas took her arm, holding her there on the sidewalk a moment as he looked at the wide window filled with books, and a sign announcing today’s events.

“This is a huge day for you, Ruth.”

She nodded, emotion suddenly rising in her throat.

“And you did it, all on your own.”

“Yes, I did it all on my own.”

When she opened the door, and the little bell tinkled, Thomas was right behind her. She watched his eyes scanning the shelves and shelves of books.

“Welcome to my world,” she said.

“SURPRISE!”

Ruth turned with a start, then saw the small crowd beyond the counter, a small blonde in the middle, smiling broadly. It took her a moment to realize it was Megan, sans the black hair and blue tips. “National Public Radio is here, Ruth, to tape our historic event!”

“Oh Megan,” she said, walking over and giving her a hug. “NPR? How did you ever…and what happened to your hair?”

“I went back to my real color,” she whispered in Ruth’s ear.

It reminded her of her children’s weddings, a day you plan months for and want to savor every second of, but seems to fly by in a rush all too quickly.

Megan and Harry had stayed late last night, pushing some of the shelves back, and setting up a table in the front, which would hold a series of local author signings all throughout the day. She lamented for a moment how much this would have helped Lucy, if she were still there. Kris arrived a few minutes later with two fists full of balloons, and then Harry, who shyly handed Ruth a large bouquet of daisies.

“Congratulations, Ruth. You made it.”

“We
made it,” she said, taking the bouquet and bringing it to her nose. “Oh, Harry, this was so sweet.”

“It’s just a little thank you for giving me a place that I love to come to all these years. I can’t even call it work, because it’s not.”

She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I know.”

She introduced them all to Thomas and he quickly threw himself into helping out however he could. Then Hannah arrived in a tizzy, with boxes and boxes of muffins, all different kinds, and exotic coffees and teas, afraid she might run out of what she already had on hand.

Ruth and Thomas helped her carry it all back to Hazel’s Café, then sat at one of the bistro tables as Hannah fluttered around getting ready. The café was so charming and colorful. In addition to the painted mirrors, Hannah had also hand painted a sign:
HAZEL’S CAFÉ, Out of this world baked goods.

“Eddie thinks I’m crazy, giving away free stuff today, but I think it’s smart marketing. Once they taste my muffins…”

“They’ll be dying to buy them,” Ruth finished for her.

Hannah turned to her, laughing at the pun. “I think Hazel would approve.”

“I think you’re right.”

They both looked at Thomas, who was devouring a muffin, a look of pleasure on his face.

“Are those the
Better than…”
she asked.

“Better Than Sex
muffins? Yes, and no. Same muffin, different name, because I figure our audience is now PG. So I renamed them
Sinfully Delicious.
There’s a new one,
Hazel’s Nut,
which of course has hazelnuts.”

“If you’re selling stock in your business, I’ll buy some,” Thomas said, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

Hannah laughed.

“I’m serious,” Thomas said, and Ruth and Hannah looked at him. Apparently, he was.

Then the bell began to ring endlessly, and Ruth headed back to the front of the store as the family of regular customers poured in, followed a few moments later by Lauren Greene and her crew from NPR, who’d gone to Elaine’s for a bite before launching into work for the next six hours. Lauren was a tall woman, who Ruth judged to be in her mid-thirties, and who reminded her, ironically, of herself back then, with her long peasant skirt, high black boots, and dark, wild hair caught back with a clip.

Ruth was thankful the show wasn’t running live. They would be taping throughout the day then edit the material and put together what was to be a thirty-minute segment to be aired in a few weeks. She gave Lauren free reign to interview staff and customers alike, with the exception of Larry Porter’s surprise proposal. When the time came, Ruth asked that the crew take a break, or perhaps just go outside for a few minutes. Ruth didn’t want anything ruining the big moment.

She stood in front of the store as the crew set up then, happy to see Main Street alive with pedestrians for this First Friday Downtown Walk, which didn’t officially kick off until later in the afternoon. They’d advertised like crazy during Applefest, hoping the crowds would come back, and here they were.

“We’re here today in the Village of Warwick,” Lauren Greene began, “to celebrate the 150th anniversary of The Book Lover, an independent bookstore that’s been owned and managed by Ruth Hardaway for the past thirty years. As is often the case with properties that change hands, the history of The Book Lover was a mystery to Ruth, until the store’s assistant manager Megan Crockett began doing a little snooping…”

Against the background noise of the door opening, the bell tinkling and people chatting and browsing, Lauren Greene finished taping her introduction. Then they moved inside, where she interviewed Megan, asking her what her thoughts were for surviving in a future where megastores and online shopping seemed to be closing one independent after another.

“The way of the future is educating the buying public,” Megan began. “Here in Warwick, our downtown revitalization committee has begun a ‘Buy Warwick’ campaign that we hope will help people who live here realize finally that if they spend their money here, it helps everyone.”

Megan showed her copies of store receipts and newsletters, as well as e-mail printouts as she read out loud what they were now handing out. “If you spend $25 in your town at an independent store, $13.75 stays in your community. If it’s a big box or chain store, it would be $3.90. If you spend that same $25 on the internet, you’re giving $0 to your community. People have to think beyond saving a few cents, or even a few bucks. This is where we live. No one wants boarded-up shops on Main Street, but in some places, that’s what you have.”

Just then Lynn Anderson came in with her daughter Melissa. Ruth hadn’t seen her in a few months, and she was dressed as nicely as ever. Melissa went to pick out some children’s books and Lynn came over to Ruth with a gift bag in her hand.

“This is just a small token of my thanks for giving me so much pleasure over the years. It was like having my own personal book shopper. You always knew exactly what I wanted. And sometimes needed.”

“Thanks, Lynn.” She opened the bag and pulled out a tiny gold music box. As she lifted the cover, she recognized the tune immediately:
When you wish upon a star…
“Oh, it’s just lovely, Lynn.”

“I’m glad you got to keep the store open. I just couldn’t imagine Warwick without The Book Lover. Or The Book Lover without you.”

Lynn gave her a quick hug and went to join her daughter, who was sitting at a bistro table sampling some of Hannah’s muffins. Lauren was there, interviewing several others. In fact, Hannah’s corner of the store was packed. Ruth turned away, an ache in her heart. There was something missing in Lynn’s eyes already, as if a bit of the light had already begun to fade.

As she walked toward the front of the store, where Thomas was sampling some of Bertha Piakowski’s pierogies—she’d arrived with two platters of them while Ruth was being interviewed—she saw Colin finally arrive. She’d been wondering where he was. He kept insisting he wasn’t angry with her, but she had her doubts.

When she went to the lake last week and knocked on his cabin door, he didn’t seem surprised to see her. He was sitting at his dining room table, which was covered with papers. She sat across from him as he explained that he was finalizing a program at The Raptor Center for wounded vets.

“But you’re not here about this,” he said with a little smile, his head tilted to the side, which she’d always found so endearing. For a moment he looked like the Colin who used to wow his father, that mischievous twinkle in his eye before he’d jump into the freezing lake.

He thought she’d come because of Gloryanne.

“She’s doing the right thing,” he said then. “It’s been over a long time. She was just too sweet to admit it.”

“I’m not here to talk about her, Colin. I’m here to talk about Lucy.”

He’d looked startled. For a long moment she said nothing, praying he wouldn’t hate her. She told him then that she knew about the affair. “To be honest, I felt betrayed.”

“She wanted to tell you, Mom. I asked her not to.”

“When she came back from Florida, you assumed she was divorced, but she wasn’t. Her husband was fighting it.”

“So that part was true.”

“Yes.”

“What else?”

“Did you know she was writing a book about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“The character was a paraplegic, obviously modeled after you. There was some very intimate detail. And of course the birds.”

She was surprised to see him smile then, shaking his head. “And that upset you?”

“I felt like she was using you.”

“She wasn’t using me. If she writes about a paraplegic, it can only raise awareness.”

“So you don’t care?”

He shook his head. “I love her.”

And she sat there, remembering Lucy saying the same thing, “I love him, Ruth.”

“But you’re right, she did lie about being divorced. I never wanted to do what Dad did. I know how much he must have hurt you. I swore I’d never do something like that to anyone, whether I knew them or not.”

She felt her face flush with embarrassment. Although it was a small town, she often wondered how much her kids had heard over the years. None of them had ever brought it up, though. Until now.