Page 50 of The Last Book Party

Taped to the wall above my desk were photographs of Truro I’d found at the swap shop before I’d left. My favorite was of a short row of gravestones at the old Methodist cemetery at the end of Bridge Road. Tilted and weathered by more than a century of salty air, each was carved not only with the years of birth and death, but with the precise age of the person who had died, in years, months, and days.Isaac Rich, 23 years, four months, and two days. Eliza Crane, 42 years, seven months, and six days. The photograph reminded me that every day counts.

I kept up regular correspondence with Danny, who had finally taken a leave from MIT with my parents’ hesitant but resigned blessing. He had started on a new antidepressant, the “wonder drug” Prozac, which seemed to be helping. He had moved in with an old girlfriend in Burlington, Vermont, where he had found a part-time job at a bakery, happily taking the 4:30 a.m. shift, which suited his insomnia, and spending the rest of his day tinkering with his girlfriend’s loom and mastering the sitar. I shared my stories with Danny. For a math geek who didn’t read much fiction, he had an uncanny way of honing in on what I was really writing about, often before I knew it myself.

In his most recent letter, Danny had surprised me by telling me that he had always envied my ability to fly under the radar in our family, to have the gift of not being noticed. I wrote back and asked why families so often act as if there’s only one role each child can play—the smart one, the nerdy one, the pretty one—and that if an older sibling claims a certain territory, theothers have to look elsewhere to find their niche.Why can’t we both be the brilliant one?I wrote.And why can’t we do what we love, even if wearen’tbrilliant?

Sifting through some boxes of books at Sally’s shop one Saturday afternoon, I came across a folder of sheet music of old songs that I knew my mother loved. It wasn’t the classical music she had studied long ago, but dreamy songs from the 1930s and ’40s I’d heard her sing around the house. “Stormy Weather.” “Bewitched.” “Autumn Leaves.” “All of Me.” I bought the folder, hoping there would come a time when it made sense to give it to her, when she might sit down at the piano and play.

47

On the last Thursday in September, I got to the office early, at around 9:00 a.m., filed a story on a school board meeting that had gone late the night before, and left the office by 11:00. I stopped by my apartment to change, get my suitcase, and grab my mail, which I would read on the plane. With the air conditioner in my car on high and Suzanne Vega cassette in the tape deck, I settled in for the ninety-minute drive to the Tampa airport. I was looking forward to getting out of the heat, spending the weekend in New York, and finally retrieving my remaining belongings from my old apartment.

On the plane, I settled into a window seat, slipped off my sandals, and started flipping through my stack of mail. It was the usual junk—catalogues, utility bills, a circular from the Piggly Wiggly supermarket—until I saw a large envelope from the Truro library. Inside was a recent edition ofPublishers Weekly, with a Post-it note on the cover, on which Alva had scribbledThought you’d be interested.

The magazine was like a relic from a past life. I scanned the bulletins on new book deals and editors moving from one publishing house to another. I read an article about the alarmedindustry reaction to the continued expansion of Barnes & Noble, which with its purchase of B. Dalton Booksellers the year before had become the second-largest bookseller in America. I read about a new editor at Hodder, Strike who was causing a stir among the old guard by paying exorbitant sums for commercial books with questionable literary value. And then I turned the page to find a full-page black-and-white photograph of Jeremy, wearing a white T-shirt and black jeans and gazing with great seriousness out the floor-to-ceiling window of a sparse industrial-looking loft.

Jeremy’s novel, to be released at the end of the month, was already being acclaimed with the usual clichés—“fresh and original,” “bold and beautiful,” and a phrase long banned at Hodder, Strike because of overuse, “a meditation on the transformative power of love.” The interviewer asked how Jeremy had chosen the topic of leprosy, to which Jeremy had responded that he was drawn to the idea of being isolated physically as well as emotionally.

The end of the profile quoted Malcolm as saying that Hodder, Strike had great expectations for Jeremy’s novel and would be feting him at a book party at Scribner’s Book Store on Fifth Avenue on September 29. I checked my Filofax to be sure I was right. The party was that evening.

48

I called Malcolm from a pay phone in the airport.

“How’s theCitrus County Bugle?” he asked.

“It’s theChronicleand it’s fine, but I’m in New York.”

“They’ve run you out of town already?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t written anything noteworthy enough for anyone to take offense,” I said.

“Soon enough, cherub. Just don’t stay too long. It will ruin you. The truths of the world are not captured in the who-what-when-where-why of an inverted pyramid.” It was not the first time someone at Hodder, Strike had dismissed newspaper writing as superficial.

Before I mentioned Jeremy’s book party, Malcolm said he was adding my name to the guest list. He signed off by telling me to “shake the hayseeds out of my hair,” reminding me of how provincial New Yorkers can be, as if there’s no intelligent life beyond the island of Manhattan.

I took a cab to my old apartment, where my former roommate, Annie, still lived with the assistant publicist who had taken over my share of the lease. I let myself in and took a long shower,savoring the intense Manhattan water pressure and trying to calm my nerves about seeing Jeremy after so long.

With the passage of time, and having read Henry’s novella carefully, I realized I may have been too harsh in attacking Jeremy. The structure of his novel was different from Henry’s and, more important, his language was both subtler and more pointed. His depiction of Sarita’s interior life, her girlish yet deeply mature longing, was worlds away from the clumsy way Henry had tried to convey the same thing. I no longer thought what Jeremy had done was completely wrong. But I was still troubled by his dishonesty.

It was jarring to be back in New York. Walking down Broadway to the bus at Ninety-Sixth Street, I moved too slowly, eliciting annoyed stares from several people who pushed ahead of me. I was the only woman in the city not dressed in black. Before I had gone two blocks, I knew that my floral top and flowy white pants, which felt so pretty in Florida, were the wrong choices for a sophisticated Manhattan publishing party. And my plan to travel by bus and avoid the steamy subway turned out to be a bad one. The crosstown bus took forever to come, and the bus down Fifth Avenue crawled in noisy traffic. By the time I arrived at Scribner’s, I could see through the store’s two-story windows that the party was already in full swing.

I paused for a moment at the door. Scribner’s, a Beaux Arts masterpiece, was too majestic a place to enter in a frazzled rush. With its vaulted ceiling, decorative iron railings, clerestory windows, and grand staircase, Scribner’s was more than a bookstore. It was the Tiffany of books, a sparkling monument to literature, a place where buying a book felt like an event. Malcolm, who adored the place, had told me that for decades the store’s head manager would call in the bestsellers toThe New York Timesfor its list, occasionally naming a new book that hadn’t yet solda single copy but that she was confident deserved to be included. Until the late 1970s, the store refused to sell paperbacks. I hoped that Jeremy knew how significant it was, a real vote of confidence in his future, for Hodder, Strike to choose this venue for his book launch. Clearly, plagiarism wasn’t an issue of anyone’s concern.

I made my way to the back of the store, where Ron, standing at the bottom of the sweeping staircase in a black jacket over a black polo shirt, looked very much the associate editor. He was talking to Mary, who seemed to be in her element, pert and professional in a little black dress, checking off items on a clipboard.

I waved at Malcolm, who mimed an air kiss and turned his attention back to a young woman, no doubt an assistant publicist, who was straightening a few stacks of Jeremy’s books on a nearby table. Beside them was Ron’s replacement as editorial assistant, Charlie Rhenquist, looking preppy and confident in a navy blazer with gold buttons. He was talking to a petite woman with a helmet head of teased blond hair who I suspected was the editorPublishers Weeklyhad reported was raising eyebrows by publishing books at Hodder, Strike that made money.

Malcolm stepped up to a podium on the landing of the wide staircase and clinked a pen against his champagne glass. Surveying the crowd with impressive calm and an air of ownership, he raised his glass.

“Please join me in welcoming a remarkable new talent,” he said, beaming toward the bottom of the steps, where Jeremy stood, hands in his pants pockets and shoulders hunched, looking more bar-mitzvah boy than up-and-coming novelist. Beside him, Mary nudged him gently. Jeremy thrust back his shoulders. He walked up to the podium, cracked open his book, and smoothed the pages with his hand.

Jeremy read slowly, his voice gradually settling into the rhythm of his prose. He looked up from time to time, the words seeming to give him confidence, to make him stand a little taller. I got lost in the narrative once again. He read my favorite scene, near the end, when the doctor’s son stands inches from Sarita and holds up his palm. She lifts her trembling hand and holds it like a mirror to his. They never touch, but their gesture pulses with lust and longing.

I exhaled and, as I did, Jeremy looked up. He hesitated when he saw me, then continued to the end of the chapter. The applause seemed to break whatever spell had calmed him enough to read confidently. His cheeks reddened as he nodded his head and stepped down from the podium.

I knew Jeremy would find me eventually, so I leaned against the tall rolling ladder at the bookshelves markedMEMOIRand drank a glass of wine, watching the crowd. Jeremy made the rounds, shaking hands, smiling politely. Finally, he was standing in front of me. He looked timid, which came as a relief and suggested that his conscience had kicked in since last summer.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m not here to expose you.”

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