Page 22 of The Last Book Party

I went outside onto the deck, careful not to let the screen door slap. The moon was shining like a spotlight on the marsh, where the tide was nearly high, covering most of the grass. The wind was coming from the south, and I could hear the surf from the bay. The water would be wavy and warm. I climbed up on the deck ledge and let my legs swing down and kick against the wood. I thought of my mother’s suggestion to choose a character from a book I loved. I felt the breeze from the bay and shivered. The first book that came to mind was Jeremy’s, and his wistful, lonely leper.

16

The phone rang at seven the next morning, interrupting my chance to sleep late on my first Saturday since I’d started working for Henry. I didn’t have to pick up the receiver to know it would be Danny, and that he’d be calling for one of two reasons: to report on some new mathematical breakthrough that my parents and I would assume was impressively significant without understanding why, or to seek reassurance that despite a less-than-perfect score on an exam or a classmate’s exceptional performance in class, he was not a failure. My parents’ constant readiness to reassure Danny of his brilliance was not just a reflection of their desire for him to be happy but a force of habit. Praised for his intellect since he was a toddler, Danny had only one rubric by which to judge himself.

Growing up, and through high school, his tantrums were legendary—notebooks shredded, books tossed, doors slammed—all because of a 99 on a test. Suffering when he suffered, my parents would make excuses for his behavior, as if his perfectionism was understandable, even the logical response for someone with his gifts. No one in the family saw the incongruity inmy getting praised for getting a 90 on an exam, while we all felt sorry for Danny the few times his performance wasn’t flawless. My parents meant well, but recently I’d begun to wonder if their rapt attention wasn’t reinforcing Danny’s belief that extreme distress was an appropriate reaction to falling short of his high standards.

Thankfully, Danny rarely wanted to talk to me in these states, which probably contributed to our getting along so well. It also helped that in the Venn diagram of our ambitions, there was no overlap. He was numbers; I was words. We had come to this understanding as children, after years of being suspicious of each other. Danny couldn’t believe how much I read or how fast. Convinced I was skimming and unable to retain what I had read, he used to try to test me. One day he yankedA Little Princessfrom my hands, flipped through the pages, and said, “Quick, what was the name of Captain Crewe’s business partner?” To which I disappointed him by answering immediately, “Carrisford.” At the same time, I didn’t understand most of his math explanations, like why I should account for compound interest when saving my babysitting money. Eventually, we gave up the battle and resigned ourselves to being different.

Unable to fall back to sleep, I climbed out of bed and went to the kitchen for coffee. My mother was sitting at the table, twirling the phone cord around her fingers as she listened to Danny. My father hovered over her. “Do you want me to take over?” he whispered, looking, at that moment, much older than his fifty-four years.

Danny’s episodes were less frequent than they used to be, but the routine was nonetheless predictable. This phone conversation would go on for at least an hour, sometimes two, and my parents would become anxious themselves, unable to thinkabout or discuss anything else, until my mother would brave a return phone call to Danny in the evening or the next day, and we would all know by looking at her face whether his mood had passed. Once it had, my father would reiterate his opinion that something practical, like banking or insurance, might be less stressful for Danny than academia.

I took my coffee out onto the deck. The sun was already strong, the sky an intense blue. I heard thetat-tat-tatof a woodpecker in the distance. Inhaling deeply, I looked out over the edge of the marsh in the direction of the ocean and Tillie and Henry’s house, wishing I was there instead of here. Soon, Tillie and Henry would begin preparing for a dinner party they would host that night after attending a benefit for an AIDS support group in Provincetown. From what I’d overheard, the guests included a drama critic fromThe Boston Globeand his painter wife, the editorial director ofProvincetown Arts, and “Lanie and Eric,” as Tillie had said, who I now realized were Lane and her sculptor father. Even if she was there only because of her father, Lane’s invitation rankled.

I had spent twenty-five summers in Truro and felt as if no one knew the place better or loved it more. I knew the way the sun setting over the bay behind Toms Hill could make the windows of the houses across the marsh appear as though they were on fire and at what time the bobwhite in the tree outside my bedroom would start its chant. I knew that the parking lot attendant at Corn Hill Beach filled her water bottles with vodka, and that the Truro harbormaster didn’t know how to swim. Three years in a row, I had entered the Truro Scavenger Hunt, and for three years in a row, I had won, most recently because I happened to know that the Truro artist Milton Wright was Wilbur and Orville’s nephew.

But now, imagining Lane and her father sitting on Henry and Tillie’s back porch and arguing about the merits of “postpainterly abstraction” as ice cubes slowly watered down their gin and tonics, I had never felt as much like an outsider.

17

Still awaiting edits on the latest chapters of his memoir, Henry continued to fire off notes to Hodder, Strike. I could tell by the way he slammed his fingers down on the keys of his old typewriter that he was writing as much to purge himself of his rage at Malcolm’s inattention as to discover when the edits in Malcolm’s trademark green ink would arrive. The first response that came from my replacement, during my second week on the job, exasperated Henry, who tossed the letter over his back in my general direction. I read it, pleased to see that it was neither helpful nor artfully written. But Henry was beside himself. “Eight months! You’d think after eight months, he might have the consideration to read a few chapters.”

Henry seemed so deflated that, without thinking about it, I offered to call Malcolm to see what I could do. He looked up at me with such a warm and handsome smile that for a moment I felt as if I was looking at Franny.

To have some privacy, I went downstairs to use the phone on the wall in the kitchen. As I was dialing, I noticed Tillie and Lane standing by the half circle of weathered Adirondack chairs that looked over the tennis court. Tillie held a piece of paper in onehand and shook it from time to time while Lane stood opposite with her arms folded. The conversation looked more heated than a disagreement over an awkward translation.

A young woman I assumed was Malcolm’s new secretary answered the phone as if she had been given the line to audition for a soap opera.

“This is Malcolm Wing’s office, and you have reached his editorial secretary, Jessica Blanken. How may I be of assistance?”

I walked over to the refrigerator, the long phone cord stretching out just enough for me to open it and retrieve the orange juice, and said, “Oh, hi, can you put Malcolm on? This is Eve.”

“Eve, and the last name would be…?”

I poured myself a glass of juice.

“The last name would be Rosen. I used to work for him.”

“Eve Rosen,” she said slowly, no doubt filling in the top page of a pink “While You Were Out” pad. “And to what may I say this is in reference?”

I sighed. “Don’t worry; he knows me well. It’s a personal call.”

I didn’t mention Henry, as I figured that by now Jessica would know how far down the list of importance he had fallen. Jessica put me on hold. Taking a sip of juice, I looked back outside. Tillie and Lane were laughing, their argument apparently resolved. The paper that Tillie had been holding was on the grass by her feet, and was then picked up and carried off by the breeze. The phone clicked and I heard Malcolm’s booming voice. “Cherub! How is life in the dunes?”

“Never dull,” I said, watching as Tillie turned and headed toward the driveway. Lane watched her for a few seconds and then started walking briskly back to the house. I turned so that I was facing inside.

I asked Malcolm to give me the truth about Henry’s chapters—was there any chance he would get to them this summer?

Lane walked right by me and into Tillie’s office. She looked at me without saying a word and closed the door behind her.

Malcolm clucked his tongue.

“Eve, Eve, Eve. Can’t you put him off as cleverly as you used to?”

“C’mon, Malcolm. I work for him now.”

I heard music coming from Tillie’s office.

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