Page 24 of The Last Book Party

She turned toward me, saw the umbrella, and sighed, as if the whole search had exhausted her. “Thank you.”

Then, forgetting all the subtler ways I had considered starting this conversation, I said, “I love your columns inYankee Magazine.”

Tillie seemed caught off guard. She looked at me inquisitively, as if, for once, she was interested in what I had to say.

“I love the way you write about the landscape not only as an object of beauty, but as a reflection—a confirmation, even—of your inner life.”

“Thank you,” Tillie said. “That’s a lovely compliment.”

She pulled a raincoat from the armoire and shook it out.

“It’s something I’ve thought about but never articulated,” I said. “And the way you describe your struggle to leave home and become a writer, it’s like that overwhelming drive you had was part of the natural world too.”

She pressed her lips together with the slightest of frowns.

Perhaps stupidly, I was not yet dissuaded from continuing the conversation.

“The columns are incredible.”

Tillie raised an eyebrow.

“Incredible? As in not to be believed? Let’s not get carried away.”

She fished into the pockets of the raincoat and pulled out an old bunch of tissue.

“Why did you stop writing them?” I asked.

She put on the raincoat, smoothed it down.

“I got bored. Being direct is dull.”

“Your writing is not dull at all.”

“I’ll tell you what’s not dull,” Tillie said, the clipped haughtiness back in her voice. “Poetry. Coming at things sideways is not only not dull, but often leads to greater clarity.”

She smiled, though not warmly, opened the door, and stepped outside.

“And… exit stage left,” I whispered.

The conversation made me wonder how Jeremy had done it, how he had not only found common ground with Tillie and Henry but had gotten enough warmth from them to feel part of the family. Had they sensed Jeremy’s extraordinary talent and welcomed him as a fellow writer, someone whose gifts reflected back on them the same way their acclaim had lifted him? Did they find it easier to connect with Jeremy than with Franny? Was Jeremy the son they’d always wanted?

It was odd how rarely Henry and Tillie talked about Franny.In this, they were unlike all other parents I knew, who seemed to have no topic of conversation as constant as the endless one about their children, no matter their age. I had seen this with my own parents, not only by listening to them talk about Danny, but in noticing that whenever I shared the most mundane news with one of them, it would be passed along to the other.

In my time at Henry and Tillie’s, I’d only heard Franny mentioned once. Tillie was pulling old books out of the shelves in the living room to make room for new ones and had asked aloud, to no one in particular, if Franny would mind if she gave away his high school yearbooks. I was in the kitchen, and though no one answered, I heard what I was sure was thethwackof the yearbooks landing in the give-away pile on the floor.

20

I avoided Tillie when I got to work the next morning, skipping my regular stop in the kitchen for coffee and heading right upstairs into Henry’s office. He greeted me with his usual gusto. “And so she arrives!” he said, looking up from his book and smiling, as if my appearance in his office was an unexpected delight rather than the fulfillment of a routine engagement he himself had instigated.

“It’s Wednesday,” I said. “Where else would I be?”

Henry rubbed his hand on his chin.

“On a beautiful day like this, at the beach with your circle of friends.”

“I’ve never been one for circles,” I said, opening my folder of notes.

“Then perhaps on a date. A picnic by the sea. A canoe ride on the pond, your paramour paddling as you run one hand in the water and use the other to feed yourself cold green grapes.”

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