Page 22 of After Hours at Dooryard Books
“The limits of what?”
Nathaniel sighs. “My sanity, I suppose.”
Patrick gathers all the laundry in a couple of pillowcases and makes Nathaniel carry one of them around the corner to the laundromat. When everything is loaded into the washing machines, Nathaniel sits on a metal folding chair and resumes readingLeaves of Grass. They’re the only two people in the laundromat, other than a bored-looking middle-aged woman behind the counter.
“What’s the verdict?” Patrick asks, sitting in the chair next to Nathaniel’s and gesturing at the book.
“I keep coming up with alternative explanations. He has a healthy appreciation for the male form, et cetera.”
“Most people do that. For what it’s worth, the letters are a lot harder to explain away.”
“I’m not doubting your expert opinion.” It’s unclear whether the expertise he’s referring to is Patrick as a bookseller or Patrick as a gay man.
“‘When I Heard at the Close of the Day’ is especially illuminating,” Patrick says.
Nathaniel begins flipping through the book. Patrick takes it from his hands, finds the right page, and gives it back.
“You doing all right?” Patrick asks a few minutes later. “In terms of sanity?” He wouldn’t have used that word if Nathaniel hadn’t done so first, but it feels rude. He remembers Nathaniel stumbling overhomosexual. There’s no way to talk about being queer or having a fucked up brain without being rude about it,because you aren’t supposed to talk about those things in the first place. You aren’t supposed to be those things.
“Its limits have not yet been breached,” Nathaniel says, eyes still on the book. He sighs and closes it, his finger marking the page. “I hate this, but it serves me right.”
“No,” Patrick says, a little too loud. Nathaniel startles, and Patrick lowers his voice. “You don’t deserve to feel trapped.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nathaniel says, and returns his attention to the book.
The door opens and a woman comes in, wrestling a wicker hamper. Patrick gets up to hold the door.
“Oh, Patrick,” she says. “I hardly recognize you out of the shop. And Nathaniel!”
It’s Vivian. It’s always odd to run into a customer. Some of the regulars occupy that murky space between acquaintance and friend. After so many visits to the shop, Viv might be closer to the friend end of the spectrum.
Vivian’s obviously never been to a laundromat in her life, because she has no change and only the vaguest sense of how to separate laundry. “Maryanne used to do it. I’ve been sending the laundry out, but it’s ruinously expensive,” she explains.
Maryanne, Patrick assumes, is the fedora-wearing woman who used to come in with Vivian. Patrick doesn’t ask exactly how she left the picture. All that matters, really, is that Vivian doesn’t sound pleased about it, and also that she needs help with laundry, so Patrick walks her through it.
“Is the baby sleeping through the night?” she asks when her clothes are loaded in the washer.
“When the planets are aligned,” Patrick says.
“You need the book by that man—Spock. Dr. Spock.”
“Excuse me, what?” Patrick is aware of one Spock, and he’s on the bridge of theEnterprise.
“My sister had his book. I can’t remember the title. You probably have one in stock.”
“It’s calledBaby and Child Care,” Nathaniel says, not looking up from his book.
“That’s it!” Vivian agrees. “I see you’ve fallen prey to Patrick’s influence. Whitman’s completely out of my period but Patrick got me anyway.”
“He’s a dangerous man,” Nathaniel agrees.
“Now all I can see is the longing. Not only for companionship,” she says, in a way that makes it clear companionship is standing in for sex or romance, “but for community. He’s looking for people like him.” She pauses with a glance at the empty wicker hamper. “It’s very touching, and very familiar, isn’t it?”
Patrick realizes that Vivian thinks he and Nathaniel are involved. They’re doing laundry together, which isn’t something she’d expect Patrick to do with an employee. He can see the moment Nathaniel realizes the same thing—his eyes open a little wider, and it looks like he’s about to say something, but when he opens his mouth, all he says is, “Quite,” and then he and Vivian start talking about the Democratic primary. They both like Robert Kennedy, which isn’t any kind of surprise when it comes to Vivian, but he’d been worried that Nathaniel might be a Republican.
“Call me Viv,” Vivian tells Nathaniel. “Everybody does.”
Nathaniel’s been around for more than ten of Viv’s visits to the shop—no, more than that, because she sometimes stops by on the weekend. Viv is only five or ten years older than Nathaniel. If, for Patrick, Viv is in the space between friend and acquaintance, for Nathaniel she may already be a friend.
