The Fifth Avenue Story Society

by Rachel Hauck

“The reception? I’m not going. Can’t you give this to him at the next society meeting? And how do you know about tonight?”

  “The unpublished manuscript is inside. It’s time. He won’t have the courage without you.” When Gilda touched Lexa’s arm, an electric surge charged through her. “It’s time. And Lexa, no more running.”

  “Running? I’m not running. I’m, I’m advancing.”

  The woman left without another word as the worn and scuffed satchel swung from Lexa’s hand. A drop of her crusty charcoal mask drifted toward the floor.

  * * *

  Jett

  The cocktail party was hosted by the college president at his Riverside residence, a grand penthouse with a view of the park and river.

  Decked in a rented tux and his trademark high-tops, Jett circulated, chatting in circles of threes and fours with his colleagues and members of the literati.

  Across the room, he made eye contact with the most recent person to enter—Tenley Roth—on the arm of her husband, a tanned man in khakis and a button-down.

  For all the times he wanted to meet her and she refused, he had nothing to say to her now.

  What could he say? “Hey, was your great-great-grandfather a fraud?” Or, “Did Birdie Ainsworth write his books?”

  In truth, he was the bigger hypocrite. Because even after all the Monday night story society meetings, where the deepest secrets flooded out of his fellow members, he still wasn’t honest with himself.

  Ed’s story of watching Esmerelda fly from the bridge shook him. Plagued his sleep. Even now, the similarities between their stories haunted him.

  “Greg, nice to see you.” He stepped toward a colleague and away from his discomfort.

  Dealing with the truth about that day on the mountain was one thing. It was another to be faced with a professional crisis. All the world seemed to want from him was truth, and he couldn’t give it. He was still that kid hiding in the loft, weeping into the hay.

  It didn’t help that for the past three weeks, every faculty meeting, every hallway conversation, every staff email was about how they’d allocate the ten million.

  Continuing his motion around the large open room, Jett smiled, relieved, to see Coral and Chuck enter with Ed and a very lovely, refined woman.

  “Jett, this is posh.” Coral gave him a friendly kiss on the cheek. “And I’ve been to a lot of these things.”

  “Welcome to the academic world, where we look like we have money but we don’t.”

  “Except a ten-million-dollar windfall.” Chuck, also in a tux, slapped his big paw into Jett’s. “Nice digs.” He scanned the ornate reception room with the crystal globe chandelier. “Is this your future? University president?”

  “Too much politicking for me.”

  “Where’s the hors d’oeuvres?” Ed poked his head into the gathering. “Everyone, this is Mabel Cochran, my neighbor and lady friend.”

  He’d overlooked the black-tie requirement but looked dapper in his blue suit. Even better, the old man looked happy. Really happy. Deep-down-in-his-bones happy. Jett wondered what that felt like. He wasn’t sure he’d ever known.

  “Congratulations, Jett,” Mabel said. “Ed tells me this is a big deal for you and the college. You’ve published a book or something.”

  “Yes, about Gordon Phipps Roth.”

  “Really? I loved his books,” Mabel said. “Read them all in my twenties. He was a very inspiring storyteller.”

  “Mabel.” Ed tugged on her arm. “Let’s check out the food table. Jett, we’ll be back.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute.” Jett pulled him back, letting Mabel go on ahead. “Ed, buddy, what’s going on?” Coral and Chuck joined the huddle.

  “She’s my neighbor. Been friends for a while. But once I broke free of how I saw Esmerelda, I invited the lovely creature who lived down the hall to dinner.”

  Ed peeled away, and Chuck murmured, “Something tells me he’s not long for the single life.”

  “Something tells me you two aren’t either,” Jett said. He’d noticed how cozy they’d been at the story society last Monday.

  Lexa’s missing presence suddenly felt enormous.

  “I texted and called her,” Coral said, as if reading Jett’s thoughts. “But she said she thought it best to bow out quietly.”

  “This is typical Lex,” Jett said. “She won’t be here.”

  “Jett, you have to figure out a way to talk to her before she leaves.”

  “And say what, Coral? ‘Stay’? I can’t offer her what she wants.”

  “She wants you.”

  “Does she know that?”

  “Jett.” Renée approached. “We need you. Wealthy alumni wanting to talk to the man of the hour. Coral Winthrop, hello, so glad you’re here.”

  As he talked with the former New York College students, his thoughts were on Lexa. Coral said she wanted him. How did she know? Did Lexa say so?

  After his speech, he would call her. Saying goodbye would be the hardest thing, but he couldn’t let her go without telling her how he felt. All the way. No holding back.

  Storm, Gordon, his mother . . . All paled in comparison. They were the past. Lexa was his right-now, his future.

  “May I have your attention? Please, everyone . . .” President Gee dinged the side of his wine glass with his big university ring and stood behind the podium. “We are honored to have with us Elijah Roth, from the Roth Foundation, established to support and expand the world of literature.” He paused for applause. “We are joined by other members of the Roth family. Elijah’s father, Richard, and also Gordon’s great-great-granddaughter and Conrad Roth’s daughter, Tenley Roth.” Elijah, Richard, and Tenley stood to a hearty welcome. “Tenley is here with her husband, Jonas Sullivan, and has just released her fifth novel.”

  The president waxed on about the Gordon Phipps Roth School of American Literature and hailed the Roth Foundation as a cornerstone to the preservation of the written word in print and electronic forms.

  Then he introduced Elijah. Nerves spiked in Jett, the kind that made him want to run. The room was so hot. Crowded. He tugged at his collar, loosening his tie.

  “The board of directors at the Roth Foundation have been looking for a college or university to partner with for some time. The continued success of Gordon’s work has allowed us to amass a sizeable endowment for a partnership with a learning institution. After meeting with President Gee, Dean Hanover of the College of English, and his incredible staff, we are pleased to announce an endowment of ten million dollars to establish the Gordon Phipps Roth School of American Literature at the New York College.”

  The news was old. Everyone knew. But the faculty and guests cheered and applauded with polite dignity.

  “We are also pleased that one of your own has just published an in-depth, well-researched, scholarly work on Gordon. As you know, there have been rumors that GPR employed a ghostwriter. While unfounded, the lies and whispers continued. But through Jett Wilder’s work, Gordon’s name, reputation, and standing among American literary giants will endure.” All eyes turned to Jett. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Jett Wilder.”

  The applause pushed him forward along with Chuck’s hearty back slap. Pulling his notes from his inside pocket, he stood at the podium waiting for the applause of nearly a hundred guests to die down.

  He tugged at his collar again. Could someone open a window? The room was a sauna.

  Clearing his throat, he gulped from the water glass and retrieved his notes.

  “I first encountered Gordon’s books as a boy, a twelve-year-old hurting from his parents’ divorce. While I was not GPR’s intended reader, I lived the magic of Gordon’s stories. Elizabeth, the heroine of The Girl in the Carriage, was my pin-up girl.” The laugh eased his tension. “When I felt lonely or afraid, I turned to stories. Mostly Gordon’s. I imagined growing up into the life he wrote about in his books. Even the House in Murray Hill, with its threat of death and heartache, inspired me. He wrote with a beautiful
, specific clarion voice. One of purity and sincerity, one without guile.” When he looked up, he saw his friends—the story society. Ed, Chuck, Coral and—

  Lexa. Wearing the dress from the wedding. She squeezed past the startled guests, a satchel in her hand. His old FSU bag.

  He gripped the side of the podium and stumbled on with his speech. “But, um, it was The Girl in the Carriage that changed my life.” Lexa whispered something to Coral, then caught his eye and patted the side of the satchel. What was she doing?

  “And we all know how it changed Gordon’s. In grad school, when my marriage was failing, I read Love on the Thames, and Winter in New York, over and over. After my brother’s tragic death, The House in Murray Hill once again gave me hope. It was one of the first books in which Gordon wrote freely of his faith. While writing my own space-navy novel, I read GPR over and over. Gordon inspired not only me but more than five hundred million readers and writers around the globe and down the corridors of time.

  “The Roth Foundation’s generous endowment will make it possible for—” Lexa raised the satchel again. People were turning to stare. A hot perspiration flashed across his forehead and down his ears. “Make it possible for—” A cough. A deep one from among the guests. Jett gazed back to see Ed with his fist over his lips and his date nudging him. “—Students from all walks of life to experience the worlds that live on the pages of timeless stories like Gordon’s. And to aspire to do the same for their own generation.”

  Now Lexa was shaking the satchel, pointing to the clasp. What already?

  “If you all will pardon me for just a moment.” He left the dais to murmurs and whispers, tucking away his notes in his chest pocket, and cut through the standing guests to where Lexa stood.

  “What? I don’t understand.” Jett took her by the arm and steered her toward the patio double doors. The cold air felt good.

  “Gilda came to my place tonight. She said it was time. I had no idea what she was talking about until I looked inside your bag. Jett, the manuscript from the Bower is in here.” She shoved it into his chest. “Tell the truth. It’s time.”

  “It’s too late.” The satchel slipped into his hands. “Lexa, please, don’t move. Stay. Or I’ll move. I can teach and write in Seattle. They have universities there.”

  “Jett?” Ed poked his head through the door. “People are waiting.”

  “Ed, tell him to tell the truth about Gordon. He has the unpublished manuscript and the evidence right here.” Lexa knocked the bag with her hand.

  “Lexa, please, I can’t.” He paced toward the low stone wall along the back of the slate patio, wishing he could vanish into the city lights.

  “Jett, you will never be free unless you tell the truth,” Ed said. “Trust me, I know. Start here, right now, with this one.”

  “Ed, ten million dollars is on the line. Money that will go to equipment and materials, to writing and reading programs, to education. Never mind my reputation. My career.”

  “Is it worth your integrity? Your soul?” Lexa said. “This will haunt you, Jett. Someone else will find this manuscript and tell the truth. You’ll just be the fool who kept his mouth shut.” She opened the patio door. “Come on, leap. Be your own hero.”

  He glared at her, then tucked the satchel under his arm. “I love you.” He angled down to kiss her cold, trembling lips.

  Stumbling back to the stage, a fire in his chest, Jett collected his thoughts. Here goes nothing.

  “Forgive the interruption.” He set the satchel on the podium and retrieved the manuscript. “I have a pesky but good friend who reminded me to be courageous and find strength in the truth.

  “Two months ago, I walked into the Fifth Avenue Literary Society Library to find I’d been invited, along with four other misfits, to a story society. By whom, we don’t know. But in the weeks that followed, I became reacquainted with my ex-wife, with an heiress also known as the Panicked Princess, with a wounded father, and with a grieving widower who wanted to write the love story of a lifetime. Me? I was the semi-ambitious associate professor lost in the grief of losing his brother and his wife.” Across the distance, he saw the watery sheen in Lexa’s eyes.

  “After one of our society meetings where we did more eating than anything else, I found this.” He held up the manuscript. “A rejected GPR book. Not so unusual. Every writer has them. But then I read this letter dated December nineteen-o-two.”

  He read Daniel Barclay’s rejection aloud. Described the margin notes. Even offered his own critique.

  “It was not the Gordon work we’ve come to love.”

  Then he pulled out the second letter. The one where Barclay conspires to steal a manuscript from a young heiress.

  “That book became The Girl in the Carriage. Gordon did not write it.” The gasp in the room elevated the already warm temperature. Jett tugged off his tie. He saw Elijah Roth rise from his seat. “And if Tenley cares to confirm, I believe Birdie Ainsworth, an heiress and marchioness, was the true author. In fact, she most likely became Gordon’s ghost.”

  “This is an outrage.” Elijah stormed the podium, but from somewhere in the crowd, a voice rose above the murmuring crowd.

  “He’s right.” Tenley cut through the guests with their flutes of champagne toward the dais. “My great-great-grandfather employed Birdie to write all his books from Girl on. She is the genius we love. Not Gordon.”

  Silence weighted the guests for a moment, then they exploded, everyone talking at once.

  Jett passed the manuscript off to Tenley with a nod and left the argument to the family and the Roth Foundation.

  Catching Lexa by the hand, he ran with her and with rest of the story society into the cold, clear night. He’d taken the leap and was flying high.

  * * *

  Lexa

  It was late. She should go to bed, but she wasn’t sleepy. She was still jacked up on the events of the night.

  Her rush to the reception with the satchel. Jett’s bold declaration. Laughing and talking with her friends at an Upper West Side café, drinking coffee and eating scones and chocolate croissants.

  Around ten they said good night. But she wasn’t ready to say goodbye. She wanted the night to go on.

  Jett rode the subway to Greenwich Village with her and got off at her stop, going his way as she went hers.

  “See you tomorrow night?” he said.

  “I’ll be there.”

  “I’m glad you came.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  Now, sorting through her clothes, it seemed like a dream.

  Lexa held up a pair of shorts and tossed them into a box. She wouldn’t need those until spring. Only clothes for the immediate future went in her suitcase. The rest would go in moving boxes.

  The movers would be here on Friday. Friday. Five days away. It was happening. And happening fast.

  Pausing at the window, she took in the familiar view. Music rose from the village streets. Lexa leaned to see who was playing tonight. Mickey, the Irish singer, usually claimed her corner on Sunday nights.

  Sure enough, it was Mickey, gathering a small crowd even though a light snow had started to fall.

  Lexa cracked open the window. After next week, the sounds of her life would change.

  She’d have the call of the ocean, the screech of seagulls, and a spectacular view of water.

  Her phone pinged with a text. Lexa pulled it free to see a note from Coral.

  “It’s live already. Thank you, social media.”

  Lexa clicked on a link to the New York Post showing a picture of “the gang.” From left to right it was Chuck, Coral, Jett, Lexa, Ed and Mabel—whom they all loved already.

  Their faces, their pose, was a replica of the famous Friends cast shot.

  When they’d exited the café, a photographer recognized Coral and snapped a photo as they were saying their goodbyes.

  It was a special image. A fitting goodbye to the last two months.

  She peered outside again. It had star
ted to snow. Lexa leaned out the window to hear the hush of the soft, white flakes.

  Mickey waved up at her and started another song.

  “I’ll miss you, MacDougal Street.”

  Her phone beckoned again. Skipper this time.

  Are you getting nervous?

  Yes, I’m thinking of backing out.

  Noooo. I booked a ticket to see you. Surprise!

  When?

  Next weekend.

  Really? Lexa batted back tears. Yay! And I’m kidding. I’m going to Seattle!

  A crack against the window pane startled her. She went over to see a lump of snow slide down the glass.

  Leaning out again, she saw Jett next to Mickey.

  “What’s the big idea, Wilder?” He still wore his tux from the reception beneath his open coat, his collar loose, the tie dangling.

  “Stay there.” He motioned to the singer, who began a lilting song. Jett tipped back his head and raised one arm.

  “Oh, my love . . .” Cough, cough. “Me, me, me.”

  “What are you doing?” Lexa waited for an answer as Jett conferred with Mickey again. When the song started over, it was in a lower key.

  “Oh, my love, my darling, I hunger for your touch.”

  Lexa snapped upright, banging her head on the windowframe, her cold fingers covering her lips.

  Their wedding song. Three stories below, her ex-husband stood in the angled gold light, snow dotting his dark hair, and sang “Unchained Melody.”

  When he finished, he began again.

  “Jett, what are you doing?” How did he remember?

  The song ended and started again.

  Trembling, she yanked on her coat and stuffed her feet into a pair of wool-lined Uggs. Out of her apartment and down the steps, Lexa ran across the street and without stopping, without thinking, flew into Jett’s strong, firm arms just as he belted, “Are you still mine?”

  Lifting her up, he swung around, his lovely baritone resonating in her ear. “I need your love.”

  He set her down and held her face in his hands. “Don’t go. Please.”

  “Jett, please, don’t. I gave the Lees my word.” How could she get him to hear? To understand? “I can’t back out now. Why are you singing to me in the snow?”