“Thank you,” I said.
She’d called me Phronsie for the first time. It was suddenly like I’d been drowning in misery, and Maggie was my lifeboat.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The bookstore reading doesn’t start as a disaster. It starts with a miracle—or if not an actual miracle, at least a hopeful sign.
That is that Gabora is dressed and ready when I go to her room to fetch her. There she is, opening the door, her blonde wig combed and sprayed and installed in the right place on her head, and she’s wearing her Author Lady costume—a bright-red pencil skirt and a white blouse with a little mouse medallion. She always wears that. Children like mice, she insists, as proven from her years writing about Peter and Eleanor, who always traveled with their pet mouse, Lancaster.
But then my heart sinks as I see how she wobbles when she walks, and how she grabs for Adam’s hand as we go down the hall. Her eyes are a little glazed over, and when I look more closely, I can see that the slash of red lipstick didn’t quite make it onto her lips the way all of us might have hoped.
Adam, however, is the picture of a young, cool professional, dressed in khaki pants and a light blue button-down shirt and a sports jacket. His hair, which can’t be tamed, is curly and unruly and magnificent. I have to look away.
The lights in the lobby are flickering when we come out of the elevator, and outside, the wind seems to have picked up a bit. The bell captain, a large Black man with a big smile, herds us over. He says our cab is just arriving now.
“Y’all be safe out there now, y’hear?” he says. “It’s a big one comin’.”
“A big what?” asks Gabora, but we’re already outside, under the awning, and a driver has hopped out of his yellow cab and is tipping his cap as he hurries over to us, bending against the wind. The decorative palm trees in pots look like they’re trying to touch the sidewalk.
“To the Magnolia Bookstore?” he says, and half of his words seem to get carried off. He helps steer Gabora to the car, and I tuck her in and close the door and then go around to the side and scoot in to the middle of the backseat. Adam jumps in and closes the door.
“Yes, sir. Magnolia,” Adam says.
“I didn’t know there was going to be a storm,” Gabora says. “Sometimes readers don’t like to bring children out if the weather isn’t good.” She leans forward and tells the driver about how she’s an authoress—a term I’ve never been able to convince her out of—and that she’s here to meet her young fans from the South. “Do you have any children, young man?”
He says indeed he does, two boys and a girl.
“Well, then, here, honey, I have an extra book in my bag. I’ll sign it to you!”
“Why, thank you, ma’am, and don’t you be worryin’ about this storm,” says the driver. “It’s those summer storms we have to worry about here.” He says here as though it ends in an ah. Our eyes meet in the rearview mirror and he smiles. “You folks from New York?”
“Right,” says Adam.
“Well, welcome to Charleston. Hope you get you some of our Southern hospitality while you’re in town.”
“I’m counting on it,” says Gabora, and she struggles with her bag so she can get a book out, and I hold it while she signs the title page. Or tries to sign it. The moving car and the darkness don’t make it easy.
“And here we are!” the driver says. “You let me help you out, miss.” He jumps out in front of a sweet little bookstore on a leafy street, with lights twinkling in the window. MAGNOLIA BOOKS, says a sign that’s flapping over the door, held up by a wrought iron hanger.
There is a smattering of people going into the store, leaning against the wind as they walk.
“My fans!” Gabora says. “So nice of them to come to see an old lady authoress!”
But I am not sure. Upon a closer look, I can see that some of the people going inside have signs that say STOP RACISM.
Gabora doesn’t see those, thank goodness, and as soon as we get out of the car, the bookstore manager, a woman named Cindy Reynolds, rushes over and smothers us all in hugs and kindness. She is so thrilled to see Gabora, and oooh, could she just take a moment to say that she’s admired her since she was a little child (which looks like it might have been sometime in the last six months), and then she quickly ushers us all inside, guiding us through the center of the store, and into a back room that’s filled with boxes of books, a worn corduroy couch, and a quaint little writing desk. There’s a pot of tea waiting and a stack of books for Gabora to sign.
“I felt like Peter and Eleanor were my best friends growing up!” Cindy Reynolds exclaims, and I see Gabora smiling and squinting, like she’s trying hard to focus. She allows herself to be hugged and petted and to have her coat hung up. Adam flashes me an oh-no look as she sinks down into the fluffy sofa cushions to start signing the stock copies before the reading starts. She seems competent at operating the pen, although a couple of her autographs look like they have more loops than the name Pierce-Anton might, in fact, contain. Maybe thirty excess loops.
I watch as she surreptitiously reaches into her bag and grabs her flask and takes a big gulp from it. Adam catches my eye and makes googly eyes.
My phone rings just then, and I take it to the back of the room, away from everyone. It’s Judd telling me that he’s heard there’s crazy weather headed into South Carolina. “You should maybe leave now,” he says. “And I’m not even kidding.”
“As much as I’d like to, I am kind of at an event,” I tell him. “What kind of weather are we talking about?”
“Snow!” he says. “Hurricane-force winds. Rain. Ice. The whole bit. Seriously, it’s much nicer up here. Tell them you have a policy against snow hurricanes. They’re unnatural.”
I see Gabora reaching for the flask in her purse one more time.
“I’ve gotta go,” I say to Judd. “It’s almost showtime here. Wish me luck.”
“I’m wishing you snow boots,” he says, “and deicing for the plane wings when you do leave.”
“I have snow boots,” I tell him, and I can barely hide the irritation I feel. “I’m coming to New Hampshire afterward, remember?”
“You won’t need them here. It’s sixty degrees. The world has turned upside down.”
And then he hangs up. No mushy good-bye, no I love you, no I miss you so much my heart is just pounding in anticipation for when we see each other again. Because: Why would he? We’re best friends who happen to be getting married, and I’ve got to get that through my thick, grouchy skull.
Adam is looking at me. “It’s time to go in,” he whispers. “Also, I went out for a little stroll through the store, and from the looks of things, it’s a restless crowd.”
“Restless, in that they can barely wait for her to finish signing the books and get out there?”
“More like they can hardly wait to explain to her that she’s a racist author, and that they want her to suffer for all her bad views.”
“Oh God.”
“I’d say the metaphorical knives are sharpened. I wonder if there’s a way to have her not appear.”
“Are you kidding? She has to go. Also she’ll never agree to that.”
“Of course not,” he says. “Well, we’ll just have to stand guard.”
We both help Gabora to her feet. “But I didn’t finish shining the books,” she says, looking from one of us to the other. “All my fans are going to want to have the books.”
“You can shine them later,” says Adam. He winks at me again. Something flutters inside me.
The bookstore is buzzing. There are people sitting in all the twenty-five folding chairs as well as a cluster of angry-looking young people in sweatshirts leaning against the shelves, holding signs. Sprinkled here and there are a few sweet little grandmothers—wearing long skirts and cardigans, just like Peter and Eleanor’s grandmother did in Book #37, the book about the suffragettes. They hold their purses on their laps, looking a wee bit nervous, while their pigtailed little granddaughters
(just like Eleanor) lean against them, straining for a look at Gabora Pierce-Anton.
I bite my lip as Cindy Reynolds brings Gabora to a podium at the front of the crowd. She does an excited and warm introduction, but I can’t pay any attention to it at all because I’m looking from Gabora to the cluster of young people, who have now started shifting restlessly from one foot to the other. A young woman is typing something on her cell phone, while the guy next to her, wearing a gray sweatshirt, faded jeans, and a navy-blue watch cap, is beating his hand against his thigh.
“Thank you for coming,” Gabora says. “You are all sho very, very, verra nice.” In the silence that follows, she opens her little book and starts to read from page one in a quavering voice.
The crowd isn’t paying attention. People are talking, putting their heads together, looking at the guy in the blue cap. He seems to be weaving back and forth, about to say something, and then not saying it. The girl next to him shakes her head, and says, “Don’t, Micah,” and he says, out loud, “Stop it, Lucy! I’m warning you!”
Gabora clears her throat and puts her book down and looks out at everyone with a polite, quizzical smile that breaks my heart. “I am eighty-five years old,” she says, “and I can’t—I can’t . . . make my voice heard if people are going to be talking. If you are not interested in hearing my shtory about Peter and Eleanor, maybe you could go to . . . maybe you could go to . . . um, another part of the shtore.”
“Your book is a gross misrepresentation of Native Americans,” says the guy named Micah. “And I don’t think we need to hear any more of this kind of racist misinformation.”
She swings her head in his direction, and I can see her try to focus her eyes on him. One beat goes by, then another. “Young man,” she says, “you should be ashamed of yourshelf. This is a book for children.”
“But it’s wrong to teach children these lies about our native populations!” says a woman in a sweatshirt.
Gabora stares at her, blinking in shock.
“It’s all a big lie, this Pilgrims and Indians bullshit,” says a man. “And you’re perpetuating the idea that the English had a right to this land, had a right to just come in and plunder—”
Cindy Reynolds says from the side, “I am going to have to ask you all to be polite.”
And then, as if some signal was given, pandemonium breaks out, with people yelling out things. A couple of people stand up. I see one man yelling at the protesters to sit down, that this isn’t the time or the place. Another guy says, “There’s never a time or a place, have you noticed? We’re all just supposed to let this crap be perpetuated! Is that your answer?”
Adam and I have been standing at the back of the crowd, but now he looks over at me, and without a word, we start heading to the front of the room. Gabora sees us and holds up her hand, wanting us to stop.
She smiles at the crowd, appealingly. “Listen, listen. Don’t worry. Thish book is just fiction. It’s not something that really happened! It’s okay! I know it didn’t really happen. That’s how fiction works.”
“Don’t you see that that doesn’t make it any better?” a woman in a black dress yells. “This book never should have been published!”
Gabora squints into the crowd and for a moment I think she might cry. But then she gets it that she’s in enemy territory and that it’s time to fight. I see her swallow and look up at the ceiling for a moment, gathering her thoughts. She’s a tough old woman after all. She’s used to being adored, but she has a core of steel to her, too. I’ve seen it.
“Excuuuuse me, but I am the author of—I wrote sheventy-sheven books about children—and I get letters from all over the world, thanking me for teaching children about . . . shtuff . . . and I will not have anyone say I shouldn’t publish my books! I wrote a book about Peter and Eleanor going to see the . . . uh . . . dinosaurs during the . . . the dinosaur times, and no one came yelling at me that it wasn’t true dinosauruses!”
“Lady, you need to go back to the dinosaurs,” yells Micah. “Write about something you know firsthand.”
People start barking things, and I’m readying myself to take action, if only I could think of what to do, when Adam says in a low voice in my ear, “Okay, that’s it, I’m stopping this.”
He makes his way to the front of the room, holding up his hand to quiet everyone, and he says the reading is over, and Ms. Pierce-Anton will be happy to sign books if anyone wishes. Books make lovely gifts, he says.
He has never looked more commanding. He’s going to clear this room. You would never know this guy hangs out with gnomes.
“Hey, who are you to say she doesn’t get to read? I want to hear how she thinks the Pilgrims were so damned smart, all right?” Micah threads his way through the crowd, picking up speed. I realize that he’s actually furious now, and also probably drunk—and that he’s going to reach Gabora’s podium in about ten seconds. “Listen here, old lady!” he yells. “Tell us again how smart the Pilgrim children are!” His eyes are narrowed and his mouth is twisted in rage. I feel myself drawing back, my heart pounding.
“Language, please,” says Cindy Reynolds. She’s clutching her necklace.
“You’re going to need to leave, sir,” says Adam, stepping in front of Gabora. “Ms. Pierce-Anton will not be reading tonight.”
But of course Micah keeps coming forward, and then—quickly as can be, Adam goes over to him and does some kind of martial arts move, a classic wax on/wax off move from The Karate Kid, is what it looks like to me. And as Micah reaches up to hit Adam, I stifle a scream, but Adam calmly pins the guy’s arms behind him, stopping him mid-step. I can barely breathe. Cindy Reynolds and a man from the audience take Gabora by the arm to the back room, just as a security guard shows up and escorts Micah off the premises.
The rest of the people seem to be stunned into silence.
Adam smiles at them. “For those of you who want a signed book,” he says, straightening his tie as Cindy rejoins him at the podium, “you may pick one up from this lady right here, Cindy Reynolds. And we want to thank you all for coming. Good night. Travel safe in all this weather out there.”
Then he goes over and picks up a chair that fell in the scuffle, and props it upright again, and heads to the back room. Three or four people come up to select a book, mostly the grandmotherly types, while the rest of the people are grumbling, but they go out into the night without more trouble. I go to the back room, too, where Adam is squatting down next to Gabora, who’s on the couch fanning herself.
“Why didn’t you let me read?” she’s saying in a whiny voice.
“Because we weren’t going to put you through any more of that,” Adam says. “Let’s get you out of here and back to your hotel.”
“Usually I get to read to the children,” she says. “That’s what I like to do. My public expects it.”
“I know,” I say. “This was unusual. But you’re okay.”
Cindy Reynolds is back from ringing up the books, and she looks at us all with such big, sad eyes. “I really didn’t have any idea this was going to be this way, or I would never have put you in harm’s way, Ms. Pierce-Anton.” She hands Adam the cardboard poster of the event from the front of the store. “Here, take this with you. And also the cookies I had made for the refreshment time. And—oh, I wish I could do more. I am so very sorry.”
“It’s okay, dear. I just hope they understand now,” says Gabora. “Some people don’t know what fiction means.” Adam helps her to her feet, and I see her melt against his shoulder, and he puts his arm around her.
“I’ll call our driver,” I say.
Outside, the wind is blowing everything sideways. The wooden sign announcing Gabora’s visit is skittering down the street, and Adam goes and gets it and sets it inside the store, while I help Gabora into the car. Fortunately, the protesters all seem to have vanished.
Gabora settles down in the cab, first glaring out the window at all the palmetto trees bending low, and she’s leaning against Adam’s shoul
der. And then, to my surprise, she falls asleep, mouth open and actually snoring. He looks at me over her head and makes his mouth go into a round, shocked O.
“I can’t believe we published that book,” he says.
“I know.”
It takes both of us to get her out of the cab and walk her to her hotel room after that. Once we’re in her room, he waits in the sitting area, while I follow her into the bedroom. She needs help getting out of her red skirt and the white blouse and the jacket with the mouse pin. She stands there mutely, as I unzip and tug everything off of her, looking tired. Her body looks pink and dimply, sagging in places, as though it might have been constructed from those foam pieces you make pillows with. A body that has worked hard and given birth and done years of work. It reminds me of my years of helping Bunny, who never made a big deal of naked bodies needing to be hidden. I feel my eyes stinging as I help her on with her long white nightgown, thinking of not being able to be with Bunny.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” I say once we’ve gotten her gown on. She looks like a snow queen standing there. “Your toiletries are all on the counter in the bathroom. Do you need anything else? I could get you a glass of water . . .”
“Oh, dear,” she says. “Oh, honey. No, no. Please—I’m going to need some help.”
And she does. I’m to put her wig on the wig stand and then comb out her short, wiry gray hair. I put toothpaste on her purple toothbrush and stand there while she cleans her teeth. She’s weaving slightly, and for a moment I think I may need to take over the tooth scrubbing, too. But then, thank goodness, she’s done. There are fake eyelashes to be removed, and some product to take off her eyeliner. I shift from one foot to the other, keep myself smiling. Actually, I am fascinated at all this . . . effort.
“Done?” I say at last, when the eyelashes—looking like scary spiders—are vanquished to their plastic container.
The Magic of Found Objects Page 21
