Goodnight June: A Novel

by Sarah Jio

  One of the illustrators we work with here at the publishing house had complained of being lonely, so what did I think to do? I bought him a puppy. A blue terrier. Apparently he had little experience with canines, because the nitwit left the pup in his apartment and the poor thing urinated all over the paintings for a new picture book. There are also paw prints, in all the primary colors, scattered about the room, and muddled on the paintings. He’s going to have to scrap the canvases and start over, and of course, he blames me.

  Well, at least that’s all behind us. And I won’t be bringing gifts to illustrators anytime soon.

  If Roberta’s visit wasn’t enough, Mother also came by last week and the purpose of her visit was quite unsettling. Marriage. I ask you, dear friend, is there anything more unsettling than the subject of marriage? She says she’s losing sleep having an unwed daughter “gallivanting around the city.” I poured her a glass of sherry and told her to go lie down. It did not work. She continued the torrent. She says she can’t stop worrying about me, and I told her that if and when I decide to get married (let’s be clear, though, I have no plans), she’ll be the first to know. That calmed her down, at least for now.

  The truth is, Ruby, how can I marry after watching my parents’ own dreadful union? I feel, at my core, that marriage only leads to unhappiness, at least when it comes to my own life. People come to us for seasons, and when the season is over, it is over. My love affairs have always been short and to the point. I like it that way (at least this is what I tell myself). Honestly, though, Ruby, I wish I could believe what you wrote about me. I wish I could believe that I am immune to love and all of its perils, but if I am absolutely honest, I know it not to be true.

  Still, I think I’d rather throw myself in the Hudson River in the middle of winter than to ever betroth myself to someone. It would be so stifling, belonging to another! Like property! Let’s make a pact to never get married, my dear friend. We will be two lone reeds in a bustling brook who stand tall, firm. We will make our own fun. Make our own lives while everyone else gets swept up in the river of life. What do you say?

  The problem with people today is they take themselves too seriously. Nobody likes to have fun anymore. So, a few of my New York friends and I have started what we call the Bird Brain Society. It’s such fun, Ruby. I wish you could come to our meetings. I’m president, and have the authority to declare any day Christmas, in which case, one of our members must cook a roast and make pudding. It’s a gas! I have made you an honorary member, so you can play along.

  On to a more serious subject: Be careful with this Anthony Magnuson. I fear that he already has a grip on your heart. But I implore you to hold tightly to it. I’ve learned that when a man takes your heart, it can be hell getting it back.

  I still think I need to get out of the city. Lately, I feel out of place, like the ducks from Make Way for Ducklings. Yesterday a cab almost ran me over on Fifty-Seventh, and I dropped the pages of a manuscript into a mud puddle. Ruby, you should have seen me. I fell down on my knees and just cried. I might have sat there wailing my head off all day had a kind old gentleman not stopped to offer me his handkerchief and help me up. The manuscript, I’m afraid, was ruined. Fortunately, I had a copy filed away in my brain.

  There is something else I must write you about, but I’m afraid I don’t have the energy to tell you just now. I have pages to edit and quite a lot on my mind to sort through before I put these thoughts to pen.

  Until then, my dear friend, Merry Christmas,

  Brownie

  I set the letter down and stoke the fire with a poker. The wind has picked up a bit and I hear it howling outside, pushing through the eaves of the door and windows. I think of Margaret’s hesitance to share her secret as I pick up Ruby’s letter.

  March 7, 1946

  Dear Brownie,

  You have kept me in such suspense! I trust that you will reveal this secret of yours in due time, but until then, I shall remain on the edge of my seat. For now, let me attempt to speculate. Theory No. 1: Despite your rant about love and men, I suspect that you have fallen for someone at your publishing house. An illustrator, perhaps? I recall in previous correspondence a man named Gregory. Still, by the tone of your last letter, I believe this isn’t likely (though, you’ve surprised me before). Theory No. 2: You are ill, in which case, I will be saddened that you waited to tell me. In any case, I pray that you are well and that you are not suffering from any maladies. No. 3: You have lost yourself in a new story. Please, let it be this!

  It pains me to hear of the way your family has been regarding you of late. If my mother were still alive, I suspect she’d share the same disappointment about me that yours does about you. And yet, we expect more of our sisters. This is why it’s so hard. They blazed the trail in this wild world with us; they should be on our side. And yet why do they feel like the enemy? Why can’t we find common ground? Take heart, at least Roberta is still speaking to you. Lucille has taken to ignoring my phone calls. The moment she hears my voice, she hangs up. Last week, I wrote her a letter. I poured out my heart to her. I even apologized for my education, the one she believed was owed to her. Truly, Brownie, I set my pride aside in the name of preserving our sisterhood, because I cannot imagine a world where one can regard her sister as a stranger. And so I wait, and hope.

  I’ve been thinking about what you wrote about marriage, and I hate to disappoint you, but if Anthony Magnuson walked in today and told me he was divorcing his wife, Victoria, I’d leap into his arms and count the seconds until I could be his bride. And that’s the honest truth.

  Yes, I love this man, Brownie. I have fallen head over heels. I fear that I love him too much. But I can tell by the way he looks at me that he loves me too. Perhaps not as much as I love him, for he is a busy man with a complicated life. A family. But I don’t care, I’ll take even the tiniest corner of his heart. He still comes to the bookstore quite often. I told him my dream of owning my own children’s bookstore and he said, “Why don’t you just open one, then!” I had to break the news to him that not everyone has fortunes lying around at their disposal like the Magnusons do.

  Last week, he asked me if I’d meet him for dinner downtown. Of course I said yes, even though the idea of us taking our friendship outside the bookstore frightened me a great deal. He sent a car over after my shift ended at six. I felt so funny sitting all alone in the back of that town car. The driver kept looking back at me in the rearview mirror. I wonder what he must have thought of me! But I didn’t care, Brownie! I was on top of the world thinking of Anthony! When the car dropped me off in front of the Olympic Hotel, there he stood in his suit and tie. I felt so plain in my simple work dress. But Anthony told me I looked beautiful. But it wasn’t what he said; it was how he looked at me.

  We had dinner, and talked for hours. He told me about the time he nearly drowned as a child in Lake Washington, which is why he oversees a charity that teaches poor children to swim. I told him about my dream to see Paris, and read a book to children at the top of the Eiffel Tower. He smiled mischievously, and said, “Our children?”

  I know he was only being playful, certainly not serious, but I must admit, my heart swelled then. The night was absolutely magical. I did worry momentarily, however, when a couple approached our table. They regarded me curiously. At first I worried that they were friends of his wife, and that they’d divulge our secret meeting. But Anthony didn’t seem to worry at all, so I didn’t.

  Brownie, have you ever met someone you just feel at home with? That’s how I feel when I’m with Anthony. I could curl up in his smile and sleep peacefully and protected for a thousand years.

  It breaks my heart to know how unhappy Anthony is. He couldn’t care less about wealth the way his wife does. Did you know that she goes to Europe every year and comes home with dozens of trunks of Chanel that she immediately casts off the next season? She won’t even donate them. Anthony says she insists they
all be destroyed. Apparently she finds it vulgar to think of another’s skin touching fabric that touched hers. Can you even imagine that way of thinking?

  I wonder why he stays? Of course, he worries for his daughter, May, though I must say the child seems to have the same disposition as his wife, surly and temperamental. I suspect it ultimately has to do with money. Victoria’s fortune saved Anthony’s father’s real estate venture, and it also funds the Magnuson family’s charitable efforts. If he left her, it could mean the end of all that.

  I don’t know what will become of us. Our friendship (if you could call it that?) remains uncharted, mapless. All I know is that I have never met a man like him. So I will continue on this strange and wonderful journey, wherever it leads me, even if the ending is destined to be an unhappy one.

  I’m writing to you on a dark night in Seattle. It’s quite late, and I’m sitting on the sofa of my apartment looking out at the moon pushing its way through a cloud. I’ve been thinking that you ought to write a children’s book of verses about the moon. Think of it: No matter the circumstances of our lives, no matter our joys or heartaches, the moon always appears each night to greet us. I find that comforting somehow.

  Oh Brownie, you said yourself that you need to get out of the city. Why don’t you come to Seattle? Come visit! You can stay with me. It will be a hoot! Please come and let’s cheer each other up. I’ll make you laugh, and you can tell me a story, to tell me this life of mine will have a happy ending.

  Write soon, please.

  Your friend,

  Ruby

  I pull the grate over the fireplace and walk up the staircase to the apartment. I sink into the window seat and look out at the big sky, thinking about the words I have just read. They swirl around in my mind like the fizzy bubbles in a champagne glass. Sisters. Ruby valued her sister above all else, even her pride. I think about what she said: I set my pride aside in the name of preserving our sisterhood, because I cannot imagine a world where one can regard her sister as a stranger. And so I wait, and hope.

  As far as I’m aware, Ruby did just that: waited and hoped, only to be greatly disappointed in the end. According to my mom, Ruby was stunned by Lucille’s sudden death. Mom said that they hadn’t spoken in years before she passed. I think of Ruby, hovering over Lucille’s coffin—the coffin of a stranger, for all intents and purposes. A final good-bye. I close my eyes, and I picture Amy in the coffin instead of Lucille. I imagine myself at her funeral, and without my permission, my eyes flood with tears.

  I take a deep breath and come to my senses. No, Ruby and Lucille’s situation was not the same as Amy’s and mine. I can’t compare the two. Instead, I think about another significant revelation in the letters. Did my aunt really encourage Margaret Wise Brown to write a book about the moon? Is this what I think it is? The hair on my arms stands on end as I realize what I’ve just found, a literary discovery hidden for years inside the bookstore, inside Ruby’s secretive mind. A treasure Ruby left me to unearth.

  It’s a clear night, and the moon outside dangles overhead like a painting made just for me. I think about what Ruby wrote about the moon, and think of all the times I gazed up at the night sky, dreaming of a different life.

  I look down to the street when I hear the sound of a car engine. I watch as a dark SUV pulls up in front of the bookstore. It slows to a stop and a tinted window rolls down slowly. I see the flash of a camera, and then the vehicle speeds away.

  Chapter 6

  My cell phone is buzzing as I wake the next morning. It must be shortly after sunrise; the sun is low on the horizon and it streams in the window with such intensity, it pierces my eyes and feels wonderful and painful at the same time.

  “Hello?” I say groggily.

  “June?”

  “Mom?”

  “Where are you?” she asks. I hear an airplane taking off in the background and wonder if Mom and her new boyfriend, what’s-his-name, are off on a trip somewhere.

  “Where are you?” I ask, a little annoyed.

  “Oh,” she says, “Rand and I are at the airport. We’re going to Vegas for a few days.”

  Rand. I’m not sure if this is his actual name, or maybe it’s short for Randy or Randolph, or something like that. But I don’t ask.

  “Oh,” I say. Mom and I don’t have the best relationship (if you can even call it a relationship), but we do talk, in fits and spurts. She calls every couple of months, sends a card on my birthday and at Christmas. And that’s enough for me, though I suspect she’s less than satisfied with the arrangement. Still, I find I can handle her best in small doses. “Mom, I’m in Seattle.”

  “Seattle?” she asks. But this time, her usual carefree voice sounds concerned.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Are you at Ruby’s?”

  “I am.”

  “Oh, June,” she says. “So you know—”

  “That she died, yes.”

  “I wanted to tell you, sweetie, I really did, but I—”

  “Just didn’t think to mention it?” I don’t even attempt to mask my annoyance.

  “June, don’t snap,” she says. “I was going to tell you, I—”

  “But you wanted to wait and let the attorney notify me?”

  “The attorney?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I received a certified letter. Ruby left me the bookstore, everything.”

  “Wow,” Mom says. I can’t tell if she’s upset or just surprised.

  “I’m here now, sorting through her belongings before I decide what to do.”

  “Will you sell it?” she says. “June, you couldn’t possibly—”

  “I don’t know, Mom. I mean, yes, I probably will. I can’t stay here. I have a job, a life in New York.” It isn’t much of a life, but I don’t have to explain that to Mom, especially when I’m trying to prove my point.

  “I could help,” she says, sounding suddenly desperate. “I think it needs to stay in the family. Amy does too.”

  I’m momentarily stunned, then I feel a surge of anger. I made Mom promise she wouldn’t bring up my sister’s name to me again. My cheeks burn. “What does she care about the bookstore?” I say. “What right does she have to tell me what to do with it? It’s my problem to solve.”

  “Honey, she loved Bluebird Books too, don’t forget.” Mom lowers her voice. “And she misses you terribly. You really should call her. She said she’s tried calling you. Isn’t it time to end this nonsense between you two? You’re sisters.”

  I think of Ruby and Lucille, Margaret and Roberta. I want to feel the way they did about their sisters. But the only way I know I can is if I could find a way to turn back the clock, to erase the hurt, the pain I endured.

  “No,” I finally say. “Mom, I have nothing more to say to Amy. You know that.”

  “People change, June. I wish you’d see that.”

  “No,” I say. “They don’t.”

  Mom’s quiet for a moment. “You did.”

  I’m stunned into silence.

  “Sometimes I think I don’t even know you anymore, June,” she continues. “New York has changed you. It’s hardened you.”

  I bite my lip. She doesn’t have the right to talk to me this way, to talk as if she knows me, or ever knew me.

  I hear a voice on the airport loudspeaker. “That’s our flight,” she says. “We’re boarding. I’ll be back in a few days. I’ll come by.”

  I want to say, Don’t, I can handle it, but I hold my tongue.

  “Good-bye, Mom,” I say instead. “Hope you win the jackpot.” And then I hit the End Call button with more intensity than usual.

  I feel anxious, the way I did when I left New York. I find the prescription bottle in my purse, swallow a pill, then pull open my laptop. For someone who habitually checks her e-mail every four minutes, I’m shocked when I realize how little I’ve thought about w
ork since arriving in Seattle. I open my in-box and see that the messages have stacked up. There are several flagged with red, high-priority exclamation points, and I open the one at the top first. It’s from Arthur. I feel a pit in my stomach as I read the one-line e-mail:

  WHEN ARE YOU COMING BACK TO WORK?—A

  The truth is, I purchased a one-way ticket because I didn’t know how long it would take to put Ruby’s affairs in order. I hoped to wrap things up quickly, maybe in a week, but now, a few days into my stay, everything’s becoming more complex—Ruby’s secrets, the future of the bookstore, my memories. I hit the Reply button and write back:

  Busy working out final details here. Will know more by the weekend. Will keep you updated.—June

  I hit Send, and as I do, I feel my blood pressure rising.

  I reach for a jacket and slip into my running shoes. I walk out to the street and jog past Antonio’s. The restaurant is dark and the chairs are still turned over on the tables. I look away quickly when I see my reflection in the window. I hoped to see Gavin, and somehow admitting this to myself makes me feel silly. As I make my way down to the path around the lake, I reaffirm my plan to move forward with the liquidation of Ruby’s estate. I’ll make a spreadsheet and categorize everything, the way I do when selling off assets for the bank. I’ll hire the movers to load everything into trucks. I’ll find a good auctioneer. I’ll get it done.