Book Lover, The

by McFadden, Maryann

  Her landlord, Jeff, knew about the problem but had yet to send an electrician over, hoping that if he waited long enough she’d just take care of it herself, as she usually did. But then there would be the battle when she deducted it from his ridiculous rent. The phone began to ring and though she wasn’t open yet, she ran to the front counter, grabbing it on the fifth ring.

  “Good morning, this is The Book Lover. How may I help you?”

  “Ruth?”

  Her breath stopped.

  “Ruth? It’s Thomas.”

  Her hand went to her throat. It was so odd, actually hearing his voice on the phone.

  “Thomas. I…I heard you’d called.”

  She could hear him let out a long breath. As if he’d been holding it until she spoke.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to call back. You know how it is here.” And then he gave a rueful little chuckle.

  “Oh yes, I understand,” she said, with what she hoped was a light tone, as well.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t at the book meeting.”

  “I was worried.”

  “Things…” he paused, and again she could hear him pull in a long breath. “I was wondering if I could talk to you.”

  “Of course. I’ve got all the time you need, we haven’t even opened yet.”

  “No, not on the phone. I need to see you. Can you come here? I’ve got scheduled visiting hours Monday.”

  “I…” She didn’t know what to say.

  “Ruth, I’d like to speak with you in private.”

  She hesitated again. Going to the prison to sell books was one thing. Fantasizing about an inmate as if he were a character was another. But going to visit him, one on one? What would her children think?

  “All right, I’ll come.”

  She hung up, staring out the front window across Main Street in a daze. What could he possibly have to tell her? Perhaps he would no longer be her book liaison. That would be awful. Or perhaps it was something more personal. She couldn’t help thinking of how their hands had nearly touched the last time she saw him. Even now that memory ignited a thrill of anticipation, which was quickly dispelled by a rap on the door. Megan peered through the glass.

  Get a grip, Ruthie, she cautioned herself as she went to unlock the door. It’s not like you’re going on a date.

  * * *

  “THIS FECKIN’ COMPUTER IS SLOWER THAN MOLASSES,” Megan hissed later that morning as she sat with Ruth, showing her the Facebook page she had created for the store. “No way you can manage a new computer?”

  Ruth shook her head.

  Ever since her trip to Ireland last year, Megan was into Irish slang, peppering conversations with it whenever possible. Feck wasn’t as bad as fuck, Ruth knew, but still, it was essentially the same thing. She said nothing now. Megan was right about the old desktop, though.

  “What about on a payment plan, you know, a little each month. Or maybe, leasing?”

  “I’ll think about it.” No matter how much Megan understood about the bookselling business, there were some things Ruth preferred to keep to herself. She didn’t bother reminding Megan about the hours she’d cut last month.

  Finally the page loaded, a picture of the outside of The Book Lover prominently displayed, and under it the store’s goal: To be your destination bookstore. Find your favorite read, or experience the joys of a “hand sold” book, one personally recommended to suit your tastes by booksellers who actually read.

  “Maybe you should take out the word ‘actually’ Megan. It sounds a bit, oh, insulting?”

  “Whatever,” Megan said quickly.

  “Well, I think it looks nice, and hopefully we’ll get something out of it. Now I’m going over to Shades & Shapes in a little while. Do you mind? It’s been slow, and I’ll run Sam home when I leave.” After talking to Thomas, she’d called Dee at the salon, who told her to come in today.

  “Really?” Megan asked dramatically, her eyebrows raised.

  “Don’t start,” Ruth laughed. “Nothing radical, just a trim.” And, she thought, maybe something to cover the gray. “Anyway, I’ve got all the new boxes placed near the shelves for stacking, if you could get that done. The ad for the Gazette is right here on the counter.”

  “Oh, that’s right, Lucinda Barrett,” Megan said. “I started her book. It’s brilliant.”

  Brilliant was another word Megan had added freely to her repertoire since Ireland, the Irish equivalent of her generation’s “amazing.”

  The bell over the door tinkled just then and Ruth turned to see Bertha Piakowski coming in with a large brown paper bag in her hand. Each month, Bertha came in for the latest canine mystery, always carrying a generous bag filled with her homemade pierogies.

  “Oh Bertha, you lifesaver,” Ruth said. For the past half hour her stomach had felt as if it were gnawing itself in hunger.

  “You know I can’t resist those, Bertha.” Megan was on a special macrobiotic diet lately, and Ruth was pretty sure the ingredients of Bertha’s pierogies were not on it.

  “Oh, live a little,” Bertha chastised Megan.

  Ruth grabbed Bertha’s special order from the shelf as Megan tore open the bag.

  “A Pregnant Paws,” Bertha read aloud when Ruth handed her the book. “Is it a good one?”

  “Kris says it’s her favorite of all the canine mysteries.”

  Ruth bit into a pierogi and moaned in pleasure. They were crispy on the outside, with a glaze of butter, and the inside a soft explosion of potatoes and cheese. “Talk about comfort food. You could probably open a chain of pierogi shops and get rich.”

  Bertha laughed then held up the new book. “I spent my whole life cooking for a mob. I just want to read now.”

  As they savored her pierogies, Bertha paged through the novel.

  “Okay,” Bertha said, laying it back on the counter, satisfied. “Now, when you ladies are full, I need your help. Two books for birthday presents. And then, I have a baby shower next week and they’re doing a wishing well where you bring in your favorite children’s book. Isn’t that a clever idea?”

  Megan locked eyes with Ruth. “That is brilliant,” she said. “We’ll have to mention it in the newsletter. It hasn’t gone out yet. And…” Ruth could see the wheels turning in her brain, “we should probably hang a poster about it back in the children’s section, to give people the idea.”

  “It is brilliant,” Ruth admitted.

  Bertha smiled. “Don’t you ladies just love your job?”

  “We sure don’t do it for the big bucks,” Ruth said, and they all laughed.

  “Ruth, I’ll help Bertha, you’ve got to go,” Megan said. “Your hair? Remember?”

  “Oh, you’re right.”

  She grabbed her purse and clipped on Sam’s leash. As she walked out the door, she heard Megan call out, “Be brave, Ruth.”

  * * *

  DEE WAS RUNNING LATE. Ruth couldn’t complain, since Dee had squeezed her in. But after waiting half an hour, paging through books of ridiculous styles, she wondered what she was really doing there. Why should it matter how she looked when she went to see Thomas? Just as she was getting up to head back to the store, Dee called over to her.

  “Ruth, go change into a gown, I’ll be with you in just a few minutes.”

  As she walked back to the bathroom, Ruth watched Dee’s eyes following her in the wall of mirrors, assessing her hair with a look of glee. Oh shit, she thought, as she unbuttoned her blouse and tied the black smock around her waist. Maybe letting Dee at her hair wasn’t such a good idea.

  But as she looked at herself in the bright, unforgiving mirror of the little bathroom, her unrestrained hair a long, wild bush around her face, she thought maybe letting go a little was just what she needed.

  Having her hair washed and her scalp massaged was heaven, and she closed her eyes. But when it was time to assess the color, as Dee stood there explaining foils and glazes and highlights, Ruth began to get nervous.

  “Let’s just give it a
trim.”

  Dee stood there shaking her head. “How about we take baby steps. What do you say to a temporary color, just to cover the gray? That’s it.”

  Ruth hesitated.

  “Jesus, Ruth, it’ll wash out in eight weeks. It’s no commitment at all.”

  Slowly she nodded.

  The phone rang, and as Dee went to answer it, Ruth thought maybe that was her real problem. Except for the bookstore, when was the last time she’d made a commitment to anything? She looked at herself, imagining the gray gone, her dull black hair alive and lustrous as it once was, maybe a little bang, although with her curly hair, bangs were always a disaster. But every women’s magazine said that after a certain age they were de rigeur.

  She realized, suddenly, that Dee was talking quite loudly.

  “No. No, she can’t.” A silence. “No, I’m not going to do that.” Another silence. “Fine, but she’ll probably never come back.” Dee turned to her. “It’s for you. The store.”

  She walked over and picked up the phone.

  “Hey Ruth, it’s Megan.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “That author, Lucinda Barrett, is here, and she’s freakin’ out.”

  “What?”

  “She thinks her signing’s today. I told her she’s wrong, it’s not until next week, and she keeps asking where you are, but…”

  “Of course it’s next week, I just finished the ad, remember?”

  “Can you hurry please? We’re swamped all of a sudden with kids after school, all looking for things for some weird project, and now she’s locked herself in the loo.”

  Sometimes Megan did act twenty-three. Ruth just wished this wasn’t one of them.

  “It’s okay, Megan, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  “But you have to promise me you’ll go back and let Dee finish then?”

  Ruth couldn’t help smiling. Megan must truly be desperate to make her abort the long-awaited makeover.

  She pulled her wet hair up in a clip, went in the bathroom and buttoned up her blouse, then walked back to the store, wondering all the way there what she was about to face with Lucinda Barrett.

  6

  LUCY CLOSED THE BATHROOM DOOR AND COLLAPSED on a worn brown couch, mortified, her insides vibrating as if she were still driving. Oh God, what had she done? What was she thinking even coming here?

  She’d traveled a thousand miles over the past five days with The Book Lover as her goal. This event was a beacon, a tiny shred of sanity that kept pulling her north, because somehow she needed life to make sense again.

  The night of her book launch, when she sat in her car in front of David’s office, trembling violently, her first thought was that her husband was dead. That the mad man on the phone had gotten him. When a policeman came out to see who was stopped in the street for so long, he found her retching dry heaves. Gently, he helped her out of the car, sat her on the curb where she pulled in the cool night air. He kept reassuring her that her husband was alive.

  It was only later that the rest of what he said, the truth, began to sink in. And as it did, her world began to slowly implode, like a skyscraper that crumples to dust in an unbelievable matter of moments.

  If she’d tried to write that scene, and everything else she then learned, she’d probably be lambasted in a workshop: that’s not believable for that character; or it’s too much; revise and take some of it out. If only she could. Her bitter laugh rang out in the bathroom now as she thought of the old adage—truth is stranger than fiction. Which she should have known because her own childhood was littered with such incidents.

  But David, her David…who would have thought he’d be capable of something like this? It was almost worse than him being dead, because this was deliberate.

  There was the shock at first, brutal and numbing, as if you couldn’t even feel your face no matter how hard you pinched it. She couldn’t eat, sleep, write, walk, or do anything to function in the days and weeks afterward, except breathe somehow. Then, slowly, the numbness wore off and a brief—at times violent—anger set in, and there was something familiar about it. She recognized, eventually, because she’d gone through this before, the stages of grief from when they’d lost Ben. But this…this was a different kind of grief, one she couldn’t quite wrap herself around. What he had done, all of it, a betrayal.

  Staring now at the faded floral wallpaper in the bookstore bathroom, the tiny white blossoms began to swim before her eyes. She leaned back and took a deep breath. She closed her eyes and the room began to spin. Rubbing her temples, she wondered what on earth to do now. But she was too exhausted to even get up, much less make a decision. She’d thought no further than this day, this event, something she could control in her new future alone. Yet she knew that in the eyes of anyone who knew what had happened, this journey would have seemed frivolous and crazy.

  She slid down on the couch, laying her head on one arm, resting her feet on the other. Her body felt as if it were still moving. She took another long breath and closed her eyes, and just as sleep enveloped her like a soft, warm quilt, she thought: Thank God Ruth hadn’t been there.

  OPENING HER EYES, Lucy had no idea for a moment where she was.

  Oh sweet Jesus, she was in the bathroom at the bookstore. She bolted up off the couch and looked at her watch, horrified to see she’d been asleep for more than a half hour! Still groggy, she gripped the edge of the sink and splashed cold water on her face. These people were going to think she was crazy. Showing up like a ditz on the wrong day. Locking herself in their bathroom and falling asleep like some homeless person. If it weren’t so pathetic she might have laughed at the irony, because she was sort of homeless, wasn’t she?

  She ran her fingers through her hair, spritzed herself with the calming lavender aromatherapy spray she kept in her purse now, and opened the bathroom door, praying no one would notice her.

  A woman stood there, startled, her hand in the air as if about to knock.

  “Lucinda?”

  She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

  “I’m Ruth Hardaway,” the woman said, smiling hesitantly.

  She was tall with beautiful wide brown eyes that narrowed now with obvious worry. Her long hair fell halfway down her back in wet ringlets. Obviously she’d been interrupted at a bad time.

  “I’m sorry, I…I…” Lucy felt her throat close.

  “Are you all right?”

  As she stared at Ruth Hardaway, Lucy felt a tear slip down her cheek, and then another tear, and in a moment she was gasping for breath as she tried to control herself.

  Ruth took her arm and pulled her back into the bathroom, closing the door. Lucy sank onto the closed toilet seat, burying her face in her hands. In the weeks since her world had fallen apart, she hadn’t let herself cry, except for that night in front of David’s office. Even then, she had stopped quickly, not letting the policeman see her. And now, in front of this stranger, a bookseller she wanted to impress, she was falling apart.

  Ruth’s hand stayed on her arm the entire time, never letting go, which only made her cry harder. But the release felt so good, as every emotion that had been lodged in her chest like a balloon filling with air until she thought she might explode, drained from her body. Finally spent, she looked up at Ruth, who held out a tissue with a sympathetic smile.

  “I’m sorry. I know I’m early…” Lucy said, shaking her head in embarrassment.

  “Well,” Ruth said, “I’d hate to see what would happen if you were late.”

  Lucy’s mouth opened, and then…then she started to laugh, and so did Ruth.

  * * *

  AT FIRST SHE SAID NO TO RUTH’S OFFER TO STAY OVERNIGHT. But when the skies turned pewter and the wind began to howl and Ruth mentioned there would be storms all night, Lucy finally agreed. But as Ruth closed the front door of her old colonial, which hadn’t even been locked, Lucy stood in the foyer in awkward silence, regretting her decision. It all felt so strange.

  A small beag
le trotted into the hall and sat at Ruth’s feet, eyeing her suspiciously.

  “Lucy, meet Samantha. One spoiled dog.”

  “Hello there, Sam.” Lucy bent to pet her, but before her hand touched the dog, she turned and marched back out of the room. “Are you sure about this? I could easily find a hotel.”

  “Don’t be silly. I have three empty bedrooms upstairs. And if you don’t mind grilled cheese—it’s what I usually have on Saturday nights because I’m too pooped to think about cooking—then it’s absolutely no trouble at all. It’s nice to have the company. Sam doesn’t talk much.”

  “I don’t think Sam’s all that happy I’m here.”

  “Oh, she’ll get over it.”

  Ruth was nothing like she’d imagined, not the small, prim, bookish-looking woman her writer’s mind had conjured. She had a long face, a wide, thin mouth. Amber crystals dangled from her ears. Ruth was the best kind of character, a paradox—plain, yet attractive in her own way. The Earth mother, a character readers would love. Lucy looked at Ruth now, and it was then Lucy really noticed her eyes, a soft brown surrounded by laugh lines, or worry lines.

  While Ruth riffled through her mail, Lucy looked around. Pictures covered the walls: a handsome son in uniform, a daughter on her wedding day, toothless smiles of grandchildren and then school pictures as they aged. They walked through the foyer, past a living room crowded with worn furniture, and then the dining room, where she stopped. On the sideboard enough white dishware was laid out to supply a restaurant.

  “Oh, I have my family for brunch every other Sunday,” Ruth explained and with a laugh added, “and there the dishes still sit.”

  “You must have a big family.”

  “If everyone makes it, my three children and all the grandkids, that makes twelve, give or take. My son Alex sometimes brings his mother-in-law, and my grandchildren might bring a friend or two.”