The Amazing Adventures of Aaron Broom
Page 14
“No, sir, never did.”
“Now you do. Happy what?”
“Thirteen. I’ve always wanted a knife. Thank you. Thank you very very much.”
Nathan put Hilda back on the floor.
“Mr. Nathan,” I said, “looking at all these things you have here, you’ve certainly helped a lot of people, my father being one of them, and it’s wonderful how so far you haven’t sold our brown diamond.”
“I know how much it means to your dad, but to be honest, if I get a bona fide buyer, I’ll have to sell it. Your dad is way past due to redeem it.”
“How much is due?”
Nathan opened a big ledger book. “One hundred and forty.”
“Tell you the truth,” I said, “I’d forgotten about the brown diamond until now. I still have a little of my reward. I was going to give it to Mom when she comes home, so she wouldn’t have to worry about food and the lights and the streetcar and gas for Bertha for a while, but what I’m thinking is maybe, just maybe, that brown diamond on her finger means something more important. Maybe it’s a part of the way they love one another. I don’t much think about love, but what do you think? That’s what people do. They come in here, don’t they, and give up things they love? And sometimes, if they’re lucky, they can buy it back and it makes their lives feel better.”
“Well, Aaron,” Nathan said, “it’s true, I am in the business of buying things desperate people love, and although I try to be as fair as I can, I do know the moment hurts them when they give me the object and I hand them money to replace it. I have no family, never married, but I know.”
At that very moment, I felt a funny kind of yearning travel through me. Like I said, I never thought much about love. I had never said the words to anyone. And yet it was there, I guess. I could see myself returning that ring to my parents. I could feel their joy, my mother’s tears, my pop holding her. I was tearing up a little and I turned my face away from Mr. Nathan so’s he wouldn’t notice.
I put my hand in my pocket and took out my rubber-banded money and started to count out the price of the ring.
“Make that an even one hundred,” Nathan said.
There was not much left but I felt really good, like that day we won the championship baseball game and my teammates hoisted me up on their shoulders and paraded me around.
Nathan polished up the ring with a special cloth and put it in a little velvety box. He put his arm around me and walked us out the door. But before we took off to continue our way to Forest Park, Hilda made a good-luck puddle in front of the pawnshop where there was a leafy sycamore tree.
E pluribus unum.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I first met Nan Talese, my editor for this book, fifty-four years ago, in the office of Bennett Cerf, the cofounder of Random House. I had written Papa Hemingway, a memoir of my long friendship with Hemingway that Bennett was publishing, my first book, and Bennett had asked me to come meet the editor he had assigned to it. I had gone to Cerf’s office hoping that the editor would be one of his “name” veterans, but who came to join us was a most attractive, quite young woman I thought was an intern who was going to lead me to one of those “names.” Not so. She turned out to be the perfect editor for my book and for me, with an instinctual understanding of the man I was writing about. She did not intrude, she guided and suggested, asked questions that took me beyond what I thought were the limits.
Over the intervening years, Nan has been my editor on many books, bringing her skills and insights to the betterment of each and every one of them, this one included. We have also shared a close friendship, as I have with her husband, Gay Talese. That’s how it should be. A fine editor really does become family, and, I’m proud to say, Nan has.
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In so many ways, my wife, Virginia, was a steadying, helpful influence during the challenging, chaotic time it took me to write this book, as she has been on my other books, even contributing one of my favorite titles: O.J. in the Morning, G&T at Night.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A. E. Hotchner is the author of the international bestsellers Papa Hemingway, Doris Day: Her Own Story, Sophia: Living and Loving, and his own memoir, King of the Hill. He has adapted many of Hemingway’s works for the screen and the stage.
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