by Amy Meyerson
Malcolm’s mouth traveled toward my shoulder, grazing my clavicle. Jay flashed into my brain, but there was the pressure of Malcolm’s lips and it felt incredible. Besides, Jay and I hadn’t spoken in a month. Could you really feel guilty about cheating on someone you hadn’t spoken to in a month? Was it even cheating? Malcolm’s hands pulled my hips toward him until our stomachs touched, our inner thighs, our shoulders, and I forgot about Jay. I forgot about anything outside Malcolm, unsure how this was happening now, why it hadn’t happened before, in disbelief that it was happening at all. I remembered how calm he’d been that afternoon as he’d watched me unravel, how nonjudgmental. As he continued to kiss my neck, I thought of how beautifully he’d recited the line from The Tempest. But you, o you, so perfect and so peerless, are created of every creature’s best, his voice steady, like he’d been waiting to recite it to me from the moment he met me, and I realized, suddenly, that he had.
I pushed him away. “Billy told you I was named after The Tempest.”
“What?” He reached for me again. I pushed him away harder.
“You sent me the copy of The Tempest, in Philadelphia.” I’d thought Elijah had sent me the book, but he’d said letter not package. A letter after Billy died, which would have arrived after the news of Billy’s death, after I’d left Philadelphia. “You lied to me.”
Malcolm leaned against the cooking section and ran his hand through his hair. “I wanted to tell you.”
Those words were no better coming from Malcolm than they were coming from Mom.
“You said you were mourning,” I screamed.
“I was mourning!” he screamed back.
“You made me feel like an insensitive asshole even though you really were lying. Do you realize how fucked up that is?” I became a beast turning at full moon, a wild animal let loose. I had no idea what I was saying to him. It involved a lot of fucks, a lot of assholes, a lot of liars and manipulative pricks and every other word I could lash at him. That anger was the first thing that had felt good in a long time, the first thing besides Malcolm’s kiss, which paled in relation to the uncontrollable fury radiating out of me. “You think I’m an idiot? Dangling me along on your little leash. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Miranda, stop.” Malcolm grabbed me by the shoulders. “Just stop yelling.”
I caught my breath. “You told me you were mourning. You used my uncle’s death against me.”
“I know,” he said, “I know I did. And I was. I am. I am mourning.”
“But you were lying to me, too.”
“I was trying to help Billy.”
“By lying to me!” And then I said the words that really hit him, the words that drained all the color from his face and caused him to stop trying to get me to calm down. “You knew Billy was my dad.”
“He told me you were his niece,” Malcolm insisted.
“But you knew.”
Malcolm turned away. “You look just like him.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me? You didn’t think I had a right to know?”
There was a beast in Malcolm, too, one I’d poked and prodded until he’d had enough. “Tell you what?” he yelled. “What exactly could I have told you? Hello, I know we don’t really know each other, but you know that uncle of yours, the one who used to own this store? Surprise! He’s actually your dad. Explain to me how I could have told you that?”
“You could have told me about the scavenger hunt.” I ran my hand through my hair. “You could have admitted that you knew who I was at the funeral. You could have told me anything instead of making me feel like a complete shithead for asking you what you were hiding.”
“I didn’t like lying to you.” Malcolm reached for one of my curls.
“Well, I guess that makes you citizen of the year.”
His fingers felt like water as they tickled my scalp, and it would have been so easy to reach for his hand, to pull him to me and return to the part of the evening where we were learning how to please each other.
“You’re right to be angry with me. I get it.” His voice returned me to the room, out of the trance of his touch, back to his words, back to his lies.
“How noble of you. Jesus, you’re arrogant.” I yanked my hair away from his touch.
Malcolm folded his hands, not quite sure what to do with his restless energy. “I was trying to be a good friend to Billy.”
“By pretending not to know who I was?”
“What difference would it have made? If I’d told you about Evelyn—”
“You knew about Evelyn, too!” I felt like I might vomit.
“Billy wanted to tell you this way.” Malcolm watched me, his eyes doleful and even bluer. “I was trying to be a good friend. I don’t know what else you want me to say.”
I wanted him to say he was sorry. To say that he’d wanted to kiss me from the moment he first saw me. To say I had no idea how hard this has been on him. I wanted him to say anything that might let me be comforted by him. Instead, he repeated the words I didn’t want to hear. “This was the way Billy wanted it.”
I slid to the floor and leaned against the cooking section. “You were the only person who could have encouraged Billy to know his daughter.” I was dizzy from the alcohol and the truth and the desire I still felt for Malcolm. He reached down to comfort me. I kept my face hidden from him, kept myself locked away where I hoped he couldn’t find me.
“I know it doesn’t mean much, but I really am sorry.” I could feel him towering over me, so I burrowed my face farther into my palms.
“I’ll go,” he said. When I didn’t fight him, I heard his feet shuffle toward the café. A chair scraped against the floor as he lifted his jacket off the back. “Sorry,” he whispered again. He quietly slipped out the back.
I stayed on the floor after Malcolm left, in no rush to get up. How many times had I asked Malcolm to tell me the truth? How many times had he lied to me, manipulated me? I felt foolish. Absurd. Naive. I believed Malcolm was sorry, that it was hard for him to keep a secret, that he thought he was helping Billy. He wasn’t helping, though. Malcolm should have pressed Billy to contact me sooner. And Billy should have reached out to me on his own. He should have wanted to have a relationship with me when I could have known him, when he still could have been my father.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Eventually, I got up off the floor. I went upstairs and washed the shame from my face. When I climbed into Billy’s bed, my father’s bed, I couldn’t sleep. My brain returned to Bridge to Terabithia, to Lee, to the rest of Billy’s quest I still hadn’t completed. The last time I saw Lee he’d called Mom and she’d whisked me away from Prospero Books. Did he know that was the end of my relationship with Billy? Did he feel guilty? I’d told Malcolm he was the only one who could have encouraged Billy to reconnect with me, but he wasn’t. Lee could have, too. He could have prevented Billy from disappearing in the first place.
I searched the internet again for Lee, using every word I associated with him: bookstore, manager, books, reading, Silver Lake, Nancy Drew, coffee, literature, recommendations. I’d never asked him enough about himself to know anything about his personal life. I didn’t know if he was married. I didn’t even realize he was gay until I located a two-hundred-word piece in LA Weekly. Neighborhood says goodbye to beloved bookstore manager. The article was from 2001. It explained that Lee and his partner, Paul, were relocating to Santa Barbara.
* * *
It was a perfect Southern California morning as I drove to Santa Barbara. Clear blue skies, air salty from the ocean. In Malibu, surfers rode the modest waves that bordered Highway 1. I had telephone numbers and addresses for nine Lee Williamses listed in Santa Barbara County. One was Thomas Lee. Another Joseph Lee. I didn’t know if Lee was his first name, and besides, nine wasn’t that many. My plan was simple: I’d visit each one until I found the Lee I
was looking for. I could have called before I left, but I just needed to go. I needed the fresh air, the drive, the distance from Malcolm and our fight. The distance from Mom and our fight, too.
The traffic lights grew sparser along the highway until they disappeared. Mansions clung to the bluffs, threatening to collapse onto the open road below. By seven-thirty, Malcolm would have arrived at the store. When I didn’t surface downstairs, would he brave the steps to the second floor? Would he knock on my door? And when he realized I wasn’t there, would he think I’d left for good? I checked my phone. No texts. No missed calls. Then I remembered. Malcolm didn’t have my telephone number. I knew the way his breath tasted and the feel of his chest against mine but I didn’t even know his area code.
I started to call the store, then dialed Joanie instead. When her voice mail picked up, all the stories I hadn’t told her collected in my throat. It was too much for a voice mail, too much for the few hours she had before her next performance. After I hung up, I still needed to talk, to not be alone. I scrolled down to Jay’s number, and almost hit Send. We hadn’t spoken in a month. He would have been patient if I told him what was going on—but as soon as I thought it, I wasn’t so sure. Besides, the person I really wanted to talk to was Mom. I put my phone away, and kept driving, toward Santa Barbara and the nine Lees that lived there.
The first Lee Williams was a Realtor, holding an open house near the old mission. A Spanish Revival with a layout like a maze, making you lose all sense of direction until you magically returned to the front door. Lee was in the back. She was statuesque with long red hair.
I called Lee Williams the attorney next. He was the right gender at least. His tone was hostile when I explained that I was trying to locate Lee Williams, the bookseller. “I don’t have time for whatever shenanigan this is,” he said as he hung up.
That left seven Lee Williamses. Lee Williams the dentist had immigrated to the US in the ’80s. He had a subtle yet distinct accent. The Lee I knew had a banal accent, one I’d assumed was Midwestern even if, at twelve, I hadn’t known what a Midwestern accent sounded like.
The next five Lees were equally dead ends. Lee Williams the plumber was African American. His son, Lee Williams, Jr., was the high school’s star quarterback. Joseph Lee Williams the car mechanic was too young. Thomas Lee Williams the retired police officer too old. Lee Williams the sommelier was the right age, gender and race, but when I stopped into his restaurant, he was too tall and skinny.
The last Lee Williams on my list remained a ghost. When I tried the number I’d found in the white pages, it had been disconnected. I looked up his partner, Paul, instead and eventually discovered a picture of them dancing at a charity ball for an LGBTQ organization, headquartered in downtown Santa Barbara.
The organization’s offices were on the other side of the 101 from the main strip of downtown. I passed Micheltorena Street, turning on Figueroa, street names I recognized from Los Angeles. Of course they were historical figures, not simply street names. General Figueroa. General Micheltorena. As I walked toward the organization, I thought about how, if I’d taught in Los Angeles or Santa Barbara, I could have printed maps of the city, allowing my students to discover the historic names of streets, using the city itself as a gateway into Alta California and eventually the Mexican American War. Remnants of California’s Mexican legacy were scattered across the region like clues in a scavenger hunt. Remnants of the Revolution and the Early Republic were scattered across Philadelphia like clues in a scavenger hunt, too, only I’d never thought to teach the city’s history that way.
The organization’s offices were housed in a beige one-story building between a tattoo parlor and a dollar store. The man behind the front desk smirked when I asked if he knew Lee. “We don’t normally give out our members’ information,” he said with feigned sweetness.
“Can you call him? He was friends with my uncle. My uncle died recently.”
The receptionist cast me the expression of someone who had known many people who died but not so many that he’d grown immune to it. He told me he’d check with his supervisor.
While I waited for him to return, I looked at the picture of Lee and Paul on my phone. Their eyes locked as they danced, like they only needed each other. Mom and Dad danced like that. Billy and Evelyn had probably danced that way, too.
I couldn’t look at that photograph anymore, so I browsed Prospero Books’ website instead. Malcolm had uploaded the special offers of the day, signed first editions of Jesus’ Son and The Virgin Suicides. His noir blog featured several neo-noir titles that in his estimation weren’t entirely worthy of loathing. Photographs rotated at the bottom of the homepage. One of Charlie’s most recent book club, a mommy-and-me reading of Oliver Twist. Charlie was dressed the same as the boys sitting on their mothers’ laps, news cap and vest, a large print edition of the book opened between them. In another photograph, Lucia and four pale girls held crochet hooks toward the camera, balls of colorful yarn cradled in their laps. At the top of the homepage, I tapped the Gala tab. There was a link to purchase tickets, a description of the event, a list of items for sale at the silent auction and of the entertainment. Malcolm had added a new name for musical entertainment, a band called Raw Cow Hide, whose sound he described as a modern-day Velvet Underground. I didn’t know he’d found a replacement for Lucia’s DJ friend. He was making decisions without me, as if I was already gone.
I hit the About Us tab, expecting to find details on Malcolm, Lucia and Charlie, possibly Billy, not me. Beneath a lengthy description of Prospero Books, complete with Malcolm’s explanations of the balance between new and used copies, titles you couldn’t find in any big-box store, there was a photo of the four of us from the Fourth of July, empty beer bottles and tequila safely out of view. Malcolm’s arms were around Lucia and me. Charlie sat on the opposite side of Lucia, petting her hand. Beneath the photograph Malcolm had written, The Prospero Family.
“You’re in luck,” the receptionist said when he returned. He handed me an address. “He’s home now. He said he’d be delighted to see you.”
* * *
Lee lived in an apartment complex near City College where Paul taught statistics.
“Don’t let him fool you,” Lee said as he let me into their apartment. “Statistics is completely dull.”
“Hush,” Paul said from the kitchen. “It’s a language like any other. You just don’t know how to speak it.”
Lee winked at me. His belly had ballooned since I’d last seen him, and his legs had slimmed to skin and bones. Traces of the man I remembered lingered on his face. He still had bushy eyebrows, now completely white. Full cheeks, now spotted with rosacea.
“Look at you,” he marveled. “I can’t believe you’re here. How long has it been?” He knew how long it had been. We both did. “You’re all grown up. You look—” I waited for him to tell me I looked so much like my mother. “I see so much of Billy in you,” he said, reaching for my hand.
Paul brought in a tray with a pitcher of lemonade and a plate of cookies.
“I don’t drink anymore,” Lee told me. He took a sip of lemonade and sighed. “It’s not a cold beer, but it’s satisfying in its own way.” Paul teasingly slapped his leg, making light of what must have been a longer, more painful story.
Paul said he had exams to grade and left us alone in the living room.
“Are you working?” I asked Lee.
“Volunteering,” he said. “When we moved up here, I thought about working at another bookstore, maybe even opening my own shop. It would never have been Prospero Books. I knew I wouldn’t be happy here if I tried to recreate the life I’d left.”
“Why’d you move?”
“Paul’s mom was sick. He wanted to be close to her. I didn’t want to leave, but let me give you some advice. There are three things in life that matter—your partner, your job, your place. One of those three has to be numbe
r one. The other two have to come second. For me it was Paul. I loved LA. I loved Prospero Books. But Paul was numero uno.”
“What about family? Where does family fit in?” I asked.
Lee’s eyes shifted upward as he contemplated the role of family. “I don’t know. I was never close with my family. Maybe it should be a list of four—love, job, place, family?”
“Or maybe family is part of place?”
“That sounds right. And for Paul, family and place were numero uno because he was coming back to care for his mom. I never begrudged him that. It didn’t mean he loved me any less. In love, job and place, one partner picks love and the other picks something else that shapes their life together.”
I tried to decide which would matter the most to me. I had a boyfriend who might be an ex, another man whom I’d kissed and then called a fucking liar. I had two jobs. They mattered to me in different ways. I had two places; I didn’t know which one I preferred. The same went for family.
“You were working at Prospero Books until you left LA?” I reached for a cookie, then remembered the cookie I’d had the last time I saw Lee, how I’d broken it into smaller and smaller pieces, unable to take a bite. I put the cookie back on the tray.
“I told Paul we couldn’t leave until I figured out a plan. Billy was always in and out, and he didn’t know the first thing about running the store. It was a tough time. Paul was here. I was there. I owed it to Evelyn not to abandon Prospero Books. Plus, it was my home. Just because I picked love didn’t mean I stopped caring about place.”
“You owed it to Evelyn? You were friends with her?” No wonder I’d never noticed a closeness between Lee and Billy.
Lee returned his empty glass to the table and settled into his chair. “Evelyn and I both worked at a bookstore in Pasadena. It was a small store, sold mostly political books. I was there for five years or so before she started. She was kind and beautiful and that fooled everyone.”
The store was home to communists, anarchists, to anyone with a taste for rebellion. Evelyn wasn’t a rebel. She was a reader. Lee was a reader, too. They first bonded over their love of The Tempest. Evelyn loved Miranda, her purity, her willingness to trust and to love. Lee loved Ariel and Caliban, their desire to be free. When Evelyn started working at the bookstore in Pasadena in the late ’70s, it didn’t carry The Tempest. It didn’t carry any Shakespeare. No copies of Jane Eyre. Nothing by Jane Austen, Henry James, Virginia Woolf, Nathaniel Hawthorne. None of Updike’s Rabbit novels. There was a small political fiction section that carried Catch-22, 1984, Fahrenheit 451 and Dr. Zhivago. Not All Quiet on the Western Front or A Farewell to Arms. The Feminine Mystique, not The Bell Jar. Those distinctions bothered Evelyn. What was war without love? What were cautionary tales without stories that celebrated life? What was a movement without the struggles of the individual? Evelyn saw more truth in Emma Bovary, Anna Karenina, Edna Pontellier and her awakening than in any of the pamphlets and manifestos the store stocked regularly. Lee agreed that the store needed books not overtly political. He thought the activists could learn a thing or two from the rhythms of Flaubert, Tolstoy, Chopin. What mattered to Lee was language. All those beautiful sentences he could never write. There was an art to appreciation. Lee excelled in the art of appreciation.
