The Bookish Life of Nina Hill

by Abbi Waxman

  Tom licked his cone in silence, which Nina appreciated. First, because the ice cream deserved respect, and second, because her favorite sound was no sound at all. It couldn’t last, however, and Tom broke it.

  “I really like your name,” he said. “Are you named after someone in the family?”

  Nina laughed. “Well, until three and a half weeks ago, the only family I had was my mom and the nanny that raised me, but no, I’m named after a girl in a photo.”

  “A photo?” He looked quizzically at her, and Nina explained.

  “My mom’s a photographer. There’s a girl in a famous Ruth Orkin photo called American Girl in Italy whose name was Ninalee, and she always loved that name.” Nina shrugged. “She also likes those drawings by Hirschfeld, you know, where he hid the name Nina somewhere in the picture . . . ?” She ground to a halt. Her ice cream was dripping and Tom was staring at her and maybe she was being boring.

  Tom was indeed gazing at her. He had been thinking her voice sounded like a bell, much lower than most women’s voices, imagining the sound waves of it bouncing off his skin, remembering how it had sounded saying his name, and suddenly all he wanted to do was go back to the apartment.

  He blushed. “Did you ask me something?” He coughed. “I’m sorry, I lost track of what you were saying.”

  Nina’s mouth twisted. “Wow, I guess it wasn’t really that interesting.”

  He sputtered. “No, it was. It was about photography, and about your name . . . I got distracted by your voice . . .” He reached for her hand. “I’ll be honest, looking at you makes me lose my mind. Can we go back to your place?” He lowered his voice. “Please?”

  Nina laughed at him and stood up. “Yes,” she said. “I think we’ve had quite enough of the great outdoors for one day.”

  * * *

  “How did your father die?” It was early evening now, and Tom was gazing up at the ceiling, Nina’s head on his shoulder. They hadn’t said very much for several hours, but now they were tired and ready to talk.

  Nina shrugged against him, her hair tickling his neck. “Heart attack.”

  “And you really never knew him, or knew anything about him?”

  “No. It seems weird now, but at the time it was just the way it was.”

  “So, you were kind of an orphan.”

  “No, not really. My mom was away, working, but we heard from her a lot, and she came to visit. I had no dad, but I did have a nanny who was as good—if not better—than any biological mom might have been. I wasn’t raised in a box.”

  “Really?”

  “Actually,” said Nina, “that’s not true. I was lucky. I had a Carnation Condensed Milk carton for the first few years, then upgraded to a refrigerator box once I got too tall to stand up in the first one.”

  “Those refrigerator boxes are sturdy.” Tom knew she was dodging the question, but he didn’t want to push her. “And it explains how you’re so comfortable in this single bed.” He’d found the lack of space challenging, but he’d worked around it.

  Nina nodded, liking the way Tom was always ready to be silly. Silly is a highly underrated quality. “Mine was European, too, so it was reinforced for export.”

  “Fancy.”

  She shook her head. “It wasn’t fancy, but it was home, you know?” She paused. “Actually, I grew up here, right in the neighborhood. I’ve barely left the East side of LA my whole life.”

  He laughed. “Maybe you’re the one who needs to be reinforced for export.”

  Nina smiled. “Do you travel a lot?”

  He shook his head. “No. I grew up in Pasadena, went to college there, then moved all of sixteen miles to Los Angeles. I drove across country with some friends after graduation, like everyone does. But then I got on a plane and came right back.”

  “I never did that.”

  “You still could.”

  “No car. And I have a cat.” She laughed. “A jealous, ferocious cat. Plus, I don’t want to go anywhere.” She was starting to feel hungry and wondered idly if they should get up and get dinner. “What’s your dad like?”

  Tom replied, “He’s pretty typical. Like I said, he’s quieter than my mom.”

  “But what was he like, your dad? How was he when you were a kid?”

  Tom frowned and thought about it. “He was a good dad, I think. I only had the one, right? So I can’t really compare him properly to anyone else’s. One time he saved my sister’s life.”

  Nina raised her eyebrows. “Sucking out snake venom?”

  He grinned. “No, Heimlich in a McDonald’s. The story is that she choked on a chicken nugget and when he gave her the Heimlich the piece of nugget hit my older brother in the eye so hard they had to take him to the emergency room. The crumb coating scratched his cornea. He had to wear an eye patch to school.”

  “That’s a good story.”

  He nodded. “Yes, and fairly typical. There was always a lot going on at our house. It was a happy childhood, for the most part. I saw my parents bicker a lot, but they always made up and never stopped loving each other, so, you know. It was . . . committed.”

  “And your brother and sister?”

  “They’re great. Richard got married, obviously, you were there.”

  “That’s right,” said Nina.

  “Hey,” said Tom, suddenly. “That means their anniversary will be ours, too!” There was a pause.

  “Assuming we last long enough,” said Nina, lightly.

  “Right,” said Tom. “You may get bored of me.”

  Nina looked at the side of her own hand where it rested on his chest. She curled the fingers under. “Or you might get bored of me. I don’t do much.”

  Tom looked fixedly at the ceiling, trying to backtrack. “Maybe we’ll have one glorious Sunday and then both be killed by a falling piano.”

  “At the same time?”

  “No, two separate pianos, separate places, total coincidence.”

  Nina considered this, feeling the wave of anxiety that had threatened to crest slowly losing power. “I’ve always wanted to die that way. Or under a safe. One of those Acme safes from Road Runner.”

  “Any of those Road Runner deaths would be fine with me. Running off a cliff while still running, then pausing in midair, holding up a sign that says, Whoops, and then plummeting to my death . . .”

  “Running into a hole painted on the side of a rock and then getting hit by a train that shouldn’t be there in the first place.”

  “Watching a bird eat a lot of explosive birdseed and being fine and then trying a single one and exploding.”

  “Yeah, any of those would be OK.”

  “And a fitting end to our grand romance.” Tom could feel her relaxing under his arm. She was so touchy, this one. Hard to navigate, although in bed they were so easy together, so relaxed and in tune. It was only the afterglow that held land mines.

  He squeezed her shoulder. “Getting hungry?”

  She nodded, wondering at the way his presence was somehow canceling out her anxiety. Each time she started to panic, the feelings just washed up against this big, solid wall of . . . him. He wasn’t doing it consciously, or at least she didn’t think he was, but he was 100 percent real, and her anxiety—which was, after all, made of smoke and mirrors—was no match for him.

  “I need to work up a tiny bit more appetite,” she said, sliding her hand under the sheet.

  He smiled and caught her hand before it reached its target. “No,” he said. “Let’s leave room for dessert.” He swung his legs out of bed. “I don’t want you to get a blood sugar crash and have a fight on our first day.” He tugged her to her feet. “Let me take care of you.”

  She sighed, nodded, and got up.

  Twenty-one

  In which Nina proves useful.

  Polly was thrilled for her, but then again, Polly’s defau
lt state was thrilled.

  “It’s all very romantic,” she said. “Enemies first, then a kiss and an epic fail on your part . . .”

  “Hey,” said Nina.

  “Then coming together at a wedding, the fates aligning . . .”

  Nina frowned. “I think it’s stars that align, not fates.”

  Polly frowned at her. “Does it matter?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Are you going to see him again?”

  Nina nodded. Then shook her head. Then nodded again. “I imagine so. We got on pretty well to not see each other again.” She thought about it. “Of course, he is a guy, so who knows. I may never hear from him again. Or he might send me a picture of his penis any minute.”

  “Well then,” said Polly, “keep checking your phone.”

  Nina’s phone buzzed, obligingly. She picked it up but shook her head. “It’s not him; it’s Archie.”

  “Oh, now, his penis I’d be totally open to seeing.” Polly leaned over to look, but Nina held the phone away.

  “Excuse me, that’s my married brother you’re salivating over.” She looked at the text. “And it would be pretty weird of him to send his sister a dick pic.”

  “Good point.”

  “He’s wondering if I’m around for lunch. He says he’s bringing a friend he wants me to meet. Do you want to come? Maybe the friend is single.”

  “How can I join you? Liz isn’t here. Are you suggesting we close the store?”

  “Oh yeah.” Nina laughed. “Who knew you would turn out to be so responsible?”

  “Not me.” Polly walked away. “I think it’s your terrible influence. I used to be carefree and disorganized, and you’ve ruined me. The other day I was able to put my hand directly on something I was looking for. It threw me off for the rest of the day.”

  “Sorry,” said Nina.

  “You should be,” Polly replied, heading into the office to grab some paperwork.

  * * *

  Archie’s friend was nothing like Nina had expected. She was only four feet tall, for a start.

  “This is Millie,” said Archie. “She’s your sister.” He paused. “Mine, too.”

  Millie wasn’t a redhead, but there was still something familiar about her. She looked more like her mom, Eliza, the woman who had attempted to stop Lydia’s tirade the other day, but there was still plenty of her dad in her bone structure.

  She stuck out her hand. “Hi, Nina. It’s nice to meet you.”

  Nina shook her hand. What a formal child. “I didn’t realize you two hung out,” she said.

  The three of them found a table at the back of the restaurant, and Vanessa came over to take their order.

  “More family?” she asked. She looked at Millie. “Do you want a kids’ menu?”

  Millie looked up at her, thoughtfully. “Is there coloring on it?”

  “Yes, and a word search.”

  “Well then, yes, please.” She looked at Nina. “I love a word search.”

  “Who doesn’t?” said Nina. “And Mad Libs.”

  “Yeah!” said Millie, clearly tickled to have found a kindred spirit. Word geeks love to discover one another. Come upon. Identify. Recognize. Etc.

  Archie cleared his throat. “Actually, we don’t usually hang out. Eliza reached out to me after the meeting at the lawyer’s a couple of weeks ago, and we decided it might be fun.” He looked at Millie and then back at Nina. “I brought her to lunch because I can’t talk about books anymore. I’m exhausted. I thought you could take over.”

  Millie smiled at him and patted his hand. “It’s OK, you knew quite a lot about Harry Potter.”

  “And if you’d read The Hunger Games, I would have been able to talk about that, too.” He grinned. “But your mother is a sensible woman.”

  Nina said, “The Hunger Games is great, but maybe a little bloody for a . . .”

  “Ten-year-old,” said Millie. She took a sip of the lemonade Vanessa had delivered. “But I wanted to talk to you about Daddy, anyway.”

  Nina’s smile faded a little. “You know I never met him, right? I didn’t know him at all.”

  Millie frowned. “You didn’t?”

  Nina looked at Archie, who shrugged. “No one even knew I was alive before your dad died. He was never my dad, really.”

  Millie was silent, processing this. “He wasn’t married to your mom at all?”

  Nina shook her head. “You know the other families, though?”

  Millie turned the lemonade glass around slowly on the table. “A bit. I’ve met Archie before, at the holidays, but I wasn’t paying all that much attention, honestly.” She looked up at Nina, her eyes clear. “I mean, I’m a kid; it was Christmas.”

  “I came to see you in the hospital when you were born,” said Archie.

  Millie smiled. “You did?”

  Archie nodded. “I was a teenager, so I was pretending to be really cool about it, but you were deeply ugly as a baby.”

  Millie giggled.

  “Your mom kept asking if I wanted to hold you, and I kept saying no. I was worried you would suddenly attack.”

  Millie giggled harder, then stopped. “I miss my dad,” she said.

  Nina nodded. “I bet you do. What was he like?”

  Millie smiled. “He was amazing. He played with me all the time. He was pretty old, but he came up with the best games. He watched my favorite shows with me, that kind of thing. We would read together every single day. He sat with me at night when I went to sleep, because sometimes I get scared of the dark.” She looked at Nina quickly but found no judgment there. “And sometimes he would set up my toys in funny ways. Long lines of Littlest Pet Shop animals marching across the floor, dinosaurs dressed in Barbie clothes, you know? That kind of thing.”

  Nina smiled. “That must have taken some effort.”

  “Yeah, dinosaurs have shorter arms than Barbie.”

  “Everyone has shorter arms than Barbie.”

  Millie nodded. “He rolled up the sleeves. My mom works a lot, but he was kind of retired, so he picked me up from school. Now my babysitter does it. She’s OK.” A little lemonade had spilled on the table, and she drew a starfish. “It’s been over a month now, but I’m always sad to see her car.”

  Nina wasn’t sure what to say. She was surprised by Millie’s description of her dad. Their dad. For the first time, she wished she’d met him and impulsively reached across the table and squeezed Millie’s hand.

  “He sounds great. I’m really sorry I didn’t know him.”

  Millie looked up, her eyes shiny. “Yeah, you would have liked him, I expect.” She took a breath. “Lots of people did. He was my best friend, outside of school.”

  “Who’s your best friend in school?” Nina was curious.

  “Oh, you know, it changes.” Millie looked at the table. There was a sudden stillness to her shoulders, and Nina looked at Archie.

  “Do you like school?”

  Millie shook her head, and suddenly burst out, “Not really. I have friends, sometimes, but most of the time no one talks to me. Which is fine, honestly, because I’m happy on my own; it’s totally fine. Really fine. And no one wants to talk about books, except sometimes Harry Potter because they’ve read it, but honestly, I don’t know if they really read properly because they don’t know anything, and if I say, well, what about The Candymakers, or Calpurnia Tate, or Penderwicks, and they’re like, what’s that, then I feel bad.” She subsided.

  “Bad for them because they haven’t read those books, which, by the way, are all awesome, awesome books? I love all of those.” Nina felt herself relaxing further; this was her favorite topic. She wished she didn’t feel so much identification with Millie, though; it was giving her flashbacks to her own school years. Recess and lunch, finding a spot to be alone, and then half wishing someone would f
ind you.

  “Bad that I can’t think of anything to say if it isn’t about books.” Millie looked crestfallen. “They want to talk about Pokémon or whatever, and I like Pokémon, but I don’t know all about them like I do about books.” She looked at Nina somewhat pleadingly. “It’s hard to find stuff to talk about sometimes. It gives me a tummy ache.”

  “Well, we can talk about books whenever you like,” Nina said. “Do you think your mom would let you join a book club at the store? I have a whole group of girls your age who love all those books and lots more.” She remembered that Millie and Eliza lived in Malibu. “It’s a long way to come.”

  Millie looked hopeful. “I can ask her.”

  Archie added, “You can also ask the other kids questions; that’s what my mom told me, and I think it was good advice. Ask people if they have a dog, or if they like birds, or if they’re allergic to anything, or if they still believe in Santa Claus, or whatever pops into your head.”

  “The only thing that pops into my head is books,” said Millie, worriedly. “And if I ask them a load of questions, they’ll think I’m even stranger than they already think I am. Last week a boy at school said I was weird, and nobody else said I wasn’t. Nobody said anything.” Her voice broke a little on the last word, and suddenly Nina was furious.

  Trying to keep her voice calm, she asked, “What did he mean, weird?” She looked at Archie and saw he felt the same way.

  Millie shrugged. “I don’t know. Weird. We had been talking about Aragog—you know, the spider?” Both Archie and Nina nodded. “And then I started talking about Charlotte from Charlotte’s Web, and all the bugs in James and the Giant Peach, and this other book about a boy and a beetle at the Metropolitan Museum of Art . . .”