The Book That Matters Most (2 page)

“Oh, sweetie,” Cate said. “Don't look. In fact, let's just leave. Okay? What do you say?” She motioned to the bartender, writing with an invisible pen in the air.

But Ava couldn't stop looking. Because there, right behind Delia Lindstrom, Yarn Bomber, stood her husband—her soon-to-be
ex
-husband—Jim, grinning like the idiot he was. Proud of his yarn bombing, home-wrecking girlfriend. He even had his hand on her shoulder. Possessively, Ava thought with a sickening feeling. And that hand was in a leather glove that she had given him last Christmas, when Ava was blissfully ignorant, and happy.

“Check? Please?” Cate was saying desperately.

Or if not exactly happy, happier, Ava amended. Was it possible to be really happy after so many years together?

“Bartender!” Cate shouted.

Ava finished her martini in one swig. Then she rested her forehead on the brass railing of the bar, and cried.

T
he Athenaeum in Providence had sat perched high on Benefit Street since 1838. These days it overlooked the comings and goings of Brown and RISD students, lawyers and criminals at the
courthouse across the street, museum docents, hipster fathers escorting kids dressed in leather or tulle, harried mothers pushing double strollers, and the eclectic array of filmmakers, artists, writers, and professors who populated the neighborhood. Below, colonial Providence with its lopsided eighteenth-century houses painted in the blues and reds and yellows of that era; above, the grand Victorians of the city's industrialists and bank presidents. The street was all cobblestones and bricks and faux gas streetlamps.

Ava followed Cate into the library's side entrance, across from the Hope Club, one of the two private clubs on Benefit Street. Cars for an event there crowded the streets. As they sidestepped BMWs and Mercedes and the occasional Porsche, Ava vowed silently to be good-natured, amiable, positive. She would not drink too much wine, another vice she'd acquired post-Jim. She would make friends, or at least not offend anyone.

“O-kay,” Cate said, shifting from best friend role to head librarian. She opened the door into the room where the book group met, and said, pleased, “It looks like everyone is here!”

Cate's assistant, Emma, pierced and plump, with colorful tattoos of scenes from
Winnie the Pooh
blazoned across her arms and chest and back, hurried to Cate. Every time Ava saw Emma, the girl had a different color hair. Tonight: an ice blue that brought to mind fjords and icebergs. Despite the cold—they were calling this frigid weather the polar vortex, a new weather term that Ava and Jim would have delighted over; they had shared a love for all things meteorological—Emma had on a black tank top, maybe to show off those tattoos. Or her large, soft breasts that seemed about to tumble out.

“Hi Ava,” Emma said. “How are you?”

Before Ava could answer, Emma had already turned her attention away from Ava and back to Cate, talking in her flat tone about the wine and cheese laid out on the white linen tablecloth with the Christmassy centerpiece—holly, red berries, red and white flowers, lots of greenery.

The book group ladies were at that table, plastic glasses of wine in their hands, munching on Camembert and grapes.

Relax
, Ava told herself. She took a deep breath and went to join them.

As soon as Ava got a glass of wine, a slender, ancient blonde in a beige Chanel suit came up to her and said, “Are you the one taking Paula's spot? Cate's friend?”

“I am,” Ava said.

“Glad to have you. I'm Penny Frost, the grande dame here. Which just means I'm older than everyone else.”

Penny shook Ava's hand, surprising her with its firm grip.

“I'm Ava—” Ava began.

“Ava! You're Maggie's mom, aren't you?” a young woman exclaimed. “I'm Honor! Honor Platt? I used to babysit for Maggie and Will, remember?”

A vague image from a decade ago of a serious Brown student toting an impossibly large backpack floated across Ava's mind.

“Honor,” Ava said. “How are you? It's been—”

Honor interrupted again. “Maggie was like seven or eight? And Will was maybe eleven? I always liked coming to your house,” she added softly.

“You did?” Ava said, feeling that ache of loss creeping in.
Damn you, Jim. See? People liked us. They liked coming into our home
.

“There was always good food in the fridge and you guys were so fun. You and Mr. Tucker.” Honor smiled as if remembering.
“Will was the sweetest boy. And Maggie . . . well, let's just say she kept me on my toes.”

“Honor Platt,” Ava said softly. In college, Honor had worn baggy jeans and loose sweatshirts, her hair tied up in a ponytail. She'd played Ultimate Frisbee, and taught Will and Maggie how to throw a Frisbee in a perfect arc. But here she was, a grown woman with soft auburn hair grazing her collarbone and a small blue stone glistening on her left nostril.

“How are they?” Honor said, grinning. “Maggie and Will?”

“Great, great,” Ava said, trying to ignore the feeling of worry that always accompanied that question. No, she told herself, they
were
great. Or at least Will was. Maggie—Ava pushed away the doubt that kept threatening to take over. Maggie was fine, she reminded herself, or they wouldn't have sent her to Florence for this school year.

“Grown up,” she added.

“I can't believe it,” Honor said. “Maggie's almost as old as I was when I babysat her.”

Ava nodded and sipped her wine, trying not to let concern about her daughter intrude, which was difficult considering how many times she'd let herself believe that her troubled child was finally on track, only to get surprised or disappointed. This time Maggie
was
on track. Finally. Blessedly.

“What are you doing these days?” Ava asked, happy to change the subject.

“I'm teaching at Brown now. English department. Women's studies. Tenure track.”

“What? That's impressive.”

“I'm so glad you joined the book group,” Honor said. “When I moved back here after grad school, it was a godsend. A way to
connect with people, and get out of my apartment and away from my thesis.”

She gave Ava's arm a quick squeeze before moving away from her.

“It's going to be hard to fill Paula's shoes,” Penny said.

Ava had forgotten Penny was still standing there.

“Last year our theme was ‘The Classics,' and Paula's pick was
Remembrance of Things Past
. Can you believe that?”

Ah
,
Proust
, Ava thought, remembering that he was the writer whose words her mother had repeated.
There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favorite book
. She considered reciting the quote to the woman staring up at her to prove herself worthy to be here, in Paula's shoes.

“I think she's the only one who read it,” the woman continued. “All three volumes.”

Suddenly, this book group sounded like more than Ava was up for. Three volumes of Proust?

“Yikes,” Ava said.

“You know what I say?” Penny said. “Mark Twain claims a classic is a book people have heard of but never read. Well then, Mr. Mark Twain, you've never met Paula Merino.”

Ava attempted a laugh, but it came out as more of a grunt.

Had she even forgotten how to laugh? Ava chastised herself. That did it. She would finish her wine and then apologize to Cate, to all of them, and go home. She thought almost longingly of her new sheets, pink flowered ones. The kind a single woman would have. That's what she'd thought when she bought them. When Jim moved out, she'd thrown out the pewter ones that had covered their marital bed.
Marital bed!
She sounded positively Victorian. It was Jim who liked serious linens, pewter and charcoal and
taupe. If he knew she'd stuffed the sheets in the trash instead of donating them to Travelers Aid or some other worthy cause, he'd be furious. He was the kind of person who actually went through their garbage and rescued stale bread—“What about the birds?”—and broken appliances—“What about the tech school?”
—
and scraps of cardboard—“What about recycling, Ava?” She used to find it endearing, this need of his to make the planet a better place. When the children were little they'd all four go off armed with buckets and clean up the little beach on the bay or the rundown park on the corner. And Ava had to admit that it
had
felt good, her small family doing these small things together. But then his good deeds got larger and more time-consuming, and Ava often felt left behind.

Ava lifted the plastic glass—it really was tiny, wasn't it?—and discovered it was already empty. One more, she thought as she refilled it again, and then home to my own bed. Just as quickly as that thought came to her, she refuted it. The last thing she needed was to be in bed, alone. No, goddamn it. She'd begged to be here. She was desperate for it. Even the smell of books that permeated the room felt familiar and comforting. And all these faces, looking open and ready for something. She needed most of all, the comfort of people who wanted nothing more than to sit together and talk about books.

Cate was asking everyone to find a seat, reminding them that there would be a chance to socialize after the meeting. Her eyes landed on Ava, and Cate looked so pleased that Ava was here that Ava had no choice but to smile back at her, shove a cracker with a slab of Havarti on it into her mouth, and take a seat.

“Welcome,” Penny said, and she patted Ava's arm with her liver-spotted hand.

To her surprise, Ava saw that there were two men in the group. One had on a flannel shirt and one of those porkpie hats every man under thirty wore these days. He also had long sideburns, something Ava hadn't seen since her college days. The other was older, Ava's age, wearing a lime green fleece vest and worn Topsiders without socks despite the winter weather. His hair was blond turning to gray, and he had an aging boyish face that had probably melted hearts once. He sat twirling the wedding band on his ring finger, looking down at it, then away.

Ava sighed and ate her Havarti, a cheese she'd always thought tasted like absolutely nothing.

“We'd like to welcome two new members to our group,” Cate was saying. “John and Ava.”

Heads seemed to swivel in unison to look at them.

“John?” Cate said. “Do you want to tell us a little about yourself?”

The man in the lime green fleece vest shot to his feet, like he'd been called on in school.

“Sure, sure,” he said, and he really did sound affable, like a nice guy. “I live in that building that used to be a school? Over on John Street?” He smiled ruefully. “Moved there just a couple of months ago, from East Greenwich. See . . . uh . . . well, my wife died last year and I'm trying to get out more, you know. Try new things. Meet new people.”

Everyone nodded sympathetically.

“So here I am,” he said with a laugh. “Nervous,” he added, and sat down.

“We are so happy to have you here,” Cate said in her super nice person voice. “Ava?”

“What?” Ava said, caught off guard.

“Can you tell us a little about yourself?” Cate prompted.

Ava stood because John had, sending her small paper plate onto the floor. She felt a slight whoosh of nervousness in her stomach.

“Well, so, I'm Cate's friend Ava and Cate is one of those friends, a true friend, a real friend. I mean, my life has fallen apart and Cate . . . Cate . . .” Ava felt herself struggling to hold back tears. Her humiliation at being left by her husband loomed enormous.

Someone cleared her throat. Ava took a breath, told herself to move along, pull it together.

“And Paula moved to Cincinnati—” she began.

“Cleveland,” someone corrected.

“Cleveland,” Ava said.
Come on
, she told herself,
you know how to do this
. “So here I am, in an effort to move on. Try new things. Meet new people.”

Wait. Wasn't that exactly what John had said?

“Like John,” she added.

John looked up, surprised.

Ava laughed, nervously.

“I don't mean I'm here to meet John, though I'm happy to meet him. I mean you,” she said, shooting a smile in his direction. John went back to staring at his lap.

Ava took another breath. She talked to her students all the time, standing in front of the classroom, confident and in charge. Why was she so nervous here?

“I love to read,” Ava continued. “Or at least, I used to. I mean, my mother and my aunt owned a bookstore. Orlando's? On Thayer Street?”

Not one flicker of recognition passed over anyone's face. Why should it? Orlando's had been gone for over forty years.

Ava took another breath and continued, “And my mother even
used to write. She had a couple stories in
Redbook
back in the early seventies. Domestic stories, nothing very literary, but still.”

She searched for where she was going with this. Why had she brought up her mother? Cate looked somewhat horrified, and the guy in the porkpie hat was smirking at her.

“I love to read,” Ava said again, weakly.

“Well, good!” Cate said. “Because this is a book group!”

Everyone, thankfully, turned their attention back to Cate. The guy in the hat smiled at Ava, but it seemed like a smile of pity, a
you poor thing
smile. She decided she hated him.

“Here we are,” Cate said, “at our December meeting, which is the one in which we choose our reading list for next year. John and Ava—”

She frowned. “Ava, you can sit down now,” she said in her schoolmarm voice.

Ava hadn't even realized she was still standing. She sat quickly, kicking over her plastic glass. Luckily, it was empty.

“Anyway,” Cate said, taking a calming breath like they did in yoga, another activity she forced Ava to do with her.
Yoga will help you feel better
, she'd promised, but it didn't. “John and Ava, I gave you both next year's theme . . .”