The Bookstore (26 page)

Blue nods sadly, and I open the cash register and count out his money.

Mitchell is leaning against the bookshelves, still in the attitude of a disinterested observer.

“Why do you bother with the Vegas thing?” asks Mitchell. “We all know you’re not going.”

I look up at Mitchell fast. I can’t believe what he just said. “Mitchell, don’t—”

“Esme, it’s okay. You don’t understand this, but this is my field.” He turns back to Blue. “Going to Vegas is your shtick—we get it. But honestly, you would do just as well without it.”

Mitchell stops slouching against the bookshelves and comes forward to Blue. He takes his wallet out of his pocket and selects a ten-dollar bill. He hands it to Blue.

“I’ll take the two Robert B. Parkers,” he says, and picks them up.

Blue takes the bill wordlessly, and then slides the three dollars and change I have given him off the counter. As he puts it in his pocket, Mitchell says again, “You don’t need the shtick; you have an absolutely valid economic operation without it.”

Blue is turning and pushing the door open, just as Luke is coming back in.

“He didn’t mean it—” I call out, but he is pushing past Luke and then is gone, skittering down Broadway, weaving rapidly through the people, his head always down.

I turn to Mitchell.

“How could you? How could you hurt him like that?”

“Esme,” says George, “I thought you knew better than to put Michael Connelly outside for a dollar.”

“And, Esme,” says Mitchell, “where is your ring?”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I
t is Thursday, three forty-five. I am at The Owl prior to going on my first book call with George. The shop is full to bursting with customers. It is as if they’ve all been released in here for some sort of browsing competition; they are up the ladders, balancing on the little stools, crouching down looking at the piles on the floor. I catch sight of George; he is opening up the best cupboard for someone. It is usually kept padlocked; George and Luke are the only ones with keys. George sees me, and raises his eyebrows to show his astonishment at all this unlooked-for bounty.

He takes two or three books out of the cupboard, places them on the desk, and then takes the top one up carefully. He treats good books with as much reverence when he is alone as when he is with a customer. His solicitude for the books is genuine; I think it imbues the purchasing process with some charm. He looks down at Luke from the mezzanine.

“Luke—can you get David?”

Luke yells for David at the top of his lungs, and David appears from the back, with a pretty girl in tow who isn’t Lena.

“You getting a lot done back there?” asks Luke.

“Enough,” replies David, with an irresistible grin.

George comes down the stairs. “I have to stay here. Luke, can you go with Esme to this book call on West End? David can take over from you at the front.”

Luke glances around. “It’s fine, George. I can handle it when it’s like this. You go on the call.”

“No, I would feel happier staying here at the moment.” He makes big eyes at us to indicate that the customer upstairs might be a serious one.

“But—can Luke do this? Does he know anything about it?” I ask.

“Thank you,” says Luke.

“Luke is great at it,” says David. “You don’t know anything about him.”

George fishes in his pocket for the name and address, and goes back up the stairs. Luke and I go outside together. We wait at Broadway for the light, without speaking, and then, when we get to the other side, I say, “So—that was Mitchell. The other day.”

“Yeah,” says Luke. “That was Mitchell.”

We walk down 81st Street and turn the corner without speaking.

We get to the apartment building. The lobby is black and white tiles; the rows of mailboxes are pale gold. In the time we stand there waiting for the lift, three elderly people converge at the boxes to check their post. They greet each absently and yet formally, the one because they have obviously done this every day for years, and the other because the acquaintances began in a different age and have never developed. Mrs. Eliot, Mr. Bedel, Mrs. Begoni.

“I hope this doesn’t take long,” says Luke, when we’re in the lift.

“Didn’t you like him?” I ask.

“Who? Mitchell? I saw him for two seconds. I don’t have an opinion.”

“Right. He was upset because I wasn’t wearing my engagement ring. We’ve just got engaged. But I didn’t think I ought to
flash a diamond around at the homeless people. I thought it would be insensitive.”

“That was very sensitive of you,” Luke says.

“I didn’t tell anyone at The Owl because I wasn’t sure how—”

Luke holds up his hands. “Esme, your private life is your business.”

“I should have told you. When we went to look at the Sargent. I didn’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. Because I thought it would change things.”

Luke almost smiles. He says, slowly, “Are you sure? You’re what, like, twenty-three years old? And you’re marrying this guy? This one? Where everything is about status, and class, and . . .” He stops.

“Mitchell doesn’t care about things like that,” I say, as Luke raises his eyes to the heavens. “
And
I love him.”

He shrugs. “Yeah, but you love chocolate, you love . . . poached salmon—those things—they’re gratifying, but they’re not necessarily
good
for you. How do you know it’s not just infatuation?”

“I think there is no difference between love and infatuation. If it works out, we call it love; if it doesn’t, we shrug our shoulders and say it was infatuation. It’s a hindsight word.”

He gives me a brief, sad smile. “Maybe. Like I said, not my business.”

In the corridor on the sixteenth floor, the walls are papered, and thick with many layers of coffee-colored paint. All the doors are dark brown. A dead Christmas garland hangs forlornly upon one. We get to a door, and Luke consults a scrap of paper.

“Sixteen B. Mrs. Kasperek. This is it. You’re not at work this weekend, is that right? George says you’re off to the Hamptons.”

“Yes . . .” I look at him. He is looking straight ahead, waiting for the door to open. We hear the bolts being drawn.

“Be nice,” he says, still without looking. “Be English.”

A slight and energetic old lady opens the door. She looks to me
to be pretty old, around eighty. Wisps of white hair wreathe her head like clouds.

“Mr. Goodman?” she asks.

“No, ma’am. Mr. Goodman couldn’t come at the last minute—didn’t he let you know? He sent us—”

“Oh, that’s right, that’s right. He did just call. Come on in.”

Luke strides forwards and shakes her hand. “I’m Luke, and this is Esme Garland.”

“You’re dead on time,” says Mrs. Kasperek, and then she turns to me. Luke explains that I am learning the trade, on my first ever book call.

“I’m Esme,” I say. She shakes my hand, and then holds it still for a second.

“And expecting a child,” she says. Her blue eyes gaze into mine; they are alight with pleasure for me. “Congratulations, my dear.”

“You can already tell?” I ask. I don’t think you can, yet. I am just a little rounder. And she hasn’t even looked.

“Why yes, when I shook your hand,” she says, and does not explain further. She turns to lead the way to the books. Luke and I follow.

The apartment is a spacious one-bedroom, with high windows looking out over West End. On both sides of the sitting room, the bookshelves reach the ceiling. From a quick look, I can see we’re going to be taking a lot. There are lots of hardcovers from Routledge, a couple of shelves of Faber poetry; the bottom shelves look full of artists’ monographs. There are also higgledy-piggledy piles of paperbacks everywhere. On the seat of a worn and disreputable armchair is a little orange soft-cover called
Bell-Ringing: The English Art of Change-Ringing
. Next to the chair is a table with a reading lamp and a pair of glasses. Luke regards it all.

“You are a reader, ma’am,” he says.

“Yes I am. Always have been.”

Luke moves forward to get a better look. Mrs. Kasperek says, “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“No,” says Luke. It bothers me that he doesn’t add a “thank you.”

“But for you—Esme, is it? You would like some tea. Wouldn’t you?”

I am particular about tea, and I have apprehensions that she is going to ferret out some Lipton’s tea dust that is past its sell-by date, but I say yes because Luke said no.

Mrs. Kasperek hurries past me to her kitchen.

“Come and talk to me. I like to meet new people. Unless you have to help your friend?”

I look back at Luke. He is reaching high up for a slim volume and says, “Her boss, as a matter of fact. No, no, she can take it easy. We don’t like to overwork the pregnant staff.”

“My boss?” I say.

“Sure,” he says. He nods towards the kitchen and says, in a quieter tone, “Go keep her company.”

Mrs. K is opening a cupboard. There is an array of glass jars with handwritten labels.

“They’re all small, I don’t buy big,” she says. “I don’t want them to get stale.”

“Where do you get them all from?” I say. “I thought you would give me Lipton’s.”

She pulls a face that would not make the Lipton’s people happy.

“From McNulty’s. I take the local to Christopher Street. I like those guys. You know McNulty’s? They’ve got time. A lot of places don’t have time anymore. I like their Russian blend. We could have that. And I like the Nilgiri one, too. From the Nilgiri hills, in South India. It’s not so expensive, but it’s a nice tea. Do you want to try that?”

I say yes, and I watch as she goes about the painstaking business of good tea, fresh water drawn to start with. All the blue veins are visible beneath the taut skin on her hand as she fills the kettle.

I like the fact that Americans all have kettles on the hobs of their ovens; nobody has an electric kettle. It seems connected to the frontier way of life; whether you’re in a New York apartment
building or you’re keeping the coyotes away on the prairie—you need boiling water? Then you need a flame.

She warms the teapot and measures out some teaspoons of tea. When it is brewing, she turns her attention from the pot to me, and says, “It’s hard for me, this day. Selling my books.”

“Why are you?” I ask.

“I’m selling up. My son fixed me up in assisted living. It’s a pretty nice place. I will be better off there. But there’s no room for my books.”

“You do have a lot,” I say.

“I know. But I never really got into the library thing. I always liked that I could put my hand on a book when I wanted it. And to know I owned them; that was important too. It’s
important
to have a copy of Shakespeare, it’s important to . . . to have Churchill, on the war.” She considers me. “Both Englishmen. You’ve got a pretty good country there.”

I don’t think I can quite take credit for Shakespeare and Churchill, but say, inanely, that I like England. We taste the tea. It’s great.

“I’m definitely going to pay a visit to McNulty’s,” I say. “Mrs. Kasperek—how did you know I was pregnant? Did George—Mr. Goodman tell you over the phone?”

“No, no. I always have been able to tell. Sometimes I can sense the sex too, but I never tell. I think a baby should get to surprise you when it arrives.”

“Could you sense the sex with me, with mine?”

She nods, her lips firmly closed.

I put my hand on my belly. I was looking forward to finding out the sex, at the five-month scan, but the idea that I am spoiling the surprise is a powerful one. I might let my baby surprise me.

We take our tea back into the sitting room and watch Luke, who is deforesting the shelves steadily.

Mrs. Kasperek stands in the middle of the room and watches in silence. Luke is not leaving many, just a few old travel guides, battered cookbooks, and some hardcover fiction that nobody reads
now. The old lady’s arms are by her sides. Sometimes she reads the title of the topmost book of a pile Luke is holding, before it is slipped into a bag.

“The Walter Cronkite is signed,” Mrs. Kasperek says, as it joins the rest.

“Dedicated,” says Luke. “To Winifred K from Walter C. Is that to you, Mrs. Kasperek?”