The Moment of Everything (18 page)

“I put their notes all over the Web,” I said. “You let me do that. You let me put
her
notes out there.”

“I thought you were asking me if it was okay, that night in the Laundromat. I thought you didn’t say anything because you wanted to keep up the pretense, another game. I was captivated.”

He made a small move of his hand toward mine, but stopped himself.

“That day you were tuning up my bike,” I said. “When I found the book at your place. That’s when you knew the truth.”

He nodded.

“She’s out there,” I said. “Thinking you deserted her. Thinking you gave the book to me to exploit for the Dragonfly. Oh God.”

“I tried to find her,” he said. “I put a letter back where…”

“Where you and she used to write to each other.”

“Where the book used to be. But she never came for it.”

“Your letter to her,” I said, not at all gently.

“You’re acting like I cheated on you. I didn’t.”

“No, you’re not cheating on me. You’re cheating on
her
with me. You
loved
her,” I said, shoving the word at him.

“I love you.”

“Because you thought I was her.”

He dropped his head in his hands. I watched his shoulders rise and fall.

“When I thought you were Catherine,” he said, “I was grateful. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was.”

I felt a breeze on my neck. The kids were splashing in the fountain again. A lizard sprinted under a shrub.

“I couldn’t have written those notes.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. I know that I never would have written back to you. I know that.”

“But you would now.”

He was right. I would now. I would now because I was a besotted creature with no free will. I would have written to him because my heart quickened whenever I heard him on my doorstep. I would have written because I brimmed with wonder every time I opened my eyes to see him. I would have written because of all he means to me. Only none of it was real. The person I was when I was with him existed only because he thought I was Catherine.

“It’s all a lie,” I said, forcing the air through my lungs to push out the words.

“Please don’t say that,” he said. “Please, Catherine.”

We both stopped breathing. He loosened his grip on me and I stood, stepping away, floating from his grasp like a balloon released from a child’s hand. We looked at each other, knowing what had been said could never be unsaid, and I felt the physics of things come undone.

“It was Jason’s idea,” I said. “Hugo didn’t approve at first. Too negative. But Jason played the whole yin-yang angle on him, telling him that if we make recommendations for books we love, we should also warn people about books we hate.”

I stood in the middle of a small group gathered around the teppanyaki chef making dinner in Avi’s outdoor kitchen that, with its marble countertops and wet bar, looked like a Weber with a God complex. The chef poured oil into a volcano made by stacking sliced rings of onion and flames shot up toward the sky. The wine-lubricated crowd applauded. I didn’t know how much Avi was paying for the catering, but she might have been better off picking up the tab after an evening at Benihana.

“So why have signs up in the store warning people against buying your product?” asked a silver-haired man named Larry who worked for Avi’s venture capital firm and had been by my side all night asking questions about the Dragonfly.

“Not warning them against the books. Just suggesting they might make a nice gift for someone you don’t really like, like your mother-in-law or a neighbor whose dog pees on your hydrangeas. Jason looks at it as a public service.”

The group around me laughed. I was here, with CEOs and venture capitalists. In my life at ArGoNet, I never would have met these people. I was high up the food chain, but I wasn’t an executive. Board members, investors? None of them knew who I was. It took the Dragonfly to get me here. Because of the Dragonfly, these people laughed at my tales of bookstore labor. I was unique. I was hip. I wasn’t one of them or trying to be, and it gave me the freedom to be comfortable around them. This is what I missed out on in high school.

When Avi invited me to this dinner, I turned her down. I didn’t want to go a party. I just wanted to pour a highball, crawl under the covers, and not think about Rajhit. I’d been working twelve hours a day at the Dragonfly with no breaks, no reading, hardly any eating. Just work. Work would put me back together. For the first couple of days, I worried that maybe Rajhit would come by. I was a quivering mass of “I don’t want to see you.” But he didn’t, and the sun came up and went down every day regardless of what had happened, as if being lied to was just a cute little hiccup on the road to a rom-com happy ending. Fuck the sun. Fuck rom-coms. I hurt in a way I’d spent my entire life trying not to hurt. Rajhit had burrowed himself into my marrow, injected himself into my veins. And I’d let him. So I was pissed at myself as much as I was pissed at him. And I told no one why. Not even Dizzy. It was my hurt, and mine alone. Well, mine and Catherine’s anyway.

Hugo and Jason could tell something was up and kept their distance, but Avi kept calling and telling me how all these people wanted to meet me and hear about the Dragonfly. I didn’t want to go. I told her ten times over I didn’t want to go. Until it hit me. Software start-ups look for capital among people like this all the time. Why not the Dragonfly? Maybe one of these vulture capitalists would want to buy themselves some community credibility. So here I was like a late-night infomercial host, talking up the Dragonfly like it sliced, diced, and made julienne fries and these people were insomniacs with high-limit credit cards.

“And what about Apollo Books and Music?” Larry asked. “What do you know about them?”

“No matter what branch you go to, their restroom is always located in the Children’s section.”

I basked again in another round of laughter. They were eating out of my hand. I was goddamn charming.

“Apollo Books and Music is owned by the McNeil family,” I said. “They have twenty-five stores in Northern California and Western Nevada. Books, CDs, and DVDs. And their stores are too big. Thirty thousand feet to sell books? Please. There’s a reason only about half of the store is books. They need all that nonbook crap to stay afloat, I guess. And DVDs and CDs in the era of iTunes? No way. I’m convinced all we have to do is wait them out.”

“We?” Larry asked.

“Well, the Dragonfly.”

“You think you can topple them?”

“I think we can do anything.”

I wasn’t going to say it here, in front of all these people I was hoping would invest in the Dragonfly, but I honestly didn’t have a problem with where people bought their books. Apollo, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, ebooks, the Dragonfly. Who cared? I didn’t think the problem was where people were buying their books, but that people weren’t buying enough books. We still needed storefronts, just to remind people we were there, with people inside who knew what they were talking about. There was no way the Dragonfly would ever put Apollo out of business, and I didn’t think it should. But that didn’t stop me from displaying the kind of entrepreneurial bravado I’d seen a thousand executives do a thousand times. I half-expected the party guests to pull out corporate-speak bingo cards and start marking off squares.

As the food was served, I looked over the rim of my wineglass at Dizzy, whom Avi had insisted I bring, talking to two men in polo shirts. He was drawing something on a napkin and moving his hands around as he talked. I didn’t have to be within earshot to know that he was talking about code. His face was bright and joyous and his smile a little crooked like it got when he was high on algorithms. And he laughed that death-defying laugh of his. My heart felt a little lighter watching my friend. Avi had promised me when she invited us to this evening that he would have people to talk to. I was grateful that it was true.

I scooped another glass of wine from a passing tray and went to sit in one of the teak wood loungers lining the infinity pool. Beneath the murmur of the pool’s waterfall, I could hear a soft soundtrack of fusion jazz and the conversation of people who didn’t have to worry about how to pay the electric bill. It was one of the few nights around the San Francisco Bay when you could sit outside without a jacket. It wouldn’t have surprised me if Avi had special-ordered the tropical temperature along with the sushi appetizers. I liked this. I wanted more of this.

I heard the click of high heels and opened my eyes to see Avi slipping out of her slingbacks and draping herself in the chair next to me. She held her glass near the rim, as if daring it to slip to the ground. It wouldn’t matter if it did. There were dozens more waiting on the caterer’s trays. At Avi’s, there was always more of everything.

“Enjoying yourself?” she asked.

“Miraval is for suckers.”

She reached over the side of her chair and held a hand out to me, taking mine in a way that was almost sisterly.

“I’m so glad you agreed to come,” she said.

“Thank you. And I don’t just mean for tonight,” I said.

“I hope I’ve been a friend.”

“The best,” I said. “The kind with good advice and a house I consider a vacation destination.”

She laughed and sat up on the edge of her chair, leaning forward over her clasped hands.

“I was waiting until later to share something with you, but I can’t wait. Come with me.”

We picked up our shoes and carried them in one hand and our wineglasses in the other, giggling like two schoolgirls sneaking into the principal’s office to raid the confiscated pot supply. Inside the house, I followed her down the hall into a room that was obviously her home office. Like everything else in Avi’s home, the room felt feminine, but powerful. It was the room of a woman who knew exactly who she was and her place in the world. A chenille-covered Fortress of Fuck You.
Someday
, I told myself.
Someday
.

She waved me toward the sofa on the opposite side of the room from her desk, where she picked up a leather portfolio. She wrapped her arms around it, sat on the edge of her desk, and grinned at me.

“I’ve always thought,” she said, “that the moment right before you get what you want is often better than when you actually get it. I want you to live in this moment right now. What I’m about to give you is not a gift. It’s something you’ve earned. But this moment is my gift to you. I want you to feel it, so you can remember it always.”

The air got still around me. Looking back, I wonder sometimes why my mind didn’t start spinning around to all the possibilities of what was about to happen. But there was always something about Avi, something seductive and exciting, something that just made me want the next moment to happen, no matter the cost.

She held out the portfolio to me. I held it with all the anticipation her words had conjured. I opened it. Tucked inside the right pocket was a letter addressed to me. It was an offer letter. The salary figure, bolded in the first paragraph, far surpassed what I had ever hoped to make at ArGoNet. The logo at the top of the letterhead was revamped but still recognizable. It was Apollo Books.

Avi knelt in front me, sitting back on her heels, smiling up at my confusion.

“We bought them,” she said. “Me, Larry, a few other partners. We put in our own money to form a buyers’ group and got some additional capital from one of the funds in the firm. You met Jim earlier tonight. He manages the fund.”

“You bought Apollo.”

“Yes. And we want you to help us run it. Make it so much more than what it is today. It’s a chain, sure, but only because they have the number of stores they have. Really, it’s just a family business and they’re still running it that way, and losing money by the fistfuls. But we’re going to take it to a level where we can compete with the larger chains. And you’re going to help us.”

In my stomach, a beehive of questions buzzed. I couldn’t grab hold of one fast enough to get it out before another one flew by.

“I knew that first day we met you were special,” Avi said. “Nothing makes me happier than finding talent in unusual places. In just a few months, you turned that little store into a valuable property. Well, as valuable as a used bookstore can be, I suppose. But the point is, we believe in you. And we want Apollo to be so much more than a book and music store. We want to get into new media. We want to take it to a new age, meditation rooms, gathering places where people can come and discuss ideas, debate, philosophize. The culture of book lovers you’ve created at the Dragonfly can grow over and over again. Publishers will be begging you to put their books up front. And they’ll pay handsomely for it. You can give exposure to the authors you think people should know about. You’ll affect the thinking and reasoning of all our customers. You’ll be one of the most influential women on the West Coast.”

Her words were so beautiful, unlike anything I could have imagined. I was going to make a really good living selling books and in clean, new bookstores that I could take my mother to. I wasn’t going to have to live on macaroni and cheese anymore. I’d never taste instant ramen again. I was going to have a car and health insurance and books whenever I wanted them. New books.

“What about the Dragonfly?” I asked.

“Put it behind you. Better yet, bring what you love about it with you. It’s brilliant, don’t you see? Smaller community stores. Just like you said. Hugo, Jason. They can work in any store they like. They’re fantastic. Hire a hundred more like them. You’ve hit on the perfect formula. Now it’s time to replicate it a hundred times over.”

An image popped into my mind of Jason and Hugo in matching polo shirts.

“They’re people. I can’t just copy and paste them.”

Avi stood and walked to her desk. She paused for a moment and then turned back to me.

“Maggie, I have some news for you,” she said, like she was telling a toddler the price for a tooth under the pillow just dropped. “To finance the deal, we had to sell off some real estate holdings. It was highway robbery what the buyer got for the properties, but one must do what one must do in these times.”

“What does this have to do with…” And then I knew. The envelope that Hugo wouldn’t let me see. The one from our property manager.

“You own the building,” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “Well, our group did. It was part of the real estate assets Larry brought to the venture. I know you love that little shop, Maggie. I love it, too. It’s darling. And people will transfer their affections to the new Apollo soon enough, I’m sure of it. It’s a small price to pay for getting everything you want, isn’t it? Maggie?”

I was looking at her, I knew I was, possibly even nodding. But this had all hollowed me out, and I just wanted to roll over on my side, cover myself with Hugo’s moose blanket, and go to sleep. No more Dragonfly. It was gone.

Avi picked up a paperweight—some kind of award with lettering carved in frosted glass—and turned it over in her hands, looking at it and not me.

“Maggie, I hope you’re not the kind of person who’s unable to appreciate a brilliant opportunity when it is presented to her.”

For quite possibly the first time in my life, my mouth was stuck behind my brain. Too many thoughts rammed into one another. I imagined the moment after I accepted and the feeling of being a sellout. I imagined the moment of turning it down and feeling like a fool. So I said nothing and floated in the in-between. In another world where the Dragonfly would live on, I could see myself in this job, as if the Dragonfly were a counterweight to a life I’d live without it. If the Dragonfly existed, then I could exist somewhere outside the Dragonfly. But if it was gone, then what?

She pushed open a smile and pulled me out of my seat. Then she guided me toward the picture window. Outside I saw Dizzy, talking to a larger group, all captivated by what had become a series of napkin drawings.

“He’s coming, too,” she said. “We’ve bought ArGoNet as well, and we’re turning it into our new social media division. Silver Needle Holdings needs him. He can redesign the software from the ground up. Build his team however he wants. He’s been buried long enough in mediocre business models. The two of you together. Nothing can stop you.”

She let go of me and retrieved the portfolio from the sofa.

“And you missed the best part.” She slid the brochure from the sleeve inside and handed it to me. It was an ad.