“Your brother and sisters.”
“I have a brother and sisters?”
He coughed. “I’m afraid your father was married three times.”
“Just not to my mother.”
“Right.” He nodded. “But to other women. You actually have three sisters and a brother, two nephews and two nieces, and two great-nieces and a great-nephew. Plus two stepmothers still living, though you don’t need those, I imagine.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve asked one of your nephews, Peter Reynolds, to get in touch and explain the whole family to you, because it’s complicated and he’s the only one everyone is always talking to.”
Nina stared at him. “I’m sorry, but can I pretend you never told me? I don’t really want any more people in my life. I’ve done fine without them for nearly thirty years.” She felt her breathing start to get shallow and willed herself to slow it down so she wouldn’t hyperventilate and topple to the ground.
The lawyer had clearly not considered this option and looked puzzled. “Mr. Reynolds was an extremely wealthy man, and the fact that you’re a beneficiary means he presumably left you something of value.”
Nina tried to focus. “Well, not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but unless it’s a butt load of money, I really don’t care. I’m not sure I care even if it is a butt load of money.”
“Of course you do,” said the lawyer. “Everyone cares about money.” Again with the watch. “I have to go. Peter will contact you shortly. None of them were very thrilled to hear about you, I’m afraid. Except Peter.”
“He’s supportive of illegitimate children?”
Sarkassian turned to leave. “He’s an anthropologist.”
Four
In which Nina observes other people
and talks to her mother.
Well, obviously after that kind of news, Nina walked out of the store and wandered the streets sightless with shock, rending the air with lamentation. Actually, she went back to work, because they had Preschooler Reading Hour that afternoon and she was nominally in charge. Life will throw you major curveballs, but it’s rare you can do much more than duck.
Liz was not a lover of children, describing them as sticky little book-chuckers, so the store’s schedule of kid activities was Nina’s to run. She took it seriously, and had developed quite a program:
Baby and Parent Reading Time: In this activity, which happened three mornings a week, newborns and lap babies lay like slugs while the parents listened to an impoverished young actor read to them. To be fair, most of these parents were basically asleep with their eyes open, and the babies often rolled off their laps onto the Reading Is Cool rug. The actor was usually hoping at least one of the parents was an agent or something, and ever since one reader had been plucked from obscurity to star in a pilot that actually went somewhere, there had been a waiting list to read. Nina did her best to keep things fair, but she had been known to succumb to bribery (See’s Candies were her weakness, in case you’re wondering).
Preschooler Reading Hour: Three-to-five-year-olds and nannies, throwing books around (the kids, not the nannies), with the nannies doing the reading, and extremely popular. Firstly because the nannies could relax and chat a bit, and secondly because parents could say, oh, the nanny takes Aubergine and Salamander to reading hour every day, and feel better about preferring to be at work with people who knew how to use a fork. Daily, at three thirty.
Elementary Book Club: This was Nina’s pet project. Larchmont was a neighborhood filled with kids, and the girls in particular were very Big on Books. The boys were, too; they just preferred not to talk about them, whereas the girls were all about the chatter. These little girls were strong and confident, mostly, because of when and where they were growing up, and because puberty hadn’t smacked them across the head yet. They unapologetically and voraciously read books about fairies and witches and female heroines who didn’t need rescuing, and would open a book to check it out and then still be standing there reading an hour later when their parents reappeared. It was wonderful to watch a kid get tugged ineluctably into a different world.
Nina had developed a special fondness for these kids, because she knew the world would soon begin telling them other things were more important than the contents of their heads. So she started the elementary book club, and once a month after the store had closed at seven, she would sit there with a group of eight-to-twelve-year-old girls and talk about books for an hour. It was the club she wished she’d had when she was their age, and if she occasionally sat there making friendship bracelets and talking about A Mango-Shaped Space with even more enthusiasm than the ten-year-olds, what’s your point?
Young Adult Book Club: This one was all Liz. She loved a darkling teen.
There had been some discussion of starting a regular, adult book club, but Nina didn’t have time, because she already belonged to a weekly adult book club—of which more later—and that commitment, along with the elementary book club, her exercise regime (if you can call sporadic exercise classes and fervent promises to do better a regime), and of course the trivia team, meant she had no free time. Liz refused to do it, and the part-time girl who worked there, Polly, hated reading. Why does she work in a bookstore, you ask? It’s a long story.
Anyway.
Despite not having a child herself, Nina enjoyed watching other people handle the unsuspected responsibilities of parenthood. The baby wasn’t the biggest problem at all, it turned out; it was the other parents. There was a definite learning curve over the first few years, and Nina had a ringside seat, because so many of Larchmont’s parents were parishioners at the Church of the Dust-Jacketed Hardback and brought their kids in all the time. She’d watched dozens of little kids graduate from Goodnight Moon to Bedtime for Frances to Junie B. Jones to whatever YA series was trending, and with them went their parents, learning to navigate the intricate social networks of neighborhood and school.
Take when two moms met in the store at reading time. Standard school-mom rules of engagement applied: If your children were friends and you met while both of you were standing, you hugged, of course. If one of you was sitting on the floor already and your kids were good friends, with an actual, out-of-school playdate under their tiny rainbow belts, then the one sitting would start to stand but the other would wave her back down and bend from the waist to half hug. If your kids were really good friends, with multiple playdates and maybe a sleepover in their shared past, then the one sitting would scooch over to make room for the other, and they would hug once both were down. Nina studied these things, because they didn’t come naturally to her. And working in a store where people tended to aimlessly wander around looking at books gave her ample opportunity for observation.
Nina’s special favorite was watching people handle introductions. It played out like this: A woman would be browsing in the store, trying to decide whether she had the balls to get something vaguely pornographic or if she’d have to stick with something worthy (note: this is where that online bookseller really triumphs, undercover purchasing), and notices someone she knows has come in. In a split second she has to decide whether or not to acknowledge their existence, the decision depending on how well she knows them, how well they know her, and whether or not she can get away with ignoring them (i.e., they definitely haven’t seen her yet, or she’s disguised as a pirate).