The Bookish Life of Nina Hill(11)

Unfortunately, the rent had gone up precipitously, and business hadn’t followed suit, so Liz had taken to hiding whenever he came around. She paid the rent, more or less; she just took generous advantage of space and time. She also called the poor man Mephistopheles, which wasn’t nice.

“Sorry, Mr. Meffo, she just left.” Nina hoped the book fall had been sufficient warning. Once Liz had been trapped with a customer when Mephistopheles walked in and had had to pay the rent on time.

Mr. Meffo sighed. He wasn’t a bad man; he was simply a good businessman. “Can you tell her to call me, please? The rent is overdue.”

Nina nodded and smiled, glad she’d worn a nice, professional outfit. Liz had told her they needed to look successful, so it wouldn’t cross Meffo’s mind to cancel their lease. “I’m sure she knows, Mr. Meffo. We’ve been very busy with lots of customers lately.”

He looked around at the empty store. “Really?”

“Oh yes, you just missed a rush.”

“Did I?” He looked at Nina, doubtfully. “Well, tell Liz I’ve had several inquiries about the store, and one or two buyers interested, which is appealing.” He sighed. “Being a landlord isn’t as much fun as you’d think.”

Nina said nothing, having never thought being a landlord would be fun.

He left, and Nina waited ten or twenty minutes until Liz peered around the office door.

“Is he gone?”

Nina nodded. “You must pay the rent,” she said.

“I can’t pay the rent,” replied Liz.

“You MUST pay the rent,” Nina insisted.

“I can’t pay the rent,” said Liz, again.

Nina assumed a Dudley Do-Right voice. “I’LL pay the rent!” and Liz sighed, “My hero!” and then they went about their day.

Later that day, Nina finally reached her mom. She had to get the timing right in order to catch her mother when she wasn’t ignoring her phone, which was most of the time. Candice Hill had grown up in the darkest Australian wilds of the 1980s, where, reportedly, the women glowed and the men plundered, but no one had a cell phone. These days, she was remarkably cavalier about turning hers on. “I don’t want to make myself too easy to find, darling,” she would say, as if being thousands of miles away wasn’t enough.

Nina had decided 7 A.M. in China was a reasonably good bet, so she stepped into the bookstore office a little before four in the afternoon, before the high school kids came in to moon around the graphic novels and peep at one another over the shelves. The phone rang and rang, and Nina was getting ready to leave a sarcastic voice mail when her mother picked up.

Of course, modern telecommunications made it sound like she was across the street. “Good morning, lovely!” Candice yelled, as she often did. “Everything OK?”

“Well, mostly,” replied Nina.

“What can I do you for, my love? I have to be at work in an hour. Spit it out.” She issued an order in Mandarin, multitasking as usual.

“William Reynolds is dead.”

There was a pause, then the sound of her mother exhaling. She gave it a shot, though. “Sorry, who’s that then?”

“My father, William Reynolds.”

Candice could tell Nina was mad, but she was still blasé, because she’d been born that way. “Oh, that William Reynolds. Yeah . . . I was hoping you’d never find out about him.”

This was one of the things Nina actually loved about her mother. She would lie or make up crap and then, if you caught her at it, simply admit defeat and move on. She didn’t seem to experience shame or regret in any form.

However lovable her mother was, though, Nina was being firm with her. “Well, I did, so how about you fill me in? Why on earth didn’t you tell me I had a father? You knew I wondered. Why did you think it was a good idea to keep us apart? I have a brother and sisters!”

“You do? That’s nice.”

Nina’s voice went up an octave. “Mom, I have more than half a dozen relatives living in the same city as I am! Just think of all the playdates and birthday parties I missed out on.”

Her mother laughed. “You didn’t need anyone to play with; you were fine. Other people are overrated.”

“I generally agree, Mom, but I would have liked the option.” Nina noticed her other hand was clenched tightly, and reached for a pencil. She twirled it back and forth through her fingers, a nervous habit she’d refined into a party trick. Assuming she was at the kind of party where pencil twiddling would be impressive.

Her mother paused, then said defensively, “He wouldn’t have been a good dad, Nina. He was a player, he was full of himself, he had a wife.”

“A wife is not a character trait, Mom. And what about you, sleeping with a married man? What the hell? What about hos before bros, dude?”

“I beg your pardon? Nina Lee Hill, did you just call me a ho?”

Nina laughed, suddenly, and tossed her pencil away. Her mother always made things seem lighter. It was partly her Australian accent and general “let’s get on with it and stop making a fuss” approach to everything, and partly her personality. Candice Hill had no patience for drama, or overblown feelings, really, of any kind. Which made her superficial and frustrating if, like Nina, you wanted to have a conversation about emotional topics like discovering your entire life had been a lie, but which also made things clunk back into perspective.