The Bookish Life of Nina Hill(19)

Nina told Phil the cat all about it, and he was horrified. “Your dad isn’t Richard Chamberlain from The Thorn Birds?”

She stroked his head and shook her own.

“Or Magnum, P.I.?”

Nina looked over at her wall. Phil wasn’t really saying any of this, of course, because he’s a cat and cats don’t talk, but his voice in her head was listing her dream dads. She had head shots of all of them on her wall; a tribute both to their stellar work on television, and to the hopeful and imaginative little girl she’d once been. The two he’d mentioned were there, but also Commander Riker, whose real name she could never—no, wait, Jonathan Frakes; Bruce Willis (Moonlighting, not Die Hard); Alan Alda in M.A.S.H.; and her personal favorite, Mark Harmon from St. Elsewhere, though his character ended up dying of AIDS, which was a bit of a blow at the time. For her, not him.

Throughout Nina’s childhood, TV had been her second best friend, after books, and she had watched what her nanny Louise had watched, which meant mostly ’70s and ’80s shows, not counting Star Trek: TNG because Louise was a die-hard Trekkie. She even liked Deep Space Nine.

When Nina had been around ten, she’d gotten it into her little head that maybe one of these characters was her dad, and it became a game, sort of. She liked calling it a game, anyway, because if she actually thought about how much effort went into researching whether or not the potential dads in question were in Los Angeles when she was conceived, that would seem weird. Once she’d clarified that they were, she would cut out their picture and stick it in a box she had for the purpose. The Dad Box had become a bit of A Thing for a while, because Nina had been an anxious kid, and had frequently needed to sit on the floor and dream about possibilities outside of her daily experience.

Not that her daily experience was dreadful; it wasn’t like she was ice fishing in the Bering Strait, or using her tiny child fingers to pick solder out of abandoned electrical products, but sometimes walking down the halls of elementary school had been terrifying. She had panicked a lot, and could still remember the time Louise called her mom and talked to her in a quiet voice about it. Then she’d hung up, turned to Nina, and said, your mom says breathe in a paper bag and tough it out. Then Louise had sat and rocked Nina on her lap, and she’d cried—little Nina, not Louise—and a few days later Louise had gone out and bought a laminating machine and laminated the dads. Nina would take one to school with her every day, rotating through the roster so none of them would get upset, but anyway, that’s not the point. The point is none of these witty, urbane, caring men were her dad. Her dad was just some guy who sounded like a total phallus.

Phil pointed out that the sins of the fathers are not the sins of the child, and Nina replied that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, then they both fell asleep on the sofa. It had been a difficult day.





Seven




In which Nina meets a brother.

As was often the case, Liz got hung up on the details.

“You’re the love child that’s going to derail the whole plot of their lives?”

Nina nodded. “I’m afraid so. I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Of course not, but how often does one get a chance to be Jon Snow?”

“Does that mean I know nothing?”

“I think that was always the case; your illegitimacy has no bearing.” She smiled. “But maybe you’ll inherit a million bucks and we’ll be able to pay off Mephistopheles.” She pointed her finger at Nina. “You could be like Little Lord Fauntleroy. Characters in books are always inheriting a fortune.”

“It doesn’t usually end well. Think of Charlie Kane in Citizen Kane. Or Isabel Archer in The Portrait of a Lady.”

Liz shrugged. “You’re forgetting the greatest family of inheritors ever, the Beverly Hillbillies. Elly May Clampett’s life was filled with joy. Joy and plenty of gingham.” She looked Nina up and down. “You could totally pull it off.”

Nina asked, “Do we actually owe Mr. Meffo a million bucks?” She hoped not; she loved her job at the store. Loved everything about the store, in fact.

Liz shook her head. “No, it just feels like it.”

It was still pretty early. The store was open, but the only customer they had was a guy who lived nearby and had some kind of developmental disability. His name was Jim, and he had the sweetest smile and often hung out in the natural history section for hours looking at pictures of animals. Everyone knew him on the boulevard, and watched out for him and said hi, and as far as Nina knew, he thought he was a prince occasionally visiting his fiefdom to check on the peasants.

The door to the store opened and Polly came in. Liz turned and frowned at her.

“Good afternoon, Polly.”

Polly grinned. “Liz, it’s nine thirty. There’s no one in the store except you two and Jim, and Jim’s here often enough that if there had been a rush—which there never, ever is—he could have filled in for me.”

Liz clicked her tongue but let Polly come over and hug her extravagantly, then went away hiding a smile. Polly was the other spinster of this parish who worked at Knight’s, although spinster wasn’t as accurate a description of her as it was of Nina. Polly was an actress. She worked at Knight’s as a way to actually support her passion for movies, both being in them and watching them.