The Bookish Life of Nina Hill(72)

“What do you like when you’re happy?”

“I like the Jeeves and Wooster books, by P. G. Wodehouse. Jeeves is a valet, and he works for this guy who’s an idiot. They’re funny.”

“What about when you’re sad?”

“It depends if I want to stay sad or cheer myself up.”

“Cheer up.”

“Mysteries. Everything always works out.”

“My dad liked mysteries, too,” Millie said.

Nina sat down next to Millie and pulled over a pillow for her elbows. “Really?”

Millie shrugged. “Yeah. But he liked all kinds of books.” She paused, then got to her feet. “Come on, I’ll show you his library.”

Millie’s room was one half of the upper story of the house; the other, right next door, was her father’s library. Or office. Or something. Again with the shelves, and a comfy chair overlooking the ocean that was almost more impressive than Nina’s.

Unlike Nina’s, these shelves were not organized.

“I was always asking if I could at least put them in alphabetical order,” said Millie, almost apologetically, as Nina made her way along the books. “But he said he liked to drift along like a cloud and pick something that leaped out at him.”

“Hopefully not literally.”

Millie giggled. “Yeah, and he didn’t really look like a cloud, but that was what he always said.”

It was an extraordinary mix. Austen was there, as was Trollope, and Dickens, and Stephen King, and S. J. Perelman. Dorothy Parker squeezed up next to Joan Didion, and Chinua Achebe made room for John Grisham. Lots of mysteries, and so-called popular fiction, and nonfiction on topics ranging from mountaineering to working at Denny’s. Many she had read; others she hadn’t. She thought of her own shelves and what the titles might tell someone about her, realizing that she now knew more about her late father than she might ever have known, even if she’d met him.

Millie was watching her. “He loved books, like we do.”

Nina nodded.

“You would have liked him.”

Nina ran her fingers along the spines of her father’s books, pausing at a well-worn copy of The Human Comedy, by Saroyan.

She smiled. “Well, I like his books, which is essentially the same thing.”

Millie hugged her, suddenly, and Nina hugged her back.

“I miss my dad all the time,” said the little girl, her voice muffled in Nina’s sweater. “But I’m glad I got to find you.”

“Me too,” said Nina. “Very glad.”

Later, after lunch, Millie wandered off to work on some project involving a tree, a plastic rabbit, and a dollhouse chandelier, and Nina found herself alone with Eliza. She swallowed and asked the question she’d been dying to ask.

“Did you know about me? Before, I mean?” She pushed her hair behind her ears, nervously.

Eliza looked surprised and a little sad. “No, I didn’t. If I had, we would have met years ago.” She drank some water and moved the glass around on the tabletop, making lines of half circles like the tracks of a snake across sand. “It was a shock, because I thought William told me everything.”

Nina looked at her. “Everyone describes him so differently.” She paused, unsure. “He was one guy, but there’s no consensus about what he was like. For Peter’s mom, he was a blowhard who drank too much; for Millie, he was the kindest man in the world who made endless time for her.”

Eliza shrugged. “People change. There’s forty years between the William that Peter’s mom knew and the William that Millie knew. Parents get stuck in the amber of childhood, right? Whenever my parents visit, I feel myself becoming a cranky fourteen-year-old. I saw William through the lens of being his wife; I look at Millie only as her mother . . . You see what I mean?”

“Sure. So I’ll never see my dad properly, only through the filter of other people’s opinions.”

“Or maybe it’ll average out and you’ll be the only one who sees the real him.”

Nina laughed. “Maybe there is no real thing for anyone. Maybe all of us change depending on where we are and who we’re with.”

“And that’s why you like to be alone.” Eliza looked at her and smiled.

“How do you mean?”

“Because you prefer who you are when you’re alone.”

Nina shrugged. “It takes a lot of energy to be with other people. It’s easier to be myself when there’s no one else there.”

“Some people take energy; some people give energy . . . Occasionally, you get lucky and find someone whose energy balances your own and brings you into neutral.” She paused. “My God, I’ve been in Malibu too long. I said that completely without irony.”

Nina laughed. “It was really convincing. I think I even heard a tiny temple bell ringing somewhere . . .”

Eliza made a face at herself. “Your dad used to say being with me was as good as being alone.” Eliza laughed. “I think he meant it as a compliment.” The two women looked at each other. “I think we’re overthinking this,” said Eliza. “More wine?”





Twenty-five




In which the will is read, and is surprising.