The Last Book Party(18)
My father, on the other extension, said, “Relax, Nancy, she’ll figure it out.” I pictured him in his plaid pajamas, robe, and slippers, a book by his side for his nightly reading of a single chapter before bed. Once I assured him that I could find someone to sublet my room in the city, he told me he looked forward to having me on the Cape during his August vacation. I appreciated my father’s readiness to welcome me home, though I knew his lack of concern about my quitting came in part from his benign sexism and unspoken belief that some industrious young man eventually would come along and provide for me.
My plan seemed like a good one, but the next morning I woke up nervous. I hardly knew Henry. What if his offer had been complete fluff? What if he was as cranky with me as he was with Malcolm? Was I willing to move back in with my parents, even if it was only for the summer? What if the job did nothing for my writing? Or I couldn’t find a new job before Thanksgiving? By the time I got to the office, I was in such a state that when Jeremy called to speak to Malcolm, I blurted out, “Would it be completely insane for me to go work for Henry Grey for the rest of the summer?”
“Uh … somewhat insane, yes.”
I laid out my case, but Jeremy was still skeptical.
“Don’t romanticize it. You’ll be isolated and underpaid.”
I was surprised by his reaction.
“You’ll drown in arcane research,” he said. “And be at Henry’s beck and call.”
His resistance to the idea was puzzling. Did he want to keep Henry and Tillie’s world to himself? Was he afraid I might replace him in their affections? The more he objected, the more convinced I was that my plan was a good one.
“Thanks for the valuable input,” I said, my tone making it clear that I wasn’t appreciative. “Please hold for Malcolm.”
While Jeremy was talking with Malcolm, I found Henry’s phone number in Truro in my Rolodex and, my heart beating rapidly, dialed. He was quick to confirm that his offer was serious. He needed a good assistant for at least a few hours each day. With the same blustery wording of his written notes, he promised wages “not quite worthy of the name” and vowed to grant me “full rein to man the chaos” of his office and his mind—as if the only thing that stood between him and future publication was my readiness to proofread his manuscripts and alphabetize his notes. I gave my notice that afternoon.
part three
August 1987
12
Henry’s office was on the second floor of his house, with a view of a grove of silvery locust trees and an edge of the tennis court. The room was cozy and inviting, although disheveled enough to suggest that whoever worked there had more important things to do than tidy up. Oriental rugs on the rough wooden floor were threadbare. Bookshelves that rimmed the room were filled with hardcovers, worn editions of Thoreau’s Cape Cod, the Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Birds, a three-volume Encyclopedia of Ancient Battles, and what looked like new copies of World’s Fair and Stones for Ibarra. There were shelves of paperbacks, everything from Moby-Dick and The Moonstone to Rich Man, Poor Man and War and Peace. Half-read books were left open, facedown, on a tired-looking wingback armchair, on the small table beside it, and on the floor. Illegible notes were scribbled on legal pads and slips of paper scattered over every surface but the desk, which was the only orderly spot in the room. On it was a black Underwood typewriter, flanked by a pile of blank white paper held in place by a large dried starfish, and a ceramic bowl filled with smooth, dark rocks.
I picked up a few of the rocks, which were all vaguely heart-shaped. Had Henry collected them? Probably Tillie had slipped them into her pockets on morning walks on the beach and then dropped them in the bowl for Henry to discover later. The gesture was in synch with the first chapters of Henry’s memoir, which I’d read at Hodder, Strike, surprised to discover that the stodgy and self-aggrandizing writer whom Malcolm groused about having inherited was also funny and endearing.
In those chapters, Henry described how he and Tillie had begun exchanging gifts after they’d met at a party in Greenwich Village in 1959. Henry lived on the Upper West Side at the time, and Tillie downtown. They loved surprising each other with pencil sketches of the other sleeping, rewritten versions of sappy Hallmark cards, a transfer ticket from the bus inserted into a book on a particularly relevant page. Henry’s marriage proposal, only a few weeks after they met, came in the form of a broken necklace that he found while walking down Broadway one afternoon to get a haircut. Once a whole word, all that remained of the necklace was a thin gold chain attached to two cursive letters, da, perhaps from the woman’s names Linda or Hilda, but now spelling, in English letters, the Russian word for yes. When Henry dropped to one knee and said simply, “Da,” Tillie had understood what he was asking. She repaired the chain and wore the necklace two weeks later when they went to City Hall to make their pairing official.
I searched the bookshelves until I found Tillie’s poetry. I pulled out a slim volume, Soot. The pages were stiff, as if the book had never been read. I flipped to the last poem, which was titled “Family.” I struggled to find a foothold. There was something about a child, and a loud noise, and a breakwater. The last lines sounded important, but I wasn’t sure why:
My father’s teacup swallows