The Last Book Party(7)

Franny took the lobsters and, facing the water, stretched his arms up into the air above his head, the lobsters nearly touching each other. The wind lifted his hair in a swirl. He dropped his arms and turned toward me with a mischievous grin.

“Boiled or baked?”

We started back to the house, each of us holding a lobster by the tail in one hand and our shoes in the other, comfortably silent on either side of the line in the road.





4





The inside of the house was dark and worn, like an old ship. A candle burned on a table in the kitchen, its wax dripping into little mountains on a faded cotton tablecloth. We put the lobsters in the sink. Franny gave me a pair of sweatpants and an old wool sweater to change into and directed me to the hall bathroom, where I was amused to find a stack of old New Yorkers in a basket by the toilet. The sweater, which smelled like whiskey, was big and soft, the V of its neck dipping almost too low. In the mirror, I was pleased to see that the wind and the water had left me with pink cheeks. I unclipped my barrette and let my hair hang down in unruly waves.

In the kitchen, Franny was filling a big pot with water. He looked up at me and hesitated for a second, which made me blush. And then he asked, “What’s your method? Boil them alive or knife them first?”

“Oh, definitely the knife,” I said. “It’s harsh, but humane.”

He put the pot on the stove and took a long knife from a drawer. The lobsters were trying to claw their way out of the sink, but they kept slipping down the sides. Franny grabbed one and jabbed the knife in. I was standing close to him, our shoulders touching. He took the second lobster and held the point of the knife right at the joint of the shell where he would plunge it in. Then he offered the knife to me. I couldn’t stand to watch when my father killed lobsters this way, but I took the knife. I inhaled and pushed the tip through the lobster. We put them in the pot and Franny covered it. He looked at me and tilted his head. I moved my head in the opposite direction, mirroring his angle.

“What?” I asked.

“Just … nothing,” he said.

I wanted to touch his face, his still-damp hair.

We were setting the table when the woman I’d seen dancing with Henry the night before came into the kitchen. Her thick hair was loose and fell almost to her waist. Her eyes were dark brown and piercing, her nose long and thin. In a kimono-like robe and flip-flops, she managed to look attractive, even somewhat regal, yet also like a distracted poet who had more important things to consider than her own appearance. She looked at me imperiously. “Who’s this now?”

“This is Eve,” Franny said, and then introduced me to his mother, Tillie. I didn’t say that I had read her poems in college, or that I knew her latest collection had been well reviewed. I didn’t mention that I worked at Hodder, Strike and had read the first chapters of Henry’s memoir, with his breathless account of their steamy courtship and coming together as “literary soul mates.” I didn’t say anything about being at the party the night before or peeking into her bedroom. Franny told her about the surf and how we had pulled in the lobster trap. She lifted the lid on the pot. “You know, technically, you’re poachers.”

Franny shook his head. “Nah, these little lobsters were children lost in the storm.”

“We’re not really thieves, are we?” I asked.

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Tillie said, opening the refrigerator and bending down to reach for something in the back. “Here, you can christen your bounty with this.”

She stood up and held out a black bottle. “Freixenet,” she said. “You drink, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Good girl.”

She handed the bottle to Franny and put two wineglasses on the table. She said she and Henry were going to work for another few hours and have dinner in Provincetown at Napi’s. I wanted to know what they were writing and if they took turns reading their drafts aloud. Did they share an office, sit side by side?

Tillie left, and Franny poured the champagne.

“To the ocean,” he said, handing me a glass.

“To the ocean.”

I took a big sip. Then another. We ate sweet Portuguese bread, ripping chunks off a round loaf, until our lobsters turned bright red. The champagne tickled my tongue and rippled to my head. The lobsters were small and their meat was sweet and juicy. We tossed the shells into a metal bowl that sat between us on the table. It got darker in the kitchen, but we didn’t turn on the lights.

Franny wanted to know what I loved about my job. I told him there wasn’t much.

“I am a very educated typist,” I said.

“So why do you do it?”

I told him about my leap into publishing after graduation, how excited I was to learn the magic of making books and how hopeful I’d been that working with real authors and editors would give me back some of the confidence in my own writing that I’d lost in the midst of so many talented writers at school.

“Were they really that good?” Franny asked.

“They were. Prolific too. And arrogant. They carried themselves like writers with a capital W. I’m sure you had the type at art school—straight guys who wear eyeliner. Everyone seemed so sure of themselves. It was like they were preparing to become the ‘voices of their generation’ and I was struggling to clear my throat.”