Paris by the Book(101)

And one beautiful bookstore whose shelves creaked under the weight of several thousand books.

For a little while more, anyway.

I opened Robert’s book once again, and this time started from the beginning, the endpapers—a nice map, they paid extra for that—and then a blank page, and then a title page, then an epigraph from Gertrude Stein, and then the dedication.

To the one I lost.





EPILOGUE


And I lost myself in that book.

Back and forth I went in those pages, which meant going back and forth in my memories of Paris, and Milwaukee. I marveled at what he’d done. Not only the writing but also the book’s appearance in our store. Had he put it there? He must have. I didn’t know for sure and couldn’t. I’d had Asif pull the cameras out months before. I did not regret the decision. This was why I’d had him pull the cameras; I didn’t want to be haunted. It’s also why I didn’t tell the girls about the book. The next time I saw Robert, if there was a next time, I wanted us all to see him, and I wanted us to see him not in the margins of a book, screen, or crowd, but full on, in person, walking through the front door.

Had he?

The book was cheaply bound and marked ADVANCE READING COPY—NOT FOR SALE. A publicity galley, then. Though it seemed equally possible that the packaging, the binding, like the story inside, was Robert’s own doing. That he’d written such a book and then crafted this means of “publishing” it was hardly beyond him; in fact, it seemed to be the very essence of him, right down to the “About the Author” page in back, which, beneath those three words, was blank but for two letters: tk. Not French texting slang but an old publishing abbreviation. Don’t be fooled by the k. Tk: it means “to come.”



* * *



—

Summer came. Crowds came. And then more crowds came, because Robert’s book came. The galley he’d left me wasn’t a one-off art object but the first of what turned out to be many, many, many copies. For Robert’s book had been published by a real publisher, and then magically caught a ride on one of those comets that occasionally illuminates the twilit universe of publishing. The story of the family in Paris who takes over a failing bookstore struck a nerve—with bookstore owners, anyway. And with people visiting Paris. This was even before the Times ran its article. But then they did, and the Guardian ran theirs and even Le Monde theirs in the Thursday books roundup, and then the story, like the book, was everywhere.

Most articles cited our store as the book’s “inspiration”; one account also mentioned that the store’s original proprietor, Marjorie Brouillard, was a writer herself, with a new project on the way “after a silence of many years.” When I read this, I offered her my sincere congratulations and told her we would be out of her way soon. I said I’d heard Madame Grillo was thinking of taking the storefront space.

Madame Brouillard did not respond right away. I thought she didn’t want to admit that she’d contacted Madame Grillo about the space. I knew she had, though, because Madame Grillo had told me: a second store, and just for brooms!

But Madame Brouillard watched me sweeping up each night after the crowds, she reviewed the sales figures, she calculated what percentage she might receive come month’s end. “You do not have to leave immédiatement,” she said, as though she’d never suggested otherwise. She began her way up the stairs, offering her usual taut smile, but—and this was new—her eyes smiled, too. It wasn’t the night cream. She had a parting question for me, en fran?ais, her words almost shy for a change: and . . . has the publisher, by chance, found a . . . French translator for your husband’s book?



* * *



—

When the first box of Robert’s novel arrived, I split it open privately, in the back office, and turned to the back flap to find out what had come of “to come.” Only this: no photo, a very short bio. It doesn’t even mention his previous titles, only that this is his last, that he disappeared two years ago sailing Lake Michigan and is presumed dead.

When I asked the publisher who had told them this, they said I had.

When I said I hadn’t, they forwarded the e-mails “I” had sent them, including the one where “I” had sent them the full manuscript for their consideration. They said they were glad we were back in touch because “my” prior e-mail address had stopped working, and they wanted to confirm a few matters. Was my contact person at the Milwaukee Police Department, where “I” had sent them to corroborate the story of Robert’s fate, still correct? Was it okay to send the police the copy they were asking for, free?

Was the information about making royalties payable to me, in Paris, still current?

Did I know how I was going to explain this to our daughters?



* * *



—

That last question was mine, of course. Daphne and Ellie were very upset when they read the flap. They were almost more angry than sad; they were convinced that the police had somehow gotten their way, that the forms and “process” to declare Dad dead had somehow ground forward without my permission. Then they thought I had given permission, and that was even worse. But I hadn’t. And when they asked, yet again, if their father really was alive, I said, “I don’t know,” which was also true.