Goodnight June: A Novel (5 page)

With burning curiosity to know more about this friendship between the two women, I quickly pull the next few books off the shelf and search for more letters—none—before scanning the upper and lower shelf for any signs of pages tucked inside, which is when I hear the sound of the jingle bells on the door. Did I forget to lock it?

“Hello?” I say quickly, standing up. “Is someone there?”

I see Gavin and instantly feel relieved.

“Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” He’s holding a couple of takeout boxes. The scent of garlic and basil wafts in the air. “I thought you might be hungry, so I brought over some lunch.”

I look at the clock and realize that it’s almost noon and I’ve had nothing but espresso today.

“Thank you,” I say, walking toward him. The letters are still in my hands, and I quickly tuck them in my back pocket.

Gavin looks around for a place to set the food down, finally settling on the only available surface: a tiny children’s table flanked by two pint-size blue chairs. He grins at me. “This OK?”

“Yeah,” I say, smiling as I cram myself into one of the minuscule seats. He does the same, and we both can’t help but laugh at ourselves.

He opens up the first box and hands me one of the plates under his arm, then pulls out a cloth napkin wrapped around a fork, spoon, and knife. “Hope you like pasta puttanesca,” he says.

“My favorite, actually,” I reply, grinning. “How did you know?”

He points to his head. “I’m kind of psychic when it comes to food pairings.” He’s wearing a crisp white shirt, unbuttoned at the collar, and a pair of dark straight-legged jeans. “Show me a person, and I can find the perfect meal for them. It’s all in the face.”

I grin. “Oh, is it?”

“Sure is. See, when I met you this morning on the lake, you looked a little sad. I would have served you spaghetti pomodoro then.”

“Spaghetti pomodoro?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Spaghetti works wonders for curing the blues.” He nods. “But the puttanesca, that’s for new beginnings.”

I busy myself with my napkin as Gavin looks around the shop and smiles. “But if you had come to me and told me you had a bad day, that things had gotten stressful, then I’d make you Bolognese sauce.”

I can’t help but smile. “And what do you make for harder cases?” I consider Ruby and, according to the letter I just read, the prospect of her broken heart. I also can’t help but think of the way my own heart shattered five years ago. “What about broken hearts?”

“Now,” Gavin says, “those are harder. But I find that in most cases, eggplant does the job.”

I let out a little laugh. “Eggplant?”

“Nothing better,” he says.

I smile as he dishes a helping of pasta onto my plate, then dip my fork in to take a bite.

“Wow,” I say. “It’s very good.” I dab the napkin to my mouth. “Do you cook, or run the business side?”

“I do a little of everything, my business partner and I. Cook, wait tables, bus tables.” He grins. “It’s what you have to do when you run a small business.”

I nod, thinking of a little Italian restaurant in Queens that I had to close down. The owner was just like Gavin, a jack-of-all-trades. He was sprawled out on the floor, fixing a faulty oven door, when I came in armed with legal papers.

“Then I give my compliments to the chef,” I say, shaking off the memory.

His face twists into a look of discomfort for a moment before his smile returns. “So what do you plan to do with the place?”

I grimace inwardly, thinking of how the locals will take the news. I can almost write the headline:
NEW YORK BANKER INHERITS BELOVED BLUE
BIRD BOOKS; CLOSES IT
S DOORS FOREVER
.

“I, uh—”

“I imagine you’ll want to do a little remodeling,” he says, standing up and running his hand along a nearby bookcase.

“Yeah, I—”

“I can help,” he continues. “I have a ton of tools in the basement. We had to do a full renovation before we could open the restaurant. I got pretty handy with a table saw.”

“Thanks,” I say. “But, well, I’m not really sure how much heavy lifting I’ll need to do.”

Gavin seems undeterred, even excited, by the challenge of fixing up the store. “You could refinish the bookcases,” he says. “Strip them down and sand down the tops. A bit of paint here and there, and some new moldings—oh, and maybe a new checkout counter—and this place will be grand again.”

I can’t tell him the truth: that Bluebird Books will
never
be grand again. I can’t tell him that I plan to call a truck, tomorrow, maybe, and pay someone eight dollars an hour to load up all the books and boxes and most all of Aunt Ruby’s worldly possessions and cart them off to a local library. What can’t be donated will be taken to the dump.

The dump.
It casts a sad, hopeless shadow on Aunt Ruby’s legacy. What would she think of me now? If I look carefully, I can almost see her patting the locket around her neck, which is when I remember that it’s now around my neck. I touch the gold chain nervously.

“I can tell this place means a lot to you,” Gavin says, his words jarring me back to the moment. “You grew up here, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” I say, a little startled. “How did you know?”

“Just a guess. I assumed your aunt would have left the shop to someone who loved it as much as she did.” He grins. “And also, you seem more Seattle than the New York type.”

His comment surprises me at first. New York has made me tougher, smarter, more driven. Can he not see that? “And I take it you know both types very well, then?”

He smiles playfully. “You might say that.”

I wonder, for a moment, if Ruby knew Gavin, and if so, what she might have thought of him. “Did you get to know my aunt much?” I ask.

“A little,” he replies. “We’ve only been here a year. Ruby closed the store about six months after Adrianna and I opened the restaurant. We, all of the business owners on the street, felt so bad for her, because we knew the depths of her loss. But she just couldn’t keep up. Lillian and Bill convinced her that it was time to move to a retirement home.”

I feel a pang of guilt. I could have called. I didn’t even call. My heart beats faster, and I place my hand on my chest and take a series of deep breaths. My medication is upstairs; I’ll take a pill later. “Lillian and Bill, the owners of Geppetto’s, right?” I remember the way Lillian regarded me on the street earlier.

He nods. “She had a fall.”

I gasp and cover my mouth with my hand.

“I started checking on her in the afternoons, just to make sure she was doing all right,” he says. “And one day, I went in to say hello and she wasn’t sitting at her desk. I heard a faint cry from the back hallway, so I rushed over, and there she was, lying at the base of the stairs, where she’d been since she fell that morning. I called an ambulance, and they took her to the hospital. She came back a few months later after a stay at a rehabilitation facility, but she’d changed by then. I could see the look in her eye. She was more frail than ever. I helped her move a few things around the shop. She was very particular about where she wanted things to be.” He pauses for a moment. His eyes are serious, and they stare ahead at Ruby’s desk. “It sounds funny to say, but I just had this deep feeling that she knew she didn’t have much time left.”

I dab the corner of the cloth napkin to my eye.

“I’m sorry,” Gavin says. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“No,” I say quickly. “It’s just that I loved her so, and I—I just hope she knew how much.”

Gavin places his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sure she knew.”

“I wish I’d come home to see her, before . . .” I look up at him and our eyes lock.

“But you’re here now,” he says, pointing up at the ceiling. “And I’m sure she’s looking down in anticipation of all you’ll do for the store.”

“Yeah,” I say nervously. “I . . .” I take a bite of breadstick.

“So you spent a lot of time here as a kid, then?”

I nod between bites. “Our mom was . . . well, she was kind of out of it in the early part of our childhood, so my sister and I were here a lot.”

“Oh, you have a sister? Does she live in town?”

“Yeah, she does now, but I . . . but we”—I shake my head decisively—“we don’t talk.”

Gavin looks more saddened than I’d expect. “Oh,” he says. “That must be so hard for you. What happened?”

“Listen,” I say, smiling a little nervously, “it’s a long story, and I have a lot to get done today. I—”

“Forgive me,” he says, standing. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“No, you weren’t,” I say. “It’s just kind of a long story. Another time?”

“Yes, definitely,” he says, collecting our empty plates and the silverware, before walking to the doorway. He turns back to me once more. “If you’re ever up for a walk around the lake sometime, just come find me.”

I smile, at first because I find the very idea of walking quaint, and quite frankly, sort of a waste of time. I’ve structured my life around making the best use of time. It’s why my daily jogs are more akin to sprints. It’s why I schedule my workday in fifteen-minute increments. But Gavin smiles at me expectantly, and I remember that people go about life at a slower pace in Seattle. I remember that
I
used to be one of those people. I take a deep breath. “A walk,” I say. “Sure, maybe sometime.”

He waves good-bye, and then closes the door behind him. Ruby’s jingle bells reverberate in my ears for a long time after.

I
look up at the cuckoo clock on the wall and see that it’s already four thirty. I’ve spent a fruitless afternoon sifting through Ruby’s boxes for more letters, and now the sunlight is waning. I’ll need to replace the lightbulbs in the chandelier if I’m going to be able to work past dusk.

In all of my sorting, I’ve accumulated fascinating artifacts from Ruby’s life: a set of blue china, a Cartier watch that looks as if it stopped ticking decades ago, and a pristine red gingham swimsuit, wrapped in white tissue paper inside a tan Frederick & Nelson box with a burgundy lid. I think of Ruby wearing it and smile, then my practicality kicks in: The tiny one-piece would fetch a pretty penny in a vintage shop.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the letters between Ruby and Margaret. Margaret Wise Brown. My aunt, the confidant of arguably one of the greatest children’s book authors of all time? Ruby did have secretive tendencies. The prospect of discovery makes me think about holding off on closing the store for good, at least until I can determine the real story Ruby’s letters tell. Still, I’ll need to review the store’s financial records and begin making plans. I make a mental note to research the developers in the area and set up a few meetings.

I feel a chill come over me, and I stare at the old fireplace. Ruby used to keep it roaring from October to April, and sometimes even through May. I remember the supply of chopped wood, and I venture out to the alley. And there, under the eaves, the logs are stacked high, as if in her waning days at home Ruby arranged for one last delivery. For me.

I smile to myself as I lift a log from the stack, but I turn around quickly when I hear movement behind me. The alley is dim now that the sun has set, but I have the distinct feeling that I am not alone. “Hello?” I say in a shaky voice. But my call is met with silence until a cat cries in the distance.

I scan the shadowy corners behind the Dumpster: no one. Quickly, I pick up another log and carry the wobbly stack inside the shop, pausing to lock the door before setting the wood on the hearth. On the mantel, I find matches. Atop a stack of old newspapers blares a headline from January 7, 1963:
MAGNUSON FAMILY DONATES $1 MILLION FOR N
EW ART MUSEUM
. I save the front page, wad up the brittle newsprint, and tuck it beneath a log in the fireplace, then light a match and watch as the fire takes on a life of its own, spreading to the log. I listen as it hisses and crackles, and then I make the connection.

The Poky Little Puppy
! Of course. Ruby mentioned the book in her last letter. If I can find it, will there be more letters tucked away inside its pages?

I rush to the bookshelves again and search for the book I remember reading as a girl. “Five little puppies dug a hole under the fence and went for a walk in the wide, wide, world.” I smile to myself. I went for a walk in the wide, wide world, and got a bit lost along the way. After an hour, I’ve almost given up on the search, but then in the firelight, I see the glimmer of a Little Golden Book spine on a high shelf across the room. And somehow, I just know.

I wheel the ladder over to the shelf, thinking of how as a child I loved climbing on that ladder and pushing myself from one side of the wall to the other. When Ruby went upstairs for any reason, my sister and I would take turns pushing each other, and when our aunt returned she’d pretend to be oblivious to our antics, even though the wheels rattled loudly enough to make that impossible.

I reach for the spot on the shelf, and there it is,
The Poky Little Puppy
. One copy. And sure enough, there’s a bulge inside its pages. I open the stiff spine and reach for the two envelopes inside.

By the fire again, I lift the flap of the first envelope, from Margaret to Ruby.

February 22, 1946

My dearest Ruby,

I can’t tell you how cheering it was to receive your letter. It cast a ray of light on my week, which has been otherwise atrocious. Where to start?

While I had invited my sister, Roberta, over for lunch in good faith that we were trying to forge ahead with our relationship, she used the hour as a time to lecture me about my “lifestyle.” Why don’t I get married, she asked. Why don’t I start a family? Why don’t I stop associating with all these artists and bohemians? But what she was really getting at was, why don’t I be more like her? Well, I don’t want to be like her, and I told her so. As you can imagine, my words were not well received. She reached for her coat and bag and stormed out of the apartment. I feel bad, of course. I do not want our relationship to come to this, and yet I long for the day that we can accept one another for who we are, she in her world of pressed and proper domesticity, and I in my unconventional one. I suspect this is how you feel about Lucille. Perhaps one day we’ll all be able to forgive, accept, and move forward with the kind of love we all shared as girls. This is my hope, anyway.

One of the illustrators we work with here at the publishing house had complained of being lonely, so what did I think to do? I bought him a puppy. A blue terrier. Apparently he had little experience with canines, because the nitwit left the pup in his apartment and the poor thing urinated all over the paintings for a new picture book. There are also paw prints, in all the primary colors, scattered about the room, and muddled on the paintings. He’s going to have to scrap the canvases and start over, and of course, he blames me.

Well, at least that’s all behind us. And I won’t be bringing gifts to illustrators anytime soon.

If Roberta’s visit wasn’t enough, Mother also came by last week and the purpose of her visit was quite unsettling. Marriage. I ask you, dear friend, is there anything more unsettling than the subject of marriage? She says she’s losing sleep having an unwed daughter “gallivanting around the city.” I poured her a glass of sherry and told her to go lie down. It did not work. She continued the torrent. She says she can’t stop worrying about me, and I told her that if and when I decide to get married (let’s be clear, though, I have no plans), she’ll be the first to know. That calmed her down, at least for now.

The truth is, Ruby, how can I marry after watching my parents’ own dreadful union? I feel, at my core, that marriage only leads to unhappiness, at least when it comes to my own life. People come to us for seasons, and when the season is over, it is over. My love affairs have always been short and to the point. I like it that way (at least this is what I tell myself). Honestly, though, Ruby, I wish I could believe what you wrote about me. I wish I could believe that I am immune to love and all of its perils, but if I am absolutely honest, I know it not to be true.

Still, I think I’d rather throw myself in the Hudson River in the middle of winter than to ever betroth myself to someone. It would be so stifling, belonging to another! Like property! Let’s make a pact to never get married, my dear friend. We will be two lone reeds in a bustling brook who stand tall, firm. We will make our own fun. Make our own lives while everyone else gets swept up in the river of life. What do you say?

The problem with people today is they take themselves too seriously. Nobody likes to have fun anymore. So, a few of my New York friends and I have started what we call the Bird Brain Society. It’s such fun, Ruby. I wish you could come to our meetings. I’m president, and have the authority to declare any day Christmas, in which case, one of our members must cook a roast and make pudding. It’s a gas! I have made you an honorary member, so you can play along.

On to a more serious subject: Be careful with this Anthony Magnuson. I fear that he already has a grip on your heart. But I implore you to hold tightly to it. I’ve learned that when a man takes your heart, it can be hell getting it back.

I still think I need to get out of the city. Lately, I feel out of place, like the ducks from
Make Way for Ducklings
. Yesterday a cab almost ran me over on Fifty-Seventh, and I dropped the pages of a manuscript into a mud puddle. Ruby, you should have seen me. I fell down on my knees and just cried. I might have sat there wailing my head off all day had a kind old gentleman not stopped to offer me his handkerchief and help me up. The manuscript, I’m afraid, was ruined. Fortunately, I had a copy filed away in my brain.

There is something else I must write you about, but I’m afraid I don’t have the energy to tell you just now. I have pages to edit and quite a lot on my mind to sort through before I put these thoughts to pen.

Until then, my dear friend, Merry Christmas,

Brownie

I set the letter down and stoke the fire with a poker. The wind has picked up a bit and I hear it howling outside, pushing through the eaves of the door and windows. I think of Margaret’s hesitance to share her secret as I pick up Ruby’s letter.

March 7, 1946

Dear Brownie,

You have kept me in such suspense! I trust that you will reveal this secret of yours in due time, but until then, I shall remain on the edge of my seat. For now, let me attempt to speculate. Theory No. 1: Despite your rant about love and men, I suspect that you have fallen for someone at your publishing house. An illustrator, perhaps? I recall in previous correspondence a man named Gregory. Still, by the tone of your last letter, I believe this isn’t likely (though, you’ve surprised me before). Theory No. 2: You are ill, in which case, I will be saddened that you waited to tell me. In any case, I pray that you are well and that you are not suffering from any maladies. No. 3: You have lost yourself in a new story. Please, let it be this!

It pains me to hear of the way your family has been regarding you of late. If my mother were still alive, I suspect she’d share the same disappointment about me that yours does about you. And yet, we expect more of our sisters. This is why it’s so hard. They blazed the trail in this wild world with us; they should be on our side. And yet why do they feel like the enemy? Why can’t we find common ground? Take heart, at least Roberta is still speaking to you. Lucille has taken to ignoring my phone calls. The moment she hears my voice, she hangs up. Last week, I wrote her a letter. I poured out my heart to her. I even apologized for my education, the one she believed was owed to her. Truly, Brownie, I set my pride aside in the name of preserving our sisterhood, because I cannot imagine a world where one can regard her sister as a stranger. And so I wait, and hope.

I’ve been thinking about what you wrote about marriage, and I hate to disappoint you, but if Anthony Magnuson walked in today and told me he was divorcing his wife, Victoria, I’d leap into his arms and count the seconds until I could be his bride. And that’s the honest truth.

Yes, I love this man, Brownie. I have fallen head over heels. I fear that I love him too much. But I can tell by the way he looks at me that he loves me too. Perhaps not as much as I love him, for he is a busy man with a complicated life. A family. But I don’t care, I’ll take even the tiniest corner of his heart. He still comes to the bookstore quite often. I told him my dream of owning my own children’s bookstore and he said, “Why don’t you just open one, then!” I had to break the news to him that not everyone has fortunes lying around at their disposal like the Magnusons do.

Last week, he asked me if I’d meet him for dinner downtown. Of course I said yes, even though the idea of us taking our friendship outside the bookstore frightened me a great deal. He sent a car over after my shift ended at six. I felt so funny sitting all alone in the back of that town car. The driver kept looking back at me in the rearview mirror. I wonder what he must have thought of me! But I didn’t care, Brownie! I was on top of the world thinking of Anthony! When the car dropped me off in front of the Olympic Hotel, there he stood in his suit and tie. I felt so plain in my simple work dress. But Anthony told me I looked beautiful. But it wasn’t what he said; it was how he
looked
at me.

We had dinner, and talked for hours. He told me about the time he nearly drowned as a child in Lake Washington, which is why he oversees a charity that teaches poor children to swim. I told him about my dream to see Paris, and read a book to children at the top of the Eiffel Tower. He smiled mischievously, and said, “Our children?”

I know he was only being playful, certainly not serious, but I must admit, my heart swelled then. The night was absolutely magical. I did worry momentarily, however, when a couple approached our table. They regarded me curiously. At first I worried that they were friends of his wife, and that they’d divulge our secret meeting. But Anthony didn’t seem to worry at all, so I didn’t.

Brownie, have you ever met someone you just feel at home with? That’s how I feel when I’m with Anthony. I could curl up in his smile and sleep peacefully and protected for a thousand years.

It breaks my heart to know how unhappy Anthony is. He couldn’t care less about wealth the way his wife does. Did you know that she goes to Europe every year and comes home with dozens of trunks of Chanel that she immediately casts off the next season? She won’t even donate them. Anthony says she insists they all be destroyed. Apparently she finds it vulgar to think of another’s skin touching fabric that touched hers. Can you even imagine that way of thinking?