Goodnight June: A Novel (6 page)

I wonder why he stays? Of course, he worries for his daughter, May, though I must say the child seems to have the same disposition as his wife, surly and temperamental. I suspect it ultimately has to do with money. Victoria’s fortune saved Anthony’s father’s real estate venture, and it also funds the Magnuson family’s charitable efforts. If he left her, it could mean the end of all that.

I don’t know what will become of us. Our friendship (if you could call it that?) remains uncharted, mapless. All I know is that I have never met a man like him. So I will continue on this strange and wonderful journey, wherever it leads me, even if the ending is destined to be an unhappy one.

I’m writing to you on a dark night in Seattle. It’s quite late, and I’m sitting on the sofa of my apartment looking out at the moon pushing its way through a cloud. I’ve been thinking that you ought to write a children’s book of verses about the moon. Think of it: No matter the circumstances of our lives, no matter our joys or heartaches, the moon always appears each night to greet us. I find that comforting somehow.

Oh Brownie, you said yourself that you need to get out of the city. Why don’t you come to Seattle? Come visit! You can stay with me. It will be a hoot! Please come and let’s cheer each other up. I’ll make you laugh, and you can tell me a story, to tell me this life of mine will have a happy ending.

Write soon, please.

Your friend,

Ruby

I pull the grate over the fireplace and walk up the staircase to the apartment. I sink into the window seat and look out at the big sky, thinking about the words I have just read. They swirl around in my mind like the fizzy bubbles in a champagne glass.
Sisters.
Ruby valued her sister above all else, even her pride. I think about what she said:
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.

As far as I’m aware, Ruby did just that: waited and hoped, only to be greatly disappointed in the end. According to my mom, Ruby was stunned by Lucille’s sudden death. Mom said that they hadn’t spoken in years before she passed. I think of Ruby, hovering over Lucille’s coffin—the coffin of a stranger, for all intents and purposes. A final good-bye. I close my eyes, and I picture Amy in the coffin instead of Lucille. I imagine myself at her funeral, and without my permission, my eyes flood with tears.

I take a deep breath and come to my senses. No, Ruby and Lucille’s situation was not the same as Amy’s and mine. I can’t compare the two. Instead, I think about another significant revelation in the letters. Did my aunt really encourage Margaret Wise Brown to write a book about the
moon
? Is this what I think it is? The hair on my arms stands on end as I realize what I’ve just found, a literary discovery hidden for years inside the bookstore, inside Ruby’s secretive mind. A treasure Ruby left me to unearth.

It’s a clear night, and the moon outside dangles overhead like a painting made just for me. I think about what Ruby wrote about the moon, and think of all the times I gazed up at the night sky, dreaming of a different life.

I look down to the street when I hear the sound of a car engine. I watch as a dark SUV pulls up in front of the bookstore. It slows to a stop and a tinted window rolls down slowly. I see the flash of a camera, and then the vehicle speeds away.

M
y cell phone is buzzing as I wake the next morning. It must be shortly after sunrise; the sun is low on the horizon and it streams in the window with such intensity, it pierces my eyes and feels wonderful and painful at the same time.

“Hello?” I say groggily.

“June?”

“Mom?”

“Where are you?” she asks. I hear an airplane taking off in the background and wonder if Mom and her new boyfriend, what’s-his-name, are off on a trip somewhere.

“Where are
you
?” I ask, a little annoyed.

“Oh,” she says, “Rand and I are at the airport. We’re going to Vegas for a few days.”

Rand. I’m not sure if this is his actual name, or maybe it’s short for Randy or Randolph, or something like that. But I don’t ask.

“Oh,” I say. Mom and I don’t have the best relationship (if you can even call it a relationship), but we do talk, in fits and spurts. She calls every couple of months, sends a card on my birthday and at Christmas. And that’s enough for me, though I suspect she’s less than satisfied with the arrangement. Still, I find I can handle her best in small doses. “Mom, I’m in Seattle.”

“Seattle?” she asks. But this time, her usual carefree voice sounds concerned.

“Yes,” I say.

“Are you at Ruby’s?”

“I am.”

“Oh, June,” she says. “So you know—”

“That she died, yes.”

“I wanted to tell you, sweetie, I really did, but I—”

“Just didn’t think to mention it?” I don’t even attempt to mask my annoyance.

“June, don’t snap,” she says. “I was going to tell you, I—”

“But you wanted to wait and let the attorney notify me?”

“The attorney?”

“Yes,” I say. “I received a certified letter. Ruby left me the bookstore, everything.”

“Wow,” Mom says. I can’t tell if she’s upset or just surprised.

“I’m here now, sorting through her belongings before I decide what to do.”

“Will you sell it?” she says. “June, you couldn’t possibly—”

“I don’t know, Mom. I mean, yes, I probably will. I can’t stay here. I have a job, a life in New York.” It isn’t much of a life, but I don’t have to explain that to Mom, especially when I’m trying to prove my point.

“I could help,” she says, sounding suddenly desperate. “I think it needs to stay in the family. Amy does too.”

I’m momentarily stunned, then I feel a surge of anger. I made Mom promise she wouldn’t bring up my sister’s name to me again. My cheeks burn. “What does she care about the bookstore?” I say. “What right does she have to tell me what to do with it? It’s my problem to solve.”

“Honey, she loved Bluebird Books too, don’t forget.” Mom lowers her voice. “And she misses you terribly. You really should call her. She said she’s tried calling you. Isn’t it time to end this nonsense between you two? You’re sisters.”

I think of Ruby and Lucille, Margaret and Roberta. I want to feel the way they did about their sisters. But the only way I know I can is if I could find a way to turn back the clock, to erase the hurt, the pain I endured.

“No,” I finally say. “Mom, I have nothing more to say to Amy. You know that.”

“People change, June. I wish you’d see that.”

“No,” I say. “They don’t.”

Mom’s quiet for a moment. “You did.”

I’m stunned into silence.

“Sometimes I think I don’t even know you anymore, June,” she continues. “New York has changed you. It’s hardened you.”

I bite my lip. She doesn’t have the right to talk to me this way, to talk as if she knows me, or ever knew me.

I hear a voice on the airport loudspeaker. “That’s our flight,” she says. “We’re boarding. I’ll be back in a few days. I’ll come by.”

I want to say,
Don’t, I can handle it
, but I hold my tongue.

“Good-bye, Mom,” I say instead. “Hope you win the jackpot.” And then I hit the End Call button with more intensity than usual.

I feel anxious, the way I did when I left New York. I find the prescription bottle in my purse, swallow a pill, then pull open my laptop. For someone who habitually checks her e-mail every four minutes, I’m shocked when I realize how little I’ve thought about work since arriving in Seattle. I open my in-box and see that the messages have stacked up. There are several flagged with red, high-priority exclamation points, and I open the one at the top first. It’s from Arthur. I feel a pit in my stomach as I read the one-line e-mail:

WHEN ARE YOU COMING BACK TO WORK?—A

The truth is, I purchased a one-way ticket because I didn’t know how long it would take to put Ruby’s affairs in order. I hoped to wrap things up quickly, maybe in a week, but now, a few days into my stay, everything’s becoming more complex—Ruby’s secrets, the future of the bookstore, my memories. I hit the Reply button and write back:

Busy working out final details here. Will know more by the weekend. Will keep you updated.—June

I hit Send, and as I do, I feel my blood pressure rising.

I reach for a jacket and slip into my running shoes. I walk out to the street and jog past Antonio’s. The restaurant is dark and the chairs are still turned over on the tables. I look away quickly when I see my reflection in the window. I hoped to see Gavin, and somehow admitting this to myself makes me feel silly. As I make my way down to the path around the lake, I reaffirm my plan to move forward with the liquidation of Ruby’s estate. I’ll make a spreadsheet and categorize everything, the way I do when selling off assets for the bank. I’ll hire the movers to load everything into trucks. I’ll find a good auctioneer. I’ll get it done.

After I’ve logged five miles around the lake, according to my Garmin, I slow for a cooldown walk, then stop on a bench to watch a mother duck and her ducklings push through the reeds and cross the banks of the lake to a spot on the dock ahead. The mother waddles proudly with her six fuzzy ducklings behind her. The last one is smaller than the rest, and he’s having trouble keeping up. The mother and the larger ducklings have already made their way back to the lake as I watch the littlest one lose his bearings. He looks right, then left, as if he’s not sure where to turn. He’s lost. In that moment, I want to run over to him, scoop him into my arms, and carry him back to his mother. I rise to my feet and take a step forward, but with lightning speed, a large rat scurries out of the thicket and lifts the duckling into his mouth, and the two disappear in one dreadful swarm into the grasses beside the bank.

“No!” I scream. “No, you can’t have him! You can’t do that!” I feel helpless and horrified. At once, I am nine years old, hovering over an abandoned robin’s nest beside Amy, fretting over the fate of the baby birds. I stare out at the bank for a long while, and then I realize I’m not the only one watching. The mother duck is watching too. She knows.

I think about that scene for a long time as I walk the final quarter mile up to the crosswalk. I think about the nest and the eggs, and the mother duck and her babies. There will always be rats and ducklings. There will always be predators and prey. And banks and small businesses in default. And people like me who swoop in like rats and take what’s owed to them, or what they’re hungry for. It’s the circle of life, but at this moment, I don’t like my place in it.

I’m red faced and my mind is reeling when I walk past Antonio’s on the way back to the bookstore. I smell garlic cooking now, and I breathe in the comforting scent. The door is propped open a bit, so I know Gavin must be inside. I poke my head in cautiously. “Hello?” I say, taking a step inside.

“Hello?” I say again, admiring the rich red of the dining room walls and the dozen or so attractively set tables. There’s a wooden slab counter that might accommodate six more guests, but all in all, the room is small and intimate, and I love it instantly.

A wood-fired oven burns slowly behind the counter, and I can smell the warm, smoky scent of cherrywood smoldering. There’s a clanging sound in the kitchen, as if a pot’s fallen to the floor, before the door swings open and Gavin appears. He smiles when our eyes meet. There’s a smudge of tomato sauce on the white towel that hangs from his waist. “Hi,” he says. “Sorry, have you been waiting long?”

“No, no,” I say. “I was just walking back from a jog around the lake, and I thought I’d stop in and say hi.”

“Hi,” he says, still smiling.

He turns back to the kitchen when a timer beeps. “Come with me,” he says. “I’ll show you around.”

I nod and follow him through the swinging door to the immaculate kitchen. It’s a little larger than the dining room. On either side of a big stove is a bank of stainless steel countertops. At the center is a large, sturdy table with strong legs. It looks like something salvaged from an old Italian villa.

“It’s gnocchi day,” he says, pointing to the flour-dusted cutting board, where an impressive mound of orange-tinged dough lies at the center. “Have you ever had sweet-potato gnocchi?”

I shake my head. “No, but it sounds like heaven.”

“Good,” he says. “You can help me, and earn your lunch.”

I grin and head to the sink to wash my hands, then return to the table, where Gavin shows me how to roll out the dough in long, snakelike lines. Next, we cut them into one-inch sections. He hands me a wooden tool called a gnocchi paddle, which is basically a flattened piece of grooved wood affixed to a stick. We roll the segments over the paddle and it gives the dough a pressed and finished look.

We set them on a sheet pan dusted with cornmeal, talking as we press more dough. It feels good to work with my hands, mindlessly. I’m overcome with a relaxing calm.

“Have you always liked to cook?” I ask, piling a batch of pressed gnocchi on the sheet pan.

“Yeah,” he says. “I used to play restaurant with my sister and brother. I liked being the chef.”

I smile. “But the real question is did you have an Easy-Bake Oven?”

He laughs. “No, but my younger sister did, and she’d never let me play with it.” He smiles to himself as if recalling a funny childhood memory. “I’ll confess that one night I snuck out of bed and took it out of her room. I stayed up baking chocolate brownies. But I think I managed mostly to eat the dough.”

“Good choice,” I say.

He smiles. “The truth is, I could never do anything else but work in a restaurant. I love the energy of it. Every night it’s like a theater production. I thrive on the pageantry.” He looks up from the dough at me. “You know, I never asked you what you do for a living—I mean, besides owning the bookstore, of course.”

“Oh,” I say, suddenly self-conscious. “My work’s not very exciting.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” he says, waiting expectantly for me to divulge more.

“I work at a bank in New York,” I say. “Finance. See?
Boring.
” I’d rather keep it brief than go into detail about the specifics of my job in banking. I’ve had enough experience chatting with people at parties to know that nobody finds my division of the bank at all charming, the same way undertakers don’t draw smiles over cocktail conversation.

“Just the same,” he says, grinning, “I’d love to hear how you got into finance. Was banking always something you were interested in?”

I finish the line of gnocchi I’m working on and venture a response. “If you mean did I used to play bank teller with my sister as kids, well, no. It was a career I sort of fell into.”

“Do you love it?”

“I’m good at it,” I reply.

“There’s a big difference,” Gavin adds.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, take me, for instance,” he says. “Right out of college, I went to law school.”

“Why?”

“Why does anyone go to law school?” he says. “For a girl.”

“Oh.” I give him a knowing smile. “Well, at least your heart was in the right place.”

“That’s the thing,” he says, suddenly serious. “As far as my career went, it wasn’t. I mean, I was good at law. Quite good. I made it through law school with flying colors. Graduated top of my class, and even got hired to practice at a big firm in Boston. I was good. I had a whole career ahead of me, but . . .” He shrugs, contemplating his next sentence.

“But what?” I ask, hanging on his every word. The thing is, I won’t admit it to Gavin, but our life stories, at least where our careers are concerned, seem to parallel each other.

“My heart wasn’t in it,” he finally says. “I was good at the work, sure, but when I gave my life a long, hard look, I realized that I hated law. I hated it so much. It just wasn’t me. It wasn’t what I was born to do.”

I nod, letting his words sink in.

“So I moved out here,” he says. “My parents thought I was crazy. And maybe I was, a little. I mean, who gives up on a law degree and a huge salary just like that?” He rolls out another line of gnocchi, then turns back to me. “But I found my way. I worked in several restaurants before getting the courage up to open this place.”

I nod. “And the girl?”

He looks confused for a moment, and then grins. “Oh, she left me the day I quit my job.”

“Sounds like a peach.”

“Oh, yes,” he says, smiling. “She was a plum.”

I return his smile. “And did you ever find . . . love again?”

He looks conflicted for a moment and he opens his mouth to speak, just as the back door to the kitchen opens. A pretty, dark-haired woman in gray Lululemon leggings and a black jacket bursts through the door carrying a big box of eggplant with deep purple, shiny skin. At first she doesn’t notice me. “Gav!” she says from the doorway, balancing the box in her arms. It looks heavy. “You wouldn’t believe how gorgeous the eggplant is at Pike Place this morning. I know I bought way too much, but can you blame me when they’re this perfect?” She speaks to Gavin in a familiar tone, as if she might launch into the details of her doctor appointment a moment later.