How Could She Read online

  Geraldine could see the outline of George’s head through the plate glass of the lobby. George had been the night doorman when she’d lived here with Peter. He’d been there to witness Geraldine’s first visit to Front Street, twenty-five years old and all wobbly in her heels and jean skirt. Ever the professional, George had broken character only when she’d moved her stuff out, coming around the desk to give her a hug and tell her she was a good girl. George had a daughter named Nitzah, who’d still been in braces at the time. She was probably at university by now. Would George be happy or disappointed to see Geraldine walk through the door again? She wasn’t sure which option made her sadder.

  Geraldine asked the driver to keep the meter running and dialed her mother’s number. “Are you awake?”

  “Now I am.” Geraldine suspected that Joanne had begun smoking again.

  “Can you wait up another half hour?” Geraldine asked. “I’ve ended up in town, and I need a place to sleep. We could have tea.”

  “You’ve ended up in Toronto?”

  “It was a last-minute decision.” Geraldine squeezed her eyes shut. “Peter had a party.”

  “Oh, Ger.” Her mother sighed. Geraldine pictured Joanne sitting up against the headboard, her bedside table a minefield of remote controls and detective novels.

  “It wasn’t like that,” Geraldine told her.

  “What were you thinking?”

  “Nothing terrible happened.”

  “I’d say a lot terrible happened. I don’t know what possessed you to—”

  “I mean tonight. He was perfectly lovely. He was fine anyway.”

  “Fine.” Joanne exhaled. “That’s not enough.”

  “I know.” Geraldine drummed her fingers on the phone and watched George turn to face the street. She slid lower into her seat, but she could see he was squinting at the car in befuddled recognition. “Give me two minutes,” she told the driver and went in to say hello to George. When she told him she wasn’t going upstairs, that she’d just come by to say hi, he broke into a solar smile.

  Heading north on the 401, Geraldine opened the window. The sounds of traffic washed over her while she thought about her mother, working out how upset she’d be if Geraldine kept her 8:10 a.m. flight from Pearson International. But she could push it back, couldn’t she? The meeting would go on without her. Katie would help her reschedule the day.

  29

  Rachel tugged her Parker House roll in half, pausing to let the steam waft over her palms. It felt wonderful, and she pretended not to notice the strained expression of the waiter who was struggling with the corkscrew. Matt had ordered a bottle of chardonnay, the unfashionable kind that tasted like oak and buttered popcorn and that Rachel loved to bits. The waiter poured an inch of wine into Rachel’s glass. She let the cool liquid kiss every crevice inside her mouth.

  “It’s delicious,” she pronounced. When they’d lined up a babysitter and scheduled dinner at Wild Oak, a new restaurant on Vanderbilt Avenue, over a week ago, it had been to celebrate Matt’s news. His paper on a brain protein that his group had discovered and named GargaspinB had been accepted for publication by the New Brain, pending a peer review, which even Matt admitted it was certain to clear. He had been working on the zebra fish study for more than three years, and Rachel felt a little sorry that his triumph had to be overshadowed by her news. Josie had submitted Monsters! to publishers on Friday. On Monday morning an editor at HarperCollins had emailed to make sure world rights were available.

  “Who is it?” Rachel had asked her agent in disbelief.

  “Jessica Hyphen-Something. It doesn’t matter. She’s a child—there’s no way we’re going with her,” Josie told her. “And she didn’t actually offer. But we should send her a box of cake pops when this is over. She just changed your life. One bite is all we need to get heat. Your track record might not be insurmountable after all.”

  One hundred thousand dollars was the number Rachel had pulled out of thin air and settled on. If she signed for that, they could justify staying in their apartment. So long as she kept producing, drew the book out into a trilogy, they’d be in fine shape. It was Thursday now, and over the past four days Rachel had interacted with Josie more than she had in as many years. One bite gave way to a couple of nibbles. The interest hadn’t escalated to a bidding war, but Josie was close to transforming an inquiry about a potential sequel from an established editor at Bloomsbury into a legitimate offer. “I told him you’ll write a follow-up in Esperanto if that’s what it takes” was the last Rachel had heard from her. “I’ll be fucked if we don’t have a deal to announce before this weekend.”

  Matt clinked his glass against Rachel’s. “To you, honey. You pulled it off.”

  “Not so fast,” Rachel said. The weekend was only twenty-four hours away now, and they still didn’t have anything definite.

  “There’s legitimate interest, Rach,” Matt reminded her. “You’re golden.”

  Rachel felt her cheeks hitch up in a smile. “Thank you for believing in me. And coming up with the Deep Sea of Lost Memories.”

  “That wasn’t actually mine.” Matt hesitated. “It was something I remembered from one of the comic books I read as a kid.”

  “Now you tell me? If I get trolled for plagiarism, it’s all on you,” Rachel said, leaning back to make room for the first course. She speared her fork into the quail egg that quivered atop a mound of tuna tartare.

  Rachel felt a vibration against her thigh. She looked down and saw it was a text from Josie. It was six fifteen, still working hours for most of the world. “Here we go,” she said, feeling her stomach lurch as she started to read.

  Bloomsbury finked out. Jessica is offering 35 for world rights. We should close w her in the morning. Pls confirm this sounds ok. xxxx

  “She wants to go with Cake Pop.” Rachel slid the phone across the table, feeling numb. All the other authors she knew got six-figure deals. Or at least she thought they did. She suddenly realized that her impression of reality was based on hearsay. Maybe thirty-five thousand wasn’t so bad.

  Matt’s eyes narrowed as he took in the message. “She’s using a lot of x’s,” he said. “That’s good, right?”

  “I think they’re consolation x’s,” Rachel said. “It’s not a ton of money for what will amount to more than two years of work. Josie was talking about that Bloomsbury guy like she had his checkbook in her hand.”

  “It’s still an offer.” Matt gave a crooked smile. “Didn’t you tell me women were always better editors?”

  “Did I?” Whatever, at least she had an editor. She felt tired from the week of waiting for Josie to get back to her, worn out from entertaining all the worst-case scenarios and downing NyQuil to quiet her anxiety at night. And that was before Toronto was seriously on the table. Matt’s former mentor, Phillip Lippman, was not taking no for an answer. He had an arduous book project of his own to worry about and was desperate to pass on some of the more time-consuming duties to a young zebra fish enthusiast. Phillip had convinced the dean to raise the offer by another fifteen thousand dollars. Canadian, but still. Matt was due to go up and meet the team before giving his answer. No timing was specified, but “soon” was a word that seemed to be mentioned a lot. As the Hastings Professor of Neurobiology, Matt would also be co-director of the McWhorter Lab for Addiction Studies. Which was crazy; even though she knew that the late thirties were one’s academic prime, Rachel still thought of her husband as a kid who was happiest on a surfboard. The department was based out of a historic house with bay windows, and if he said yes, Matt’s office would have its own turret. The salary would be nearly double what he made now. Rachel could be a writer—not a writer-slash-something. And Cleo could have good schooling, for free, and partially in French. It was a no-brainer, that’s what anybody would tell her.

  Anybody but Geraldine and Sunny. Rachel couldn’t stomach the inevitable pitying looks
on their faces when she admitted defeat and told them where her family was relocating. Rachel’s mind reeled back to the time when, aged twenty-seven, she informed the newsroom that she was ready to return to her native city. She had to leave, before the comforts of Toronto made a permanent expat of her. If Sunny was barely off the plane before she was asked to design an album cover for Yeah Yeah Yeahs, then Rachel, who actually knew the city, had nothing to worry about.

  Rachel felt a twist in her gut when she realized how soon she would see the Province crew. They were all going to Sunny’s Canadian Thanksgiving dinner, an annual tradition that Geraldine had crowed about the one time she’d scored an invite.

  Rachel was tempted to skip the party, but she and Matt had to go, and not only because she’d promised Sunny that she would do her Jewish-mother thing and help prepare. It would be Rachel’s one shot at tipping over the domino that would set Geraldine’s world right. She’d already let her friend down once before. The day after Peter’s gala, when Rachel had located the pictures of Geraldine on the society page of Toronto magazine’s website, she’d called Sunny.

  “I don’t think it’s a big deal,” Sunny said. “They’re not together in any of the photos.”

  Rachel had been momentarily speechless. The way she saw it, Geraldine and Peter’s discretion seemed only to underscore their seriousness about each other. If they had nothing to hide, why wouldn’t they pose cheek to cheek? “She went up there to see him,” Rachel said. “Do you not understand what that means?”

  “I’m sorry—I’m actually in the middle of something. Can I call you in a bit?”

  It had taken all Rachel’s willpower not to ask if that something was her brother. Instead she sighed. “I get that this isn’t fun for you. You need to talk to her.”

  “And what is it exactly you want me to say?”

  “Tell her everything that happened between you and Peter.”

  “It was noth—”

  “I don’t care what it was or wasn’t. Just let her know. We’ll hate ourselves forever if we just stand by and watch her fuck her life up.”

  Rachel felt her jaw click, and she carved off a bite of her husband’s dinner. The berry compote that accompanied the duck was perfectly tangy. “Oh, my God, did you taste that? It’s crazy good.”

  “It’s very good,” Matt said in a measured tone.

  “Now is definitely not the time to leave the neighborhood.”

  “Have you considered that the Toronto neighborhoods might have changed, too?” Matt’s dimple was showing the way it did when he was holding back a smile.

  “Look, there’s a lot to like about Toronto,” Rachel conceded. “But there’s nothing to love.” The disappointment in Matt’s eyes was hard to take. “Not for me. If we have to move, can’t it be to any other city?”

  “You have more friends in Toronto than in any other city.”

  “Facebook friends,” she corrected him. “Who all remember me as the jerk who wrote first-person pieces about leg waxing and trying out for Canada’s Next Top Model.”

  “That was a funny article.” Matt had read her entire archive, which lived in plastic storage boxes in the Ziffs’ basement. He set down his silverware and reached for Rachel’s hands. “At least come with me for the meet and greet. We can see how allergic to the city you really are.”

  “What about Cleo?” Rachel deflected. “She lives for routine and freaks out if we move her nap schedule by an hour. How would she handle a move?”

  “Cleo is two,” Matt reminded her. “You honestly don’t think it would be the best thing that ever happened to her? As opposed to staying in an apartment we’re rapidly outgrowing and watching her mother find new reasons to get jealous of everybody she knows?”

  Rachel frowned and looked away. The couple at the next table were quietly working on a tower of oysters and clams. They seemed to have agreed to tackle separate levels, and Rachel could tell that they hated each other.

  “I’m sorry—” Matt started to say.

  “Don’t be. I don’t want this to be a fight. I’m in your corner.”

  Matt kept looking at her. “I need more than that. We can’t keep living with everything up in the air all the time. Job offers like this come by once in a never.”

  Rachel searched for a retort. The restaurant was getting loud and hotter.

  “Don’t you want to stop feeling shitty every time somebody we know buys an apartment or dares to go on a vacation that their parents don’t pay for?” Matt said. “Just think, we could spread out comfortably. We could get a dog, and you’d be able to walk it during the day. That’s what you want, isn’t it, to write from home and spend more time with Cleo?”

  “In New York,” Rachel said. “That was always a very important part of the vision.”

  “Why? When’s the last time you went to a museum?”

  “You know I’m not a museum person,” Rachel said quietly.

  “The opera? A concert? Central Park?”

  “I went to that book launch at McNally Jackson.” It humiliated Rachel that she had no better rebuttal.

  “The exquisite alien corpse thing?”

  “Matt, please. Do you not think I already hate myself enough as is?”

  “Why are you so determined to make yourself miserable?” Matt looked perplexed, and a little heartbroken. “When will you ever grasp how wonderful you are and stop making everything so hard on yourself?”

  “Stop.” Rachel brought her hand to her throat and swallowed hard. “You’re going to make me cry.”

  30

  Rachel showed up at Sunny’s door a little after lunchtime. Her arms were groaning with bags of food, and she had a sleeping toddler strapped to her back. “You sure don’t mess around,” Sunny said, relieving her visitor of her load while Rachel arranged her daughter’s limp body on top of a cluster of pillows on the den floor. Cleo’s lips were pursed like a flower about to open. Sunny felt a tug of the bittersweet and headed into the kitchen.

  The autumn sunlight flooded through the windows and cast a warm glow on the wood. “So what can I do?” Rachel asked, slapping her hands together.

  Sunny looked around and tried to come up with a game plan. “Should we start with the turkey?” she asked. “I thought I might spatchcock it this time.”

  “Groovy,” Rachel said. “How honest is your oven?”

  “It’s good. Just don’t use the convection setting.”

  The nice thing about having Rachel on hand, besides her cooking skills, was that her presence prohibited Sunny from snooping around, as she’d been doing all morning. The clues to Nick’s solitary life were now restricted to Sunny’s peripheral vision. With Rachel in the room, she could not dwell on the bottles of Dom Perignon at the bottom of the recycling bin and the garden furniture that had been rearranged to accommodate what Sunny assumed had been a small party. She had to peel six pounds of butternut squash and try not to cut her finger off, all the while pretending that she still lived here.

  “Who’s coming again?” Rachel asked.

  Sunny went through the guest list, fifteen or so lucky expats. She saved Geraldine’s name for last.

  “Notice how I’m not saying anything?” Rachel said. She was bent over a turkey carcass, her hand burrowed under the skin.

  “That doesn’t count as not saying anything,” Sunny replied.

  “It will feel so much better after you do it,” Rachel promised, looking up from the poultry. “I can distract Nick while you talk to her.”

  Sunny rubbed the back of her neck “Nick can’t make it tonight. He had a work emergency.” This was the story that Sunny had concocted and Nick had signed off on. They had agreed not to tell people about their separation until it was further along and had begun to feel solidly inevitable, something that didn’t require any questioning or counselor recommendations. They wanted to be let alone, so p
roceeding with Canadian Thanksgiving on West Tenth Street was the logical thing to do. But being here went against all internal logic and was far sadder than Sunny had accounted for. She missed the orderliness of her old life. She missed her conversations with Agnes. Sunny scooped a roasted-red-pepper sesame dip into a pretty ceramic bowl and obscenely licked the spoon clean. “Is it too early to open a bottle of wine?”

  Rachel shrugged. “I’m trying to cut back on my weekday drinking.”

  “On a national holiday?”

  “Twist my arm,” she said. “Lemme just get the oven going.”

  Sunny brought two wineglasses and a bottle of rioja to the kitchen nook and waited for Rachel.

  “So,” Rachel said when she joined Sunny. “I have something kind of crazy to tell you.”

  “Let me guess,” Sunny said. “You fooled around with Nick a million years ago and Geraldine thinks you should fess up?”

  “Nick’s not my type—no offense. As you know, I have a thing for underpaid academics.”

  “So what is it?”

  Rachel smiled uncomfortably. “Matt just got an offer at the U of T.”

  “Toronto?” Sunny didn’t know if she should laugh.

  Rachel nodded slowly. “I’m trying to figure out how to say no without blowing up my marriage. We’re going to go up in a little bit for a so-called exploratory visit.” Rachel’s expression turned dubious. “Hopefully it will suck, Matt will understand my stance, and then we’ll come home and forget it ever happened.”

  “And if he loves it?” Sunny asked.

  “How could he?”

  Sunny could think of a few reasons. The record shops on Spadina. Picnics in Dufferin Grove. The unequaled coziness of tramping through the snow after dark. Besides, everyone who was given a chance to leave New York these days took it. “Don’t you ever just want to float away and start over?” she asked.

  “The artful dodger, that’s not me,” Rachel said. “The only thing I’m ducking is migrating north. If Geraldine can figure out how to make it work here . . .”