A Wedding in December_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [95]
Harrison closed the book. He wouldn’t be able to take it out. He had no library card, no way of obtaining one. He guessed, however, that the bookstore might have a copy of the volume. The town was, after all, a kind of mecca for devotees of Laski.
Harrison left the library and crossed the street to the bookstore. When he opened the door, a pale young man with a light brown mustache looked up at him. Harrison smiled, and the man nodded. Harrison did not engage in his usual bookstore activity—searching the shelves for his own company’s volumes, turning them jacket-side out when he found them—because none of the books in this American store would be his. It was a tiny shop, barely wide enough for two freestanding sets of shelves. Harrison found the poetry section easily (half a shelf) and purchased a copy of Laski’s latest. On the way back to his car, he stopped to have a cup of coffee, and as he did, he read several more of the poems in the book. He gassed up the Taurus and headed back to the inn.
In the lobby, Harrison hovered, hoping for a glimpse of Nora, but there was no sign of her. As he climbed the stairs, he imagined she had retreated to her rooms. He pictured her having a long soak in that generous bath with its marble surround, the water tinted a faint chartreuse from the oils in the antique glass cruets.
Harrison woke with a start and, for a moment, felt disoriented. Where was he? What time was it? He glanced at the bedside clock and saw that he had overslept. He sat up quickly. He had a wedding to go to. He took a fast shower and dressed.
In his new suit, bought for the occasion, Harrison checked his tie in the mirror. How long had it been since he’d been to a wedding? His sister’s second, he thought. Five, six years ago. Must have been. He couldn’t remember anything more recent. He recalled the picture of Nora and Carl Laski on their wedding day, how young and vulnerable Nora had looked, how he’d wanted to put his hand between the bride and groom.
The narrow thigh; the asymmetrical smile.
With his fingers, Harrison brushed back his hair, wishing there was more of it. For Bill’s sake, he hoped the ceremony would be meaningful, the celebration festive. Christ, they had a hard road ahead of them.
Harrison took his wallet and his room key from the pants he’d had on earlier and put them in the pocket of his trousers. When he looked down, he saw that his shoes needed a shine. He found the boxed shoe-shine kit in the bathroom, put each foot in turn on the rung of the desk chair, and gave the toes a polish. He washed his hands and dried them with the hand towel. Opening the door, Harrison took one last look around the room, shut off the lights, and headed out.
Before Harrison had reached the library, he could hear the music, an astonishingly lovely piano piece. Chopin? Mozart? Nora’s sound system must be remarkable, he thought. But when he turned the corner and entered the room through the double doors, he saw Rob at a baby grand that had been rolled in for the occasion. Rob’s fingers moved over the keys with unearthly precision and delicacy, and for a moment, Harrison stood transfixed. He thought about Rob’s comment that he had once had a crush on Stephen.
Didn’t we all?
In a kind of hypnotic trance, Harrison took a seat. That one of their own should have such immense talent caused in him a surge of pleasure and pride. Harrison had once known the man at the piano, however long ago, however briefly, however different the incarnation. And how sly of Nora and Rob to have kept this delicious secret from the others. Harrison felt like a guest summoned to an eighteenth-century manor house for a concert, a man invited to attend a performance for the privileged, the elect.
Paradoxically both calm and elated, Harrison gazed around the room. Discreet bouquets of white flowers had been placed at irregular intervals, the hand haphazard. Clearly Nora’s doing. Despite the six pairs of folding bridge chairs—three pairs on either side of a narrow aisle—the library had retained