The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing - Melissa Bank [28]
I nodded and stopped myself.
"He'll sell it to us on the condition that you edit it."
I didn't move.
"Take a look at it," he said. "It's a fast read."
He held out the manuscript.
"You wouldn't have to change a word," he said. "No," I said.
He looked at me for the first time. "I completely understand," he said.
—•—
I read the book as soon as it came out from S——.
Everyone did. It was published in the summer, and I would walk on the beach and see people reading it.
I still look for the paperback in stores. I open it up to the dedication page to see my name. Sometimes I turn to the first page, and I remember the night he read it to me, and how he leaned back in his chair and said, "See?"
The writing is clean. I really wouldn't have changed a word. Most of it is true, too, except that the hero quits drinking and the girl grows up. On the last page, the couple gets married, which is a nice way for a love story to end.
T H E
B E S T P O S S I B L E
L I G H T
Since having children does mean giving up so much, good parents naturally do, and should, expect something from their children in return: not spoken thanks for being born or being cared for ... but . . . willingness to accept the parents' standards and ideals.
—From The Common Sense Book
of Baby and Child Care
by Benjamin Spock, M.D.
Out of nowhere, my son, Barney, shows up. I'm in the kitchen, making mint iced tea and singing along with opera, when I hear the downstairs buzzer. Through the intercom, Barney calls out, imitating himself at eight, "Open up! Mom! It's me!" I buzz him in and go to the landing. He's already rounding the second floor, and in the dim light I see his jeans and T-shirt. As ever, he has brought a woman with him.
Barney is thirty-four but looks twenty-one. He's short and muscular, dark-skinned, and he has a great nose. I see his face for only a second before he's hugging me. I'm saying, "What are you doing here? I can't believe you're here."
He takes his girlfriend's arm and, in a put-on British accent, he says, "Meet me sainted mum."
"Call me Nina," I say.
"How do you do?" she says, and shakes my hand. "I'm Laurel." She's taller than he is, and handsome. She wears her dark blonde hair in a braid.
Barney lives in Chicago and I'm waiting for him to tell me what he's doing here in New York, and why the surprise, but Laurel just says, "I hope we're not intruding."
Barney says, "Don't be silly."
I swat him.
I lead them out to my terrace, brush the leaves off the seats and table, and get the mint tea. From the kitchen, I call out, "You hungry?" and Barney answers no for both of them. Which is lucky, since all I have in the refrigerator is celery and yogurt.
Out on the terrace, Barney and Laurel sit close together; he has his arm around her, his fingers on her neck.
Laurel sits up straight in her chair, like a dancer. She puts two heaping teaspoons of sugar in her tea, smiles apologetically, and pours in another.
"How long can you stay?" I ask.
Barney says they're going to Laurel's parents' in Woods Hole tomorrow. "They're marine biologists," he says. "A family of scientists."
Now I remember Barney talking about a woman who worked in a lab. I don't listen as closely as I used to; since his divorce, he always has a girlfriend—he gets all wrapped up, but a few months later when I ask how it's going, he sounds vague and irritable.
I say, "You're a scientist, Laurel?"
She nods.
"I told you," he says. "She's an entomologist."
She says, "I study bugs." She looks around her, and at the trees, which are still in bloom. The sunlight passes through the branches and makes speckles of warm light on the brick floor. "It's so pretty out here," she says. "I didn't know there were apartments like this in New York."
I explain that Greenwich Village isn't like the rest of the city. "It's small New York," I say.
When she asks about the for sale sign on the building, I tell her the saga of the owner trying to buy me and my upstairs neighbor out of our leases.
"How is the beautiful