“Are all these books yours?” Alice asked. “What about Gregory? Did some of these belong to him?”
“He never kept books. Don’t misinterpret me. He loved books possibly more than I did, but it was different for him. He liked to imagine the life his books had once he gave them away. Me, I’m selfish with my books. I want to know that they belong to me alone, as if the stories belong to me alone too. Henry James is mine. Octavia Butler is mine. Dorothy Parker is mine. Even Virginia Woolf. My Virginia Woolf does not belong to you or anyone else. Whatever books Gregory left behind I gave away. I have plenty of other ways to remember him.” Madeline laughed. “He used to get so frustrated with me for having so many books. Our former house was small. I didn’t have enough space for all my books, so I’d pile them on the floor, on end tables, in the linen closet. One time he told me that hoarding books is still hoarding. That got to me. I don’t think I talked to him for three days after that.”
Madeline walked over to the shelves and ran her finger along them, checking for dust that hadn’t gathered. Like the rest of the house, the library was meticulously clean and orderly. No cat hair, no scuffs on the wood floors, no throw pillows even slightly askew.
Madeline leaned against the shelves, facing Alice, as though posing for a portrait. “You know, we met because of a book.”
Alice sat in one of the chairs, and Madeline joined her in the other. They watched the fire crackle, flames like figures summoning spirits.
“Gregory and I met all because of a book,” Madeline said again, fidgeting in her seat until she found an angle that seemed to suit her. “I found it in the park. A beat-up hardcover, so well loved that I knew I needed to return it to its owner. People leave their marks on books, even when they don’t underline passages or write in the margins, even if they don’t dog-ear pages or leave behind receipts. Spines get broken. Ink gets smudged. Books bruise like any other body.”
Alice thought of her own books, which she kept pristine. The suggestion of dog-earring a page made her queasy. An intentional mark on the page, be it from a ballpoint pen or, God forbid, a highlighter, was like nails on a chalkboard for her. Don’t get her started on food. Eating while reading should be regulated as strictly as drinking and driving. Tea was a necessary evil, for any book was enhanced by a strong cup of Earl Grey. She couldn’t imagine finding a battered old book and assuming it was loved rather than taken for granted.
“I saw the owner all over its pages.” Madeline held her wrinkled, turquoise-adorned hands toward the fire. More liver spots dotted their backs than on their previous encounter. Madeline also looked like she’d lost weight, even if she hadn’t had weight to lose. While the changes were subtle, the panic they aroused was not. Alice was running out of time.
“Even before I met him, I was in love with him. I needed to find him. Only how? It’s not like his name was written on the inside of the cover. I knew where he’d let his thumb linger on the page, where he’d dripped coffee—” words that sent a chill down Alice’s spine “—these facts could not lead me to him. It’s funny how we can know someone intimately without knowing them at all and how we can think we know someone but not understand what makes them tick. I knew his ticks. I didn’t know his name. That left me with one option.”
Alice inched to the edge of the chair, eager for more of Madeline’s tale.
“You see, the book wasn’t new. The edition was out of print and too old for him to have purchased it when it came out, so he had to have bought it used. And there was only one store in town that sold used books. I wasn’t sure I was right, but I didn’t have another avenue to find my love.
“I brought the book to the store and asked the bookseller if she could locate the person who had purchased it. As sympathetic as she was, she wasn’t about to divulge information about a customer, not a name, not even a confirmation that the copy I showed her had been purchased at her store. She assured me that the book was one that could be replaced easily. It was a very common edition. In fact, they had four copies on the shelves. She pointed me in that direction. I left a note in each copy with my telephone number and a brief explanation that I had the reader’s original copy.
“Then I waited. I waited so long I feared the copies of the book had sold and he would never find my notes. I went back to the shop and all four copies were still there with my notes inside. Then I got mad. How could he just lose the book and not replace it? It didn’t occur to me that he might buy it elsewhere. Eventually the anger shifted to sadness. I became certain that the owner of the book was my soul mate. I kept returning to the store to check on my notes like they were plants I could watch grow. And then one day there were only three copies. I was so excited I rushed straight home. I sat by the phone and waited. Day turned to dusk turned to starry night. The phone didn’t ring. Not the next day or the day after. I grew despondent. I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t even read the book, which I’d been doing ceaselessly since I found it, imagining where his eyes might linger, where they sped up, where he had to step away to absorb the magnitude of the story. I was completely beside myself, unhinged, until I saw the absurdity of it all. I was so in love and I’d never even met this person.”
“I can’t believe he didn’t call,” Alice said involuntarily. She hadn’t meant to pierce the bubble of Madeline’s story with such an empty comment.
“Of course he called,” Madeline snapped. “I was in the middle of ironing when the phone rang, so I picked it up, resting it between my ear and shoulder as I continued my task. He kept hemming and hawing,‘I’m sorry to bother you, this might seem strange, you see I never normally do this but’—I thought he was selling something. I tried to get him off the phone, until he said, ‘I got your note.’ I felt his words in my heels, grounding me in place. The sourness of burning silk filled the room, and I quickly reached over to set the iron upright. My blouse was ruined, but I didn’t care. He found my note. It was all I could do to say, ‘What took you so long?’
“His laugh was like spun sugar. I was entirely serious though. I asked again, more forcefully this time, ‘What took you so long?’
“‘You left your note toward the end,’ he explained.
“‘I left the note where your bookmark was,’I corrected.‘The exact page.’
“‘I couldn’t just pick up there. I had to start again at the beginning.’
“Right away, I knew what he meant. It was the same story but it was a new book. He had to ingratiate himself with the pages. He had to love it the way he loved the copy he lost. He had to give it its due time, and it was a very long book. It wasn’t something he could sit down and read in a day.”
“When he found my note, he rushed back to the store. The three other copies were there, and he found my notes in those ones too, so he bought them all. Then he waited for the right time to call.
“‘And why was the right time now?’ I demanded. I was annoyed. He made me wait too long. I was ironing. I ruined a perfectly good blouse for him.
“‘Because the idea of not calling you finally scared me more than calling you.’”
Madeline picked up a bookmark resting on the small table between them and tickled her palm with its tassel. “We met up later that afternoon, and for the next three decades we didn’t spend a day apart. It was worth it. All of it, even the loss.”
In Madeline’s story, Alice heard all the reasons she didn’t want to fall in love. No matter how much time Madeline had had with Gregory, the time after was infinite. Alice didn’t want infinite loneliness when she was perfectly happy being alone. This was their great disconnect. Madeline still wanted love after the worst had happened to her. Alice did not want love, even though nothing had happened to her, not directly. No wonder she couldn’t write Madeline a story.
Madeline stood and stretched. “It’s getting late.”
While the library had no windows, its clock had no hands, Alice could smell the night air wafting down the chimney. She had so many questions, but when Madeline said good night, tiredness hit her all at once. Her limbs felt like they might snap off if she tried to use them. She was brittle tired. Immobilized.
Madeline pointed to the wall of books that led to the hall. “I had the guest room prepared for you.”
Alice was relieved by the offer, as she didn’t want to drive in her sleepy state. When they left the library, she asked, “What was the book? The hardcover you found in the park, the one that belonged to Gregory. What was the title?”
Madeline yawned. “That’s a very intimate question. It’s between me and my love.”
