Noah also sat and trailed a hand through the stones and glass, picking up a teal piece and turning it over between his forefinger and thumb. “You get along with your parents?”
“Yeah. I mean, as much as anyone.” Maybe more than most people: my parents were my prime example for how to be a good human. They were so staunch, so committed to each other and to me and Dave. Though thinking they were so ideal made the idea of ever disappointing them awful. “What about you?”
“My mom is good. My dad...” He shook his head and sighed.“He’ll be pissed if I singlehandedly ruin the entire family.”
“Wait, what?” I twisted to focus on him. “Why do you think you could ruin theentire family?”
“If I bring all of this up... Even if my grandma knows Grandpa cheated, she’ll be furious if anyone else finds out. She cares about their image. All of them do.”
“But something decades old isn’t going to affect the whole family! Andyou’renot bringing anything up. I’m the one digging.”
“I haven’t stopped you, have I?”
I stared at him. “Your dadcan’tget mad at you for what I do.”
He shrugged, a small, unhappy movement.
“That’s crazy.”
“Not really. I know what you’re doing. I could keep you from talking to people. From stirring the pot.”
“You know you’re not responsible for my actions, right?”
He shoved his hand through his hair. “We don’t need to get into my weird family dynamics. I just wanted you to know why I don’t want you to talk to my grandpa. It could get messy.”
“And your dad will”—unreasonably—“get mad at you.”
He shrugged again.
“What if... we talked to your grandfather but made sure your grandmother didn’t hear anything?” When he frowned, I hurried on. “No chance of scandal. A short talk with him about my grandma and if he knew where she was from or if his parents had records or anything. In and out. No one else needs to know.”
Noah wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and looked up at the pale white disk of the moon in the blue sky. “He still might not tell us anything. He’s not the easiest guy.”
“Probably because the unbearable heartbreak of his youth turned him into a stone-cold man who existed only to make his millions.”
He cracked a smile, which had been what I’d been after. “Probably.”
“Please? We could meet in a coffee shop. The bookstore. Wherever.” I held out the darkest stone I’d found, with two thin white lines. I was nervous and hopeful and barely able to believe Noah might actually introduce me to his grandfather. “I’ll trade you a double-lucky stone for it.”
He took the stone, his hand closing over mine, and the smile made its way to his eyes. “Deal.”
Twelve
Afew days later, the bookstore hosted a book club.
“We hold several book clubs,” Maggie had told me early on. Today, she wore a puff-sleeved pink floral blouse and a pink skirt with buttons down the front, both amazing thrift store finds. “Mother-daughter, young adult, sci-fi/fantasy, mystery, classics, nonfiction. They’re usually an hour, though sometimes the patrons stay longer, and we provide snacks and facilitate the conversation.”
Despite never technically attending a book club, I felt like an expert. Exhibit A: School. Freshman year, we’d spentthree monthsdiscussingGreat Expectations. Pip was the worst, and Miss Havisham an icon. Ruined wedding dress, lace and cobwebs indistinguishable? Yes, please.I wrote my final English paper on “Abandoned Wives: Why the Women in the Attic Matter”in the form of a dinner party play between Mrs. Rochester, Ms. Havisham, and the unnamed narrator ofTheYellow Wallpaper.Very Imaginative!!my teacher Ms. Lottie wrote.Butwhile this is charmingly written, it lacks grounding in facts.
Thanks, Ms. Lottie!
Exhibit B: Mom had a “book club” who read articles, usually titled something like “Emotional Labor in the Workplace”or “Statistical Analysis of Advocating,”studies on power dynamics and salaries (everything sucked). Mom delivered the TL;DR version over dinner, thus contributing to my ability to be the girl always referencingAtlanticarticles.
Exhibit C: Dad and I bought each other books for birthdays and Hanukkah, usually ones we both wanted to read (and sometimes read before gifting, oops). We’d gone through all of Scott Westerfeld’s novels, and last year we’d tradedThe Golem and the JinniandThe Song of Achilles.
Exhibit D: My friends and I shared endless romance novels, plucked from the library sale rack for fifty cents each. We’d devoured Judith McNaught and Susan Elizabeth Phillips and old-school Harlequin Presents. Another paper I’d written, this time for Social Studies: “How Romance Novels Empowered Women to Embrace Their Sexuality: 1940–1960.”(Mr. Brown had given me an A, though it might have been in order to avoid talking to me about the actual text.)
However. I’d never been to arealbook club, with cheese plates and formal questions. Today, the readers would discussAnd Then There Were None.I’d never read Agatha Christie before, and for some bizarre reason, I’d spent years thinking she was a fictional character, like an adult Nancy Drew. This was false, and I was an idiot. Good to know.
