Chapter 1
On Sunday I work in sans serif.
Boldface for all the headers, because that’s what the client wants, apexes and vertexes flattened way out into big floors and tables for every letter, each one stretching and counting and demanding to be seen.
All caps, not because she’s into shouting—at least I don’t think, though one time I saw her husband give their toddler a drink of his coffee and the look she gave him probably made all his beard hairs fall out within twelve to twenty-four hours. No, I think it’s because she doesn’t like anything falling below the descender line. She wants it all on the level, no distraction, nothing that’ll disrupt her focus or pull her eye away.
Black and gray ink, that’s all she’ll stand for, and she means it. One time I widened the tracking and added a metallic, a fine-pointed thread of gold to the stems, an almost art deco look I thought for sure she’d tolerate, but when she opened the journal—black, A4, dot grid, nothing fancy—she’d closed it after barely ten seconds and slid it back across the table with two fingers, the sleeve of her black cashmere sweater obviously part of the admonishment.
“Meg,” she’d said, “I don’t pay you to bedecorative,” as if being decorative was the same as being a toenail clipping hoarder or a murderer-for-hire.
She’s a sans serif kind of woman.
Me? Well, it’s not really the Mackworth brand, all these big, bold, no-nonsense letters. It’s not my usual—what was itThe New York Timeshad written last year?Whimsical?Buoyant?Frolicsome? Right, not my usual whimsical, buoyant, frolicsome style.
But I can do anything with letters, that’s also whatThe New York Timessaid, and that’s what people pay me for, so on Sunday I do this.
I sigh and stare down at the page in front of me, where I’ve used my oldest Staedtler pencil to grid and sketch out the letters
for the upcoming month, big enough that theAcrosses the center line. It’s such a . . . such ashortword, not a lot of possibility in it, not like my clients who’ve wanted a nice spring motif before their monthly spread, big swashes and swooping terminal curves for cheerful sayings ushering in the new month. Already I’ve done fourBloom Where You’re Planteds, threeMay Flowers!and one special request for aLusty Month of May, from the sex therapist who has an office on Prospect Park West and who once told me I should think about whether my vast collection of pens is a “symbol” for something.
“Other than for my work?” I’d asked, and she’d only raised a very judgmental, very expertly threaded eyebrow. The Sex Therapist Eyebrow of Knowing How Rarely You Date. Her planner, it’s a soft pink leather with a gold button closure, and I hope she sees the irony.
Now I pick up my favorite pen, a fine-tipped Micron—not symbolic, I hope, of any future dating prospects—and tap it idly against the weathered wood countertop that’s functioning as my work surface today. It’s quiet in the shop, only thirty minutes to close on a Sunday. The neighborhood regulars don’t come around much on the weekends, knowing the place will be overrun by visitors from across the Bridge, or tourists who’ve read about the cozy Brooklyn paperie that Cecelia’s managed to turn into something of a must-see attraction, at least for those who are looking to shop. But they’re long gone by now, too, bags stuffed full of pretty notecards, slim boxes of custom paper, specialty pens, leather notebooks, maybe even a few of the pricey designer gifts Cecelia stocks at the front of the store.
Back when I worked here more regularly, I relished the quiet moments—the shop empty but for me and my not-symbolic pen and whatever paper I had in front of me, my only job to create. To play with those letters, to experiment with their shapes, to reveal their possibilities.
But today I’m not so welcoming of the quiet. Instead I’m wishing for some of those Sunday shoppers to come back, because I liked it—all the noise, all the people, being face-to-face with brand-new faces. At first I thought it was simply the novelty of having my phone put away for so long—a forced hiatus from those red notification circles that stack up in my social media apps, likes and comments on the videos I post, the ones I used to do for fun but now are mostly for sponsors. Me showing off brush-lettering pens I don’t even use all that regularly, me swooping my hand through a perfect flourish, me thumbing through the thick, foil-edged pages of some luxury journal I’ll probably end up giving away.
Eventually, though, I realized it was more than being away from the phone. It was the break from that master task list I’ve got tacked above the desk in my small bedroom, the one that’s whimsically lettered but weighted with expectation—my biggest, most important deadline ratcheting ever nearer and no closer to being met. It was the relief of being away from the chilly atmosphere in my once-homey, laugh-filled apartment, where these days Sibby’s distant politeness cuts me like a knife, makes me restless with sadness and frustration.
So now the quiet in the shop seems heavy, isolating. A reminder that a rare moment of quiet is full of dread for me lately, my mind utterly blank of inspiration. Right now, it’s just me and this word,and itshouldbe easy. It should be plain and simple and custom-made and low stakes, nothing like the job I’ve been avoiding for weeks and weeks. Nothing that requires my ideas, my creativity, my specialty.
Sans serif, bold, all caps, no frolicking.
But Ifeelsomething, staring down at this little word. Feel something familiar, something I’ve been trying to avoid these days.
I feel those letters doing their work on me. Telling me truths I don’t want to hear.
be you’re blocked, the letters say to me, and I try to blink them away. For a few seconds I blur my vision, try to imagine beingdecorative, try to imagine what I’d do if I didn’t have to keep my promises to the client. Something in those wide vertexes? Play with the negative space, or . . .
be you’re lonely, the letters interrupt, and my vision sharpens again.
be, they seem to say,you can’t do this after all.
I set down the Micron and take a step back.
And that’s when he comes in.
The thing is, the letters don’t always tell me truths about myself.
Sometimes they tell me truths about other people, and Reid Sutherland is—was—one of those people.
I remember him straightaway, even though it’s been over a year since the first and only time I ever saw him, even though I must’ve only spent a grand total of forty-five minutes in his quiet, forbidding presence. That day, he’d come in late—his fiancée already here in the shop, their final appointment to approve the treatment I’d done for their wedding. Save the dates, invitations, place cards, the program—anything that needed letters, I was doing it, and the truth is, by then I’d been almost desperate to finish the job, to get a break. I’d been freelancing for a few years before I came to Brooklyn, but once I started contracting for Cecelia exclusively, handling all the engagement and wedding jobs that came through the shop, word about my work had spread with a speed that was equal parts thrilling and overwhelming. Jobs coming so quickly I’d had to turn more than a few down, which only seemed to increase interest. During the day my head would teem with my clients’ demands and deadlines; at night my hands would ache with tension and fatigue. I’d sit on the couch, my right hand weighted with a heated bag of uncooked rice to ease its cramping, and I’d breathe out the stress from meetings that would sometimes see couples and future in-laws turn brittle with wedding-related tension, my job to smile and smooth ruffled feathers, sketching out soft, romantic things that would please everyone. I’d wonder whether it was time to get out of the wedding business altogether.
The fiancée—Avery, her name was, blond and willowy and almost always dressed in something blush or cream or ice blue or whatever color I’d be just as likely to ruin with ink or coffee or ketchup—had been nice to work with, focused and polite, a good sense of herself and what she wanted, but not resistant to Cecelia’s suggestions about paper or my suggestions about the lettering. A few times, in our initial meetings, I’d asked about her fiancé, whether she’d want me to send scans to his e-mail, too, or whether she’d want to try to find a weekend meeting time if it’d make it easier for him to come. She’d always wave her slim-fingered left hand, the one with the tiny ice rink on it that looked almost identical to the rings of at least three other brides I’d been working with that spring, and she’d say, pleasantly, “Reid will like whatever I like.”
But I’d insisted on it, him being there for the final meeting.
