The Noel Letters (The Noel Collection Book 4) Read online

  “I think they can peacefully coexist,” I said. “Where would we put it?”

  “Here,” she said, gesturing to the front counter. “It’s the easiest access for customers and we could combine cash registers. And we’d have access to plumbing, since the bathroom is behind this wall.”

  I looked at her. “It sounds like you’ve thought this through.”

  “More than once. Just not with your father. He never wanted to talk about it.”

  “Fortunately, we’re under new management.”

  Her expression turned. “You’re half right.”

  * * *

  That afternoon Wendy was up front putting out some new books when a woman walked up to me at the counter. “Excuse me. Where is your coffee?”

  “We don’t sell coffee.”

  “I mean, where’s your café?”

  “We don’t have a café.”

  She looked at me like I had just told her the Earth was flat. “No café?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Really? And you call yourself a bookstore.” She turned and walked out.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked Wendy.

  “Books or coffee,” she said.

  CHAPTER eighteen

  Books are the blessed chloroform of the mind.

  —James Payn

  SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8

  Sunday was quiet. I had worked until closing on Saturday, so I was exhausted from the twelve-hour shift. I didn’t run, but took a long bath and read most of the day. It snowed a little and I went out for coffee and to pick up some sushi, but that was about it. I thought of calling Dylan, but decided I’d wait for his call so that I didn’t seem too eager. I’d seen too eager scare men away.

  I went into work Monday. There weren’t any customers in the store, and Wendy was changing the window display again.

  “Looks like Saturday night was busy.”

  “It was,” I said. “How does it compare to last year?”

  “We’re up twenty-one percent over this time last year. It’s our third growth year in a row.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Really good,” she said. “We’re on track for this to be our best season ever.”

  “Looks like Bob left a little too early.”

  “Robert,” she said. “He hated it when people called him Bob.”

  “What does it matter?”

  “It matters to me.” She walked back to her office.

  * * *

  Grace came in a little after lunch.

  “How are you today, Noel?”

  “Well, thank you.”

  “How’s your adjustment to Utah coming?”

  “Slowly.”

  “Sometimes these things take time.”

  “Which I have plenty of. May I help you find something?”

  “I’m looking for the book Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.”

  “I think we have that.”

  “You do. It’s right over there.” She walked directly to the book, took it from the shelf, then sat down in one of our armchairs to read. Twenty minutes later she brought the book over to the counter. “I’ll take it.”

  “Very good.” I scanned the book’s barcode.

  “Brava. You’ve learned how to use the cash register.”

  “Wendy taught me. I’m not much help if I can’t sell books.” I put the book in a sack along with a flyer for our Black Friday book signings. “Wendy told me you’ve bought a book every week for twenty years.”

  “That sounds about right.”

  “That’s nearly a thousand books.”

  “I’ve purchased at least a thousand books,” she said.

  “Where do you keep them all?”

  “I don’t,” she said. “I have a system. The great ones I keep in my library. The good ones I give to the public library. The bad ones I burn in my fireplace for wasting my time.”

  “You burn them?”

  “I have a little ceremony in my living room fireplace. It’s like my personal literary inquisition.”

  “How many books have you burned?”

  “Many.”

  “How many books have you kept?”

  “Few.”

  After she left, I went to Wendy’s office. “Grace came in.”

  “Every Monday, one p.m.,” she said, still focused on her computer. “Like clockwork. What did she buy this time?”

  “Sapiens.”

  “She’ll like that. The Guardian listed it as one of the best brainy books of the decade.”

  “Is Grace smart?”

  “Smart, rich, pretty…”

  “Has she ever told you what she does with books she doesn’t like?”

  “She burns them.” Wendy pressed a key on her keyboard, then looked back at me and smiled. “She’s a book snob.” She lifted an envelope from her desk. It was identical to the one I’d received before. “This came for you in the mail today. Looks like another letter from your secret admirer.”

  I took the envelope from her outstretched hand. “Thank you.” I walked back out to the front of the store and opened it.

  Dear Noel,

  The greatest story you will ever write in your life is your own, not with ink but with your daily actions and choices. Do not worry about perfection, it doesn’t exist, it never has. All authors erase, all authors follow false paths that end up as crumpled paper in the trash basket. In the end it is not what you write but what you claim that is your story.

  Tabula Rasa

  Dylan called that night and asked me out for Wednesday. I almost thanked him for the letter.

  CHAPTER nineteen

  Either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.

  —Benjamin Franklin

  WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11

  Wednesday evening Dylan picked me up a few minutes after I got home from work. We went out for Chinese at a restaurant called the Mandarin about fifteen minutes north of Salt Lake. The place was popular. Dylan told me that the wait was shorter than usual since it wasn’t the weekend, but we still waited nearly half an hour to be seated.

  We ordered family style so we could share everything. We got egg rolls, wonton soup, chicken fried rice, and a dish called Five Taste Shrimp. I was just glad to be with him again.

  Dylan asked, “How old were we when we met? I’m thinking eleven or twelve.”

  “It was seventh grade, so a couple months before I turned twelve.”

  “Right,” he said. “Your birthday’s on Christmas.”

  “How sweet, you remembered.”

  “It doesn’t take much of a memory. You were named after the day.” He frowned. “I always thought that was unfortunate.”

  “That I was named Noel?”

  He smiled. “No, I love your name. I meant having a birthday on Christmas.”

  “I know, right? I hated having my birthday on Christmas. The old ladies at Sunday school used to say, ‘You’re so lucky, you share a birthday with Jesus.’

  “I always thought, Oh yeah? You try sharing a birthday with Jesus. Then when I was older I’d say, ‘Actually, no one knows what day Jesus was born. The Bible doesn’t tell us, and it’s unlikely it was December twenty-fifth, since shepherds probably wouldn’t be hanging out in the dead of winter just in case angels dropped by, and historians tell us that the celebration date was chosen by the emperor Constantine for political reasons, because it coincided with the existing pagan festivals.”

  “They must have been impressed.”

  “I think they were horrified. They would usually just walk away without saying anything.”

  “I would have been impressed,” he said, taking a bite of egg roll. “How old were you when you said all that?”

  “Nine.”

  He shook his head. “I definitely would have been impressed.”

  “My mom said I was a little girl with a big attitude.”

  “That’s the Noel I remember.”

  “The thing about birthdays, it’s the one day a year we g
et a little special attention. But when it falls on Christmas, forget about it. Most people viewed it as a two-in-one deal, so if I got a gift, they’d just say it was to cover both events.”

  Dylan laughed. “Your parents didn’t celebrate your birthday?”

  “No, my parents got it. We did an unbirthday party every June twenty-fifth, with a cake and candles.”

  “You made out a lot better than I did. I didn’t know people celebrated birthdays until I was eleven.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “You had it rough.”

  “For a while,” he said.

  Our waiter brought out our entrees, and we both filled our plates. Dylan waited until I had food in my mouth, then asked, “Do you remember the first time we met?”

  I finished chewing and said, “It was your first day at school, and you were already in trouble for something. The teacher sent you to the principal’s office.”

  Dylan grinned. “That sounds about right.”

  “I thought, I could like this guy.”

  “That’s really what you thought?”

  “Actually, I thought, He’s really cute. Then I thought, I could like this guy.”

  “The first time I saw you, you were giving a book report in front of the class. I thought, That girl is really pretty, and why does she talk like that?”

  “We already established that I talked like an adult.”

  “Thesaurus Rex,” he said. “Then, after I got to know you and met your parents, I realized why you did. I thought they were the smartest people I had ever met.”

  “They were smart. I knew my father was smart because everyone said he was. When I was fifteen, I found out that he belonged to Mensa. I only knew because I saw a letter from them and asked what Mensa was. He told me so matter-of-factly that I didn’t think much of it.

  “I knew my mother was smart because I could ask her anything and she’d know the answer. And if she didn’t, she’d stop what she was doing and look it up.

  “Most parents get annoyed when their kids ask too many questions, but she encouraged me to be inquisitive.” I smiled sadly. “After all these years I still miss her. Sometimes I find myself forgetting things about her. It scares me.”

  Dylan’s expression turned somber. “I’ll never forget that morning you called to tell me she had died. And then going to the funeral with my parents.”

  “That’s when everything changed for me.”

  “It was just a few months after that that the Sparkses asked to adopt me.” He frowned. “I think that was when things between us started to change.”

  “We were going in different directions. You found a family, and I lost mine. Then my dad shipped me off, and that ended us.”

  Dylan frowned. “I’ve never told anyone this, but the day you left, I went in my room and cried.”

  I looked at him. “I’ve never seen you cry.”

  “After what I went through as a kid, I never did. Except when you left.”

  “That’s sweet,” I said.

  “Those were hard days.”

  “Those were hard days.” After a minute, I said, “I think I need some wine. Would you like some?”

  “No, thank you. But go ahead.”

  Dylan signaled our waiter, and I ordered a glass of Kung Fu Girl Riesling. After the waiter left, Dylan asked, “How long has your father had the bookstore?”

  “As long as I remember.”

  “Was that always his dream? Selling books?”

  “He loved his bookstore, but his real dream was to be a writer. Before my mother died, every month a group of wannabe writers gathered at our house. About six of them. They’d read parts of their books and critique one another’s writing. Then some of the members would start drinking, and the evening would end with my father playing old Neil Young songs on his guitar.”

  “Classic,” Dylan said. “Your father was pretty cool.”

  “No teenager thinks their father’s cool,” I said. “But he was smart and said funny things. Maybe he was cool.”

  “So why did you stop talking to each other?”

  “I think it was my way of punishing him for my mother’s death. Then exiling me.”

  Dylan’s brow furrowed. “Why did you blame him for your mother’s death?”

  “I’d rather not get into that.”

  “I respect that,” he said. “So, after high school, where did you go?”

  “After graduation my father wanted me to come home, but I’d already been offered a scholarship to ASU, so I stayed in Arizona and went to college.”

  “What did you study?”

  “English literature. My ultimate goal was to be a writer. I figured the best way to get there would be to get in with a big publisher. So I graduated from ASU with honors, and then a few months after that, I was accepted into the Columbia publishing program in New York. I kept getting farther away from Utah.”

  “And your father.”

  “And my father,” I said. “He kept asking me to come back, even for a summer. I almost did, but then I met Marc. He was in the same publishing program at Columbia. He was already apprenticing as a literary agent at his godfather’s New York firm. We got engaged after six months.”

  The waiter brought my glass of wine. I took a sip, then continued. “My father invited me to bring Marc back to Utah, but I didn’t want to.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because Marc came from a wealthy family and I didn’t want him to see where we lived. So, my father flew out to meet him.” I shook my head. “That was the final nail in the coffin of our relationship.”

  “So it didn’t go well.”

  “It was a disaster. The three of us went out to dinner. Marc was acting really strange—because he was nervous, I guess—and he ended up drinking way too much. My father suggested to Marc that he not drink any more, and Marc exploded and said it wasn’t any of my father’s business. The scene turned ugly before my father apologized and de-escalated the situation. I remember going to the bathroom and crying.

  “It was obvious that my father didn’t approve of Marc, which I took as a personal affront. I told my dad to go back to Utah. He said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m just looking out for you.’ I said, ‘I never asked you to.’

  “He apologized again, then went to kiss me on the forehead, but I moved away from him. I’ll never forget the pain on his face. He said, ‘When you need me, I’ll be there.’ It was the last time I saw him.

  “A week later I moved in with Marc, and a year later we got married. I didn’t invite my father to my wedding.”

  Dylan looked at me thoughtfully. “Do you wish you had?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “And the marriage…”

  “Oh, that,” I said. “I thought I had it all. We had a nice apartment in SoHo. I was loving my job, and Marc was doing well at his. I even considered sending him my father’s book, but I never did.”

  “Why not?”

  “Marc still didn’t like him.” I took a deep breath. “We’d been married about five years when I got pregnant. It was an accident. At first Marc said he was for it. Then I came home to find our apartment emptied. When I called Marc to ask what was going on, he told me he didn’t want to be a father, he wasn’t in love with me, and he was ready to move on. Just like that.

  “After almost seven years of being together, he ended our marriage over the phone. I found out later that he had been having an affair with one of his authors for several years.

  “Then I miscarried. I was too embarrassed or proud to call my father and tell him he was right, and that Marc had left me. He found out on his own and invited me to come back home. I just told him, ‘I have a job, and New York is my home.’

  “Then, about three weeks ago, I received a text from him saying that he was dying of cancer and asking me to come home. I decided it was finally time to see him. He just waited too long to tell me.”

  Dylan asked, “Any regrets?”

  I finished my glass of win
e. “I’ll let you know.”

  CHAPTER twenty

  The purpose of the writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.

  —Bernard Malamud

  THURSDAY–FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12–13

  I didn’t see Dylan for the next few days. There was some kind of Menswear Retailers show in Las Vegas that he needed to attend. It was held at one of the big resorts, and he vaguely hinted that the weather might be warm enough to swim or lay out. I wasn’t sure if he meant that as an invitation or not, but I didn’t take the bait. It was way too early to go on a trip together. Traveling is usually the best way to end a budding relationship.

  I had a funny experience at the bookstore. A woman came in to return a book. Wendy had nicknames for some of our more eccentric customers, and this woman had definitely earned hers. Wendy called her the CURL—an acronym for “crazy ugly return lady.” Even though Bobbooks had a lenient return policy, this woman pushed it to the extreme, basically using us as a library with benefits. Actually, not even a library would put up with what she attempted. I’m sure they’d revoke her card.

  Nearly every month she would return a book for a full refund, claiming to have never read it. Wendy told me that she once bought a travel book on Hawaii. Three weeks later, when she returned it “unread,” she was not only unseasonably tan but was wearing a lei and a flowered blouse.

  Friday she brought in a copy of The Girl on the Train for a refund. It looked well read, as the spine was cracked.

  “Is there something wrong with it?” I asked.

  “I’ll say. The writing was awful.”

  “It’s been a very popular book,” I said. “Let me see it.” Instead of handing it to me, she set it on the counter, probably hoping I wouldn’t examine it more closely. But even with it closed I could see that the pages were stained. I opened it to a massive grease mark that soaked through several dozen pages. I looked up at her for an explanation.

  “Don’t mind that,” she said. “It’s just the bookmark I was using.”