Book Lovers(11)
“There isn’t another way?” I ask. “A road that goes all the way up? My sister’s . . .”
I swear Libby sucks in, trying to look as un-pregnant as possible. “I’m fine,” she insists.
I briefly consider waving toward my four-inch suede heels next, but I don’t want to give the universe the satisfaction of leaning into the cliché.
“?’Fraid I can’t get you any closer,” he replies as he climbs back into the car. “An acre or two back is Sally’s place. That’s the second-closest road, but still a good ways further.” He holds his business card out the window. “If you need another ride, use this number.”
Libby accepts the scrap of paper, and over her shoulder, I read: Hardy Weatherbee, Taxi Services and Unofficial Once in a Lifetime Tours. Her bark of laughter is lost beneath the roar of Hardy Weatherbee’s car reversing down the road like a bat out of hell.
“Well.” She winces, hunching her shoulders. “Maybe you should take your shoes off?”
With all our luggage, it’s going to take more than one trip, especially because there’s no way Libby’s carrying anything heavier than my heels.
The climb is steep, the heat sweltering, but when we crest the hill and see it, it is perfect: a winding path through shaggy, overgrown gardens to a small white cottage, its peaked roof a lovely burnt sienna. Its windows are ancient, single-paneled, and shutterless, and the only accent on the wall visible to us is a pale green arc of vines painted over the first-floor window. At the back of the house, gnarled trees press close, forest extending as far as I can see, and off to the left, in the meadow, a gazebo twined with wild grape stands within a smaller copse of trees. Sparkling glass-shard wind chimes and cutesy bird feeders sway in the branches, and the path cuts past a row of flowering bushes, curving onto a footbridge and then disappearing into the woods on the far side.
It’s like something out of a storybook.
No, it’s like something out of Once in a Lifetime. Charming. Quaint. Perfect.
“Oh my gosh.” Libby juts her chin toward the next few steps. “Do I have to keep going?”
I shake my head, still catching my breath. “I could tie a bedsheet around your ankle and drag you up.”
“What do I get if I make it to the top?”
“To make me dinner?” I say.
She laughs and loops her arm through mine, and we start up the final steps, inhaling the softly sweet smell of warm grass. My heart swells. Things already feel better than they have in months. It feels more us, before things amped up with my career and Libby’s family and we fell into separate rhythms.
In my purse, I hear my phone chime with an email and resist the urge to check it.
“Look at you,” Libby teases, “stopping to smell the literal roses.”
“I’m not City Nora anymore,” I say, “I’m laid-back, go-with-the-flow N—”
My phone chimes again, and I glance toward my purse, still keeping pace. It chimes twice more in quick succession, and then a third time.
I can’t take it. I stop, drop our bags, and start digging through my purse.
Libby gives me a look of wordless disapproval.
“Tomorrow,” I tell her, “I’ll start on being that other Nora.”
* * *
As different as we are, the second we start unpacking, it could not be more obvious that we’re cut from the same cloth: books, skin care products, and very fancy underwear. The Stephens Women Trifecta of Luxury, as passed down from Mom.
“Some things never change,” Libby sighs, a wistfully happy sound that folds over me like sunshine.
Mom’s theory was that youthful skin would make a woman more money (true in both acting and waitressing), good underwear would make her more confident (so far, so true), and good books would make her happy (universal truth), and we’ve clearly both packed with this theory in mind.
Within twenty minutes, I’ve settled in, washed my face, changed into fresh clothes, and booted up my laptop. Meanwhile, Libby put half her stuff away, then passed out on the king bed we’re sharing, her dog-eared copy of Once in a Lifetime facedown beside her on the quilt.
By then I’m desperately hungry, and it takes six more minutes of googling (the Wi-Fi is so slow, I have to use my phone as a hot spot) to confirm that the only place that delivers here is a pizza parlor.
Cooking isn’t an option. Back home, I eat fifty percent of my meals out, and another forty percent come from a mix of takeout and delivery.
Mom used to say New York was a great place to have no money. There’s so much free art and beauty, so much incredible, cheap food. But having money in New York, I remember her saying one winter as we window-shopped on the Upper East Side, Libby and I hanging on to her gloved hands, now that would be magical.
She never said it with bitterness, but instead with wonder, like, If things are already this good, then how must they be when you don’t have to worry about electric bills?
Not that she was in the acting business for the money (she was optimistic, not deluded). Most of her income came from waitressing tips at the diner, where she’d set me and Libby up with books or crayons for the length of her shift, or the occasional nannying job lax enough to let her tote us along until I was about eleven and she trusted me to stay home or at Freeman Books with Libby, under Mrs. Freeman’s watch.