Goodnight June: A Novel (19 page)

Gavin’s fiddling with an enormous food processor when I return to the restaurant. I tell him about the revelations in the letters, and he beams. “Just think of all the Seattle celebrities and notables who would come if they knew the history of the bookstore.”

I feel a surge of confidence now. “If we could really reach the people who grew up coming to Aunt Ruby’s story times, her young author workshops, if we could appeal to them, surely they’d want to help to save the bookstore.”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking,” Gavin says. “If we can get people to come back and show them how important the bookstore is, talk about its legacy and its future, they’re bound to contribute.”

“You’re amazing, you know?” I say.

“Not really,” he says. “I just think I was a publicist in a former life.”

“So where should we start?”

“Well, let’s get the store spiffed up first. Maybe a few new shelves? Some fresh paint? Nothing extravagant, but if we’re going to lure people in, we have to make the place shine.”

“I agree,” I say.

“What do you think about timing the event?”

“We’re going to have to do it soon,” I reply. “I’m afraid we don’t have much time before the bank pounces. And they
will
pounce.”

“Yes,” he says. “I have a buddy who’s a graphic designer. I’m sure he can help us with the invitations, posters. I can write the press release.”

“Wonderful,” I say. “We’ll have to think of a good name for the event. Maybe ‘Inspired by the Moon’ or something like that.” I inch closer to Gavin. “Can’t you just imagine how happy Ruby would be right now if she were here?”

He smiles.

“And if this is all a success,” I continue, “if we can keep the shop afloat, maybe we can pursue our plan to join forces. I mean, if you really want to.”

“I do,” he says. His words are sincere, but his eyes are distant.

“What?” I ask suddenly. “What is it?”

He rubs a stain on his apron compulsively. “It’s nothing.” He pauses for a moment, and then looks up at me. “Listen, there’s something I’ve been meaning to . . .”

I search his eyes, but he doesn’t make contact with mine. “What is it?”

Just then, the kitchen door swings open and a man with clipboard appears. “Sorry to interrupt,” he says. “I knocked, but there was no answer. The door was open so I just came on in. I’ve got your wine order. Just need you to sign right here.”

“Of course,” Gavin says, hurrying toward him. He rubs his brow nervously before he takes the pen in his hand.

“Where should I leave the boxes?”

“By the bar is fine, thanks,” Gavin replies, turning back to me as the man disappears through the doors to the dining room.

“Well, I . . .”

I decide not to press him, especially while he’s working. If he needs to tell me something, he will. In time. “Are you coming over tonight?” I ask. “After you close?”

“I can’t tonight,” he says a little distantly. “I have to . . . make the marinara for a wedding I’m catering this weekend.”

“Oh,” I say. “Can I help?”

He smiles. “Thanks, I’ve got it covered. But I’ll bring lunch over to the bookstore tomorrow. Sound good?”

“OK,” I say. “Call me if you want help.”

“I will.” He kisses me softly before I turn toward the door.

I spend three hours tidying the store, energized by the idea of the fund-raiser. I think of
Goodnight Moon
, and decide that I’ll contract a painter; I’ll try to match the exact color of the emerald-green walls of the nursery in the illustrations. And maybe I can have the drapes replaced. They’ve gotten so sun-bleached over the years. We already have a rocking chair, and the old telephone, plus the painting of the cow jumping over the moon, hanging over the fireplace.

It’s nine before I stop for dinner. I can smell the aroma from Antonio’s next door, and my stomach growls. I think about going over and eating in the kitchen, but I don’t want to bother Gavin. So I walk up the stairs to the apartment and make a frozen dinner. I stocked the freezer before I left for New York. I flip on Ruby’s old TV while I eat the little dish of cheese ravioli. I wonder how many times Ruby sat in this chair and watched television over a frozen dinner, alone. And my heart hurts so much, I have to clutch my chest then and blink away the tears. I think of how she was always knitting. Scarves. Sweaters. Mittens. She was never particularly good at it. If you inspected her handiwork closely, you’d find a dropped stitch here, or a small hole or lump there. But it was impossible not to love something Ruby had made. “Made with love,” she’d say.

After I eat, I reach for my laptop. I checked my messages this morning, a little disappointed. It was a small chance that J.P. would find the message, and yet, I held on to hope and had to fight the urge to check the adoption website hourly. But I tell myself that a quick check before bed wouldn’t be a bad idea.

I key in the website and pull up my dashboard. I see that there’s a mail icon next to my profile name. I click on it eagerly, and read a message with the subject line titled “Hello from J.P.”

Hi, I saw the message on Adoption Connector. My name is J.P. I live in Seattle, where I was adopted by my parents, a kind and wonderful couple who raised me with love. I am thirty-five years old. I had a wonderful childhood, but recently learned that I was adopted (my parents kept this from me for fear that I’d do just this: try to find my biological family). I assured them that I have no interest in replacing them. They are my parents. No others could fill that role. And yet, I can’t rest until I know where I come from. I have little information about my birth mother, just that she was in her forties when she had me, and that she was a single mom and educated. She named me J.P., also, and my parents kept the name because they liked it. Anyway, I work downtown, at the main branch of the Seattle Public Library. I’m director of reader services. I’d love to meet, to discuss all of this. Maybe we could have coffee. Look forward to hearing from you. —J.P.

I practically squeal when I finish reading the message.
This has to be him.
A librarian? Thirty-five? The son of an educated single mother in her forties? It all fits.

I reply to his message immediately:

Dear J.P., How amazing to hear from you! I cannot wait to meet you and discuss more! Are you free on Tuesday for coffee at ten? I can meet you at the library. Thank you, June

I check my messages incessantly for the next hour until I see his reply:

Dear June, SO good to hear from you. Yes, Tuesday at ten. My office is on the third floor. Just go to the reception desk and ask for me there.

I leap out of my chair and throw on a sweater. It’s after ten. The restaurant just closed, but I know Gavin will still be in the kitchen working on the marinara, just as he said he would be, so I head to the back door to the kitchen. I reach for the handle, but it’s locked. That’s strange. I peer through the window. The kitchen is dark and I feel the familiar flutter of my heart rate quickening as my anxiety rises.

I
wake early the next morning and phone Green Lake Painters. I arrange for a crew to come to the bookstore. Eager for work, they arrive later that morning, and because their bid is reasonable, I get them started on prepping the bookstore for its new look. The trim and windows are taped, and within an hour, the place looks like a construction zone, with ladders everywhere, men in overalls carrying paint buckets. The first editions are on the far wall, so I’m not too worried about getting paint on them, but I had the crew cover the shelf with a tarp as a precaution.

Gavin shows up at noon with a paper bag wafting delicious aromas. He’s kept his promise, but the sight of him makes my stomach twist in knots.

“Hi,” he says from the doorway.

“Hey,” I say. I decide not to ask him about his absence from the restaurant last night. Not yet.

“I brought lunch,” he says.

“Let’s eat upstairs,” I suggest. “They’re about to start the first coat.” The foreman seems like a decent person, so I don’t worry about theft of the more valuable books in the store. Besides, most people wouldn’t know of their worth.

In the apartment, I set Ruby’s kitchen table for two. Gavin opens a few takeout boxes and smiles. “I’m starved. Eat up,” he says.

I nibble on a breadstick as he scoops a large helping of spaghetti onto my plate. “I have news,” I say between bites.

“What?” he asks with wide eyes.

“I think I may have found Ruby’s son, J.P.”

“Really? That’s amazing!”

“I’m meeting him downtown tomorrow,” I say. “Get this—he’s a
librarian
.”

“Talk about fate,” Gavin says.

I grin. “And you thought he’d be a degenerate.”

“No,” he says, quickly swallowing the bite in his mouth. “I said there’s the
possibility
of him being a degenerate.”

“Well, he sounds like a great guy,” I say. “I mean, have you ever met a librarian you didn’t like?”

Gavin looks thoughtful for a moment. “Yes,” he says finally. “Mrs. Thorndike. The librarian at my elementary school. She scared the you-know-what out of me.”

“Oh, stop,” I say. “She was probably just rattled by ten-year-old boy antics.”

“You’re right,” he agrees, nodding conspiratorially. “I suppose it didn’t help that my best friend and I set a lizard loose during story time.”

I roll my eyes. “Males. Anyway, I have high hopes for J.P. If Ruby’s son is a librarian, imagine the partnership we could forge. Bluebird Books could sell the titles at library events, and we could sponsor summer reading programs, that sort of thing.”

“The match does sound heaven sent,” Gavin says. “But don’t get your hopes up, OK? I mean, at least until you’re really sure he is the guy.”

“I know,” I say. “But I have a good feeling about finally solving this family mystery.” I finish my salad, and I can’t help but think of the empty kitchen last night when I stopped by Antonio’s. The old feelings of betrayal rush back. He said he’d be working on the marinara, but he wasn’t. I bite my lip.

“Gavin,” I say a bit tentatively. “I stopped by the restaurant last night around ten. I thought you’d be there working on the marinara. I was surprised to find the lights out.”

“Oh,” he says, pausing an extra moment. “I was exhausted last night. I decided to come in early today instead.”

I nod, trying to rid myself of the pain of the past, the insecurities I’ve carried with me for so many years. I tell myself that Gavin is different. He wouldn’t hurt me. He certainly wouldn’t lie to me.

His cell buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out quickly, then looks at me apologetically. “I have to take this one,” he says. “You finish lunch. I’ll stop by a little later, OK?”

“OK,” I say, trying not to broadcast my disappointment. I pick at the pasta on my plate, and wonder who’s so important on the phone, and why Gavin’s suddenly acting secretive.

“Sorry,” I hear him say as he heads down the back staircase. “I can talk now.”

An hour later, I stare at the Italian food spread out on the table, and I shake my head. Gavin’s keeping something from me. I know it. Is it Adrianna? Does he still have feelings for her? Is she having some sort of crisis that he’s trying to help her with? If so, why can’t he tell me about it? Why can’t we deal with it
together
?

I shake my head, collecting the plates and silverware and piling them in the old ceramic sink with the dripping faucet. What would Ruby have done?

I think of a time Amy and I quarreled. She’d taken one of my favorite books, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s
Little House in the Big Woods
, and scribbled on each page with permanent markers. I’d always been on Amy’s side, always, but when she violated something so precious to me, I began to see her in a new light. I sigh, then think of what Ruby told me that day. She set the ruined book aside, reached up to a nearby shelf, and pulled down a fresh, new copy of
Little House in the Big Woods
. “No matter how dire it seems, no situation is hopeless,” she said. “Nothing is beyond fixing, my dear. Remember that, June, all right?” At the time I couldn’t even look at Amy, let alone forgive her. But Ruby addressed that, too. “Some of us have to make a lot of mistakes before we become the people we are meant to be. Amy’s making her mistakes. Let’s be patient with her.”

I close my eyes tight. “Ruby,” I whisper into the air, “what do I do? I’m afraid.” I think of Gavin. “I’m afraid to trust.” And then I think of Amy. I see her in her pigtails on the day she ruined my book. Her hands are stained with red and black ink. “I’m afraid to forgive.”

Ruby’s words come to me again. “Nothing is beyond fixing, my dear.” This comforts me, and I tuck her wisdom away in a place deep down, where I can find it again when I need it.

Later that evening I get a text from Gavin. “Slammed at the restaurant. Miss you.”

His words are vague and I try not to read too much into them, especially now that Adrianna is out of the picture. And yet, I know I’m fragile in matters of love. Instead, I pick up the phone and call Peter.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hi, sweetie,” he says. “How’s Seattle?”

“I don’t know anymore.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing, really,” I say. “But you know when you get that feeling that something’s wrong, but you can’t put your finger on it?”

“Yeah,” he replies. “You have to trust that feeling.”

“Well, I’m getting the feeling about Gavin. I think he’s keeping something from me.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” I say. “I can’t help but think that it may have something to do with his ex.”

“The business partner at the restaurant?”

“Yeah.”

“Here’s what I think, June. I think that after all you went through, you’re afraid to be made a fool again.”

“Right about that,” I say.

“But I think by protecting yourself, you’re also putting up walls and being too paranoid.”

“Maybe,” I say honestly.

“If you want this to work, you can’t do that. You have to proceed with total trust. If he tells you that he’s going to be one place, you believe him until you have solid reason not to. Did I ever tell you about when Nate and I first started dating, how I thought he was cheating on me?”

“No,” I say.

“Well, he was working late a lot, and then he skipped out on a dinner we had planned. I was beside myself, totally paranoid that he was seeing someone else.”

“Was he?”

“No,” Peter replies. “He was actually planning my thirty-fifth birthday party.”

“I remember that party. Those flowers, that cake.”

“I know, it took a lot of work,” he continues.

“I really don’t think Gavin’s planning a party for me.”

“That’s not what I’m saying, silly. The point is, things aren’t always what they seem.”

“You’re right,” I say. “Thanks for listening to me ramble.”

“I love listening to you ramble. If I was straight, I’d marry you.”

“And live happily ever after,” I say.

“No,” Peter continues. “You’re going to do that with Gavin. Just wait and see.”

“Your confidence gives me hope,” I say.

“Any offers on the apartment?”

“Yeah,” I say. “One lowball offer, but we took it. Sharon thought it would be our best.”

“So where does this leave things with the bookstore?”

“Not good, I’m afraid,” I reply. “If I save the store, it will be by a thread. I have a lead that may pan out. Ruby had a son long ago. She gave him up for adoption under difficult circumstances. Anyway, I kept thinking that if I found him, maybe he’d want to know about the bookstore. Maybe he’d want to help.”

“Smart,” he says.

“Well, we’ll see. I did get a bite on an adoption website from a man in Seattle who fits the profile of Ruby’s son. Turns out he’s a librarian, which is pretty amazing. But, it’s yet to be determined if he’s
the
J.P. I’m meeting him tomorrow. Gavin and I had another idea, though. We’re going to host a fund-raiser. Remember how I told you that my aunt kept in touch with Margaret Wise Brown, the author of
Goodnight Moon
?”

“Yeah,” he says. “How could I forget? That’s amazing.”

“Well, I think we’re going to use that as the hook,” I add. “We think people might be interested in helping to save a bookstore with such rich literary history behind it.”

“When’s the date?”

“We haven’t gotten the invitations printed yet, but we’re thinking soon, as in next month or so. That will give us just enough time to get the store cleaned up, send out invitations, press releases, that sort of thing.”

“Tell me the date as soon as you have it confirmed. Nate and I will be there.”

“Really?” I say with a squeal. “That would mean so much to me.”

“Don’t mention it,” he says. “But I also have ulterior motives. Nate’s favorite book as a child was
Goodnight Moon
. He’s going to flip out.”

“Love you, Petey,” I say.

“Love you too, Junebug.”

The movers arrive two days later, first thing in the morning. I see the truck pull up in front of Bluebird Books, so I set my coffee down and rush outside to the curb. There isn’t much in the truck—a dozen boxes, most of them clothes—but I’m happy to reunite with my belongings. It will feel like I’m moving in, officially now.