Goodnight June: A Novel (2 page)

D
o you remember the first time you read
Goodnight Moon
? While many discover the book as a child (with more than fourteen million copies sold, it’s delighted countless children around the world since its first printing in 1947), I was only vaguely familiar with the story until I received a copy as a baby shower gift. I remember the first time I read it to my eldest son, Carson, when he was a baby. We both became instantly fascinated with the tale—a lullaby, really—about a little bunny going to sleep. At the end of each day, I found it so calming to read those pages (which I soon memorized). Night after night, it was a comfort to return to the “great green room.”

My two younger sons soon joined in our nightly read. All three have a favorite page, and each adores looking for the mouse. Over the years we’ve come to affectionately call the story Moon Book. (My littlest, Colby, can’t pronounce the word
book
, so he calls it Moon Cook.) And it’s fair to say that
Goodnight Moon
has become as irreplaceable in our home as it has in our hearts.

I once wrote a humorous parody of
Goodnight Moon
for
Parenting
, which went on to be one of the most popular pages on the magazine’s website. Clearly, more than a half century after its publication,
Goodnight Moon
continues to speak to us.

When I come to love a book, I tend to want to learn about its author. So, I set out to research the life of Margaret Wise Brown. I wanted to know more about the vivacious, beautiful children’s book author who penned more than one hundred stories before her untimely death in 1952, when she was just forty-two years old.

I read everything I could get my hands on about Margaret, and in my research, I found that we have a lot in common. She was restless and goal oriented, just as I am (two traits that make for a productive yet sometimes tortured writer). She was also, like me, a dreamer. A rabbit-shaped cloud in the sky might inspire a new book, just as a canoe ride to a little island near her home in Maine could provide the muse for a brand-new series.

Margaret was fiercely creative. And in reading about her life, I know that she must have felt, as I do, creativity can be a force of (human) nature. Margaret wrote of stories coming from every direction. Some mornings, upon waking, she’d jot down ideas for new books she had dreamed about overnight.

When your brain works in this way, it can be both exciting and crazy-making. (Imagine being halfway through a first draft of a novel, when characters from a new book begin whispering in your ear relentlessly—this is my life.) My novelist friend Carol Cassella, who also happens to be a doctor (overachiever, no?), calls this state, half jokingly, a “chronic illness.” Good or bad, it seems that Margaret and I have this in common.

While vulnerable as a kitten in matters of love, Margaret was also a smart and often shrewd businesswoman who looked after her interests in publishing, along with the interests of her illustrator friends, never settling for second best.

I love this about her. She was both spirited and determined, yet she was also a gentle soul and a loyal friend. She was impulsive, too. One of my favorite stories about Margaret involves her spending the entire sum of a royalty check on flowers, hundreds of them. She’s believed to have bought the whole cart on a New York City street; she then decorated her home with flowers and threw a party for her friends.

It’s no wonder Margaret Wise Brown left such an impression on the world, but because of her sudden death, she left secrets, too. Nobody really knows, exactly, the true inspiration for
Goodnight Moon
. Margaret is believed to have written the story in the period of a single morning at Cobble Court, her New York City cottage. So I began to imagine what
could
have been the glimmer of the idea for the iconic children’s book, and, like Margaret, I let my imagination take me away.

Soon, my characters were whispering. There was June Andersen, a thirty-five-year-old New York City banker whose high-stakes job is taking a toll on her health; and her great-aunt Ruby, who has left her life’s work, the legendary Seattle children’s bookstore, Bluebird Books, to her beloved niece. The bookstore is full of secrets, and in it June discovers letters between her aunt Ruby and the late Margaret Wise Brown—letters that detail a beautiful friendship that may have had a profound impact on the author.

But while I wanted this to be a story inspired by Margaret’s life and her artistic genius, I also wanted my character June to take center stage. This is, after all,
her
journey. It takes courage to be vulnerable, to face a rocky past, and to attempt to start over again, to love again. June will have to figure out if she can do that, and when the bookstore falls into financial peril, the fate of Ruby’s precious Bluebird Books is in June’s hands. Will she save the place and its secrets? Will she save herself?

Margaret Wise Brown left this world twenty-six years before I was born. And while our paths never crossed, I often think about what it would have been like to meet her, to sit down over a cup of coffee (or maybe a lunchtime cocktail, as Margaret may have liked) and discuss the writing life, cottontail bunnies, the three little bears sitting on chairs. All of it. I’d tell her about this novel I’ve written, and hope she’d be pleased. We’d laugh and tell stories, and I’d share how my four-year-old, Russell, is enamored with her book
The
Sailor Dog
. We’d talk about the plight of brick-and-mortar bookstores in the digital age, and the challenge of keeping children loving literature when television and video games and other shiny new things have such allure. I’d compliment her on the flower cart stunt (if only I had the guts to pull off something like that), and I’d thank her for being such an inspiration.

Simply put, just to be in her presence, I’d be over the moon.

—SJ

New York City

May 3, 2005

E
veryone has a happy place, the scene that comes into view when you close your eyes and let your mind transport you to the dot on the globe where life is cozy, safe, warm. For me, that place is the bookstore, with its emerald green walls and the big picture windows that, at night, frame the stars twinkling above. The embers in the fireplace burn the color of a setting orange sun, and I’m wrapped in a quilt, seated in a big wingback chair reading a book.

“June?”

I open my eyes quickly, and the stark white walls beyond my hospital bed reset my frame of mind to reality. The thin sheet draped over my body is stiff and scratchy, bleached one too many times, and I shiver as a nurse places her icy hands on my wrist.

“Didn’t mean to wake you, honey,” she says, fastening a blood pressure cuff around my arm.

I stare at the tattoo on her forearm, a butterfly with a lot of pink and purple detailing, as she squeezes the black pump between her fingers. I immediately thank my seventeen-year-old self (profusely) for not actually going through with that wraparound dolphin ankle tattoo I was once
this close
to getting
.
A moment later she rips open the Velcro and frowns. “High,” she says. “Too high for a woman your age. Dr. Cater is going to want to talk to you about this.”

I see the disapproving look in her eyes and I want to blurt out, “I’m a vegetarian! I run marathons! I haven’t even had dessert in two years!” But my cell phone chimes, and I pick it up quickly. It’s a text from my boss, Arthur.

“Where are you? Thought you were working on second-quarter reports tonight?”

I feel my heart beat faster and I take a deep breath. He doesn’t know I’m in the hospital, of course. No one does. And no one will. The nurse begins to speak, and I hold up my hand for silence, then sit up to compose myself before hitting Reply. “Got sidetracked with another project,” I type. “Will be in asap.” The project, of course, is this pesky health condition of mine. If my body would just
cooperate
.

I look up at the clock on the wall: It’s after eight. I was admitted at noon with high blood pressure—dangerously high, the ER doctor said. “Am I having a heart attack?” I asked. I’ve been having symptoms for at least a month, but at a business lunch today—me, and eleven men in suits—I had to excuse myself. I felt dizzy, nauseated. My hands tingled. I couldn’t let them see me like that, so I lied and said I had to go back to the office and put out a fire. Except I didn’t go back to the office. I got into a cab, and I went to the emergency room.

I fidget with the IV in my arm that’s slowly administering blood pressure medication. This isn’t supposed to happen when you’re thirty-five. I eye my bag on the chair across the room anxiously.
I need to get out of here.

As I stand up, the door opens and an older man in a white coat appears. He’s frowning. “And where do you think you’re going, Ms. Andersen?” Although in place of my name I imagine him saying “missy.”

I don’t like his tone, even if he is a doctor, even if his ultimate goal is to save my life. “I’m feeling better,” I say, still fiddling with the wire attached to my arm. “I have an important project at work that I have to get to.”

The doctor walks closer and sets my chart down on the table beside my bed. He’s obviously in no hurry to have me discharged. “What’s it going to take?”

I look at him, perplexed. “What do you mean?”

“What’s it going to take to get you to slow down?”

“Slow down?” I shake my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He points to the folder on the table. “I read your chart.”

I gave the ER doctor a rundown of my typical day: up at five, to the office by seven (and that’s after running six or seven miles), then work, work, work until eight, maybe nine p.m. (and, actually, sometimes later).

So what? I’m a
vice president
at a major bank, the youngest VP in the history of Chase & Hanson Bank International, and with eight thousand employees worldwide, that’s saying something. I have to prove myself. Besides, I’m good at what I do. It’s maybe the only thing I’m good at.

“Listen, Dr. . . .”

“Dr. Cater.”

“Dr. Cater,” I say in the slow, confident voice I use to negotiate with debtors. “I appreciate your concern, but really, I’m going to be OK. Just give me the prescription, and I’ll take the pills. Problem solved.”

“It’s not that simple,” he says. “You’re a complex case.”

I let out a little laugh. “Thank you, I think.”

“Ms. Andersen, I see that you’re experiencing numbness in your hands on occasion.”

“Yes,” I say. “I run a lot. New York is cold before sunrise.”

“I don’t think it’s that kind of numbness,” he says. “I believe you have a panic disorder.”

“Excuse me—a
what
disorder?”

“Panic,” he says. “I think your body is under a tremendous amount of stress and that it’s compensating by shutting down, in a sense.”

“No,” I say, unwrapping the tape that’s holding the IV in place. “I know what you’re implying. You think I’m crazy. I’m
not
crazy. Others in my family, well, they may be. But I’m not.” I shake my head. “Listen, are you going to take this thing out of my arm, or am I going to have to yank it out myself?”

Dr. Cater looks at me for a long moment and then sighs. “If you insist on leaving, we can’t keep you here,” he says. “But please, promise me that you’ll at least consider slowing down. You’re going to run yourself into the grave.”

My cell phone buzzes again. What does this guy know about me? Absolutely nothing. I shrug. “Whatever I have to say to get out of here.”

Dr. Cater reluctantly takes the IV out of my arm, and tucks a slip of paper into my hand. “This is a prescription for beta-blockers; they work by blocking certain nerve and hormone signals that cause anxiety,” he says. “I’d like you to take the pills, at least for the next few months, and I strongly encourage you to lighten the load. Maybe exercise a little less; cut back on your workload. Take a vacation.”

I stifle a laugh. No one at my level takes time off. Lisa Melton, the new VP on the ninth floor, took a week off after her wedding and even
that
was frowned upon. There’s a certain expectation in finance that when you hit the big time, you pretty much live and breathe work. Vacation days just accrue into a lake of time off that you can never think of dipping into, unless you want to drown. It’s just the way it works. “I appreciate your concern,” I repeat, reaching for my coat and bag. “But I have to go.”

“There you are,” Arthur says, smirking a little. “I thought we’d lost you.” My boss is shrewd, cunning. But I know that deep down he has a heart, or at least some semblance of one, which is why I once told him that he’s the nicest asshole I’ve ever met. For his twentieth anniversary with the company, I had a gold plaque engraved with those very words.

“Sorry I had to leave the lunch today,” I say. “I . . . I . . . listen, I had a
thing
come up.”

“A
female
thing?”

“No, no,” I say, making an annoyed face.
Men.
“Nothing like that.” I snap back into work mode—all business. “Listen, I’m sorry. I’m here now. It won’t happen again.”

Arthur’s eyes narrow. “What in the world are you wearing?”

For the first time, I realize what I must look like after spending the past eight hours at the hospital. Disheveled hair. Smeared eye makeup. I quickly pull my wool peacoat tighter around my neck when I realize I’m still wearing the light blue hospital gown. “I came from home, didn’t have time to, er, change,” I say.

Arthur shrugs. “OK. Anyway, let’s get to work.”

We sit down at the conference room table, and he lays out a stack of file folders. “Every single one of them in default,” he says. “Who are we going after first?”

I lean in and pick up the folder on top labeled
SAMANTHA
’S KNITTING ROOM
. I’ve long stopped feeling sorry for small business owners who can’t make ends meet. At first it was hard, cracking down on mom-and-pop shops. And I’ll never forget my first assignment. I cried when I delivered foreclosure papers to a café in New Orleans that had been in business since the turn of the century. It was one of those old venues with intricate wrought-iron railings and a green-and-white-striped awning. Beloved by everyone in the city, of course. When I walked in the door, I was greeted by the owner, an old woman. The café had been her father’s. It was a New Orleans tradition. John F. Kennedy had eaten lunch there in 1959. On the wall were signed photographs of Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Louis Armstrong. She brought me coffee and a plate of sugar-dusted beignets. My hands trembled when I handed her the envelope that would shutter her family’s pride and joy forever.

It got easier after that. In time, I learned to handle each case with the precision of a surgeon. In and out. No emotion. My guiding tenet: It’s business, not personal. I don’t care how cute, quaint, or beloved your business is. I don’t care if the Pope was born there or if your father got down on one knee and proposed to your mother in the storefront window. The fact of the matter is, if you can’t pay your bills, the bank—well,
I
will repossess and sell off your assets. It’s that simple.

I like to think that Arthur chose me to mentor because he saw a certain spark, a skill that I had that no other junior banker did. But no, I know that when Arthur saw me, he simply saw clay. I didn’t have a life outside of work. I was devoted to my job. I was malleable.

He helped me hone my skills in banking. Everyone called him “the ax man,” because he had no qualms about closing an underperforming business and auctioning off prized possessions. He didn’t even bat an eye in the face of distressed clients. He only saw the bottom line. And he trained me to see that too. He shaped me into his ax woman, and together we became the bank’s highest-performing department. We cut the fat. We got results.

Of course, not all cases require a personal visit. Usually we can get the papers signed from afar. Usually people cooperate. But some don’t. Some let the letters stack up on their desks and ignore our phone calls simply because they want to delay the inevitable. It’s hard facing your failure. I get that. But that’s life.

I hold up the folder for Samantha’s Knitting Room and thumb through the papers inside. Samantha, who, I see from the original loan application, was born the same year I was, 1970, is seven months behind on her payments. I review the contact log, and see that she’s ignored our department’s calls and letters.

“Looks like someone needs to pay Miss Samantha a visit,” Arthur says. His eyes light up the way a detective’s might when he has someone in his sights and knows he’ll be cuffing them soon.

“Yeah,” I say vacantly. My fingers are tingling again, and my head feels heavy, like a bowling ball attached to my neck, which strains under the weight. What’s wrong with me? My scalp begins to tingle next. The heavy feeling dissipates and my head begins to feel like a balloon, one that’s floating above my body. I should be invested in this discussion with Arthur. I should be approaching each case with my usual zeal.
Why can’t I?
My heart beats faster, and I clutch the edge of my seat. The numbness in my fingers has spread to my hand, and I can barely feel my palm.
It’s happening again.

I eye the door. “Arthur,” I say quickly, “I think I ate something funny.” I clutch my stomach for believability. “I’d better excuse myself.”

He shrugs, collecting the folders into a neat pile and then handing them to me. “OK, well, it is getting late. You can go over the files this weekend. I flagged the ones that need the special June Andersen touch.”

I force a smile. “Right. Of course.”

By the time the cab drops me in front of my building, I’ve gotten control of myself, sort of. The numbness, except for a slight tingling sensation in my left pinky, is gone. I check my mail in the lobby and take the elevator to the seventh floor, then slip my key into No. 703.

I think back to that horrible biology teacher I had in my junior year of high school. I got good grades, mostly, but I’d always struggled with science. After I’d failed an exam, he called me to his desk and told me, “You know, your mother was a student of mine. She wasn’t good at science either. If you don’t study harder, you’re going to turn out just like her. Do you want to spend your life working at the checkout counter of a grocery store?” I hated the look on his face: condescending, cavalier. My eyes stung, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry. I saved that for later. If Mr. Clark could only see me now. If he could see the career I have, the apartment I own (mortgaged to the hilt, but so what—my name is on the title).