Surprise Me (29 page)

Lanie might have saved Gus—interesting that you named your character after your father, but that’s a different conversation—but I don’t think I ever did that for you. I might have nudged you closer to where you eventually ended up, but it was completely without a plan and only because I needed so much from you that I grabbed greedily, and the result was a lifeline for both of us.

So my version of events would be quite different, but yours is beyond great. The book is a wonder!

Love,

Isabelle

Isabelle,

Then write your version.

Daniel

Daniel,

Arrrgggggghhh!!

I.

And then, because Daniel doesn’t want Isabelle to feel he has discounted the rest of her e-mail:

Isabelle,

And don’t think your words of praise haven’t made my day, my week, my month, and my forever.

Love,

Daniel

And so slowly, with great trepidation, without telling him at first, Isabelle begins to do just what Daniel commanded: she starts to write her own version of the time they spent together and beyond. Just as Daniel had.

Part Three

SUMMER
2014

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I
t is Alina who calls Isabelle and tells her to come. That Daniel needs her. And of course she goes.

It isn’t hard these days for Isabelle to arrange her life so that she can quickly fly to New Hampshire. Avi, who is nineteen and in college at UC, Davis, is spending the summer between his freshman and sophomore years working as a white-water guide. Years ago Casey took him to Alaska so they could experience Mendenhall Lake, at the foot of Mendenhall Glacier. He couldn’t resist, Casey told her: “Two Mendenhalls going to see two Mendenhalls—a natural!” And Avi had been dumbstruck by the stark beauty of the landscape—the seven-thousand-foot-tall mountains capped with snow and the pristine, iceberg-studded lake. This summer he’s back to lead boatloads of tourists down the rapids of Mendenhall River.

Casey has always understood something about their son that Isabelle might have missed: that he is happiest where the terrain is rugged, that he hates to be contained. Whatever he ends up doing with his life, it will be something without a desk or a schedule. Not unlike his father.

Their relationship these days consists of travel to remote places: hiking through the austere mountain ranges of Pays Dogon in Mali, riding the rapids of the Rio Upano in Ecuador through the Amazon rain forest. They are always planning their next adventure, each trying to best the other in finding the most remote and original trip to take. It is here that they make their connection, here that they are most alike.

But it is the ways in which Avi is unlike his father that reassure Isabelle about his future. Avi examines and mulls and thinks things through. He wants to know the why of things, and especially of people, in a way that has never appealed to Casey.

She’s seen him weigh and appreciate Casey’s calling, but having lived with the consequences of it all his life, he also understands the inherent self-centeredness in it. He loves Isabelle but wishes she were easier on herself—less self-critical, less heavy-duty. They’ve had that conversation a number of times, always ending with her son saying, “Just chill, Mom, you know.” And she does know, but can’t often get there.

Avi has no idea what he will eventually do with his life, but he isn’t worried. Right now he wants experience for the sake of the experience, and right now untamed Alaska and the rapids of Mendenhall River fit the bill. So it won’t matter to Avi whether his mother is home in the Oakland hills or in the tiny town of Winnock, New Hampshire. He will be in the wilds of Alaska, exactly where he wants to be.

In terms of the bookstore, Isabelle is confident that Julian can easily take care of Noah’s Ark while she is gone. He practically does that now. There are so many days Isabelle never makes it into the store. She is constantly grateful for the day, five years ago, when Julian, a longtime customer, came in and asked for a job. His partner of almost seventeen years, Craig, had just died, and Julian was coming apart at the seams.

“I can’t stay at home and stare at the walls anymore,” he told Isabelle with an apologetic smile, “because they’re starting to talk back to me.”

Isabelle’s instinct told her to say,
Yes, come and work here,
and she did so without hesitation, just as Meir had taken a chance on her twenty years before. And Julian has rewarded her by dedicating himself to Noah’s Ark in a way that would have made Meir very happy. The two men would have gotten along, she’s certain, although they would seem to be polar opposites—Meir large and sloppy to Julian’s fastidious thinness, Meir antisocial as a life creed and Julian living for his wide circle of friends. But both men would declare that they loved books in a visceral, unquestioning way, and that passion would have united them.

Often when she tells Julian one story or another about Meir, she misses him with a sharp-edged sadness, as if his death eight years ago had happened only yesterday. Well, his presence is there, in every shelf of the store, every book she sells, the shop his legacy, which Isabelle honors every day. As does Julian.

Michael will be the one to miss her, but she knows he won’t protest. When she met him, nine years ago, Daniel had been such a constant presence in her life for so long that it was like he was a relative, someone to be inherited along with the rest of Isabelle’s family—her impossible mother, her three fractious brothers, her gentle, regretful father. And Daniel.

Michael, with his generous heart, embraced them all. Before Isabelle, he had been a man without a family. His Russian immigrant parents used up all their energy, it seemed, getting the three of them to America when Michael was very small. Their premature deaths he attributes to a kind of wearing out of body and spirit as soon as Michael was safely in law school. His first wife was long gone, seeking more excitement than a staid law professor could provide. So he welcomed Isabelle’s family, however difficult, and they responded in kind.

How is it, Isabelle often wonders, that she ended up married to a man her parents like? Both of them. Even her mother, the harder sell by far, lets praise for Michael slip through her lips every so often.

And Deepti and Parmeet will look in on him, bring him Indian food for dinner and make sure he remembers to eat it. Their gratitude to Michael will never be repaid, they feel, because he introduced them four years ago.

When Parmeet Joshi was recruited by Boalt Hall from his position as professor of international law at Gujarat National Law University, he came with accolades and honors. Michael expected a sort of legal celebrity, given Parmeet’s published work, the papers he had delivered at conferences all over the world, but the man he met was quiet, a bit shy, and self-effacing despite his scholarly standing. He knew immediately Parmeet would be a good match for Deepti.

Michael loves Deepti almost as much as Isabelle does. They share the slightly subversive humor of genuinely nice people and a love of late-night conversations. Before Parmeet entered the picture, they would sit on the sweeping deck of Michael’s hillside home and continue talking well after Isabelle had gone off to bed.

It was to Michael that Deepti could air her worries about the financial difficulties of her pediatric practice, given the population she served in East Oakland—low-income patients, mostly on Medi-Cal.

And Michael would talk to Deepti about the politics of his law school. The in-fighting, the warring camps within the faculty. Isabelle could never keep the factions straight, but Deepti regarded all the inner workings of the school as a real-life soap opera. She was fascinated, and so Michael could go on and on, story after story.

From all those late-night conversations and all the dinners the three of them had shared over the years, Michael felt he knew Deepti well enough to say to Isabelle, “I want her to meet Parmeet.”

“A fix-up?”

“Well…” Michael equivocated. Then: “Yes, okay, we can call it that.”

“Great! Deepti needs a fix-up!”

And Michael was right again; his instinct for people was solid. Deepti and Parmeet were married less than a year later, diffident people glowing with happiness, Deepti, past forty, was almost as shocked that her life had taken this unexpected turn as she was joyful. So Michael was a matchmaking genius, everyone acknowledged that, and perfect for Isabelle.

—

IT ALL BEGAN AT FULL OF BEANS
in 2005. Most mornings when Isabelle rushed in, almost always late, it seemed, Michael would look up from his latte and laptop to see this tall woman with graceful hands talking to Alfredo as he made her cappuccino. These two people had an understanding. He gave her an extra shot of espresso and she always asked about his kids, whom he was eager to talk about. Since he had six, there never was a dearth of conversation.

Michael liked how well Isabelle listened—everything stilled, her hands quieted, her eyes on Alfredo’s face followed his expressions as he talked. And Michael liked the questions she asked, as if she was genuinely interested. There was also something about the way she seemed perpetually out of breath, eager to catch up to a life that seemed always just a little bit out of reach, which appealed to him. He couldn’t have articulated why, but somehow he knew that he could provide ballast that might help Isabelle settle a little, maybe even allow her to sail forward in a more measured way.

Sometimes, after listening to a story from Alfredo about one child or another, Isabelle would contribute a story about her own son, and Alfredo would laugh knowingly. “Oh, yes,” he’d say, “a wise child. You have your hands full.” And Isabelle would smile ruefully and nod, and it was evident to Michael how much she loved this “wise child” of hers.

So she had a child but didn’t wear a ring. Perhaps there was hope.

Most people’s eyes would slide right past Michael Davidov. He exuded a solitary air, a seriousness that encouraged people’s eyes to seek out the next person, who might be more interesting to look at and who was definitely more engaging in the moment. And there was something vaguely old-fashioned about him, a reticence that was slightly foreign, a legacy from his immigrant parents, who clung to their Russian roots even as they tried to adapt to America.

Well into his thirties when he met Isabelle, he had made peace with his nature. He was content to be seen as just another Berkeley professor in a well-used jacket, button-down shirt, a large briefcase on the chair beside him, going over notes before his morning lecture. Conventional. Easily forgettable.

But Michael’s secret was that he grew on people, that the more one got to know him, the more compelling he became. Underneath the seriousness were a wicked intelligence and the kindness that was Michael’s defining characteristic. And as he watched Isabelle day after day, the certainty grew within him that if he went about it the right way, this lovely, breathless woman might just see the good in him.

Then came the day that, on an impulse, he followed her. He packed up his laptop quickly, grabbed his briefcase, and walked behind her down College Avenue, two blocks to the corner, where she stopped to unlock the front door of Noah’s Ark. He waited a minute, two, and when he saw the
OPEN
sign appear on the glass front door, he made his move.

The bell on the door jingled as he entered the shop. The front counter was empty, the store silent. Didn’t he just see her—Isabelle is what Alfredo called her—unlock the door and come in?

“Hello?”

“I’m coming,” is called from the back, and Isabelle appears carrying the third incarnation of the original Mr. Coffee, heavy with water, up to the front counter. “Sorry,” she says, a touch out of breath, he notices, and apologizing as a reflex. “Can I help you?” She is busy plugging in the machine and not really looking at him.

“You carry used textbooks?”

“Some. What are you looking for?”

“
Economic Consequences of Intellectual Property/Copyright Decisions,
by Belarsky and Margrove.”

Isabelle shrugs. “I don’t think so—it’s a law book, right? But you could take a look.” She points. “Back wall.”

And Michael makes his way through the overstuffed shelves to the back of the shop while Isabelle climbs aboard her tall stool behind the front counter and, to the reassuring accompaniment of the gurgling water, begins to sort the mail.

And then Michael is back, standing in front of her with the textbook in his hand, and she looks at him fully for the first time. He could be descended from a long line of rabbis, is her immediate first thought: dark and serious, a prominent nose, large, compelling brown eyes, a face of angles, a masculine face that is not the least bit handsome. A face that in its Jewish soulfulness feels familiar to her.