They pulled up to the house on Asbury Avenue by midafternoon and found three men standing on the lawn.
One was Olive Pedestro’s son. He was walking the two dogs—Ingmar and Toby—and smoking a hand-rolled cigarette.
“The dogs,” Augusta said. “Why isn’t Jessamine walking them?”
“Maybe she’s taken the day off and got Virgil to cover for her,” Ru said.
Jessamine never spontaneously took the day off.
“Clifford Wells,” Liv said, recognizing the second man on the lawn from the engagement page.
“Go ahead and call dibs,” Ru said. “Just please don’t eat him alive.”
“I’m in no condition, to be honest,” Liv said.
Atty pointed to the third man. He had sandy windblown hair and wore khakis and a pale-pink polo shirt. He stood with his hands in his pockets, rocking up on the toes of his loafers.
“One of yours?” Esme asked Liv.
“Nope.”
“And it’s not Teddy Whistler,” Atty said.
“Though he does have a history of stalking our front lawn,” Liv said.
“Where is Teddy Whistler now anyway?” Liv said.
“Well, it’s Saturday so…” Ru checked the time on her phone. “He’s probably getting ready to crash a wedding.”
“Oh, I know who that is,” Augusta said. “It’s Herc Huckley’s son.”
“Herc Huckley’s son?” Nick said. “Why is he here?”
“He wants to ask you about the contents of a certain box,” Augusta said.
Atty told Olive Pedestro’s son that her grandmother would settle up with him later on.
“She’s kind of busy,” Atty said, watching her grandmother introduce her bandaged-up grandfather to the son of a man named Herc Huckley. “Her husband got shot yesterday so, you know…”
“Her husband?”
“Yeah,” Atty said, taking the leashes from him.
Augusta and Nick started talking to the stranger and, together, they stepped into the house.
Meanwhile Ru said hello and Cliff said hello. They stood there a few minutes and then she started twisting the engagement ring off her finger. She handed it to him and said, “Do you want to come in for a drink?”
Cliff looked at Esme and Liv. “Your sisters, I take it?”
She nodded.
“And your mom is with…?”
“My father, actually.”
“Wow. That’s big.”
Ru nodded. “It’s pretty huge.”
“And your niece? Atty, right?” He pointed at Atty, who was now holding the leashes and staring straight up at the dark clouds overhead.
“Do you want to meet everyone?” Ru asked.
Liv and Esme stopped Virgil Pedestro as he was making his way back to his house and talked him into helping them unstrap the glass display case of taxidermied squirrels off the roof rack of the station wagon. He was rounding the car, sizing up the job.
“Are those squirrels?” Cliff asked.
“Yes, and they’re boxing.”
Cliff tilted his head. “I see that.”
“I don’t think they were caught in the wild that way.”
“One would assume not,” Cliff said.
“How’s the Sony gig?” Ru asked. “Did I tell you how happy I am for you?”
“I think you did, but you’re not.”
“I’m trying to be.”
He then stared at Ru, tilting his head in the same way he’d looked at the boxing squirrels. “You were in love with me at some point in time, right?”
“At many points in time,” she said, though now she knew it wasn’t true. She’d never felt what she felt for Teddy—something like being struck, to be honest, as in lovestruck. Sometimes words were so simple. She’d never thought of it as being struck like a bell and then walking around vibrating with love, the shock of it.
“I see,” Cliff said.
“I’m so sorry about everything,” Ru said.
He put the ring in his pocket and then started breathing heavily. He bent over and put his hands on his knees.
“Are you okay?”
“Uh, no. I’m not okay! Jesus! I can’t even look at you. I can’t…” He then straightened up, but he did it too fast. He reached out, and she tried to steady him with both of her hands, but he tipped backward then tried to right himself too quickly, driving his knees into the soft dirt of the lawn. “Jesus,” he whispered. “I didn’t believe it. I thought, all along, I thought once you saw me…I thought you’d realize…”
“Hey!” she shouted to her sisters. “I need a little help here!”
Esme and Liv walked over quickly, leaving Virgil Pedestro to wrestle bungee cords and rope.
“I think he’s having a panic attack,” Ru said.
“Let’s bring him in,” Esme whispered.
Liv and Esme steadied him, guiding him to the front door. Only Ru stayed in the yard. She watched them walk him to the door and disappear into the house. Then Liv immediately turned back, grayed behind the screen. She pushed it open and walked back down the steps and across the yard, passing Ru. She opened the car door, pulled out one of her oversized leather bags. She walked to Ru, reached into the bag, and handed her a picture book.
“Ping,” Liv said softly. “You remember this book, I guess, because you remember everything.”
Ru held the book. “This book scarred me as a child.”
“Of course it did. You were the littlest duck.”
Ru flipped through pages. “Why are you giving it to me?”
“I don’t know,” Liv said. “Except I don’t think you’re Ping, Ru. I’m Ping. I’ve been out in the wilds. I’ve been lost and almost eaten alive like Ping here and I’ve seen the birds who are slaves to men, and I’m glad I’m home.”
“Thank you.” Ru closed the book and held it to her chest. “I’m going after Teddy Whistler. I’m going to try to win him back before he wins Amanda back.”
“And I might go and cherry-pick your ex-fiancé.”
“That’s okay with me.”
“It’s good to have sisters.”
“I think so,” Ru said. “I don’t know who I’d be without you two. A lost star with no constellation.”
“Right.”
The note was taped to the front door.
Augusta,
Dogs taken care of. Casseroles in the fridge.
Off to the beach for the day—to live a little.
Live a little,
Jessamine
Augusta held the note so tightly that it fluttered in her hand. Jessamine was going to live a little and she suggested Augusta do the same. This was what living felt like, Augusta thought, and it was thrilling and surreal. She looked at Nick and there was no realism here. This man she’d known and not known all these years—a man she’d met by chance in a freak storm—was back in her life.
And this man, the son of Herc Huckley, who showed up as the result of another freak storm, was standing in her entranceway.
“I don’t think we’re up for this conversation now, Bill,” Augusta told Herc Huckley’s son.
“But you are Flemming,” Bill said to Nick, “right?”
Nick nodded.
Esme and Atty walked into the house, escorting Ru’s fiancé, who looked pale and slack-jawed. Esme said, “Excuse us! Just passing through!”
“You started The Amateur Assassins Club?”
“Long, long ago.”
“And my father…” Bill said.
“He was a good man,” Nick told him.
“Was he?” Bill asked. “I mean, he was always, I don’t know, afraid.”
“He was a better man than I was,” Nick said. “He could hold steady. I couldn’t. There’s strength in holding steady in this world.”
“Let’s get you up to bed,” Augusta said to Nick. “You need to rest.”
“Yes, okay, sorry to intrude,” Bill said. “I hope you’re feeling better soon, and maybe we’ll talk again.”
Augusta and Nick slowly climbed the stairs.
This was where Liv found Bill Huckley. He was staring at the ground with his hands on his hips. “You look like you could use a drink.”
“Are you offering?”
“Follow me.”
Clifford Wells and Bill Huckley were given the good Scotch, kept in the back of the cabinet. They all sat down at the dining room table. Cliff’s hand was shaking as he sipped. Bill tapped his glass on the table’s edge.
Atty unleashed the dogs, who curled up under the table.
Huckley explained how he’d come to see Augusta Rockwell with the box of letters. “My father was in The Amateur Assassins Club with Nick Flemming.”
“The Amateur Assassins Club?” Atty asked, with delight in her voice.
“Don’t,” Esme said. “Just please.”
“I’m actually thinking of starting a movement,” Atty said.
And Esme had a tiny pinprick of a memory—the desire to start a movement of her own—in defiance of her mother. Maybe that’s what each generation had to do to define who they were. Now that she thought about it, she was sure that this had been the subject of her college entrance essay. She’d announced to the Ivy Leagues that she was going to start a movement. What kind? She couldn’t recall. It was a total blank.
Bill looked at them searchingly, as if he might be able to recognize their faces somehow. “And you all are his girls, the ones he was always writing about. Let me guess.” He rubbed his chin. “Your name starts with L,” he said to Liv. “And yours with E,” he said to Esme. “And you must be young A? Where’s R?”
“She left me,” Cliff whispered. It was the first coherent word he’d uttered since his collapse on the lawn. “Who’s Flemming?”
“He’s our father,” Liv said.
“He’s been shot,” Esme added.
“It’s like someone had to take some kind of blame,” Atty said, “like we had to play it out somehow and this was how it went.”
“Jesus,” Cliff said. “This is a dangerous place.”
Liv patted his arm. “You have no idea.”
“I had a short-lived drug problem too,” Atty said. “Very short-lived, but I learned some valuable lessons.” She decided on the topic of her college entrance exam. She’d been mocked by her peers, kicked out of school and home, abandoned by her father. She’d been doped up on Valium and witnessed a shooting. But when you really looked at it, maybe all this meant was that she was a survivor.
“In the letters,” Bill said, in a hushed voice, “it seemed like Nick Flemming was very, um, involved in your lives, but from afar. It’s almost like he…”
“He rigged my life,” Esme said, and then she sighed. “But I accepted the rigging. In fact, I’m probably my father’s primary accomplice.” Her eyes were glassy and distant.
Atty stood up and nodded at Cliff. “What do you think?” she said to Liv.
“I’ve got to work on my own personal Zen,” Liv said. She was thinking about what Atty had said about how Liv had gotten wealthy men to marry her: Love must love you. She wanted love to love her. She wanted to believe in love. “You know, it’s okay if you fire me and want to get out from under my wing. I get it.”
“No, I like it,” Atty said. “It’s been really educational.” She noticed Ingmar and Toby curled up together in the corner, which was sweet in a way she couldn’t possibly feel jaded about. She announced to the rest of the room, “I’m going for a walk.”
“It’s going to rain,” Esme said, but it felt like the last warning she’d ever give as the mother of a child; Atty was changing before her eyes. Telling her to put on rain boots and bring an umbrella—those days were over.
“Then I’ll walk in the rain.”
Atty marched out of the dining room through the living room, passing the many faces of dead Rockwells, and out the front door.
There, in the middle of the cramped front yard, was the glass case of boxing squirrels. Virgil Pedestro must have wrestled them loose from the hood of the station wagon and then abandoned them. The station wagon was gone now. Ru must have taken it. Atty assumed she was crashing a wedding or trying to stop the crashing of a wedding.
Atty unzipped her fanny pack to get her iPhone so she could Instagram the glass box of boxing squirrels in the front yard of her grandmother’s old Victorian on Asbury Avenue, but then she stopped.
She zipped her fanny pack back up. She knelt down and tapped on the glass. “It’s going to be okay, fellas,” she said to the stiff squirrels.
She stood up and decided to keep this little moment for herself. She decided to live it and remember it.
Ru drove the station wagon to Fifty-Eighth Street and parked in a tow-away zone. She could see Teddy Whistler standing on the boardwalk. He had, in fact, dressed in a well-tailored blue suit, but his striped necktie was untied, flipping in the breeze—his back to the wedding itself.
She didn’t want to tell him what had just happened to her father—and all of them. She wouldn’t know where to start. And, about to break up a wedding, he wouldn’t be interested in small talk.
Why was she here? To break up the breaking up of a wedding?
He looked earnest in his suit, determined, almost heroic. Ru wondered for a moment if, as a little girl looking down at the young, raging, brokenhearted Teddy Whistler, she’d actually really just wanted to save him. Maybe she’d been the young heroine after all.
When Ru got out of the car, Teddy saw her but didn’t wave or say hello. She walked up next to him and looked out at the rows of chairs lined up in the sand, the red aisle, a large white canopy instead of an altar. Some guests had started to arrive.
“When does it start officially?”
“In about half an hour.”
“Don’t do it.”
He looked at her, the wind rumpling his hair. “Why not?”
“I just think she deserves—”
“No,” he said. “Why not? The truth this time.”
“I don’t know—”
“Do you believe in win-backs or don’t you? Do you even remotely believe in what you do? Was it all just a jaded attempt to make money—your Teddy Wilmer win-back?”
Ru didn’t like the way her heart felt—riotous. She didn’t want to say a goddamn thing. She’d stopped believing in her work, and, once she made the money, she pretended that that had been her intent. It was easier than believing that she’d truly made an impact on people, that she’d given their hearts a shove, made some believe in love again. But she had believed; it was why she wrote it all in the first place. Personal honesty. A win-back. She felt like she was being thrust into living her own life. She said, “I don’t want you to marry her because I think I’m in love with you.”
He took a step toward her. “And?”
“And I don’t have a window to punch, but I guess I was dragged in by the dog, if the dog in this scenario is my family.” Could Teddy Whistler fall in love with her? Was he just trying to make a point?
“I love that metaphorical dog,” Teddy said. “Go on.”
“And Ru Rockwell isn’t really Ru Rockwell, but maybe I’d like her to be. Maybe with you she could be.”
His eyes were wet, but it could have been the wind. He let his eyes linger on her lips—waiting to hear what she might say next? Wondering if he should kiss her?
“But what about you, Teddy Whistler? Are you still trying to be a hero? Or will you be the one who’s here, the one who stays?” That’s how the win-back in the movie ended. It was Teddy Wilmer’s line and now it was a question. Ru stopped breathing. Her hands felt tingly.
“Come on,” he said. “I want to show you something.”
They took the station wagon and drove out onto the highway. She listened to Teddy’s directions, but they were otherwise quiet. She felt like bursting.
Finally, he told her to pull over into a parking lot. “This is where you wanted to take me?” Ru asked.
“Look over there.” He pointed out the windshield.
Ru saw an overpass. Traffic was a little busy but not jammed. “What am I supposed to—”
And then she saw it. I HEART RU spray-painted in big red letters on the side of the overpass. They got out of the car.
“Your name’s shorter,” Teddy said. “I had enough time.”
“I’d assumed that the last time you’d actually drawn a heart, not written the word heart.”
“In retrospect, that would have been considerably faster.” He pulled her into his arms. She put her head on his chest. His heart was pounding away.
“I heart you too, Teddy Whistler.”
“Good,” he said.
“It’s just the two of us,” she said and it was. Everything else slid away—an entire universe.
And he leaned down and kissed her. She ran one hand up the back of his neck and through his hair. She felt breathless—like she was looking down at a drunk boy on a lawn from a very tall window, the wind rushing all around her.
It started to rain.
Augusta helped ease Nick onto the double bed in her bedroom.
“You sure you want me in here?” he asked.
“Easier to keep an eye on you,” she said.
“We’ll get to tell them everything now, Augusta,” he whispered. “About the night we met in the driving snow and sitting next to you on the bus and the hotels opening their doors up to people on the streets.”
“Who did you assassinate that night?”
“I just stood next to him at the urinal. That was it.”
“But who was it?”
“Maybe a Polish diplomat.”
“We’ll tell them it was a Polish diplomat.”
“And the motorcade,” he said, “how it cut across the park in all that mad gusting whiteness. We’ll tell them how we fell in love with each other that night.”
“I’m not sure why people don’t believe in that anymore, but it happens. Two people fall in love sometimes, and it’s sudden.”
“And it never stops,” he said.
“Even when you’d like it to.”
“I never wanted to split up,” he said. “I understood what you meant when you told me you could have gone on but only if you loved me less, but it wasn’t what I wanted. What with all the times I should have died, that was what nearly killed me. Do remember saying it?”
“Of course I do. It was the truth then.”
“And now?”
“Everything’s different.”
“We can’t do it all over again,” he said.
“No, we can’t.”
“That’s what I regret.”
Rain beaded on the bedroom windows even though the sun was still bright, and Augusta sat on the bed and pushed off her shoes.
“I wasn’t planning on taking the bus,” he said. “And then I saw you through the window—your perfect profile—and I started walking fast so I could keep looking at you and then the bus lurched forward and I started running.”
“I knew it was you before I knew you,” she said, lying down beside him. “I felt something, saw your coat flapping out of the corner of my eye.”
“We couldn’t have had a little house and a little life.”
“No, we couldn’t have. This was all we could do.”
Atty walked into the used-book store and wiped the rain from her face. She walked up to the counter. She was a regular here and the owner, a tan woman named Janice with stiff, shiny blond hair, knew what she wanted.
“We got a few new ones in for you. Bad condition. Real bad, but I didn’t toss them because I thought you might want them anyway.”
“Thanks for keeping me in mind,” Atty said.
Janice reached down behind the counter and popped back up with a stack of about ten Nancy Drews—old and waterlogged, their puffed covers and warped pages made them hard to stack. “Might’ve gone through Sandy, by the looks of them.”
Atty’s eyes glided down the spines. The ones she needed were there—twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, and forty-nine. “You got ’em!” she said. “They’re all here!”
She lifted the top books off the stack and opened twenty-four.
“They’re far from mint,” Janice said. “You might want to keep looking.”
Atty shook her head. “This isn’t about the books. It’s about the give and take of the universe itself, Janice.”
“Well, these books were well read,” Janice said. “Look at what some kids scribbled in them.” She reached forward and opened the inside of the hardcover.
Atty read what was written there in pencil.
E.R. 3 hours and 10 minutes
L.R. 2 hours and 45 minutes
R.R. 5 hours and 10 minutes, pretty much memorized
These weren’t just any copies of Nancy Drew mysteries. These were the Rockwell sisters’ originals.
Atty flipped to the front of the other copies and found their initials, their times, and whether or not Ru had memorized the whole thing. Some of Liv’s and her mother’s marks looked like they’d been erased and then rewritten, perhaps a few times as if the times had been disputed. In those cases, Ru had read the fastest.
“This is it,” Atty told Janice. “These are ours! They were lost, but now they’re found!” The store was filled with light even though the rain was still ticking on the roof. Atty felt like this was a golden, hallowed moment.
She thought of Instagramming the books, but this wasn’t about other people. This was personal. She hadn’t even tweeted about The Amateur Assassins Club and she was pretty sure she wouldn’t. She even decided, then and there, that she would go to Europe by herself to confront her father. If her mother didn’t start shopping for plane tickets, she’d do it the way her aunt Ru had tracked down the old spy. Atty felt herself suddenly unhitching from the desire to snag the respect of Lionel Chang. The world was a bigger place. Screw you, she thought loudly in her head, as if those telepathic words could shuttle to the Vineyard and find Lionel getting high while lounging in someone’s wicker furniture.
“You’ll still have to pay for them.”
“Of course I’ll pay for them, but, Janice,” Atty said, “it’s the universe talking. Don’t you hear it?”
“What’s it saying exactly?”
“It’s saying that it’s all going to be okay.”
“Because you found the books?”
“No,” Atty said, looking at the dust motes spinning wildly in the air around them. “It means things are going to work out in the grand scheme. It means things that get taken apart can get put back together.”
“Like what? Book collections?”
She thought, Like a dinged-up high school record, like a childhood, like a family, like our entire lives, like the world, the universe.
And you.
And me.
All of us and everything.