Six

In a house full of extraordinary rooms, the library was possibly the most extraordinary. It had captured Sadie’s imagination as a young girl and never lost its grip.

This past winter, toiling away in the college library, trying desperately to make something workable out of her thesis, she thought about her grandparents’ vast book collection. Now, her first morning at Hollander Estates, she hoped the library of her childhood would jump-start her work. That it would justify her impulsive decision to run out to the vineyard after she’d told her parents she wouldn’t be there.

Don’t be sorry for me. I feel sorry for you. You think you’re living some big “life of the mind.” But you’re not living at all.

Holden was wrong, of course. She was fine. She didn’t have a problem. And to prove it, she was going to enjoy a few days of vacation with her family. And make progress on her thesis.

If only she wasn’t so distracted by their breakup.

Holden, an avid bird watcher, would have loved to have seen the European starling perched on one of the vineyard posts yesterday afternoon. Sadie snapped a photo but held back from sending it. The night before, when the sun set with a streak of purple across the sky, she thought of him again.

She knew, deep down, that it wasn’t necessarily Holden she was missing, but more the idea of him. The idea of a partner. She was twenty-one years old and had never been in love.

Maybe this was just supposed to be a time of work. So what if half her friends were coupled up? So what if her mother had met her father when she was just two years older, and her grandmother had already been married at her age? Those were different times.

She sipped her coffee, the early-morning sun streaming into the vast room. The library had double-height ceilings and rows and rows of walnut bookshelves spanning two floors, the second of which was reachable by an interior spiral staircase. The space was filled with late-nineteenth-century walnut furniture covered in red silk damask, Oriental rugs, and walls decorated with French tapestry in baroque frames. The centerpiece of the room was a white marble fireplace. Silk damask curtains covered the windows. When they were pulled closed, the room felt like nighttime even on a bright summer day.

Sadie settled at one end of the long table closest to the fireplace. She cued up her laptop and opened her copy of “Notes on ‘Camp.’”

She’d first read the essay when she was in middle school and discovered Sontag’s Against Interpretation. She’d been with her mother at the Strand bookstore.

“You’re lucky to have so many books for your age group to choose from,” her mother had said, emerging from the labyrinth of shelves with a bundle of books in her arms and presenting one to Sadie. The title was in pink letters, the cover showcasing a long-haired blonde lounging on her bed as she stared at her phone. “When I was growing up I only had Judy Blume, Norma Klein, and Paula Danziger.”

“I already found a book,” Sadie had said, waving the thin paperback in Leah’s direction. Her mother had squinted at the cover, taking it from her hand and examining it with confusion.

“You want to read that?”

Sadie loved her mother, would not trade her for any other mother in the world. But there had been many times while growing up that she saw with stunning clarity how little her mother understood her. And yes, she knew—even without reading mainstream teen fiction—that parents typically did not understand their teenage children. But Sadie felt certain that the difference between herself and her mother was a gap that might never be fully bridged. She knew that her parents were proud of her—so proud of her. And yet sometimes her accomplishments left them looking a little bewildered—stunned, even. She had seen them share more than one glance that seemed to say, “Where did this creature come from?”

That was why the idea of camp fascinated her. Her taste in books and film and music was so different not only from that of her parents but also that of her friends. It was reassuring to read an examination of taste as a consistent worldview—an essay that said that experiencing the world uniquely was a strength and not a shortcoming.

The essay had always been not only precious to her, but private. It felt, absolutely, like it had been written just for her. But then “Notes on ‘Camp’” came into broad view in the most surprising—and somewhat appalling—way: it had been selected as the theme for the Metropolitan Museum’s splashy, celebrity-studded costume gala. Suddenly, everyone from Kim Kardashian to Cardi B was talking about camp.

Sadie knew it would be a perfect topic for her thesis. But what could she say about camp that hadn’t already been said by Lady Gaga?

Sadie flipped through her notes, her fingers poised above the keyboard. Nothing came to her. Her mind drifted, images of Holden’s angry face the day he left. What if Sadie had handled things differently? What if she’d been more honest? I don’t like the beach, and the thought of meeting your family in that setting makes me incredibly anxious. But it was hard to admit weakness, quirks. It was so . . . messy. Now she realized she should have said, Compromise: I have to work this week, but let’s go to my family’s vineyard at some point this summer. Why was that so impossible for her?

She wasn’t cut out for relationships. She should stick to no-commitment hookups and work. That was where she was most comfortable.

Except the work was not working.

“Damn it.” In an act of surrender, Sadie pushed back from the table. She looked up, up at the ceiling, her gaze drifting to the tall spiral staircase leading to the upper stacks. When was the last time she’d been up there?

While the first floor was filled with only leather-bound tomes ranging from medieval literature to American and British twentieth-century classics, the second floor offered more contemporary reading. Sadie climbed the stairs to the collection of modern fiction: John Updike. John Irving. Philip Roth.

All white men, Sadie couldn’t help but notice. Disinterested, she kept browsing, moving on to a shelf of thick maroon and hunter green volumes engraved with dates on the spines. She opened one dated 1982 and found that it was a photo album, each page a glossy, professional photograph of her mother’s family posing in various locations around the estate: On the veranda. In the vineyard. In front of the family home. Her grandmother was dressed in the vibrant colors and poufy sleeves of the day, her makeup bright, her hair golden blond, a heavy Bulgari necklace at her throat. Grandpa Leonard wore a suit with a wide, paisley-patterned tie. Her mother was in a miniature version of the dress her grandmother wore. Uncle Asher wore a powder-blue button-down shirt. They all smiled stiffly into the camera, page after glossy page.

She pulled out another album, and then another, until they were scattered all around her. Only then did she think about how badly she was procrastinating and that she had to return everything to its proper place. She peered inside to determine how best to fit them back and noticed a seam in the wall between the shelf ledge and the one above it. Multiple seams that formed a square. She bent down lower, bracing herself with one hand on the shelf. Toward one side of the square she saw metal. Was it a small keyhole? She reached inside the shelf space and traced it with her fingertips. Yes, there was a small hole in the center. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, got onto her knees, and shined the light into the space.

It seemed to be a cubbyhole. She pressed on it, then felt around for a latch or way to open it. It was locked.

Did she dare try to unlock it? You’re being ridiculous, she told herself. This is taking procrastination to a whole new level.

She looked around the floor for any small key that might have been dislodged along with the photo albums but didn’t find anything. She sat back on her heels, thinking. What could she use to try to spring the lock? She needed something small and pointed, like a hairpin.

She took the stairs back down to the table where her work was spread out and grabbed one of her plastic mechanical pencils.

So much for the library helping her get some work done.

Back on the upper level, clearing a space among the clutter of photo albums, she knelt back down again and shined the phone light on the lock. She leaned in, again bracing herself with one hand on the shelf ledge. She pressed the pointed feeder tip of the pencil into the lock and jiggled it around.

The cubbyhole door sprung open. It was filled with . . . albums and books.

Well, what had she expected? The crown jewels?

Sadie pulled a leather-bound album onto her lap. This one didn’t have a year engraved on the spine. Opening it, she discovered it didn’t have any photos, either. It was not, in fact, an album but instead some sort of journal filled with lined pages, the first one reading: “Book Club meeting: December 12, 1984.” Sadie recognized her grandmother’s tight cursive script.

It was Delphine’s idea to start the book club. She is the only one who understands how frustrated I feel sometimes . . . so underutilized here in the vineyard I helped build. She said when women gather, there is power . . .

The library door slammed closed, making her jump with guilt. She stood and peered over the balustrade. Her grandfather had walked into the room. He moved slowly, almost trancelike, to the window and stared out.

Sadie cleared her throat.

“Hi, Grandpa,” she called down.

He looked up, startled and clearly displeased. “What are you doing up there, Sadie?”

“I’m working on my thesis.”

His brow creased even more than it usually did. Her grandfather always seemed mildly irritated. He’d been that way for as long as she could remember. She’d been almost afraid of him as a child, but she’d learned that his bark was worse than his bite. He’d been the one to teach her to ride a bicycle. He taught her about the grape plants and the flowers in her grandmother’s garden. He was just impatient and didn’t suffer fools. Which made it inexplicable that he seemed to favor Uncle Asher over her mother. She had to chalk this up to good old-fashioned sexism. Toxic patriarchy.

“I’m glad you’re making use of the library, but I need this room for a meeting,” he said. “You’ll have to come back later.”

Flustered, she looked around at the pile of books on the floor.

“Okay. I’ll be down in a minute.”

She shoved the journal back into the cubbyhole, closed it up, and then jammed all the photo albums back in as orderly a fashion as she could manage. Surveying her cleanup, she felt confident there was no hint that anything had been disturbed. It was as if she had imagined the hidden compartment. But she hadn’t.

And she would be back.