When your mother asks, “Do you want a piece of advice?” it’s a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway.
—Erma Bombeck
WHILE I LADLED up steel-cut oatmeal from my aunt’s slow cooker, my son collapsed into a chair with a frustrated sigh. Once the air went out of him, so did the fight.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to make you angry.”
The sincere apology melted me. Spencer was a good kid. Disciplining him never gave me joy. But every child needed boundaries, and since I was his only parent now, I had to hold the line.
“I’m not angry. But I will be if you ignore another note of mine.”
“I won’t.”
“You promise?”
He promised. “I was curious, that’s all.”
I didn’t doubt it. When I returned to the kitchen table with a bottle of honey and jar of walnuts, I found Spencer still focused on the big book.
“What is this exactly?”
“It’s an advance copy of a fancy art book that celebrates the history of American book covers. We’re hosting a launch party for the authors. It’s going to be a very big deal.”
“Is that why you and Aunt Sadie have been talking for days about artists I never heard of? And our shop was on TV yesterday morning? Because of this book?”
“I knew you had a high IQ. You make me so proud.” I mussed his hair—copper, like mine and my late father’s.
“Quit kidding.” He pulled away.
“You’re a kid who’s fun to kid.”
“Ha-ha,” he said dryly. Then he shifted, uncomfortably I thought, though his freckled face was earnest. “Mom, why don’t you sell those books?”
“What books?”
“The ones I was telling Amy about. Books like Spicy Mystery? I’ve never seen them in the store.”
“That’s because those aren’t books, Spencer. They’re pulp magazines, and they were published a long time ago, before modern mass market paperback books, which is the kind we sell.”
“Are the magazines you’re talking about like the ones in the attic? Those old magazines that belonged to Grandpa?”
“Yes, those were pulps he collected. Black Mask, mostly.”
“They smell funny.”
“That’s because the acetone in the paper is making them rot . . .” (I did my best to preserve what I could with acid-free bags, but some of the magazines were already too far gone.) “Pretty soon, nothing will be left but dust.”
Spencer fell silent, thinking about that. “So this new art book is a way to keep people from forgetting how cool those pulp covers were?”
“That’s the idea.”
“And the art show downstairs will have pictures from Spicy Mystery?”
“Maybe. Why?’
“I think they’re cool. Scary and weird, but really cool, too. I want Amy to see them.”
“Oh, no, you don’t. The last thing I need is a call from Amy’s mother, accusing my son of showing her daughter adult things.”
“Those old pulps were for adults only, then?”
“They sure were, Spence.”
Now, that’s a truckload of baloney, and you know it.
I gritted my teeth, relieved my son couldn’t hear the ghost in my head. Stay out of this, Jack, I silently warned.
Why? You know I’m right. Lots of boys his age read pulps. They were sold in every drug and dime store, not to mention every penny-ante newsstand in the country.
That was another time, I told the ghost. And times have changed.
Change ain’t always for the better. From my perspective, the march of time has trampled sanity and nearly all common sense.
Your perspective isn’t relevant.
Why not?
Because you’re not alive.
So? You don’t have to be a part of time to have an opinion about it.
Yes, you do.
No, you don’t.
While the ping-pong match went down inside my head, Spencer’s stubborn Thornton streak rose up. Sitting straight in his chair, he declared—
“You can stop me from showing Amy the covers, but I’m going to see them!”
I wasn’t in the mood for another debate, and thanks to Aunt Sadie, there was no need.
“See what?” she asked, breezing into the kitchen.
I tapped the table. “I found Spencer in here, looking at the book that arrived last night.”
“The one Salient House sent you?” Sadie raised an eyebrow as she dished up her own bowl of oatmeal. “I’ll bet some of those Robert McGinnis cover girls caught his eye.”
“He didn’t get that far. Mr. Curious got stuck in the Spicy Mystery section.”
Sadie laughed. “Well, those old magazines were naughty, but no naughtier than what’s on cable these days.”
I told you, Jack gloated. You should listen to your auntie. She’s a wise old bird.
I got the smug treatment from Spencer, too. “See, Mom!”
“I’ll tell you what I see. A boy who’s already not allowed to watch certain channels without my say-so, and”—I pointed at the wall clock—“one who’s going to be late for his school bus if he doesn’t get a move on.”
“I’m going. Bye, Mom! Bye, Aunt Sadie!”
A minute later, we heard my son’s sneakers hitting the stairs.
Sadie sat down. “Are you all set with the babysitter tonight?”
“Bonnie Franzetti can’t make it, so I’m using her friend Tracy.”
“Tracy?” Sadie thought for a moment. “You mean that girl with the blue hair?”
“Don’t look so worried. Tracy Mahoney is a very nice young woman. She’s in one of our new book groups, and she likes the same video games as Spencer, so they should have a good time.”
Aunt Sadie touched my hand. “I’m sorry I can’t go to Blackstone Falls in your place. I just couldn’t let Bud go to the Retail Hardware Association dinner stag. Not after he asked me so sweetly to be his date.”
“You and Bud deserve a night out. Spencer will be fine. And I’m happy to pick up those paintings. After all, it’s part of my job, not yours . . .”
And so it was, because I was the shop’s “events manager,” a position I’d created after setting up our first-ever event space. The multipurpose room, which we also rented to community groups, was just one part of our grand store makeover, a plan I’d launched after moving back to Quindicott from New York.
With a bank account full of my late husband’s insurance money, I’d convinced my aunt to trust my ideas on saving her failing bookstore. Together we overhauled the inventory as I spearheaded restoration of the interior and exterior, replaced the old metal displays with beautiful oak bookshelves, added comfy reading chairs and floor lamps, and expanded the business into the adjoining storefront.
Newly christened Buy the Book, thanks to my precocious son, the Thornton family’s tired “We Buy and Sell Books” soon became a hot regional store and vital online business. We blew up Sadie’s customer base to a worldwide collectors’ market. We formed reading groups, reached out to local authors for signings, coordinated events with St. Francis University, and booked big-name writers on national tours. To wit—
This coming weekend, we were hosting a launch party for By Its Cover: A History of Modern Book and Magazine Illustration. Writers, artists, and academic critics were coming, along with the press. And it wasn’t just because this gorgeous, full-color book presented a celebration of cover artists though time.
The authors, Liam and Sally Palantine, were a renowned and highly respected power couple of New York publishing. After decades in the business, they’d retired to their summer home in nearby Newport, which was lucky for us. As loyal customers of our shop, they were only too pleased to entrust our store with their launch-party plans.
Given their publicity savvy, the Palantines were the ones to suggest we stage an art exhibit to go with their launch, featuring some of the original cover paintings included in their book. The publisher guaranteed national coverage, and they delivered. A CBS news producer sent out a crew for B-roll footage of our shop, which Sadie, Spencer, and I watched excitedly on yesterday’s Sunday Morning profile of the Palantines.
As for the art show, it would be another feather in our bookshop’s cap. But it meant I had to oversee the details—and not screw anything up.
The Palantines had arranged shipments of a few paintings, which were coming by delivery service. But a local collector would agree to let our store borrow his works only if we picked them up in person.
That collector’s name was Walt Waverly, a passing acquaintance of Sadie’s from the rare books world. Unfortunately, he asked that we pick up the works this evening, and since my aunt was already committed to an important date with her longtime beau, I’d be the one making the trip to Walt’s, along with two of my oldest friends.
“I know they’re your friends,” Aunt Sadie said, “not to mention excellent store customers, but the truth is, I doubt I could stand two hours in the same car with that pair.”
“Why not?”
“You know why not. Those boys are constantly bickering!”
“They’re not boys anymore, Aunt Sadie, and they’re not that bad . . .”
I couldn’t help defending them. I’d known Seymour and Brainert since we were nerdy kids, sharing our favorite books and running around Prescott Woods in search of Tolkien’s hobbits and Narnia’s fauns.
“You know they’re avid readers,” I pointed out. “Which means they have contemplative sides, too.”
“When they’re alone, sure. But they won’t be alone on your trip. They’ll be packed into the same van, driving and bickering.”
The Thornton in me stubbornly disagreed. “The ride through Blackstone Valley is beautiful, especially at this time of year. Once those two settle in, I’m sure they’ll sit back and enjoy the scenery. I have no doubt our trip will be quiet, peaceful, and completely uneventful.”