Burning Books Page 4

  Molly cocked her head. “Was that the doorbell?”

  “I’ll go see.”

  While she waited for Lynda to return, she opened a bottle of red wine to let it breathe and put a bottle of white in a prechilled marble wine cooler, then poured a bag of Fritos into a crystal serving dish and scooped a tub of clam dip into a smaller matching bowl.

  “Oh, I love you!” Lynda proclaimed, spying the Fritos. These would go at their end of the coffee table, where things weren’t so pretentious. She stuck a couple of demitasse spoons into the dip. “I hope you have more wine—Brenda and Genevieve are early probably for the first time in their lives, and Genevieve’s chatting up your brother. The thought of anyone liking that cow makes me want to drink heavily. She’s quite an accomplished flirt. I have to say, I’m a little impressed.”

  “What would impress me is if she manages to get a response from Magnus.”

  “Oh, she is. Well, I think it’s a response—he’s sitting with her and Brenda with kind of a strange smile and half-lidded look. Is that flirting?”

  “Damned if I know.” Molly racked her brain, but equally damned if she could remember ever seeing Magnus turn on the charm. Maybe in high school—although when he’d dated, he seemed more pragmatic about romance than he was . . . well, romantic.

  Lynda rummaged through a kitchen drawer until she found a bit of caramel-colored ribbon, which she tied around the glass of forks and trimmed to tidy up any loose ends. “Ha! Looks great. Thank you, Pinterest. Let’s get this stuff out there before Viv truly embarrasses herself.”

  Magnus had already excused himself, but he joined Molly and Lynda in the kitchen to bring in the last of the refreshments. At some point, he’d changed into black slacks and a wine-red shirt—entirely too dressy for a casual night watching television in his room.

  “Genevieve’s in fine form,” he whispered to Molly.

  “I never gave her form much thought.”

  “You know those spiders that eat their mates? I think she’s related. I wish we had a back way to the upstairs. Maybe I can go out the back door, around the house, and climb up the ivy to my room.”

  “You’re silly, Magnus.”

  “That’s the second time you’ve said that today. Can I have an asparagus spear before they’re all eaten by the spiders . . . er, ladies?”

  Lynda snorted, balancing the tapenade toast points on one hand while she tried to grab a stack of small hors d’oeuvres plates in the other.

  Molly swatted his arm. “Be nice.” But she allowed him not just one spear but a plate of treats if he would help her take out the wine and glasses. And it didn’t escape her attention that he watched Lynda with more than a strange smile and hooded lids.

  “What are you grinning about?” he muttered as she straightened from the coffee table.

  “Nothing.” But when Lynda handed him a plate of treats and their fingers accidentally brushed against each other, he blushed brightly, and Molly’s grin couldn’t be contained. That explained his change of clothes. He retreated with a sour look of warning at his sister and a carefully neutral smile for her friends, leaving behind a flustered Lynda and a furious Genevieve.

  “The others should be here soon.” Molly claimed her seat and opened her book to one of the pages she had marked with a Post-it flag. As she slid on her reading glasses, she caught Genevieve’s murderous glance at Lynda. “Is something wrong, Viv?”

  Genevieve bared her teeth in what she must have thought was a smile but looked more like a snarl. “Everything’s fine, Molly.”

  “Wonderful. Until the others arrive, we can just—oh, that must be them.” She waited a few seconds to see if Magnus would answer the summons of the doorbell, but apparently, he’d learned his lesson the first time. She sent Lynda because she didn’t want to leave her friend alone with Genevieve’s ire for even a nanosecond. She was apt to come back to fists flying and blood flowing—the fists being Lynda’s and the blood Genevieve’s.

  They came in together in a tight knot of whispering. Lynda seemed to be trying to convince them of something. Nadia, a Russian immigrant whose English was still halting, gave a philosophical shrug and elbowed Beverly, nodding toward the vacant love seat. It was unclear whether Lynda had convinced them or whether Nadia had simply tired of trying to grasp her meaning and gave in. Joyce was another matter. A no-nonsense retired English teacher, she wasn’t buying Lynda’s persuasive argument. Finally, Lynda threw up her hands in exasperation and left her standing just outside the entry hall.

  Molly leaned over the arm of her chair and whispered, “Everything all right?”

  Lynda murmured back, “She doesn’t like mean girls.”

  In other words, Genevieve strikes again. Molly straightened in her chair, taking up her notepad. As hostess, her job was to start the conversation and moderate. She dearly wanted to start by saying, “The book was abysmal. Let’s take some antidepressants and watch Love, Actually.” But she knew that would never fly, not with Genevieve and Brenda present.

  Before she could start, Joyce hung up her coat and scooted onto the free end of the sofa, wedging herself against the arm to put as much distance as she could between herself and Genevieve. While Molly had been in the hospital recovering from her car accident last year, Genevieve and Joyce had exchanged words at one of the book-club meetings. Things apparently hadn’t quite settled down.

  “If everyone wants to get snacks first—and can someone pour the wine?—we can begin.”

  Joyce and Genevieve moved at the same time. Joyce sat back with a scowl and let a smug Genevieve go first. Oh, she was going to have to do something about this soon. She’d rather keep Joyce and let Genevieve go, though Brenda would go with her. Still, it was easier to replace two members than to have the whole group fall apart.

  When everyone was settled, Molly took a sip of her wine for fortification, consulted her notes, and said, “To start, let’s just run through a recap of the major events, and then I have a discussion point to revisit for each of them.”

  Genevieve paused, her fingers hovering a pancetta-wrapped peach at her lips. Reluctantly, she lowered it to her plate. “Did you receive my e-mail with the discussion notes, Molly?”

  Molly smiled blandly. “I received it. But since I’m leading the group tonight, I decided to veer away from canned discussion topics and introduce a few of my own. Tonight’s topic will be the pervasive tone of desperation and hopelessness in classic literature and why the literary world has embraced these, but not more lighthearted books, as so-called great literature. The most prevalent examples of this in The Sound and the Fury are . . .”

  She talked over Joyce’s delighted whoop of laughter, over Nadia’s and Beverly’s amused snorts, over Brenda’s gasp of shock and Genevieve’s outraged sputter. When she caught Lynda’s eye, her friend tipped her wineglass in salute. Molly gave her a sidelong smile but didn’t break her monologue, and when she opened the discussion, spirited was the mildest adjective to describe the debate.

  “I think,” Genevieve said at one point, “that you just don’t appreciate classic literature, Molly. This era was full of tragedy—”

  “Every era is full of tragedy.” Molly winced mentally. Her words came out sharper than she intended. She simply failed to understand why the deconstruction of a family was more tragic in the early 1900s than it was today. There were family scandals then and now. There were accidents then and now—Molly’s own family served as a prime example of that. There was stalking and murder then and now. Speaking of stalkers . . . She wondered how Idiot Woman was faring. The siren song of the slim, green books had nearly been too hard to bear as she’d plowed through Faulkner.

  Finally, Genevieve fell back on her standard, “It’s the writing. It’s just superior to anything today.”

  “Oh, give that tired old horse a rest, Viv!” Joyce burst out.

  “Let’s compare this to The Night Circus,” Molly countered. “You’re telling me that Faulkner’s writing is superior to Erin Morg
enstern’s simply because of the era Faulkner lived in and wrote about?”

  “You can hardly compare the two, Molly. The Sound and the Fury is basically a tragedy, while The Night Circus is just”—her mouth puckered in a moue of distaste—“genre fiction.”

  “There were tragic events in that story, so yes, I can compare. Just like these other books I’m reading—”

  “You’re not supposed to bring other books you’re reading into the discussion, Molly. That’s one of your own rules.” Genevieve looked smug again.

  “Unless they relate somehow,” Lynda pointed out.

  “They do relate. Tragedies are many and varied. In these books I’m reading, this woman—she hasn’t been named yet, so I just call her Idiot Woman—”

  “Wait,” Brenda interrupted. “Her parents never gave her a name?”

  Molly bit back her impatience. “No, that’s not what I meant. The story is told in first-person past-tense point of view. She never identifies herself.”

  “How can you even relate to a character whose name you don’t even know?”

  “That’s not the point, Brenda. The point is, she has a stalker—well, he’s really more like a voyeur. He leaves her flowers and little gifts. Sometimes a coffee. She can feel him watching her—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” This time, Lynda interrupted, accompanied by a strong gust of wind outside that rattled the windows and added power to her interjection. “She drank a coffee left for her by someone who’s spying on her, someone she doesn’t know?”

  “Yes. Which is why I call her Idiot Woman. She thinks she’s falling in love with her unseen watcher. Then one day, they finally meet face-to-face, and he turns menacing and frightening and—” Wait—that hadn’t happened in the book. That had been her crazy daydream.

  “Because, wow—who didn’t see that coming,” Beverly said sarcastically.

  Nadia said haltingly, in her heavily accented voice, “In Russia, we would—” and Genevieve ruthlessly plowed over her.

  “Ladies, we’re supposed to be talking about The Sound and the Fury.”

  “I want to hear more about this story, Molly,” Joyce said loudly, drowning out Genevieve’s protest.

  “I’m only partway through the first volume. I’m not really sure what happens next.” I’m not really sure what’s happened, period. I’m getting the book and my fantasies confused.

  “Well, why did you bring it up then?” Genevieve said crossly. “If we can get back to the discussion at hand, I think you’re comparing apples to oranges, Molly.”

  “Oh, you do? And I really hate that expression. It’s so tri—” Lightning flared outside, silhouetting the man who stood at the French doors leading into the garden, his overcoat flapping in the wind. Molly stood, her book falling to the floor. Her heart hammered at her ribs, trying to flee.

  “Molly? What’s wrong?” Lynda crowded her, trying to follow her line of vision.

  The flash faded, followed by a boom of thunder, making the whole room jump and Nadia squeak. Then she saw Magnus’s reflection in the window. She spun around to find him leaning in the doorway of the dining room.

  “For God’s sake, Magnus, you scared me to death!” She held a hand to her heart, willing its frantic gallop to slow to a safer pace.

  He held a glass of red wine in one negligent hand, his expression brooding as he glowered at the green-leather books on Molly’s accent table.

  “Would you like to join us, Magnus?” Genevieve practically purred her invitation. A spider—ha! She was a prowling cat in heat. Molly wanted this particular feline nowhere near her fragile brother.

  Magnus didn’t appear to hear her invitation. He nodded toward Molly’s table. “They’re magic books,” he said. “Molly’s books,” he clarified when their expressions mirrored their confusion. “They contain glyphs that trigger magic. She should get rid of them. They’re bringing something dark, and we’ll all regret it.”

  Which pretty much ended the March book-club meeting.

  ∞4∞

  Nadia and Beverly made no flimsy excuses, simply saying, “It’s time we wrapped this up, Molly. Thanks for the wonderful treats.” They didn’t run for the door, but neither could she deny that they hurried. Brenda, likewise, couldn’t get out fast enough, although she practically had to drag a mesmerized Genevieve with her. Joyce left with an abrupt and regretful farewell. Not “Good night, Molly,” but “Goodbye, Molly.”

  Molly sank into her chair, stunned. “Great. Now she’ll never come back.”

  “You don’t like her, anyway.”

  “I meant Joyce, not Genevieve. I won’t be able to get rid of Genevieve now—you’ve just thoroughly intrigued her.”

  “Oh.” He frowned. “That wasn’t my intention.”

  “I thought not.” Molly drained her wine in one gulp and crammed an asparagus spear into her mouth, crunching angrily.

  “She was pissing me off with all her snotty That era was more tragic than this one bullshit. So I threw in something off-the-wall to change the course of the conversation.”

  “It worked magnificently.”

  “It was brilliant,” Lynda said and started to laugh. “Utterly brilliant. Thank you for a most entertaining end to the evening, Magnus.”

  Molly laughed reluctantly. Magnus winked and tipped his glass at Lynda and strolled casually away.

  “That was flirting,” Molly said when he was out of earshot. Her friend blushed.

  Lynda left shortly afterward, popping a pancetta peach into her mouth and gazing thoughtfully up at the hallway to the bedrooms. But Magnus wasn’t visible. She left with a hug for Molly and the admonishment not to let it bother her. “Genevieve’s a snot, and I hope she quits.”

  Likely it wouldn’t be Genevieve who called her tomorrow to say she wouldn’t be back but Joyce, and that kept her just a little bit angry at her brother.

  He waited in the kitchen, elbows braced on the center island. Molly set the refreshments she carried in between them.

  “You’re mad at me.”

  “That’s just not the way I would have preferred to handle it.”

  “What does it matter? They already think I’m crazy.”

  “You don’t have to try to prove them right,” she snapped. “I’m sorry; I shouldn’t yell at you. But I care about your reputation, even if you don’t.”

  He looked chagrined. She didn’t know if it was an act, but she appreciated his effort to find some contrition.

  Nibbling on a tapenade toast point he’d snagged off a serving plate, he said with studied nonchalance, “I said it in front of them to disrupt your meeting, but I meant what I said, Molly. Those books . . . they’re bringing something bad. I wish you would stop reading them.”

  “I’ve already said I don’t believe in magic.”

  “You don’t have to believe in something for it to be real.” He set the toast down. “Do you ever wonder about the lost year, about the things that happened that we can’t remember?”

  “Everyone does. It was a tragedy, like all natural disasters, but everyone just has to accept that they’ll never know.”

  “Aren’t some things best hidden in a year of radiation-induced amnesia? Like divorces and stillbirths and things like that?”

  She frowned at the dark turn in their conversation. She refilled both their glasses, because what the heck—tomorrow they could blame their maudlin discussion on the effects of the wine, and she could continue to be in denial about certain points, such as she didn’t want to remember the car accident that had nearly killed her and had taken their parents. It was one thing to bear the physical scars and quite another to face the emotional ones.

  But what about the other things she wanted to know, such as where had the infinity-knot necklace come from? And why, at thirty, had she still been living with her parents? She could understand Magnus not living on his own with his emotional issues, but she considered herself reasonably well adjusted and self-sufficient.

  Extend that to the rest o
f Earth’s population. How traumatic had it been for people to wake up to spouses they didn’t remember marrying or even meeting, or children they didn’t remember bearing? There had been a rash of sexual-assault convictions and paternity tests. And what about the criminal cases solved during that year that were now considered unsolved because no one could remember what the evidence was? The world had been in havoc, the electromagnetic pulse from the solar storm destroying computer data all across the planet. Automobiles and trains wrecked. Planes tumbled from the skies. The economy stumbled and people panicked, but she couldn’t think of a worse panic than that of parents whose children went missing in that year, waking up thinking their children were safe only to discover they were gone.

  No, she didn’t want to relive that accident, didn’t want to feel the broken metal and shattered glass twisting into her flesh as she lay trapped between the crushed frame of the car and the boulder that had saved her from drowning in the Green River. But she would if it meant closure for countless others.

  “I feel sometimes,” Magnus said slowly, swirling his wine around in his glass, “like I’m better now than I was, like maybe I was on the edge or out of control before the superstorm. Like maybe I’d be in the loony bin or dead from suicide or something. That solar event took a lot of things, but perhaps it saved my life.”

  Ouch. To have the world back, but to lose her brother . . . thank God that wasn’t a decision she would ever have to make.

  “What does that have to do with the books, Mag?”

  “Those books make me feel the same way, just kinda flipped. Like we’re better off before you read them than we will be after.” As though embarrassed by what he’d revealed, he busied himself with loading up a plate of goodies and refilling his wine. “I’m going to go watch a movie. Join me?”

  “Not one of those Hostel movies.”

  “Nah. I was thinking more like Star Trek or something.”

  And because she loved her brother despite his oddness, and despite his potential insanity, she loaded up her own plate of snacks and joined him, although she couldn’t quite shake his words.