The Echo of Old Books(11)
With Regretting Belle, the echoes were complex, heavy, and slow to lift. Against her better judgment, she placed a hand on its cover. It was bitterness that came through first, hot and sharp against the pads of her fingers. That was the top note, the initial impression. Next came the deeper and rounder heart note, betrayal, which carved a hollow place beneath her ribs. And finally, there was the base note, the most resonant of all the layers—grief. But whose grief?
How, Belle?
The more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that the beautiful and mysterious Belle had been more than a product of the author’s imagination. He’d made it clear that Belle was a nickname he’d given her. Her real name had been carefully omitted, as had his own. In fact, none of the characters had been given actual names. Was it because their real names would have been easily recognized?
Frowning, she fanned through the pages, as if the answers might be pressed in between, like an old love letter or prom corsage. They weren’t, of course. If she wanted answers, she was going to have to work for them. Surely there was someone in her Rolodex, a professor or librarian, who might be able to shed some light on the mystery. Or maybe there was an easier way. If Kevin knew the name of the man who’d brought in the boxes, she might be able to contact him.
Downstairs, in the shop, she flipped to the Gs in her Rolodex, locating Kevin’s number. After two rings, a woman answered. Ashlyn recognized the voice. It was Cassie, the gum-cracking Madonna wannabe who worked at the boutique when her band was between gigs.
“Hey, Cassie, it’s Ashlyn from An Unlikely Story. Is Kevin around?”
“Oh, hey. Nope. He and Greg left this morning for a week in the Bahamas. I’m wicked jealous.”
“So who’s running the show?”
“Me, I guess. Something I can help you with?”
“I was hoping to talk to him about some books that came in last week. I bought one of them and I have some questions about it. I was hoping he might have a contact number for the guy who brought them in.”
“Ooh-kay . . . definitely don’t know anything about that.”
Ashlyn pictured her smacking her gum into the phone and tried not to be annoyed. “Do you know if Kevin keeps information on the people who come in to sell things?”
“Sorry. That’s all him. He’ll be back in the store next Wednesday, though.”
“Thanks. I’ll give him a call then.”
Ashlyn hung up and returned to her Rolodex. A week was too long to wait.
By the time Ashlyn turned the CLOSED sign around that evening, she’d spent a collective hour and a half on hold and had left seven messages, including one for Clifford Westin, an old friend of Daniel’s and the current head of UNH’s English department; another for George Bartholomew, a professor at UMASS who happened to be a customer; a pair for two rival rare-book dealers; and three for librarians.
Unfortunately, she’d come up empty. No one had ever heard of Regretting Belle. She was going to have to expand her search. The local chapter of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association might be able to help. Or the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers. There was always the copyright office at the Library of Congress, but the prospect of navigating all that red tape was daunting. Still, it might be where she ended up.
Now, as she tallied the day’s receipts, her eyes slid to the book again, more determined than ever to ferret out its secrets. The possibility of making some earth-shattering academic discovery, of stumbling upon a previously unknown work and seeing that discovery written up in a refereed journal like The Review of English Studies or New Literary History, was the unspoken dream of every rare-book dealer. But her interest wasn’t academic. It was visceral, personal in a way she couldn’t explain.
And so she would read on.
Regretting Belle
(pgs. 14–29)
4 September 1941
New York, New York
A week after our first meeting, I find myself at a dinner given by Violet Whittier and her husband, an intimate affair held in honor of your betrothal to the illustrious Teddy. The evening was Goldie’s idea, though I’m not sure how she arranged it. Perhaps it had to do with some former indebtedness, a willingness from time to time to kill a less-than-flattering story, though I have no proof of that.
You tense for an instant when you spot me among the other guests, not so much that others would notice, but I notice and find myself smiling as you resume your tour of the room, a cool flame in pewter-grey silk, flitting amongst all the pretty people, pausing now and then, leaving a trail of coolness in your wake as you move on.
People use the word breathtaking—no doubt I’ve used it myself—but it dawns on me as I watch you from behind my watered-down gin and tonic that I’ve never truly grasped the meaning of the word. Until now, that is, when I suddenly find all the air has gone out of the room.
There’s a subtle shimmer about you, a play of light that seems to cling to your skin, and for a moment I fancy I can see the cold rising from you in silvery little waves, the way the heat rises from the pavement in summer. I feel an utter fool, a boy smitten. Preposterous, since I’m not a boy. Still, I can’t look away. You’re ice and steel, insulated by your coolness, but your frosty exterior has the opposite effect on me, the pull of it—of you—so strong, it feels like a threat.