The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry

  Day three, four in the morning, Maya falls asleep. A.J. is exhausted but restless. He had asked one of the clerks to grab a couple of galleys from the basement for him. Unfortunately, the clerk is new, and she had picked books from the to be recycled pile, not the to be read pile. A.J. doesn’t want to leave Maya’s side so he decides to read one of the old, rejected galleys. The top one in the pile is a young-adult fantasy novel in which the main character is dead. Ugh, A.J. thinks. Two of his least favorite things (postmortem narrators and young-adult novels) in one book. He tosses the paper carcass aside. The second one in the pile is a memoir written by an eighty-year-old man, a lifelong bachelor and onetime science writer for various midwestern newspapers, who married at the age of seventy-eight. His bride died two years after the wedding at the age of eighty-three. The Late Bloomer by Leon Friedman. The book is familiar to A.J., but he’s not sure why. He opens the galley and a business card falls out: amelia loman, knightley press. Yes, he remembers now.

  Of course, he has encountered Amelia Loman in the years since that awkward first meeting. They have had a handful of cordial e-mails, and she comes trianually to report on Knightley’s hottest prospects. After spending ten or so afternoons with her, he’s recently come to the conclusion that she is good at her job. She is informed about her list and greater literary trends. She is upbeat but not an overseller. She is sweet with Maya, too—always remembers to bring the girl a book from one of Knightley’s children’s lines. Above all, Amelia Loman is professional, which means she has never brought up A.J.’s poor conduct the day they met. God, he’d been awful to her. As penance, he decides to give The Late Bloomer a chance, though it is still not his type of thing.

  “I am eighty-one years old, and statistically speaking, I should have died 4.7 years ago,” the book begins.

  At 5 a.m., A.J. closes the book and gives it a pat.

  Maya wakes, feeling better. “Why are you crying?”

  “I was reading,” A.J. says.

  SHE DOESN’T RECOGNIZE the number, but Amelia Loman picks up on the first ring.

  “Amelia, hello. This is A. J. Fikry from Island. I wasn’t expecting you to answer.”

  “It’s true,” she says, laughing. “I’m the last person left in the entire world who still answers her phone.”

  “Yes,” he says, “you might be.”

  “The Catholic church is thinking of making me a saint.”

  “Saint Amelia who answered the phone,” A.J. says.

  He has never called her before, and she assumes this must be the reason. “Are we still on for two weeks from now, or do you have to cancel?” Amelia asks.

  “Oh no, nothing like that. I was just planning to leave you a message, actually.”

  Amelia speaks in monotone. “Hi, you’ve reached the voice mail of Amelia Loman. Beep.”

  “Um.”

  “Beep,” Amelia repeats. “Go ahead. Leave your message.”

  “Um, hi, Amelia. This is A. J. Fikry. I’ve just finished reading a book you recommended to me—”

  “Oh yeah, which one?”

  “That’s odd. Voice mail seems to be talking back to me. It’s one from several years back. The Late Bloomer by Leon Friedman.”

  “Don’t go breaking my heart, A.J. That was my absolute favorite from four winter lists ago. No one wanted to read it. I loved that book. I still love that book! I’m the queen of lost causes, though.”

  “Maybe it was the jacket,” A.J. says lamely.

  “Lamentable jacket. Old people’s feet, flowers,” Amelia agrees. “Like anyone wants to think about wrinkly old feet let alone buy a book with them on it. Paperback re-jacket didn’t help anything either—black and white, more flowers. But jackets are the redheaded stepchildren of book publishing. We blame them for everything.”

  “I don’t know if you remember, but you gave The Late Bloomer to me the first time we met,” A.J. says.

  Amelia pauses. “Did I? Yes, that makes sense. That would have been around the time I started at Knightley.”

  “Well, you know, literary memoirs aren’t really my thing, but this was just spectacular in its small way. Wise and . . .” He feels naked when speaking about things he really loves.

  “Go on.”

  “Every word the right one and exactly where it should be. That’s basically the highest compliment I can give. I’m only sorry it took me so long to read it.”

  “Story of my life. What made you finally pick it up?”

  “My little girl was sick, so—”

  “Oh, poor Maya! I hope nothing serious!”

  “Chicken pox. I was up all night with her, and it was the book nearest to me at the time.”

  “I’m glad you finally read it,” Amelia says. “I begged everyone I knew to read this book, and no one would listen except my mother and even she wasn’t an easy sell.”

  “Sometimes books don’t find us until the right time.”

  “Not much consolation for Mr. Friedman,” Amelia adds.

  “Well, I’m going to order a carton of the equally lamentably jacketed paperback. And in the summer, when all the tourists are here, maybe we could have Mr. Friedman in for an event.”

  “If he lives that long,” Amelia says.

  “Is he sick?” A.J. asks.

  “No, but he’s, like, ninety!”

  A.J. laughs. “Well, Amelia, I’ll see you in two weeks, I guess.”

  “Maybe next time you’ll listen to me when I tell you something’s the ‘best book of the winter list’!” Amelia says.

  “Probably not. I’m old, set in my ways, contrary.”

  “You’re not that old,” she says.

  “Not compared to Mr. Friedman, I suppose.” A.J. clears his throat. “When you’re in town, maybe we could have dinner or something.”

  It isn’t at all uncommon for sales reps and booksellers to break bread, but Amelia detects a certain tone in A.J.’s voice. She clarifies. “We can go over the new winter list.”

  “Yes, of course,” A.J. answers too quickly. “It’s such a long trip for you to Alice. You’ll be hungry. It’s rude that I’ve never suggested it before.”

  “Let’s make it a late lunch, then,” Amelia says. “I need to catch the last ferry back to Hyannis.”

  A.J. DECIDES TO take Amelia to Pequod’s, which is the second nicest seafood restaurant on Alice Island. El Corazon, the nicest restaurant, is not open for lunch, and even if it had been, El Corazon would have seemed too romantic for what is only a business meeting.

  A.J. arrives first, which gives him time to regret his choice. He has not been to Pequod’s since before Maya, and its decor strikes him as embarrassing and touristy. The tasteful white table linens do not much distract from the harpoons, nets, and raincoats hanging from the walls, or the captain, carved out of a log, who welcomes you with a bucket of complimentary saltwater taffy. A fiberglass whale with tiny, sad eyes is mounted from the ceiling. A.J. senses the whale’s judgment: Should have gone with El Corazon, matey.

  Amelia is five minutes late. “Pequod, like Moby Dick,” she says. She is wearing a dress made out of what looks like a repurposed crocheted tablecloth over a vintage pink slip. She has a fake daisy in her curly blond hair and is wearing galoshes despite the fact that the day is sunny. A.J. thinks the galoshes make her seem like a Boy Scout, in a state of readiness and prepared for disaster.

  “Do you like Moby Dick?” he asks.

  “I hate it,” she says. “And I don’t say that about many things. Teachers assign it, and parents are happy because their kids are reading something of ‘quality.’ But it’s forcing kids to read books like that that make them think they hate reading.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t cancel when you saw the name of the restaurant.”

  “Oh, I thought about it,” she says with mirth in her voice. “But then I reminded myself that it’s just a restaurant name and it probably won’t effect the quality of the food too, too much. Plus I looked up the reviews online, and it sounded del
icious.”

  “You didn’t trust me?”

  “I like to think about what I’m going to eat before I get there. I like to”—she stretches out the word—“an-ti-ci-pate.” She opens the menu. “I see they’ve got several cocktails named after Moby Dick characters.” She turns the page. “Anyway, if I hadn’t wanted to eat here, I probably would have invented an allergy to shellfish.”

  “Fictional food allergy. That’s very devious of you,” A.J. says.

  “Now I won’t be able to use that trick with you.”

  The waiter is dressed in a puffy white shirt that is clearly in conflict with his black glasses and fauxhawk. The look is pirate hipster. “Ahoy, landlubbers,” the waiter says flatly. “Try a themed cocktail?”

  “My standard drink is the old-fashioned, but how can a person be expected to resist a themed cocktail?” she says. “One Queequeg, please.” She grabs the waiter’s hand. “Wait. Is it good?”

  “Um,” the waiter says. “The tourists seem to like them.”

  “Well, if the tourists like them,” she says.

  “Um, so I’m clear, does that mean you do or you don’t want the cocktail?”

  “I definitely want it,” Amelia says. “Come what may.” She smiles at the waiter. “I won’t blame you if it’s terrible.”

  A.J. orders a glass of the house red.

  “That’s sad,” Amelia says. “I bet you’ve gone your whole life without having a Queequeg despite the fact that you live here and you sell books and you probably even like Moby Dick.”

  “You’re obviously a more evolved person than I am,” A.J. says.

  “Yes, I can see that. And after I have this cocktail, my whole life’s probably going to change.”

  The drinks arrive. “Oh, look,” Amelia says. “A shrimp with a little harpoon through it. That is an unexpected delight.” She takes out her phone and snaps a picture. “I like to take pictures of my drinks.”

  “They’re like family,” A.J. says.

  “They’re better than family.” She raises her glass and clinks it to A.J.’s.

  “How is it?” he asks.

  “Salty, fruity, fishy. It’s kind of like if a shrimp cocktail decided to make love to a Bloody Mary.”

  “I like how you say make love. The drink sounds disgusting, by the way.”

  She takes another sip and shrugs. “It’s growing on me.”

  “In what restaurant based on a novel would you have preferred to dine?” A.J. asks her.

  “Oh, that’s tough. This won’t make any sense, but when I was in college I used to get really hungry when I was reading The Gulag Archipelago. All that description of Soviet prison bread and soup,” Amelia says.

  “You’re weird,” A.J. says.

  “Thank you. Where would you go?” Amelia asks.

  “This wouldn’t be a restaurant per se, but I always wanted to try the Turkish Delight in Narnia. When I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as a boy, I used to think that Turkish Delight must be incredibly delicious if it made Edmund betray his family,” A.J. says. “I guess I must have told my wife this, because one year Nic gets a box for me for the holidays. And it turned out to be this powdery, gummy candy. I don’t think I’ve ever been so disappointed in my entire life.”

  “Your childhood was officially over right then.”

  “I was never the same,” A.J. says.

  “Maybe the White Witch’s was different. Like, magical Turkish Delight tastes better.”

  “Or maybe Lewis’s point is that Edmund didn’t need much coaxing to betray his family.”

  “That’s very cynical,” Amelia says.

  “Have you had Turkish Delight, Amelia?”

  “No,” she says.

  “I’ll have to get you some,” he says.

  “What if I love it?” she asks.

  “I’ll probably think less of you.”

  “Well, I won’t lie just to get you to like me, A.J. One of my best qualities is my honesty.”

  “You told me you would have faked a seafood allergy to get out of eating here,” A.J. says.

  “Yes, but that was only so I wouldn’t hurt an account’s feelings. I’d never lie about something important like Turkish Delight.”

  They order food and then Amelia takes out the winter catalog from her tote bag. “So, Knightley,” she says.

  “Knightley,” he repeats.

  She breezes through the winter list, ruthlessly flipping past the books he won’t go for, emphasizing the publisher’s great hopes, and saving her fanciest adjectives for her favorites. With some accounts, you mention if the book has blurbs, those often hyperbolic endorsements from established writers that appear on the back cover. A.J. is not one of those accounts. At their second or third meeting, he had referred to blurbs as “the blood diamonds of publishing.” She knows him a little better now, and needless to say, this process is less painful for it. He trusts me more, she thinks, or maybe it’s just that fatherhood has mellowed him. (It is wise to keep thoughts like this to yourself.) A.J. promises to read several of the ARCs.

  “In less than four years, I hope,” Amelia says.

  “I’ll do my best to have them read in three.” He pauses. “Let’s order dessert,” he says. “There must be a ‘whale of a sundae’ or something.”

  Amelia groans. “That is truly an awful wordplay.”

  “So if you don’t mind my asking, why was The Late Bloomer your favorite book from that list? You’re a young—”

  “I’m not that young. I’m thirty-five.”

  “That’s still young,” A.J. says. “What I mean is you probably haven’t experienced much of what Mr. Friedman describes. I look at you, and having read the book, I wonder what made you respond to it.”

  “My, Mr. Fikry, that’s a very personal question.” She sips at the last of her second Queequeg. “The main reason I loved the book was the quality of the writing, of course.”

  “Of course. But that isn’t enough.”

  “Let’s just say I’d been on many, many bad dates by the time The Late Bloomer came across my desk. I’m a romantic person, but sometimes these don’t seem like romantic times to me. The Late Bloomer is a book about the possibility of finding great love at any age. Sounds cliché, I know.”

  A.J. nods.

  “And you? Why did you like it?” Amelia asks.

  “Quality of the prose, blah blah blah.”

  “I thought we weren’t allowed to say that!” Amelia says.

  “You don’t want to hear my sad stories, do you?”

  “Sure I do,” she says. “I love sad stories.”

  He gives her the Cliffs Notes version of Nic’s death. “Friedman gets at something specific about what it is to lose someone. How it isn’t one thing. He writes about how you lose and lose and lose.”

  “When did she die?” Amelia asks.

  “A while ago now. I was a little older than you at the time.”

  “That must have been a long while ago,” she says.

  He ignores the barb. “The Late Bloomer really could have been a popular book.”

  “I know. I’m thinking of having someone read a passage from it at my wedding.”

  A.J. pauses. “You’re getting married, Amelia. Congratulations. Who’s the lucky fellow?”

  She stirs the harpoon around the tomato juice-tinted waters of her Queequeg, trying to recapture a shrimp that’s gone AWOL. “His name is Brett Brewer. I’d about given up when I met him online.”

  A.J. drinks the bitter dregs of his second glass of wine. “Tell me more.”

  “He’s in the military, serving overseas in Afghanistan.”

  “Well done. You’re marrying an American hero,” A.J. says.

  “I guess I am.”

  “I hate those guys,” he says. “They make me feel totally inadequate. Tell me something shitty about him so that I feel better.”

  “Well, he’s not home much.”

  “You must miss him a lot.”

  “I do.
I get a lot of reading done, though.”

  “That’s good. Does he read, too?”

  “No, actually. He’s not much of a reader. But that’s kind of interesting, right? I mean, it’s interesting to be with someone whose, um, interests are so different from mine. I don’t know why I keep saying ‘interests.’ The point is, he’s a good man.”

  “He’s good to you?”

  She nods.

  “That’s what counts. Anyway, nobody’s perfect,” A.J. says. “Someone probably made him read Moby Dick in high school.”

  Amelia stabs her shrimp. “Caught it,” she says. “Your wife . . . was she a reader?”

  “And a writer. I wouldn’t worry about it, though. Reading’s overrated. Look at all the good stuff on television. Stuff like True Blood.”

  “Now you’re making fun of me.”

  “Bah! Books are for nerds,” A.J. says.

  “Nerds like us.”

  When the check comes, A.J. pays despite the fact that it is customary for the sales rep to pay in such situations. “Are you sure?” Amelia asks.

  A.J. tells her that she can pay next time.

  Outside the restaurant, Amelia and A.J. shake hands, and the usual professional pleasantries are exchanged. She turns to walk back to the ferry, and one important second later he turns to walk to the bookstore.

  “Hey A.J.,” she calls. “There’s something kind of heroic about being a bookseller, and there’s also something kind of heroic about adopting a child.”

  “I do what I can.” He bows. Halfway through the bow, he realizes that he is not the type of man who can pull off bowing and quickly rights himself. “Thank you, Amelia.”

  “My friends call me Amy,” she says.

  MAYA HAS NEVER seen A.J. so occupied. “Daddy,” she asks, “why do you have so much homework?”

  “Some of it’s extracurricular,” he says.

  “What’s ‘extracurricular’?”

  “I’d look it up if I were you.”

  Reading an entire season’s list, even the list of a modestly sized house like Knightley, is a major time commitment for a person with a chatty kindergartner and a small business. After he finishes each Knightley title, he sends Amelia an e-mail to tell her his thoughts. In his e-mails, he cannot bring himself to use the nickname “Amy,” though permission had been granted. Sometimes, if he really responds to something, he calls her. If he hates a book, he’ll send a text: Not for me. For her part, Amelia has never received this much attention from an account.