17
A hell of a lot of people manage to spend years of their lives collecting books without noticing that most books aren’t particularly valuable, and virtually anything you do to them is only going to make them worth even less.
Patrick’s lost count of the number of people who’ve told him about the whole room they have—on the Upper West Side, in Ossining, at their summer house on the Cape—that’s filled with books.
Patrick could tell them that he, too, has rooms full of books and it’s not like people are beating down the door to pay a fortune for most of them.
Still, he humors collectors, at least those within a subway ride, because book people don’t usually consider parting with their collections unless they’re hard up for either money or space.
Patrick will comb through what they’ve got and offer a fair price for anything he thinks he can sell, as long as he doesn’t already have multiple copies of it in stock.
Answering that last question was always a bit of a mystery.
Did he still have those three leather-bound copies of The Golden Bowl , or had he sold them?
Or was it The Bostonians ? But Nathaniel finished his inventory, and Patrick now has an alphabetized list of nearly all his books.
It’s eighty pages long, typed. Nathaniel punched holes along the side and bound it with brass brads.
“But what if I buy more books,” Patrick had asked.
“You’ll pencil them in and cross off whatever you sell. Then you’ll retype an updated list next summer. Or I will.” The prospect of retyping eighty pages brings Patrick no joy, but the idea that Nathaniel might be around this time next year is good enough that he doesn’t care.
So when Patrick enters Viv’s apartment, he can tell almost right away that he’ll need to come back with a hand truck.
“The problem,” he tells her, “is that you and I have identical taste.” Clearly, she had the right idea with all that muttering about coals to Newcastle. “I’m going to go broke today.”
He spends the entire morning going through her shelves.
She has first editions of Virginia Woolf, Djuna Barnes, Gertrude Stein, Carson McCullers, and Ana?s Nin.
None of them are perfect. They were clearly bought to read, and some have underlinings and dogeared pages.
Some have “Maryanne Verdano” written on the flyleaf in faded blue ink.
Patrick doesn’t have the heart to tell Viv that all these signs of use detract from a book’s value.
Instead he offers her what he thinks is a fair amount for a total of fifty books and the standard half the cover price for another hundred.
She sighs. “I don’t know what I’ll do with the rest. I can’t take all these books with me, and I can’t afford this place on my own.”
“Nathaniel will be sorry to see you go.”
“I’m only moving to Barrow Street. You’ll see more of me than ever.”
He declines her offer of a drink, writes her a check, suggests that she call that bookstore on Worth Street to unload the rest, and is about to leave when he sees another shelf in the doorway to the kitchen.
This is the sort of apartment where bookshelves have been shoved against every wall, wedged between every piece of furniture.
It’s a mode of living that Patrick’s only too accustomed to.
He can see why she didn’t draw his attention to these books in the first place. They’re paperbacks, and not even nice-looking paperbacks. There isn’t an unbroken spine among them.
“Are these Gothic romances? I don’t mean The Monk . I mean the sort of books with women in nightgowns running away from creepy houses on the covers?” A closer inspection reveals that they are.
Viv sighs. “They were Maryanne’s. I wasn’t sure what to do with them, other than take them with me. I can’t throw them out.”
Patrick had assumed Viv and Maryanne broke up, but that isn’t how you talk about someone who’s still alive. He clears his throat. “Do they have sentimental value or are you willing to part with them?”
“Everything in this apartment has sentimental value, but I can’t keep it all. I don’t even want to keep it all.”
“I’ll take them all for…thirty percent of the cover price? Nathaniel’s crazy about them. He’ll be over the moon.”
“Anything for Nathaniel.” She has a little twinkle in her eye that lets Patrick know she assumes he and Nathaniel are together.
He’s not going to correct her, because this isn’t about the particular nuance of his and Nathaniel’s friendship, and at this point he doesn’t even know if she’s wrong.
It’s about this woman giving her late partner’s books to someone who will know exactly what they’re getting.
Patrick takes another look at the shelf itself. It’s shallow, the perfect depth for paperbacks. It has the rough look of something made by an eighth grader in woodshop. “I’ll make you an offer on the shelf, too, if it’s for sale.”
He loads as many paperbacks as he can carry into a milk crate, promising to come back later in the week for the shelf and the rest of the books.
“I’m not going to write you a check for the paperbacks,” he says, taking out his wallet and counting out some bills.
“Because this isn’t a business expense.”
No matter how many times Patrick attempts to lug home a milk crate filled with books, it’s always heavier than he expects it to be.
By the time he’s shouldering open the door to the shop, he’s sweaty and a little out of breath.
Nathaniel’s at Patrick’s desk, mending a torn page with glue and wax paper the way Patrick taught him.
Nathaniel isn’t particularly interested in book repair, but this technique is a bit of a magic trick and doesn’t require that much skill. He’s showed Iris too.
“Walt tried to eat a bee,” Nathaniel says. “Susan dosed him with hay fever medicine and he’s sleeping it off upstairs.” He puts down the paint brush he’s using to apply the glue and looks up, taking a gratifying moment to let his gaze sweep over Patrick.
“These,” Patrick says, putting the crate on the counter, “are for you. There’s more where these came from.”
Nathaniel’s gaze darts between the books and Patrick’s rolled-up sleeves and then to his face.
He lifts some of the books from the top of the crate and examines the next layer.
It isn’t the first time Patrick’s bought him books.
It is, however, a hell of a lot of books.
It’s extravagant, possibly even showy. This is the kind of gesture that’s one level up from a dozen roses or a box of chocolates: it’s a nice bracelet, or a bottle of perfume, if he’s learned anything from Doris Day movies.
He hadn’t been thinking in those terms when he bought the books.
He was only thinking that Nathaniel would love them.
Patrick can’t decide if that makes it better or worse.
“Thank you,” Nathaniel says, getting to his feet.
“There’s also a shelf.”
Nathaniel comes out from behind the desk and flips the sign on the door to Closed, then slides the deadbolt and draws the blinds.
There’s no preamble this time, just Nathaniel gripping Patrick’s collar and pulling him in.
The kiss is fast and hard, Nathaniel’s mouth soft and wet and open for Patrick.
Patrick gets a foot between Nathaniel’s, nothing more than a thought, an invitation, and Nathaniel presses into Patrick’s thigh.
Nathaniel takes a step backward and Patrick follows, until Nathaniel is sitting on the edge of Patrick’s desk, Patrick standing between his legs.
Like this, Patrick looms over him. He has to tip Nathaniel’s head back to kiss him.
Nathaniel gets his hands on Patrick’s belt loops and tugs.
If Patrick had known that all it would take to get this kind of reaction was a crate full of tawdry paperbacks, he’d have cleared out the Worth Street bookstore of every damn book with a spooky house on the cover.
“Do you want—” Patrick starts, but Nathaniel pulls him close again, looking for friction. When he finds it they both groan.
Patrick’s never had sex at work and he wasn’t planning on starting today, but at this point he’ll do whatever Nathaniel wants, however and wherever Nathaniel wants.
Nathaniel wants to fuck in the shop? They’ll fuck in the shop.
He gets his hands under Nathaniel’s ass and lifts him so they’re pressing together at a better angle.
“We can, if you want,” Patrick says into Nathaniel’s ear. “Your call.”
Nathaniel pulls back and looks at him. His mouth is red and wet, his hair rumpled. “I’m not using you.”
“You could,” Patrick says, maybe a little too quickly. He shifts his grip so Nathaniel is sitting on the desk again, and slides a hand up Nathaniel’s back. “If you want.”
Nathaniel makes a sound.
“Yeah?” Patrick asks. “You like that?”
“Maybe,” Nathaniel says, breathless. “Yes. No. I don’t know. I keep thinking about it.”
“What do you think about?”
Nathaniel is quiet for a minute, his gaze darting helplessly between Patrick’s eyes and mouth. “I know you’d make me feel good.”
Patrick doesn’t know if that was calculated to basically incapacitate him but that’s what it does anyway. He kisses Nathaniel, breathless and desperate, fitting their bodies together as best he can. “That’s what I want too. Can I make you feel good now?”
There’s only the tiniest hesitation before Nathaniel says, “Please.”
“Is the door upstairs locked?” Since the break-in, they’ve been careful about that. Nathaniel nods.