The Song Reader (31 page)

Lila stared at him for several uncomfortable seconds before she laughed. She confessed she’d been daydreaming, but when he asked her what about, she said Jim’s return to slavery. “It’s just so disturbing, and no matter how many times I teach the book, I can’t get over it.”

“I’m in math,” Patrick said. “Sorry.” And he was sorry at that moment, though being a mathematician had been his dream since he was a kid. But if only he knew what this woman was talking about, he wouldn’t have to wander back to the science people, huddled over by the windows.

“Wait,” she said. “I’m sure you know
Huckleberry Finn.
” When he nodded—though he didn’t remember the book that well, since he’d read it years ago, in middle school—she said, “Then I can explain it to you.” She looked at the wall behind him. “If you’re interested, that is.”

Of course he was. He loved listening to her airy voice as she explained the critical controversy about the end of Twain’s novel: why Twain spent so much time sending Jim and Huck down the river, to freedom, only to have Jim freely decide to return to his owner. “I don’t believe he was trying to undermine his own book,” she said. “That’s such a cynical way to look at it, don’t you think?”
She paused. “I suppose I sound too excited. I’m a great believer in stories. I used to tell Billy I was afraid we loved stories more than real life, but he said, ‘What is life but a story we don’t know the meaning of yet?’ “

Patrick stood up straighter. So there was a boyfriend already. Of course. By the last year of grad school, most people had paired off with someone—if they hadn’t arrived with someone they’d met as an undergraduate. Why he hadn’t was simple, though most people didn’t understand. His mother had gotten sick. For three years, he’d spent all of his free time flying back and forth from Princeton to St. Louis to take care of her. His father was there, but his father had always ignored Patrick’s mother, favoring his golf buddies and drinking buddies over his wife. At the funeral that previous summer, Patrick had decided he would never speak to his father again, though he’d already broken that vow several times. Whenever his father would call late at night, drunk, lonely, filled with regret, Patrick would soften enough to hang on the phone and listen. If he couldn’t offer the forgiveness the old man wanted—this was still his father. He had to give him something.

Back at school, getting over his grief, no question he was lonely. He’d made a few friends in the math department, but he hadn’t had a real girlfriend since his mom had fallen ill. The weekends were particularly hard because he wasn’t teaching, though at least he always had plenty of work to get done.

Now he noticed Lila Cole’s ring. It wasn’t a diamond, but it was on the third finger of her left hand, probably an engagement ring. She must have seen him looking at it, because she said, “It’s very unusual, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Your boyfriend must have unusual taste.”

“Oh, it’s not from a boyfriend. It’s what Billy calls a ‘twin ring.’ “ She held out her lovely white hand. “See the two snakes entwined together?” She laughed softly. “I told him that I’d prefer something
less hostile than snakes, but he said they don’t make rings with two teddy bears.”

“You’re a twin?” Patrick said. Trying to imagine a man who could look like this woman with pale yellow hair, eyebrows so light you could barely see them, a frame so small it seemed not only delicate but fragile, as though you could break her wrist if you grabbed it too quickly.

Another reason she was out of his league. Though she was very slight, she was also a good two inches taller than he was. He’d thought it was the shoes she was wearing, but now he saw she had on flat black shoes like ballet dancers wear. He would have to lean up to kiss her, which wouldn’t have bothered him in the slightest—her bottom lip was fatter than the top and it looked so plump and kissable—but he knew it would probably bother her. He was five feet nine, not that short, but he’d been rejected by several girls in college for not being tall enough. Or so he assumed. He was never really sure why his first dates didn’t lead to second dates, or why his handful of relationships just hadn’t worked out. Whenever he tried to apply his mind to the problem, he never got anywhere, though at least it proved he wasn’t a total geek like some of his friends. He did want to meet a woman on her own terms, even if he couldn’t understand how to do that.

Obviously, he had his issues in the romance department. And sometimes when he was afraid of disappointment, he said things that were a bit stupid, as when he admitted to Lila that he was having a hard time conjuring up a male version of her.

“We don’t look alike.” She blinked, no doubt wondering how someone so uneducated could be at Princeton, even if he was in math. “Fraternal twins?”

He could feel himself blushing as he said, “Oh, right. Sorry,” but Lila Cole waved her hand, the one with the twin ring, and said she’d just remembered something else that bothered her about
Jim’s return to slavery. Before he could say he’d like to hear it, she was telling him about it. As the room started to empty, she was still talking, and he decided to ask her if she wanted to get coffee.

She nodded nonchalantly, but he was as nervous as if she’d agreed to go out on a date. And he didn’t mind that she kept talking for another twenty minutes or more, long enough for them to finish their first cup. She was so passionate about her work; he liked that in a woman. Of course he cared deeply about his own, too, and he hoped at some point she would ask him what he was working on. Not because he needed to talk about it—in truth, he could barely think, he was so worried about screwing this up—but because if she didn’t, it probably meant this coffee was just a chance to finish her point. She had no interest in him.

He couldn’t believe his luck. She not only asked, she listened and came up with intelligent questions. They spent two hours at the café, made plans for lunch the next day, and even then, she seemed reluctant to leave. It was tempting to think that she was lonely, too, but she’d already told him she never got lonely. “Like Billy said a long time ago, there’s no loneliness as long as you have stories. My books are my friends.” She smiled. “Too bad I have so many friends at this point that they’re threatening to take over my apartment.”

So maybe she just liked him? Though Patrick had a hard time believing it, it turned out to be true. Much later, she told him what she’d been thinking at that café, the first time they were together. She numbered her thoughts with her fingers, a habit of hers that never failed to charm him. One, he was an excellent listener. Two, he seemed really fascinated by what she thought about books. Three, he was “adorable” in his white sweater and old jeans. Four, he made her understand a math conversation, which she’d thought was impossible. Five, he never once asked her that ridiculous question everyone asks about what it’s like to be a twin.

Five wasn’t a sign of his intuitive powers. He’d almost asked that “ridiculous question,” but something she said made him forget to. He’d gotten lucky again.

Patrick didn’t meet Lila’s twin for almost eight months. He was nervous about the encounter, knowing that Lila had no living parents and Billy was her entire family. He’d also heard things that made him worry that no matter how hard he tried, he wouldn’t like Lila’s brother. At least once a week, she mentioned that Billy was “brilliant,” which wouldn’t have bothered him except she often added that her brother had always been the smarter twin. Lila had won prestigious scholarships, finished her PhD in four years, and already received three tenure-track job offers at excellent schools. In fact, the one she’d just accepted, in Philadelphia—where she was determined to live because Billy and his family had settled there—was at a name-brand college where Patrick would have killed to work since the teaching load was so light, allowing plenty of time for research. Patrick had one offer in Philadelphia, at a small college in the suburbs, where he would have to teach two sessions of introductory algebra for every two real courses he got to teach. But he was planning to take the job if Lila would agree to marry him, and the visit to Billy’s house was his prelude to asking her. Patrick knew if he didn’t get along with her fabulous brother, she’d never consider accepting his proposal.

Billy lived in a row house in a blue-collar neighborhood west of the city. Patrick knew Lila’s brother had gotten married because he’d gotten a woman pregnant, but he’d never understood why they hadn’t considered abortion or adoption, rather than the old-fashioned solution of marriage. Lila had said they weren’t against abortion; she’d also explained that her brother was not in love with this woman, though Patrick wondered if she was wrong about this.
He knew Lila had never gotten close to her brother’s wife and once or twice it occurred to him that Lila might be somehow jealous of Ashley, but he put that idea out of his mind as unfounded and probably ridiculous.

On this particular Sunday, Billy, Ashley, and their almost five-year-old daughter, Pearl, were all at home. The inside of the row house was dark and a little shabby, but it looked like it had been recently cleaned. Pearl’s dolls were neatly arranged in a plastic tub, wedged behind the door. The wood floors had been swept, and the whole place smelled of lemon dusting spray. Ashley was dressed up like she’d just come from church, though her skirt was a little too short for any church Patrick had ever been in. She was pretty in an earthy kind of way: big breasts, round face, flat nose, nice green eyes. Pearl, their daughter, looked a little like what Lila must have looked like as a kid: hair so blond it was almost white, tiny as an elf, a sweet smile. Patrick smiled back at her, and Lila knelt down and gave Pearl a hug. Next, Lila hugged Ashley and spoke to her for a few minutes; only then did she finally throw her arms around her twin.

It was true: they didn’t look alike. Billy was shorter, for one thing, which was odd, Patrick thought. He had long, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, and a muscular frame more like Patrick’s own. The only signs that they were related were their sparkling blue eyes and their similar gestures and expressions. No doubt they’d both picked up the latter from their parents, but for Patrick, it was disconcerting, like watching a strange man who’d memorized his girlfriend’s behaviors. When Billy pulled away and stuck his hand out to him, Lila apologized for failing to introduce everyone. But she was giggling like a girl, rather than laughing the soft, sophisticated laugh Patrick was used to.

He might have felt out of place if Billy hadn’t turned out to be everything Lila said he was. He told Patrick he had a few
questions for him, and Patrick followed Lila’s brother into the tiny dining room, fearing some kind of old-fashioned, what-are-yourintentions talk. But all over the oak table were books, mathematics books, and though they weren’t at the level of Patrick’s own work, they were upper-level undergraduate texts: difficult to read for all but the best majors and impossible to read for someone with no formal training like Billy. Lila’s brother admitted he’d had difficulty with many of the concepts, and he’d littered each book with yellow stickies, each with a question he hoped Patrick wouldn’t mind answering for him. “Lila told me your field is wavelets,” he said with a humble smile. “I thought I should try to understand what you do, to the extent I can.”

Patrick was impressed that he’d taken the time, especially as he knew Billy was working long hours doing carpentry to support his family, but more than that, he enjoyed talking about math with Billy. Lila’s brother had a keen mind that focused in on the most interesting aspects of a topic. Of course, he couldn’t work the problems, but he seemed to grasp the concepts in a way few students did. Occasionally, when Patrick would look up from the table and see Ashley and Lila getting dinner ready, he would tell Lila that he’d be glad to help, but she said they were handling it and then smiled, presumably because she was pleased he and her brother were getting along so well.

It wasn’t until hours later, after they’d finished Ashley’s roast and potatoes, played three games of cards with Pearl, said their goodbyes and gotten in Patrick’s Volkswagen to head back to Princeton, that Patrick realized no one had asked Lila about her work: not Ashley, who didn’t seem to care about any of it but good-naturedly put up with what she called Billy’s “hobbies,” but not Billy, either.

He didn’t broach the topic until they were almost home. He was worried she’d be upset with him, but she laughed. “Billy doesn’t need to ask me about that. He taught me everything I know.”

“Now there’s a ringing endorsement of grad school.”

“Okay, I don’t mean literally
everything.
But he’s the reason I decided to study literature. It all goes back to when we were kids, when he…“ She glanced out the window. “It’s hard to explain. Let’s just say that without him, I wouldn’t have the stories anymore.”

Patrick didn’t understand, but he didn’t push her. It was part of the unspoken agreement he’d had with Lila from the moment their relationship became serious: he would never really question her about her past. It didn’t occur to him that there was anything wrong with this—honestly, quite the opposite: he considered it another stroke of luck that he’d managed to fall in love with a woman who
didn’t
want to share everything in her life. With other women he’d dated, what started out as a moment of sharing had usually turned into an accusation when he didn’t get whatever he was supposed to out of it. Then, too, his father had been spilling his feelings all over Patrick for as long as Patrick could remember. He was frankly relieved to be with Lila, who made so few emotional demands. Their life together could be based on reason and thought, which sounded like happiness to him.

After they were married, they saw Billy’s family at all the usual occasions: birthday parties for Billy and Ashley’s kids, Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas Eve to swap presents, picnics on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. When he and Lila finally had some money—and tenure—they rented a house at the Jersey Shore for a month one summer and invited Billy’s family to join them. Billy couldn’t get off work that long, but he agreed to come with Ashley and the kids for the first two weeks.