I Was George Washington (Lexy’s. A book about past-life regression. She always had a weakness for that kind of thing.)
Love in the Known World (Hers. A critically acclaimed novel that was later made into a truly awful movie.)
But That’s Not a Duck! (Mine. A book of jokes I bought for an academic paper I was writing about punch lines.)
That’s Not Where I Left It Yesterday (Hers. A coming-of-age story about a girl in 1950s Brooklyn.)
What You Need to Know to Be a Game Show Contestant (Mine. I never did get to be on a game show, but I always thought I’d be good at it.)
I Wish I May, I Wish I Might (Hers. A book of childhood folklore and customs from around the world.)
Know Your Rhodesian Ridgeback (Hers, although I’ve consulted it quite a few times lately.)
Didn’t You Used to Be Someone? Stars of Yesterday and Where They Are Today (Hers.)
I’d Rather Be Parsing: The Linguistics of Bumper Stickers, Buttons, and T-shirt Slogans (Mine.)
Have You Never Been Mellow? The World’s Worst Music (Mine. A joke gift from Lexy, who always insisted that I had terrible taste in music.)
How to Buy a Used Car Without Getting Taken for a Ride (Hers.)
As I said, this is only the top shelf. As soon as I’ve written down the last title, I begin to question my actions. What exactly do I think I’m looking for, a message from beyond the grave, arranged neatly in my study? I have a sudden memory of the eerie excitement I felt as a kid when the Beatles’ “Paul is dead” clues started to surface. I was thirteen the year that story broke, and I was thrilled by it, the goose-bumpy feeling of hearing backwards messages, the uncanny idea of secret clues hidden in plain sight. My friend Paul Muzzey, with whom I shared not only a first name but also the small excitement of being a namesake to the corpse in this conspiracy, kept a long list of all the clues published in music magazines and broadcast over the radio. He called me up one afternoon and said, “You’ve got to play ‘A Day in the Life’ right now. Go do it while I’m still on the phone.”
“Backwards?” I asked.
“No, just listen to it the right way. I’ll tell you when to stop.”
So I put the phone down and walked over to the hi-fi in the living room. I pulled Sergeant Pepper out of its sleeve and put it on the turntable. My parents weren’t home, so I turned it up as loud as it went, then picked up the phone again.
“Okay,” I said as the familiar chords began.
“Okay,” he said. “Just close your eyes and listen.”
I sat with my eyes closed, the phone to my ear, and listened to the song I’d heard a hundred times before. I heard nothing new. The first verse came to an end with “Nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Lords,” and Paul said, “Did you hear it?”
“Hear what?”
“He said ‘house of Paul.’”
“No way,” I said. “It’s ‘House of Lords.’ ‘Lords’ doesn’t even sound like ‘Paul.’”
“Play it again and listen for it. He says ‘Paul.’”
So I picked up the needle and dropped it back at the beginning of the song. And I heard it clear as day, my own name. “Nobody was really sure if he was from the house of Paul.” A chill went through me.
“Oh, man,” I breathed. “He does say ‘Paul.’”
Paul and I sat there on opposite ends of the line and listened to the rest of the song in silence. It was a holy moment, a moment weighted down by the truth we had found. The house of Paul. It was really true.
Of course, it came out soon afterward that the whole conspiracy thing was a hoax and that Paul McCartney was very much alive. But to this day, I can’t hear that song without hearing “house of Paul.” I believe that what I learned that afternoon was true. I would swear it on any pile of books you gave me.
Thirty years later, I’m still searching for hidden meanings in the ordinary objects that fill my life. Only now, I don’t have a nation of DJs and keen-eyed teenaged fans to help me. I’m all alone in this. All I have is forty-nine books arranged on a shelf. And what do I think they mean? Something. Or nothing at all.
TEN
Back in Disney World, back among the nightly fireworks and the children in mouse-eared hats, Lexy and I walk hand in hand forever. I sometimes think that if I could, I would round up all of the people who visited the park during the days we were there, and I would ask them to show me their photos and videotapes, just on the chance that one of them might have caught us on film. I feel certain, looking back, that we must have walked through someone’s family grouping at the exact moment the shutter closed; surely, some father wielding a video camera must have captured us somewhere, climbing into a teacup or reading the gravestones outside the Haunted Mansion, while his children, fidgety and drunk with excitement, ran around people’s legs in the foreground. What would I give for that, to see how we looked, the two of us together, when we had known each other barely a week? Me in my Eeyore shirt, and Lexy with the sun in her hair. Everything. I would give everything.
We stayed in Orlando for four days. We arrived on a Sunday afternoon and didn’t turn back for home until Thursday morning. And all the time, we ate nothing but appetizers. Appetizers, snacks, and side dishes. We didn’t eat a meal until Friday night, when, almost home, we stopped again at the same Italian restaurant we had gone to the day of the wedding. We ate a big dinner, with entrées and desserts, wine and coffee, and then I dropped Lexy at her house and went home to grade my papers in an exuberant, generous mood. That was the end of our first date.
I haven’t mentioned sleeping arrangements yet; I haven’t told you how we slept in the same tiny motel room for four humid Florida nights, and how it wasn’t until our last night there that Lexy crossed the room and came into my bed. How she whispered to me, “I don’t usually do this on the first date” as she ran her hands over my long-forsaken body. I mention these things, the warm air and cool sheets, the fresh joy of Lexy lying beside me, in the interest of not skipping over anything that might prove to be important. But in truth, they are not things I can speak of very easily. I touched her and it felt like coming home. What more is there to say?
On Sunday afternoon, two days after our return, I arrived at Lexy’s house with flowers and a chew toy for Lorelei. The flowers, the first I ever gave her, were dahlias, so dark and red they were almost black.
“Wow,” Lexy said as she took them from me. “These are gorgeous. I’ve never seen flowers this color. They kind of remind me of the devil.”
“The devil?” I said. “Yes, that’s exactly what I was going for. It’s a test, to see if you’re receptive to the black arts. Now I can introduce you to the other members of the coven.”
She laughed. “No, don’t you see what I mean? They’re this deep bloodred color, and they’ve got these kind of seductive honeycomb petals that just draw you in further and further.” She waited a moment and then added grandly, “I believe I shall carry these flowers at my wedding.”
I only paused for a moment. “Well,” I said, “you’d better get married quickly. These are only going to last a day or two.”
She laughed and put her arms around me. “Oh, I don’t think you’re going to get off that easily,” she said. “But see what I mean about these flowers? They seduced me into asking you to marry me on our second date. I think we’d better put them in the other room before I lose control completely.”