England” family who’d lost their fortune (shipbuilding? banking?) in the Depression. Though Marina frequently traveled back to Maine to visit her mother in a Bangor nursing home, and an older, married sister, it was widely believed that Marina’s “patrician” family had disowned her. (Surely the estrangement had to do with sex? And maybe politics? Marina Troy was “very left, very liberal.”)
Marina protested none of these tales, for they were never told to her directly. But she was aware of them as we’re uneasily aware of reflections of ourselves in mirrors or shiny surfaces at which, in the company of others, we don’t want to glance. Except with Adam, Marina knew better than to speak of her private life to Salthill friends. She knew how the most reluctantly uttered confidence was soon taken up by the Salthill circle,
J C O
tossed into the air and batted about, as a pack of dogs might take up a hapless creature, tossing its body into the air, yipping and barking excitedly until nothing remained but a patch of bloody skin or a few beautiful, bloody feathers.
She understood, though, that Salthill most admired Marina Troy for her “devotion” to the Salthill Bookstore. This cramped little store was situ-ated in a block of rowhouses that veered uphill from Salthill’s Main Street like steps, each of the woodframe buildings painted a different color, maroon, yellow, pale green, brick red, chalk white, like an illustration in a nineteenth-century children’s book. Of course, Pedlar’s Lane was cobbled, and one way, and so narrow that trucks moved along it slowly, like hunks of coarse thread pushing through the eye of a needle. Of course, no parking was allowed on or even near Pedlar’s Lane, which cut down on customers considerably. A gigantic Barnes & Noble store at the gigantic White Hills Mall twenty minutes away in Nyack, and Internet book sales, were gradually drawing off even long faithful customers of the store, yet there was romance in such doomed idealism—wasn’t there? Especially to the affluent who had no firsthand knowledge of it, as Marina did.
Salthill was intrigued, too, that in a gallant or quixotic gesture a few years before, Adam Berendt had invested in the Salthill Bookstore. Or he’d at least lent his friend Marina money. (How much, no one knew. No one supposed that Adam had much money. A sculptor who gave most of his work away, and seemed never to be working? Who drove a Mercedes through the decades, and lived in an eighteenth-century stone house badly in need of renovating?)
Marina lived at 88 North Pearl Street, a brisk ten-minute walk from
Pedlar’s Lane, or a five-minute bicycle ride, in a Victorian shingleboard painted lavender, beginning just perceptibly to peel, with purple grapevine trim; seen from the street, Marina’s house had a quaint storybook quality, like her store; its facade was so narrow, a man might almost encompass it by stretching wide both his arms as, in a playful gesture, a male visitor had once done. “Marina, you live in a dollhouse!” Marina felt obliged to plant purple pansies and petunias in the windowboxes of her house. Her small front yard was bounded by a three-foot wrought-iron fence; on her front step, there was a braided welcome mat. Inside the house were three rooms downstairs, and three rooms upstairs; the stairs were unnervingly steep, and warped; the floorboards of each room were warped; the old glass of the windowpanes was wavy as if afflicted with astigmatism. You could love Middle Age: A Romance
such a house, and be terribly tired of living in it. As you could love books, and be terribly tired of the commerce of books.
Adam had visited Marina many times in the house at 88 North Pearl, but not once had he lain in her brass bed at the top of the house. The Salthill circle was curious about this possibility, and neither Marina nor Adam felt obliged to enlighten
Marina protested none of these tales, for they were never told to her directly. But she was aware of them as we’re uneasily aware of reflections of ourselves in mirrors or shiny surfaces at which, in the company of others, we don’t want to glance. Except with Adam, Marina knew better than to speak of her private life to Salthill friends. She knew how the most reluctantly uttered confidence was soon taken up by the Salthill circle,
J C O
tossed into the air and batted about, as a pack of dogs might take up a hapless creature, tossing its body into the air, yipping and barking excitedly until nothing remained but a patch of bloody skin or a few beautiful, bloody feathers.
She understood, though, that Salthill most admired Marina Troy for her “devotion” to the Salthill Bookstore. This cramped little store was situ-ated in a block of rowhouses that veered uphill from Salthill’s Main Street like steps, each of the woodframe buildings painted a different color, maroon, yellow, pale green, brick red, chalk white, like an illustration in a nineteenth-century children’s book. Of course, Pedlar’s Lane was cobbled, and one way, and so narrow that trucks moved along it slowly, like hunks of coarse thread pushing through the eye of a needle. Of course, no parking was allowed on or even near Pedlar’s Lane, which cut down on customers considerably. A gigantic Barnes & Noble store at the gigantic White Hills Mall twenty minutes away in Nyack, and Internet book sales, were gradually drawing off even long faithful customers of the store, yet there was romance in such doomed idealism—wasn’t there? Especially to the affluent who had no firsthand knowledge of it, as Marina did.
Salthill was intrigued, too, that in a gallant or quixotic gesture a few years before, Adam Berendt had invested in the Salthill Bookstore. Or he’d at least lent his friend Marina money. (How much, no one knew. No one supposed that Adam had much money. A sculptor who gave most of his work away, and seemed never to be working? Who drove a Mercedes through the decades, and lived in an eighteenth-century stone house badly in need of renovating?)
Marina lived at 88 North Pearl Street, a brisk ten-minute walk from
Pedlar’s Lane, or a five-minute bicycle ride, in a Victorian shingleboard painted lavender, beginning just perceptibly to peel, with purple grapevine trim; seen from the street, Marina’s house had a quaint storybook quality, like her store; its facade was so narrow, a man might almost encompass it by stretching wide both his arms as, in a playful gesture, a male visitor had once done. “Marina, you live in a dollhouse!” Marina felt obliged to plant purple pansies and petunias in the windowboxes of her house. Her small front yard was bounded by a three-foot wrought-iron fence; on her front step, there was a braided welcome mat. Inside the house were three rooms downstairs, and three rooms upstairs; the stairs were unnervingly steep, and warped; the floorboards of each room were warped; the old glass of the windowpanes was wavy as if afflicted with astigmatism. You could love Middle Age: A Romance
such a house, and be terribly tired of living in it. As you could love books, and be terribly tired of the commerce of books.
Adam had visited Marina many times in the house at 88 North Pearl, but not once had he lain in her brass bed at the top of the house. The Salthill circle was curious about this possibility, and neither Marina nor Adam felt obliged to enlighten
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