Chapter One
The First-Edition Wife
The Retirement She Did Not Choose
Tessa Pike sets my retirement beside my elbow and asks whether I prefer cream or white.
“For the invitations,” she adds.
I move the sheet away from the book I’m examining. Across the top, beneath our firm’s name, are the words Twenty Years of Merritt & Bellamy. Graham and I chose the date months ago. May 30. An evening for the people who helped us keep a rare-book business alive for two decades.
Halfway down the page, I find the part we didn’t discuss.
As cofounder Claudia Merritt steps back from the business, Graham Bellamy looks to the future with Tessa Pike, whose appointment will lead our next chapter.
I read it again.
Tessa waits with a second sheet in her hand.
“What appointment?”
“Head of books.”
“You’re a junior cataloguer.”
“I know my current title, Claudia.”
“Then you know who heads the book department.”
She places the second sheet beside the first. A photograph of her with Graham, standing in front of our shelves. He is angled toward her.
“The copy still needs checking,” she says. “That’s why I brought it to you.”
“Who told you I’m stepping back?”
“Graham.”
“When?”
“We discussed it last week.”
Last week, I spent two evenings correcting the catalogue Tessa put together under Graham’s supervision. He thanked me for staying late. He brought dinner to the workroom.
“Martin,” I say.
Our general manager looks up from the desk near the doorway.
“Was this sent to the printer?”
“Not yet.”
“Was it sent anywhere?”
“Just for estimates. The wording wasn’t final.”
“Which part?”
He takes off his glasses. “Claudia—”
“Which part wasn’t final, Martin? My departure or Tessa’s appointment?”
“I understood you and Graham were discussing the arrangements.”
“Did you ask me?”
“No.”
Tessa draws the photograph back toward herself.
“I don’t think Martin needs to be put in the middle.”
“He was given an invitation announcing the retirement of an owner. I’m asking how that happened.”
“It’s a draft.”
“Then changing it should be easy.”
I take my pencil and strike through the sentence.
Tessa watches the line go through her name.
“There’s no need to do that.”
“There’s every need. I’m not retiring.”
For a moment, neither of them answers. The building’s front door opens, and a voice carries from the reception room. An ordinary Monday morning in Back Bay. Someone coming to look at books.
I lower my voice.
“Please don’t send this out, Martin.”
“Graham wanted it settled today.”
“Then he can settle it with me.”
I turn the sheet over. The proposed program includes a short talk by Tessa.
Reading Beyond the Title Page: Graham Bellamy’s Approach to Evaluating a Collection.
I put the pencil down.
“Tessa. Whose notes are you using for this?”
“The training material.”
“Which training material?”
“The material Graham gave me.”
I know it. I wrote it. I also know how long it took to make those distinctions clear enough that someone else could use them. The first version wasn’t good. I rewrote it after watching people draw the wrong conclusions from perfectly accurate descriptions.
“Those are my notes.”
She glances toward Martin.
“You can take that up with Graham.”
“I’m taking it up with you. Your name is on the talk.”
“He’s very generous about sharing what he knows.”
“And what do you think I do here?”
Her face tightens.
“I think it must be difficult to let someone else take responsibility.”
Martin looks at his desk.
I want him to look at me. I want Tessa to hear what she just said. Instead, I pick up both sheets.
“The invitation stays here until I approve it.”
“You said you wouldn’t.”
“The present version. You’ll need another one.”
I lay the book safely closed on its support and walk toward Graham’s office.
Behind me, Tessa asks Martin something about the photograph.
* * *
Graham is on the telephone. He lifts a finger when I enter, smiling the apology he gives people who can afford to wait.
I put the invitation on his desk.
His smile goes.
“I’ll call you back,” he says.
He ends the call and looks at the pencil line.
“Tessa was meant to show me that first.”
“What would you have changed?”
“The language, for a start.”
“Would I still be retiring?”
“Sit down.”
“Answer me.”
He leans back. There’s no surprise in him now, only the adjustment he makes when a negotiation begins badly.
“I wanted us to talk before you saw anything.”
“Then you should have talked to me before you asked people to prepare it.”
“I didn’t ask her to bring it to you.”
“That’s the part that went wrong?”
“Claudia.”
I hate the gentleness in his voice. A few minutes ago, I would have answered it.
“Am I retiring?”
“I think it’s time we considered a different arrangement.”
“We’re considering it now. I’m not interested.”
“You could at least hear what I’m proposing.”
“I read it. Tessa gets my job, and you give a speech about my contribution.”
“That’s not fair.”
I turn over the sheet and push the program toward him.
“Did you tell her you wrote my training notes?”
“It’s firm material.”
“I wrote it.”
“And I put it to use. Those collections didn’t walk in here because you wrote a good set of notes.”
“I know what you did, Graham. I was here.”
He looks away first.
For twenty years, I explained our strengths as if they fitted together without a seam. I knew the books. He knew how to get people to trust us with them. It was true often enough that I stopped checking whether he still described it the same way.
“Why her?” I ask.
“She’s capable.”
“She can become capable of more. That’s different from putting her in charge.”
“You could help with that.”
I stare at him.
“You want me to train my replacement.”
“I want an orderly transition.”
“To what?”
He presses his thumb along the edge of the program.
Tessa’s photograph is still on the other sheet. His shoulder turned toward hers. Her confidence when she told me to speak to him.
My mouth goes dry.
“Are you sleeping with Tessa?”
He stops touching the paper.
“Yes.”
I wait for the rest.
There isn’t any.
I put a hand on the back of the visitor’s chair. It’s nearer than the desk, and I need something solid.
He stands.
“Don’t,” I say.
“I wasn’t going to—”
“Stay there.”
He sits down again.
I can hear the telephone ringing at Martin’s desk. Three rings, then his voice.
Graham looks at the hand I’m using to hold myself upright.
“How many people did you let make arrangements for my life before you intended to tell me?”
“This wasn’t meant to happen this way.”
“Tessa knew. Martin knew about the retirement. The printer knows.”
“Martin doesn’t know about us.”
“About you and Tessa.”
“Yes.”
“Say her name.”
“Tessa.”
“And mine.”
“Claudia, please.”
I pull out the chair and sit because my knees aren’t reliable enough to make standing worth the effort.
He waits. He always could wait when he thought silence would bring someone toward his price.
“Did you expect me to approve that photograph?” I ask.
“I expected us to discuss this privately.”
“I was checking your catalogue while you were discussing my departure with her.”
“It’s the firm’s catalogue.”
“Yes. It is.”
He opens a drawer.
The speed with which he can move on makes me want to get up again. I stay where I am.
He sets a thin folder between us.
“A proposal,” he says. “I wanted something concrete to offer you.”
“You prepared this before you told me.”
“I’m offering to buy your interest in the company.”
“My half.”
“Yes. Your half.”
He opens the folder and turns it around. My name is printed correctly on this one.
Three hundred thousand dollars.
I read down to the date.
“May 30.”
“The anniversary is the natural point to make the change.”
“You’re going to hold a party.”
“We already planned the reception.”
“We planned to celebrate twenty years of our business.”
“We can still recognize what you contributed.”
I shut the folder.
“You can’t even say what I built.”
“We built it together.”
“Then stop talking as if you hired me.”
His jaw tightens.
I wait until he looks at me.
“Does she think the business is yours?”
“She understands that I run the commercial side.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“She understands there will be changes.”
“Apparently she understands them better than I do.”
“Nothing happens until the terms are settled. That’s what this is for.”
He touches the folder. I pull it out of his reach.
“This is an offer for the business.”
“Yes.”
“And the marriage?”
“We’ll deal with the personal arrangements separately.”
The personal arrangements.
He watches my face, perhaps waiting for me to make this easier to discuss.
“You won’t come home tonight,” I say.
He draws a breath.
“Claudia, we need to be sensible.”
“Arrange somewhere else to stay.”
“If that’s what you want.”
It isn’t. I want the man who brought dinner to the workroom to be different from the man sitting in front of me. I want to stop remembering that I thanked him.
“Yes,” I say. “That’s what I want.”
He nods once, as though we are making progress.
I open the folder again.
“Until May 30,” I say. “And in the meantime I’m meant to keep working while Tessa tells me which duties she intends to take?”
“She shouldn’t have spoken to you that way.”
“You don’t know how she spoke to me.”
“I can imagine.”
“No. I don’t think you can.”
I read the first page again. The amount doesn’t improve.
“Where is our original agreement?”
“The old material was put away when I reorganized the records. This proposal sets out what you need to consider.”
“I want the agreement we signed with Edmund. He insisted we protect both partners if one of us wanted out.”
“You’re remembering a conversation from twenty years ago.”
“And you’re offering to buy my half of the company it established. Find it.”
“I’ll find the relevant documents. In the meantime, you can have someone advise you on the offer.”
“I will.”
He gives me a small, relieved nod.
I stand before he can mistake that for agreement to anything else.
“Tell Tessa the invitation needs new wording.”
“We can discuss the wording later.”
“You can. I’m telling you now.”
I take the invitation and the folder.
At the door, he says, “Three hundred thousand dollars gives you choices, Claudia.”
I turn back.
“I already have choices. I own half this business.”
The old company folder is where I expect it to be.
I bring it to my worktable. Registration papers, later correspondence. No signed founding agreement.
I check the pocket at the back.
Empty.
Tessa is no longer in the room. Martin remains at his desk.
“Do you know where Graham moved the early partnership papers?”
“He dealt with those himself.”
“When?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Did you see the agreement?”
“No.”
He looks at the folder in my hand.
“Claudia, I really did think you knew about the retirement.”
“I believe you.”
His shoulders ease.
“You should still have asked me.”
“Yes,” he says.
I set the buyout offer beside the rejected invitation. Then I close the old folder.
Edmund Hale is dead. And Ouija boards are way overrated.
But his library went through Ward Rare Books & Auctions. I remember the sale notice. I look it up on my phone, hoping, absurdly, that I got the timing wrong.
The sale is finished.
I scroll past the results to Felix Ward’s name.
He knows me as someone who can walk away from a book when the price stops making sense. He is going to ask why I didn’t let Graham buy me out.
I find him in my contacts.