The Whole World: A Novel - By Emily Winslow Page 0,10
the emails is because what was in them is relevant. If Gretchen isn’t going to tell us everything, then we have to look for it. Right?”
“I don’t get it.”
She sighed. “Well, can I tell you now?”
She stopped to face me dead in the middle of a little bridge across a mud patch on Sheep’s Green. I couldn’t get around her. “Fine,” I said.
“Someone else is writing about Linda Paul.”
“Really?” I guess Linda Paul’s general importance wasn’t all in Gretchen’s head.
“She’s a real writer too. She said she already had the okay from her publisher. I think she thought Gretchen would be flattered. Oh, and she asked if Gretchen has any photographs she’s willing to share. Ha!”
“Wow,” I said.
“She’s emailed, like, three times. Gretchen has never answered. But it was about when the first one came that she hired me. That explains some of her moodiness, don’t you think? The pressure?”
“Maybe.”
“Knowing stuff like that helps me help Gretchen, so it’s all good. Right?”
“Sure.”
We’d hit The Mill pub. “So you want to have a shot or what?”
Before Cambridge I hadn’t even heard of Linda Paul, and here people were vying to write about her. It was crazy. But having looked through the photos, and getting a sense of Linda and Ginny’s spirit and fun, it sort of made sense why Gretchen idealized those early years so much….
I shook my head to clear it. Liv asked, “Are you okay?”
I was. “I was just remembering my dad,” I said. When I was little, we used to walk to the bakery together on Saturday mornings. People used to wave at us and he’d wave back. That was as amazing to me as Gretchen’s carousel of living horses, and Atomium, and purple Christmas dress.
“Is he, like, dead?” Liv asked. I was shocked that she said that, because he wasn’t dead. Why would she think he was dead?
But I said, “Yes.” It was easier.
Liv never did get to celebrate with shots the way she wanted, but Gretchen marked our finding the distinction between Linda and Ginny by having us three over for dinner. She had been disappointed at first to learn that many of the best photos were of Ginny, not Linda. Ginny had really liked the camera. But anyway, Gretchen could get on with things now, and that was worth throwing a little party.
I brought wine. I had no ulterior motive here except hospitality, but I did wonder what effect it might have on Gretchen, already inclined to reminisce.
Then, with dessert, Harry poured us port. I was going to get loopy, no doubt about it.
Gretchen rambled about her childhood again. She asked Nick to read aloud a poem her mother had treasured. He blushed like a girl.
The poem had been found with the photos. It had obviously been important to someone. There was a clipping of it, from a newspaper, and several handwritten transcriptions. First Gretchen had thought that her mother had written it, but it was credited in the newspaper to “A. Simms.” Then she’d decided that it must have been her mother who cut it out and copied it. Either way, she was excited about sharing something that had been important to the woman.
Nick demurred. He really didn’t want to read it. Liv put her hand on his shoulder and shrilled, “Aw, Nick, you’ve got to!”
“Nick, it’s okay …” I said, meaning he didn’t have to if he didn’t want to. I think he really was embarrassed. But Liv is louder than I am. I don’t know if she wanted him to do it because she liked him a little off-kilter and embarrassed, or if she just wanted to make him do what Gretchen wanted. Either way, I said, “Liv, Nick can decide for himself what he wants to do.” Liv glared at me.