In the Night Room

6

Guilderland Road, at the upper end of which lay Mitchell Faber’s expansive, densely wooded property, traversed an area on the southwestern slopes (so to speak) of Alpine, New Jersey, where not long after the Civil War the nearly invisible village of Hendersonia had been surgically detached from the more public borough of Creskill. In all aspects of life save the naming of places, the Hendersons of Hendersonia had presumably cherished obscurity as thoroughly as Mitchell Faber, for they had passed through history leaving behind no more than a scattering of barely legible headstones in the postage-stamp graveyard at the lower end of the road. Farther down the hill, the cement-block bank, an abandoned Presbyterian church, a private house turned into an insurance agency, a video and DVD rental shop, and a bar and grill called Redtop’s made up the center of town. The previous summer, a Foodtown grocery store had taken over an old bowling alley in a paved lot one block south, and Willy promised herself that from now on she would do her shopping there.

She was still finding her way around, still trying to get into a routine. It had been only two weeks since Mitchell had succeeded in persuading her to abandon her cozy one-bedroom apartment on East Seventy-seventh Street for the “estate.” They were to be married in two months, why not start living together now? They were adults of thirty-eight and fifty-two (a young fifty-two), alone in the world. Let’s face it, Mitchell said one night, you need me. She needed him, and he wanted her as extravagantly as someone like Mitchell Faber could ever want anything—dark, frowning Mitchell summoning her into his embrace, promising to make sure the bad things never got close to her again. The “estate” would be perfect for her, he said, a protective realm, as Mitchell himself was a kind of protective realm. And large enough to provide separate offices for both of them, because he wanted to spend more time at home and she needed what all women, especially women who wrote books, needed: A Room of Her Own.

When Willy had met Mitchell Faber, he amazed her by knowing not only that her third YA novel, In the Night Room, had just won the Newbery Medal, but also that its setting, Mill Basin, was based on the city where she had been born, Millhaven, Illinois.

The prize had been announced four days earlier, but the party at Molly Harper’s apartment was not in her honor, and Willy’s triumph was so fresh, as yet still half unreal, that she felt as though it might be revoked. Willy herself, having yet to emerge from mad grieving darkness, would have run from anything as public as a celebration. She felt only barely capable of handling a dinner party. Some of the people present were aware that Willy had just been honored by the Newbery Committee, and some of those came up to congratulate her. Molly’s friends tended to be too rich to be demonstrative; like Molly herself, many of the women were decades younger than their husbands, thereby generally obliged to exercise a kind of behavioral modification akin to the pushing of a “Mute” button. Added to their characteristic restraint was their response to Willy’s appearance, that of a gorgeous lost child. Some women disliked her on sight. Others felt threatened when their husbands wandered, flirtatiously or not, into Willy’s orbit.

Toward the end of the evening, or shortly after ten o’clock, for these silver-haired men and their gleaming wives never stayed up later than eleven, Lankford Harper, Molly’s whispery husband, left the chair to Willy’s left and within seconds was replaced by a sleek, smooth male animal remarkable for being older than most of the women and younger than all of the men. Energy hummed through his thick, shiny black hair and luxuriant black mustache. Black eyes and brilliant white teeth shone at Willy, and a wide, warm dark hand covered hers. That she did not find this intimacy discomfiting amazed her. Whatever was about to happen, would; instead of feeling offended, Willy relaxed.

—I want to congratulate you on your magnificent honor, Mrs. Patrick, the man said, leaning in. You must feel as though you’ve won the lottery.

—Hardly that, she said. Do you keep up with children’s books then, Mr. . . . ?

—I’m Mitchell Faber. No, I can’t say I’m an expert on children’s books, but the Newbery’s a great accolade, and I have heard wonderful things about your book. Your third, isn’t it?

She opened her mouth. —Yes.

—Good title, In the Night Room, especially for a children’s book.

—It’s probably too close to Maurice Sendak, but he was writing for a younger audience. Why am I explaining myself to this guy? she wondered.

His hand tightened on hers. —Please excuse me for what I’m about to say, Mrs. Patrick. I knew your husband. At times, our work brought us into contact. He was a fine, fine man.

For a moment, Willy’s vision went grainy, and her heart hovered between beats. Ordinary conversation hummed on around her. She blinked and raised her napkin to her mouth, buying time.

—I’m sorry, the man said. I did that very badly.

—Not at all. I was just a bit startled. Do you work for the Baltic Group?

—From time to time, they call me in to make murky issues even murkier.

—I’m sure you bring clarity wherever you go, she said, and, in a way she hoped brought the conversation to a neat conclusion, thanked him for having approached her.

Mitchell Faber leaned in and patted her hand. —Mill Basin, the village in your book. Is it based on Millhaven? I understand that’s where you’re from.

Mitchell Faber was chockablock with little astonishments.

Flattered, puzzled, she smiled back at him. —You must know Millhaven very well. Are you from there, too?

The question was absurd: Faber did not look, sound, or behave like a Millhaven native. Nor was he a product of the East Coast privilege-hatcheries responsible for Lankford Harper.

—Sometimes when I’m in Chicago I like to drive up to Millhaven, check in to the Pforzheimer for a night or two, wander along the river walk, have a drink in the old Green Woman. Do you know the Green Woman Taproom?

She had never heard of the Green Woman Taproom.

—Lovely old bar, fascinating history. Ought to be in encyclopedias. It has an interesting connection to criminal lore.

Criminal lore? She had no idea what he was talking about, and no intention of finding out. As far as Willy was concerned, the murders of her husband and daughter were more than enough crime for the rest of her life. The very idea of “criminal lore” struck her as a bad idea.

Mitchell Faber could have struck her the same way, but Willy found that she had not made up her mind so quickly. Calling Molly the next day to thank her, she found herself asking her friend about the man who had spoken to her about the Newbery and Millhaven. Molly knew very little about him.

A day later, Willy called to report that the unknown dinner guest had asked if they might get together for a cup of coffee or a drink, or anything.

—I’d go straight for the anything, Molly told her. What have you got to lose? I thought he was pretty cute. Besides, he isn’t a hundred years old.

—I don’t know anything about him, Willy said. And I don’t think I’m ready to start dating. I’m not even close.

—Willy, how long has it been?

—Two years. That’s nothing.

—So’s a cup of coffee.

—I’d have to tell him everything.

—If he works with Lanky, he knows everything already. These guys can find out whatever they want to, they can dig up anything. Lanky told me they’re better than the CIA, and they should be! They have about ten times the money!

—Ah, Willy said. So that’s how Mr. Faber found out about In the Night Room and Millhaven.

—He had Lanky!

—Lanky knows I won the Newbery? Excuse me, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.

Molly was laughing. —Of course Lanky knows. He even read Night Room.

Now Willy was stunned. —Lanky read my book? It’s a YA!

—YA novels are Lanky’s secret passion. When he was twenty-five years old, he read The Greengage Summer, and it changed his life. Now he’s an expert on Rumer Godden.

Willy tried to picture Molly’s gaunt, secretive, gray-haired husband in his blue pin-striped suit and gold watch, bending, in the light of a library lamp, over a copy of Miss Happiness and Miss Flower.

—He has a fabulous collection, Molly said. We’re talking about Lankford Harper now, remember. There’s a special vault with huge metal bookshelves. When you push this little button, they revolve. Thousands of books, most of them in great condition. When he gets a new one, he buys a bunch of copies, one to read and the rest to put in the vault. Philip Pullman—you wouldn’t believe how much those Philip Pullmans are worth.

Willy should have known that Lanky Harper’s interest in her fiction was primarily financial. —How many copies of In the Night Room are stashed away in that vault?

—Five. He bought three when it came out, and as soon as the Newbery was announced, he bought two more.

—Five copies? I guess he liked it a lot. Her mind had returned to Mitchell Faber, whose intrusiveness had contained an unexpected quantity of appeal. At least Faber had been unafraid actually to talk to the tragic widow, instead of swaddling her in clichés. Secretly, dark Mitchell Faber rather thrilled Willy Patrick: he was the kind of man for whom everyone else’s rules were merely guidelines.