How could he make amends and win back the right to see his kids otherwise?
He raised his head, catching the right part of his face in the rearview mirror. “Dude, you need a change. A life.”
What kind of change? What kind of life? He had no idea.
The Uber app tapped him for a ride and he responded. He tossed his phone to the passenger seat, and it landed on a cream-colored card.
What was this?
He read the gold block lettering in the glow of the dash.
You are cordially invited to the Fifth Avenue Story Society.
The Fifth Avenue Literary Society Library
The Bower Room
Monday, September 9 @ 8:00 p.m.
* * *
Jett
He was restless. Moving from the kitchen banquette, where he dropped his backpack and bike helmet, he shed his jacket and dropped it over the back of the living room club chair.
Down the short hall to his bedroom, he flipped on a light, his thoughts on dinner and his dissertation.
Renée wanted to see something by mid-October. The university publishing arm was ready to fast-track a limited first-edition run, with a second printing in the new year.
But he didn’t feel like working. He felt like, like . . . He reached for the cardstock invitation on his nightstand.
The Fifth Avenue Story Society.
He wasn’t sure why he brought it home. Or set it by his bed. But he’d been looking at it every night for almost a week.
Cordially invited. By whom? As far as he knew, New York College didn’t have any sort of faculty initiation, where they’d catch him off guard and demand he quote a line from a classic novel or remember the publication date of a book pulled randomly from a shelf.
Besides, he’d been on staff for almost four years. Not long enough for a promotion or tenure. But too long for an initiation.
Taking his phone from his jeans pocket, he texted Renée.
Did you send me this invitation to the Fifth Avenue Story Society?
While he waited for her response, he collapsed back on the bed, eyes closed as if he never wanted to open them.
The night in Central Booking symbolized the last two years. Trapped. Arrested. Helpless. Frustrated. Without justice. He didn’t even know what kind of justice to seek. For himself or for his ex-wife? For his brother?
He sat up when his phone pinged.
No. What’s going on at the Fifth Avenue library?
Got me. I never heard of it until now.
You should go, check it out. It’s a cute little place. Maybe they’re doing some sort of literacy push. How’d you get invited?
Not sure. I found it with my things.
No need to say which things. So far, the college seemed ignorant about his minor civil violation.
Because he rode a bike to and from work and had once taken a spill in the street, no one questioned his scraped knuckles or his puffy, bruised eye.
Go. Check out this library. You know with the Roth Foundation money (hint hint) we will be able to give back to the community.
Seriously. Even in a text? I get it. Finalize the dissertation.
How is it going?
Jett started to type a reply, then hit the delete key. He didn’t want to lie. But he didn’t want to tell the truth.
So you’ve been to this quaint little library?
Yes, and you can’t get off that easy. Talk later.
Jett studied the invitation. A night out at a library might do him good. He always felt at home with books. Stories had comforted him when his parents’ divorce ripped through his adolescence.
Might as well check it out. He ducked into the shower for a quick rinse. The city was still warm at five o’clock when he rode home. Especially in the summer.
In fresh jeans and shirt, he stowed the invitation in his hip pocket, made a ham and cheese on wheat, poured a glass of milk, and sat at the banquette, skimming his proofed and peer-reviewed dissertation.
He was proud of this particular work. Proud to write about such an ingenious and timeless author. He’d researched Gordon Phipps Roth as a hobby since high school. The man was a natural choice when Jett had to select a dissertation topic for his PhD candidacy.
Over time, he’d gathered more material on the scope and wisdom of GPR’s work than he would ever need, collected from biographies, experts in America and Europe, and conversations long into the night with fellow bibliophiles drinking craft beer.
Then came the one haunting question.
“What about the allegations of fraud? Did the great American author have a ghostwriter?”
It was asked by one of his peers, Colin Hein, as they discussed Jett’s dissertation. From that moment on, his forward momentum all but ceased. The manuscript was ready for publication. But he couldn’t bring himself to answer the recent whisperings that his literary hero just might be a fraud. It seemed ludicrous. But to do his job, he must investigate.
That was for another day.
At 7:20, Jett removed his bike from the hook in the foyer, rode the elevator to the bottom floor, and started the journey to Fifth Avenue.
To his left, the sunset threaded the remaining blue sky with a fireball of red-and-orange hues framed by royal purple and midnight blue. The evening breeze previewed cooler days ahead.
As he pedaled, Jett pondered the invitation, what he might expect when he arrived. He half braced for it all to be some sort of prank, half prepared for a pleasant surprise.
Maybe he’d find his own space-navy sci-fi, Rites of Mars, on the shelf.
He had gone to a local bookstore in search of his novel when it came out six months ago. The salesgirl said she’d never heard of it. So his abysmal quarterly royalty reports were no surprise.
He pedaled harder. All the nights devoted to writing and rewriting, again and again, ignoring the rest of the world, including his wife. For what? For a puny advance check and a chance to be his publisher’s persona non grata? Even his agent took weeks to return his calls.
At Central Park, he took a right off Sixth onto Fifty-Ninth.
This area of Manhattan had been Gordon Phipps Roth’s literary stomping grounds. He wrote more than ten books about the city’s Gilded Age before writing about York, England, with expertise and great detail.
So why was Jett still weighing the man’s reputation? He could turn the dissertation in by Friday if he set his mind to completing a final read-through.
But. Colin’s challenge chased him.
When he arrived at the library, Jett locked his bike in the foyer and removed his helmet, running his fingers through his hair.
He peered past the square entry into the small, quiet space. Bookshelves were anchored to high-ceilinged walls, and fat leather chairs faced the books rather than the room.
At the reference desk, a woman with a sparkling, round face under a Brillo pad of wiry gray hair worked through a stack of returns.
“Excuse me,” Jett said, leaning toward her, touching the serene air around her. “Where’s the Bower Room?”
She smiled. Almost as if she knew him. Jett stepped back, his pulse a bit revved.
“To your right. Go on in.” She pointed to the wall with a mahogany-stained door between two towering stacks.
He started toward the door, then stopped and backtracked. “What exactly is the Bower Room? Why am I here?” He retrieved his invitation. “Have you seen one of these before?”