Chapter 2 Chapter 1 The Lamb to the Slaughter

On the ferry from Hyannis to Alice Island, Amelia Loman painted her fingernails yellow, and while the polish was drying, she glanced at the notes her predecessor had made. "Island Books, with annual sales of about $350,000, the greater part of which is sold during the summer months to vacationers," writes Harvey Rhodes. "The bookstore has six hundred Large square footage, no full-time employees except for the boss, very few children's books. Online promotion needs to be developed. Mainly serves the community. Inventory is biased towards literature, which is good for us, but Fikry has special taste, no Nicole, rely on He's having a hard time selling books. Luckily for him, Island Books runs an exclusive business on the island." Amelia yawned — still recovering from a slight hangover — thinking about a Is it worth the trek to a small bookstore that makes all the demands?When her nail polish dries, her unflinching optimism kicks in: Of course it's worth it!She was good at dealing with small bookstores that demanded a lot and the fussy people who ran them.Her talents also include multitasking, picking the right wine for dinner (as well as coordination skills, taking care of friends who drink too much), keeping indoor plants, finding stray cats or dogs, and other things that are bound to fail.

As she got off the ferry, her cell phone rang.She didn't recognize the number - her friends weren't used to calling on cell phones anymore.Still, she was glad to be able to divert her attention a bit.She doesn't want to be that kind of person who thinks good news can only come through the expected phone call from someone you already know.The caller turned out to be Boyd Flanagan—the third date she had met through the Internet, who had failed all three times—who had taken her to a circus show about six months earlier. "I tried to leave you a message a few weeks ago," he said. "Did you get it?"

She told him that she had changed jobs recently, so all kinds of equipment were messed up. "Also, I'm rethinking the idea of ​​online dating, not sure if it's really for me." Boyd didn't seem to hear that last sentence. "Do you still want to go out together?" he asked. About: Their date.For a while, the novelty of going to the circus distracted her from the fact that they had nothing in common.Towards the end of dinner, the fact that they did not get along became more prominent.Perhaps that fact was evident when they couldn't agree on an appetizer, or when he confessed to the main course that he didn't like "old stuff" (curios, houses, dogs, people).However, Amelia didn't allow herself to jump to conclusions until, over dessert, she asked what book had most influenced his life, and he replied Principles of Accounting (Part 2).

She told him softly, no, she thought the two of them should stop dating. She could hear Boyd's breathing, restless and irregular.She worried that he might cry. "Are you all right?" she asked. "Don't be condescending." Amelia knew she should have hung up, but she didn't.She kind of wondered what was going on.What's the point of having a bad date if you don't have a funny anecdote to tell your friends? "What did you say?" "You'll notice I didn't call you right away, Amelia," he said. "I didn't call you because I had a better one, and when that was out of the way, I decided to call you again." You one chance. So don't think you're superior. Your smile isn't bad, I'll admit it, but your teeth are too big, and so is your ass, and you're not twenty-five anymore, even if you drink Jiu Lai still looks like he is twenty-five years old. Don’t look into the horse’s mouth when someone gives it to you.” The horse given by someone else cried, “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.”

"It's okay, Boyd." "What's wrong with me? Circuses are fun, right? And I'm not that bad." "You're great, and the idea of ​​going to the circus is very creative." "But you don't like me, there must be a reason, to be honest." At this moment, there are many reasons to dislike him, and she picks one: "You remember when I said I worked in publishing, you said you didn't read much?" "You're a snob," he concluded. "On some things, I think I am. Listen, Boyd, I'm at work. I have to hang up." Amelia hung up.She wasn't vain about her looks, and certainly didn't take Boyd Flanagan's opinion seriously, and he wasn't really talking to her anyway.He was just complaining that she had added her own disappointments, and she had her own disappointments.

She was thirty-one years old and felt that she should have met someone by now. However…… Amelia's optimistic side believed that life was better off alone than with someone who didn't agree with her. (It is, isn't it?) Her mother liked to say that it was the novels that kept Amelia from finding real men.This kind of remark insults Amelia because it implies that she only reads works whose protagonists are typically Romantics.She doesn't mind the occasional novel with a romantic protagonist, it's just that her reading tastes are much broader than that.Plus, while she loves Humbert as a character in the book, she accepts the fact that she doesn't really want him to be her life partner, boyfriend, or even casual acquaintance.She felt the same way about Holden Caulfield, Mr. Rochester, and Darcy.

The sign hung on the front porch of a purple Victorian cottage, so faded that Amelia almost missed it. In a bookstore, a teenager is reading Alice Munro's latest collection of short stories while keeping an eye on the cash register. "Oh, how's the book?" Amelia asked.Amelia liked Monroe very much, but apart from vacations, she rarely had time to read books other than her own publishing house's catalog. "It's a school assignment," the girl replied, as if that answered the question. Amelia introduced herself as a sales representative for Knightley Press, and the teenage girl, without lifting her eyes from her book, pointed back vaguely: "AJ is in the office."

Stacks of rush readers and sample books lined up precariously along the hallway, and Amelia's frequent sense of desperation flashed through her mind.In the tote bag slung over her shoulder were a few copies that would be added to AJ's stack of sample books, as well as a bibliography of other books she was promoting.She never lied about the books in her bibliography, and she never said she loved the books she didn't love.For a book, she can usually find something to say about it, the cover if not good, the author if not good, or the author's website if not good.That's why they pay me so much, Amelia jokes to herself occasionally.She made thirty-seven thousand dollars a year, plus maybe a bonus, but bonuses were rare in her line of work.

AJ Fikry's office was closed and Amelia was halfway there, the sleeve of her cardigan caught on one of the stacks of books, a hundred books - maybe more - rumbling Fell to the floor, embarrassing her.The door opened, and AJ Fikri looked from the mess to the dirty blonde giantess who was scrambling to rearrange the books. "Who are you?" "Amelia Loman." She piled up ten more books, and half fell down. "Let it go," AJ ordered. "These books are in order. You're not helping. Please go." Amelia straightened up.She was at least four inches taller than AJ. "But we still have things to talk about."

"We have nothing to talk about," AJ said. "Yes," insisted Amelia, "I emailed you last week about the winter book list. You said I could come on Thursday or Friday afternoon, and I said I would come on Thursday." The emails were brief. , but she knew it was true. "Are you a sales representative?" Amelia nodded, relieved. "Which publishing house, say again?" "Knightley." "The sales rep for Knightley Press is Harvey Rhodes," AJ replied. "When you emailed me last week, I thought you were Harvey's assistant or something."

"I took over from Harvey." AJ sighed heavily. "Which company did Harvey go to?" Harvey is dead, and for a moment Amelia considers a bad joke about the afterlife as a sort of company, of which Harvey is an employee. "He's dead," Amelia said flatly. "I thought you'd heard." Most of her clients had.Harvey was a legend, the biggest legend among sales reps. "The American Booksellers Association newsletter has an obituary, and maybe Publishers Weekly," she said apologetically. "I don't pay much attention to publishing news," AJ said.He took off his thick black-rimmed glasses and cleaned the frames for a long time. "I'm sorry if this came as a shock to you." Amelia put her hand on AJ's arm and he shook her hand away. "What do I matter? I barely know that guy. I see him three times a year and that's not enough to call him a friend. And every time he sees him, he's trying to sell me something. That's not friendship." Amelia could tell AJ wasn't in the mood for her winter book pitch.She should have offered to come back another day, but instead she thought about the two-hour drive all the way to Hyannis, the eighty-minute boat ride to Alice Island, and the more erratic ferry service after October. "Now that I'm here," said Amelia, "you don't mind if we go through Knightley's winter list?" AJ's office is a small storage room with no windows, no pictures on the walls, no family photos on the desk, no knick-knacks, and no escape routes.It contained books, cheap metal shelves of the kind used in garages, filing cabinets, and an antique desktop computer that might have been from the last century. AJ didn't ask Amelia what she wanted to drink, and although Amelia was thirsty, she didn't ask for it.She moved the book from a chair and sat down. Amelia started with the Winter List, the smallest list of the year with the least content and the lowest expectations.There are a few important (or at least promising) debuts, but the rest are titles whose publishers had only minimal commercial expectations.Still, Amelia usually likes the "Winter List" best.These books are not favored, they may be unpopular, and the risks are high. (It wouldn’t be too far-fetched to say she saw herself that way.) She saves her favorite book for last, the memoir of an octogenarian who spent most of his life single, Married at seventy-eight.Two years after their marriage, the bride died of cancer at the age of eighty-three.According to the profile, the author has worked as a reporter for science reporting at various newspapers in the Midwest.The writing is precise, comical, and not overly sentimental.Amelia cried uncontrollably on the train from New York to Providence over this book.She knew that Late Blossoms was a small book, and the description sounded rather dry, but she was sure that if others gave it a chance they would like it too.In Amelia's experience, most people can solve their problems if they give more things a chance. Amelia was halfway through her introduction to "Late Blooms" when AJ put his head on the table. "What's wrong?" Amelia asked. "This book is not for me," AJ said. "Just try the first chapter," Amelia shoved the sample booklet into his hand, "I know this topic is not very new, but when you read its text—" He interrupted her: "This is not for me." "Okay, then I'll introduce you to something else." AJ let out a long sigh. "You seem like a nice young man, but your ex... The thing is, Harvey knows my tastes, he shares my tastes." Amelia put the sample book on the desk. "I'd love to have a chance to get to know your tastes," she said, feeling a bit like a character in a porn movie. He mumbled something under his breath.She thought it sounded like "What's the point?", but wasn't sure. Amelia closed the Knightley book list. "Mr. Fikry, please tell me what you like." "Like it." He repeated the word in disgust. "Shall I tell you what I don't like? I don't like postmodernism, post-apocalyptic settings, dead narrators, and magical realism. There's nothing wrong with setting up supposedly clever forms, multiple fonts, Photos in places where they shouldn't be - gimmicks of any kind - have little resonance for me. I find fictional literature about the Holocaust or any kind of great tragedy in the world distasteful - please , these can only be written in non-fiction. I don't like to write genre novels along the lines of detective literature or fantasy literature. Literature is literature, genre novels are genre novels, and mixing and matching rarely leads to satisfactory results. I don't like children's novels. books, especially ones about orphans, and I don't want to have a lot of books for teenage readers on my shelves. I don't like anything over four hundred pages or under a hundred and fifty. I hate reality TV Show star hire novels, graphic books of famous people, memoirs of sports figures, hitchhiking editions of movies, curiosities, and—I guess it goes without saying—books about vampires. I hardly ever get into debut novels, Chicken literature, poetry, and translations. I'd rather not be in the series, but the need for my wallet dictates. As for you, you don't have to tell me 'the next bestseller in the series' until it's in " It's never too late to tell me about the New York Times bestseller list. Most importantly, Ms. Loman, I think a thin old man's memoir about his wife dying of cancer is absolutely amazing. Unbearable. No matter how good the sales rep claims to be, or how many copies you promise me I'll sell on Mother's Day." Amelia blushed, but it was more anger than embarrassment.She agreed with some of what AJ said, but he didn't have to be so insulting.In any case, half of what he mentioned had never been published by Knightley.She looked at him carefully.He was older than her, but not much older, not more than ten years old.He is still quite young, and he shouldn't have such narrow preferences. "What do you like?" she asked. "Other than that," he said, "I admit I kind of like short story collections, but customers never want to buy them." Amelia had only one collection of short stories on her list, and this was her first novel.Amelia hadn't read the whole book, and probably wouldn't, depending on the time, but she liked the first short story.An American 6th grade class participated in an international pen pal event with an Indian 6th grade class. The narrator was an Indian kid in an American class who kept giving Americans hilarious misinformation about Indian culture.She cleared her still-dry throat. "The Year Bombay Changed Its Name. I think it's particularly intentional—" "Stop it," he said. "I haven't even told you what book it's about." "Just stop talking." "But why?" "If you're honest enough, you'll admit that you only mentioned this book to me because I'm part-Indian, and you thought it would suit my unique tastes. Am I right?" Amelia imagined throwing that antique desktop computer on his head. "The reason I'm telling you about this book is because you said you liked short story collections! That's the only one on my list. Remember—" she's lying here,"—it's from the first From the first chapter to the last one, it is extremely exciting, even if it is this debut novel. "Another thing you know? I love first novels, and I love discovering new things. That's part of why I'm in this job." Amelia stood up.Her head throbbed and hurt, maybe she really had too much to drink?Her head was pounding, and so was her heart. "Would you like to hear my thoughts?" "Not particularly," he said. "How old are you, twenty-five?" "Mr. Fikry, it's a lovely bookstore, but if you keep running things like this—" She stuttered as a child, and now she stutters when she's angry; she clears her throat"—it's Such a backward way of thinking, and soon there will be no Kojima Bookstore." Amelia put Late Blooms and the winter list on his desk.As she was leaving, she stumbled over the pile of books in the corridor again. The next ferry didn't leave until an hour later, so she walked back from town at a leisurely pace.There is a brass plaque on the wall of a Bank of America commemorating the time Herman Melville spent a summer there when the building was the Alice Hotel.She took out her mobile phone and took a picture of herself and the nameplate.Alice Island was a nice place, but she guessed she had no reason to be back anytime soon. She texted her boss in New York: "Island Books probably won't order any books." The boss replied: "Don't worry. Just a small customer. Most of the orders of the island bookstore are before the summer season, when there are tourists there. The bookstore owner is a weirdo, and Harvey always has good luck in promoting the spring and summer books. A little. You will too." At six, AJ calls Molly Klock off work. "How about that new Munro book?" She sighed. "Why is everyone asking me that question today?" She was only referring to Amelia, but Molly had a tendency to go to extremes. "I think it's because you're reading it." Molly sighed again. "Okay. Characters, I can't say well, sometimes they are too human." "I think that's more of a Monroe strength," he said. "Don't know. Prefer the old fashioned one. See you Monday." Something has to be done with Molly, AJ thought as he flipped the sign over to CLOSED.In addition to her love of reading, Molly is a really bad bookstore clerk.But she only works part-time, and it takes a lot of work to train newbies, and at least she doesn't steal.Nicole invited her because she must have taken a fancy to some of the advantages of the reckless and rude Miss Crocker.Maybe next summer, AJ will be able to make up his mind to fire Molly. AJ kicked out the rest of the customers (he was particularly annoyed by an organic chemistry study group who didn't buy anything but camped out over there in the magazine section since four o'clock - and he's pretty sure one of them clogged the toilet), and he proceeded to process the receipts, a task that was every bit as frustrating as it sounded.At last he went upstairs to the attic room where he was staying.He took out a box of frozen curry meat and put it in the microwave for nine minutes according to the instructions on the box.As he stood there, he thought of the girl from Knightley Press.She looked like a time traveler from 1990s Seattle, wearing galoshes with anchors on them, floral granny dresses and fuzzy beige cardigans, shoulder-length hair , which seems to have been cut for her by her boyfriend in the kitchen.Or girlfriend?Still a boyfriend, he thought.He thought of Courteney Love when she was married to Kurt Cobain.That tough pink mouth says "no one can hurt me", but those gentle blue eyes say "yes, you can and you probably will".He made the girl who was like a big dandelion cry.Good job, AJ. The smell of curry meat is getting stronger, but there are still seven and a half minutes on the timer. He wanted to find something to do, physical work, but not too hard. He took a carton cutting knife and went to the basement to fold the book box.Cut with a knife, flatten, and stack up.Cut with a knife, flatten, and stack up. AJ regrets his treatment of the sales representative.That's not her fault.Somebody had to tell him that Harvey Rhodes was dead. Cut with a knife, flatten, and stack up. It is likely that someone has told him that AJ only checks emails and never answers the phone.Had a funeral?Not that AJ would have attended if he knew, he barely knew Harvey Rhodes.This is obvious. Cut with a knife, flatten, and stack up. And yet... in the last five or six years he'd spent so much time with that man, they'd only discussed books, and yet what had been closer to him in his life than books? Cut with a knife, flatten, and stack up. How rare is it to find someone with the same reading interests as you?Their only real altercation was over David Foster Wallace, in the period after Wallace's suicide. AJ found the reverence in the obituary unbearable.The man wrote a decent, albeit excessively long, novel, a few essays with some depth, and nothing else. "The Endless Jest is a masterpiece," Harvey said. "The Endless Jest is a competition of endurance. You finish it and you have no choice but to say you love it. Otherwise, you have to face the fact that you have wasted weeks of your life, ’ AJ retorted, ‘Style, no substance, my friend.’ Harvey leaned over the desk, his face flushed. "Every writer born in your age, you say that!" Cut with a knife, flatten, and stack up.tied up. When he came back upstairs, the curry meat was cold again.If he reheats that curry on that plastic plate, he'll probably end up with cancer. He brought the plastic plate to the table, the first mouthful was scalding, and the second mouthful hadn't defrosted yet.They are like the curry meat of Papa Bear and the curry meat of Baby Bear.He threw the tray of things against the wall.How little he meant to Harvey, and how much Harvey meant to him. The trouble with living alone is that no matter what mess you make, you have to clean it up yourself. No, the real difficulty with living alone is that no one cares if you're upset.No one cared why a thirty-nine-year-old man would throw a plate of curry across the room like a toddler.He poured himself a glass of merlot, spread a tablecloth on the table, walked into the living room, opened a thermostated glass case, and took out Timur.Back in the kitchen, he placed Timur across the table and leaned it against the chair Nicole sat in front of. "Cheers, you bastard," he said to the thin booklet. After finishing that glass, he poured himself another.He promised himself that he would read a book after the drink.Maybe an old favorite, like Tobias Wolfe's Old School, but of course his time would be better spent on a new book.What was that dumb sales rep babbling about? "Late Blossoms" - ugh.Everything he said was true.There's nothing worse than a widower's campy memoir, especially if you're a widower yourself, as AJ has been for the past twenty-one months.The sales rep was new—it wasn't her fault she didn't know about his tedious personal tragedy.God, he missed Nicole, her voice, her neck, even her armpits.Her armpits were as scruffy as a cat's tongue, and at the end of the day they smelled like milk that was about to go bad. After three glasses of wine, he passed out drunk at the table.He was only five feet seven inches tall and weighed one hundred and forty pounds, and he wasn't even eating frozen curry for energy.Tonight, his study plan will not make any progress. "AJ," Nicole whispered, "go to bed." Finally, he was dreaming.Drinking so much alcohol is for this purpose. Nicole—the ghost wife of his drunken dreams—helped him to his feet. "You're embarrassing, idiot. You know that?" He nodded. "Frozen curry meat and five dollars a bottle of red wine." "I am honoring the long and respectable tradition that I have inherited." He shuffled with the ghost into the bedroom. "Congratulations, Mr. Fikry, you are becoming a real alcoholic." "I'm sorry," he said.She made him lie down on the bed. Her brown hair was short, like a tomboy. "You cut your hair," he said, "that's weird." "You treated that girl badly today." "It's all because of Harvey." "Obviously so," she said. "People who knew you before died, and I don't like that." "So you didn't fire Molly Klock either?" He nodded. "You can't go on like this." "I can," AJ said, "I've always been and always will be." She kisses his forehead. "I guess what I mean is I don't want you to." she is gone. No one is to blame for that accident.After an event in the afternoon, she drove the author home.She was probably speeding to catch the last car ferry back to Alice Island; she might have swerved to avoid hitting a deer; it might just be the winter road conditions in Massachusetts.These are all unavailable.A policeman asked her if she was suicidal at the hospital. "No," AJ said, "not at all." She was two months pregnant and they hadn't told anyone yet.Because they have experienced disappointment before.He stood in the waiting room outside the mortuary, wishing badly that they had told everyone.At least before this longer period—he didn't know what to call it yet—there would be a blissful bliss. "No, she's not suicidal." AJ hesitates. "She's just a terrible driver, and she thinks she's okay." "Yes," said the policeman, "it's not anyone's fault." "People like to say that," AJ replied, "but it was someone's fault. It was her fault. She was so stupid for doing that, so stupid. It's a Daniel Steele kind of development, Nicole! If this was a novel, I'd stop reading it now. I'd throw it across the room." The cop (who reads very little, save for the occasional Jeffrey Deaver mass-market paperback on vacation) wanted to bring the conversation back down to earth. "Yes, you are the owner of the bookstore." "My wife and I," AJ blurted out without thinking, "Oh my God, I just did something stupid like a character in a book forgetting his wife is dead and casually using the word 'we'. What a load of crap--" He paused to look at the officer's badge-- "Officer Lambiase, you and I are characters in a lousy novel. You know? We're fucking How did you get here? You're probably thinking to yourself, what the hell, and then tonight you're going to be hugging your baby extra tight because that's what characters in those novels do. You know what I'm saying That kind of book, isn't it? The kind of hit literary novel that focuses a little bit on a few minor supporting characters so that it looks very Faulknerian and all-encompassing. See how the author cares about the little people! Ordinary people! What a big-hearted author! There's even your name. Officer Lambiase is the perfect name for a stereotypical Massachusetts trooper. Are you a racist, Lambiase? Because you character, should be a racist." "Mr. Fikry," said Sergeant Lambias, "can I call someone for you?" He was a good cop, used to seeing grieving people break down in one way or another.He puts his hand on AJ's shoulder. "That's right! That's right, Officer Lambiase, at this moment, you're right and you should be doing it! You played your part brilliantly. Don't you also just know what the widower is going to do next?" ?” "Call someone," said Sergeant Lambias. "Yeah, that's probably the case. But I've already called my wife's sister's home." AJ nodded. "If this was a short story, Me and You would have been written by now. A little ironic twist , and it's over. So in the world of words other than prose, the most elegant is the short story, Inspector Lambias. "If it was a Raymond Carver short story, you'd give me a little consolation, and then the darkness would come and it would be over. But this... still feels more like a novel to me, I mean Emotionally. It takes a while to go through, you know?" "I can't tell if I know. I haven't read Raymond Carver," said Inspector Lambias. "I like Lincoln Rhyme. Do you know him?" "That quadriplegic criminologist. Not bad writing as a genre. But have you ever read any short stories?" AJ asked. "Maybe in school. Fairy tales. Or, um, The Little Red Pony? I think I should have read The Little Red Pony then." "That's a novella," AJ said. "Um, sorry. I...wait a minute, I remember reading a piece in middle school that had a cop in it, sort of like a perfect crime, so I remember that one. The cop got killed by his wife , the murder weapon was a piece of frozen beef, and she prepared it for another—" "'The Lamb to the Slaughter,'" AJ said, "that short story is called 'The Lamb to the Slaughter,' and the murder weapon is a leg of lamb." "Yes, that's right!" The policeman cheered up, "You really know how to do it." "This one is famous," AJ said, "my wife's family should be here any minute now. I'm sorry I just compared you to an 'insignificant side character'. That was rude, and you and I know Knowing that in the more glorious saga of Constable Lambiase, I am the 'insignificant supporting character'. The policeman is more likely to be the main character than a bookstore owner. You, Constable, are in a class of your own .” "Hmmm," said Officer Lambiase, "you have a point. Going back to what we were talking about. As a police officer, I have a question about the timing of that short story. For example, she took the cattle -" "sheep." "Sheep. So she killed with that frozen leg of lamb and then cooked it in the oven without defrosting it. I'm no Rachel Ray, but..." By the time they hoist Nicole's car out of the water, she's starting to freeze, in the morgue drawer, her lips are blue and reminds AJ of when she throws a book party for the latest vampire or something used black lipstick.AJ isn't interested in having goofy teenage girls wreak havoc at Isle Books in prom dresses, but Nicole—who would actually like that shitty book about vampires and the woman who wrote it— — Insists that a vampire-themed dance would be good for business and fun. "You know what fun is, right?" "Vaguely," he said, "a long time ago, before I sold books, when weekends and evenings were all to myself, I read for pleasure, and I remember having fun. So, vaguely , that's right." "Let me refresh your memory. The fun is having a smart, pretty, easy-going wife with whom you spend every workday." He could still picture her in that ridiculous black satin dress, her right arm slouching around a post on the front porch, her lips beautifully painted in a black line. "Sadly, my wife was turned into a vampire." "You poor wretch." She crossed the front porch and came and kissed him, leaving a bruised trail of lipstick. "The only thing you can do is become a vampire too. Don't try to resist, That's the worst thing you can do. You gotta be cool, idiot. Invite me in."