Katelyn is the manager of Tumnus and Friends, the last independent retailer in the city devoted entirely to children’s books. Lear almost always staged his first appearances there whenever a new book launched. One has to assume that Katelyn is smart, simply because she’s still in business, but she speaks in a helium falsetto that, whenever she’s talking to anyone “important,” takes on a painfully affected British edge, giving her a voice that calls to mind the innkeeper’s wife on Fawlty Towers.
Katelyn has masterminded the ceremony (for which Merry should be grateful, under the circumstances). She wants to begin with a reading of Colorquake in its entirety—which seems ill judged to Merry, even aside from the soul-parching heat. Several children have already scrambled onto and then quickly off of the statue, scalded by the sun-baked bronze. And who exactly is this gathering for? Not Lear’s closest associates and friends, who are invited to the private memorial at the Met—as is Merry, to her simultaneous gratification and chagrin. Perhaps this one is mainly for all the adults who fell in love with Lear’s various books at various times in their younger lives and look back on them with a foggy, nostalgic wonder. But then, there are all these children—many merely towed along—and Katelyn doesn’t seem to realize that they are not going to sit happily through endless recitations without pictures.
Katelyn has also enlisted a trustee from the New York Public Library, an older woman named Hannah who claims to have known Mort “intimately” yet isn’t on the list for the Met.
I am turning into a platinum-grade bitch, thinks Merry as she listens to the two other women going over the program. But who wouldn’t, with perspiration trickling down the channel of her spine and slowly soaking the waistband of her linen skirt? She has determined to go with the flow, just follow directions: read what she’s told to read, introduce the guest speakers, even lead the singing of “Ivo’s Serenade,” a song written by a Sesame Street composer for an after-school special featuring a Muppet tea party at which Mort was the guest of honor.
“I am strictly against the releasing of the balloons,” Katelyn is telling Hannah. “It is dangerous for the birds.”
Hannah argues that a few balloons sent nobly aloft will be much more inspiring to the children than they will be hazardous to a bunch of pigeons, which are little more than airborne rats.
“Ivo would not approve,” says Katelyn, standing her ground.
“We have fifteen minutes to get our ducks in a row,” says Merry. “Speaking of birds.”
“And in fact, Ivo is here in person,” says Katelyn.
Merry and Hannah stare at her wordlessly.
Katelyn beams. “My assistant found a costume to rent! Can you believe it? Mask and everything. He’ll lead the singing, so you don’t have to worry about that, Meredith. Cool?”
“Perfectly.” Merry glances at the bronze Mad Hatter, said to be a caricature of the publishing tycoon who commissioned the statue in memory of his wife. Suddenly she’s thinking, mournfully and covetously, of Mort’s Alice collection: the Victorian playing cards, the letter from Dodgson to Rossetti, the shoes allegedly worn by Tenniel’s model for the title character, a sewing box that belonged to the actual, inspirational Alice….“Really,” says Merry, “I’m here to help out. You just boss me around.”
“And I’ll do you the same favor at the opening for the new museum!” Katelyn clasps her hands together.
“Excuse me a moment,” says Merry. She wants to find Sol, who promised to make an appearance—as did Stu and a few other authors. As she looks around, she notices a middle-aged man pacing at the periphery of the convergence. The small arc of benches facing the statue filled up half an hour ago; newcomers are struggling to find space for their blankets and beach towels in the midst of the grove spreading north from the statue. Some are laying out picnics. (As usual, Katelyn’s planning, though well intentioned, is maddeningly impractical.) But the pacing man seems uncomfortable in a different, possibly worrisome way. He is searching, frowning. That creepy mantra If you see something, say something drifts through her brain.
Bull by the horns, she thinks, heading toward him. “Are you looking for someone? You’re here for the Lear memorial, yes?”
He looks startled. “Yes,” he says, “and yes.”
“It’ll start in a few minutes. Sorry there’s so little room to sit.”
“Are you running this show?” he asks.
“Helping.”
He’s quite tall, this broody man, and she has to look up to meet his eyes. After a moment of peering around, scanning the assembly, he says, “Do you know Tommy Daulair?”
Merry sounds hoarse when she speaks. “Do you?”
“She’s my sister.”
“Your sister!” Of course she must be here. “You’re meeting her?”
“No,” he says. “Or I don’t know. I just figured she’d come, and I’d…find her.”
“I’ve met your sister.”
They regard each other uncertainly.
“Actually, I’d like to reconnect with her,” Merry says. “Do you see her?”
“No, not yet.” He sounds impatient. “I didn’t think…”
Merry hears an electronic screech; the audio technician is testing the mikes. “I have to get ready. Will you stay till after? I, actually”—why does she keep saying actually, as if insisting on some suspect reality?—“in fact, I should introduce myself.”
He tells her his name is Danilo. They shake hands awkwardly.
“When you find your sister, would you ask her to stick around, too?”
“If I can,” he says. “I don’t know if she’s coming.”
“Well, look,” says Merry, and she hands him one of her cards. “In case we don’t see each other later. Please tell Tomasina I’d love to meet up.”
The man’s anxiety is obvious and unsettling—but perhaps he really did know Mort, through his sister, and is genuinely mourning. Merry notices that he’s probably her age, his thick dark hair subsiding toward the same degree of gray that would overtake her own head if she were to give up the costly dye job.
Now Katelyn is waving at her, both arms beckoning grandly, as if Merry is a plane being guided toward a gate. As she heads for the podium someone has positioned right beside the pond, facing the statue, she spots Sol and Stu, just arriving. Together? She is pondering the unlikelihood of their companionship when she also becomes aware of a tangible atmospheric shift, a sluicing of mercifully cool air through the heat—but it comes with an inrush of clouds, drawn over the blue sky as deftly as a curtain over a window. Thunder mutters in the distance.
“Really?” she says to the sky. Rain was not in the forecast as of this morning.
The guitarist (Katelyn’s husband) begins playing something Spanish, heartfelt, verging on flamenco, then downshifts toward Bach, that famous piece about the safely grazing sheep. Even the children settle down, reeling in their balloons as a breeze rises. Each one is etched with Ivo’s likeness: Ivo in the forest, with his entourage of butterflies and bugs. The drawing in Merry’s bedroom.
“We are here to celebrate the colorful life and the even more colorful work of Mort Lear,” Katelyn chirps into the mike. “Does anyone out there love him as passionately as I do? Give a joyful cheer for yes!”