The Three Weissmanns of Westport Read Free

how hard Felicity worked and how much she had contributed to the company, but she knew of Felicity's accomplishments by way of Felicity. It was not that the woman boasted. Quite the opposite. She was modest to a fault, the fault being that she insinuated her modesty, deftly, into almost any conversation, proclaiming her insignificance and ignorance, thereby assuring a correction.
    Even so, under other circumstances, Annie would have stopped for a more extended greeting, for Felicity's older brother was the distinguished novelist Frederick Barrow, and through Felicity's generous intervention he had been induced to speak at the library where Annie worked. It was a small, private, subscription library started in the nineteenth century by wealthy furriers hoping to help promote literacy and thus good citizenship among aspiring young men entering the trade. It was endowed with funds not quite sufficient to keep it going, and among her other duties as deputy director, Annie arranged readings there. They had become something of an event in the Upper West Side neighborhood where the library was located. The tickets were sold for twenty-five dollars apiece, and after a rocky start, they had gotten audiences of over two hundred people for three years running.
    One of Annie's talents was convincing writers to participate. At first she had simply kept abreast of who had a book coming out and might therefore be eager to promote it. But after a few years, she began giving the authors a percentage of the take, something she had observed at readings she'd attended in Germany. It seemed to excite the writers when she handed them a wad of smooth, worn bills, far more than an honorarium check would have done. They were like children receiving shiny coins. Annie had no illusions about authors. On the one hand, she admired them, for they created the books she admired. But, too, she felt most of them were rather sad, desperate people who couldn't hold down a job, and she counted out the money into their open palms with the same expression she wore when tipping the doorman.
    But even with the inducement of a pile of twenty-dollar bills, it was unusual for her to get a writer like Frederick Barrow to read at her library. He was not only revered and rich, he was also reserved, and he rarely appeared in public. Felicity's offer had been a welcome one.
    Annie had first met Felicity one evening a year ago when Annie went to the suite of offices to surprise her stepfather and join him on his walk home. Joseph walked home every day, rain or shine, and Annie liked to join him sometimes. It was not far from his office to the apartment, eighteen blocks, it was on her way home, and that night had been a lovely, cool spring evening, the sunlight lingering and the finches warbling gloriously from the light poles.
    The receptionist was not there when Annie stepped out of the elevator. Felicity, who was just leaving Joseph's office, appeared to be the only other person around, and Joseph introduced the two women. It was then that Felicity had offered up her brother. Annie, though excited at the prospect, did not take her seriously and forgot all about it. But a month later, an e-mail appeared in her inbox from Felicity with Frederick Barrow's phone number, e-mail address, and pledge that he would participate.
    The reading promised to be a huge success. They had sent out the announcements, and one hundred tickets had been ordered already. Frederick Barrow himself, though he wrote turbulent, wrenching books, turned out to be as tranquil a man as Annie had ever met. They went for drinks to discuss the event, drinks somehow became dinner, and dinner led to after-dinner drinks at Bemelman's Bar. They walked together up Fifth Avenue past the closed museums and the dark forest of Central Park at night. They walked and walked in the windy night, quoting Shakespeare like undergraduates and holding hands.
    Never, Annie thought, have I regretted an evening as a librarian