Suzanne Beecher

Dear Reader,

Liz's small clothing store is just a couple of blocks away from my house and whenever I need a new pair of shoes, I always stop by her shop first. And on days when I'm not looking to buy anything, I stop by anyway, just to lend my support.

"It's lonely at the top," might be the aphorism for corporate executives, but it's lonely at the top, the bottom and in-between, when you own your own small business. Liz is the one-and-only who takes out the trash, adds up the day's receipts, sweeps the floor and turns the key on her way out at night.

"Hi, how's business?" It's the first thing I ask Liz when I walk through her door. Just a habit I guess, and her usual response is a smile, followed by, "Great, thanks for asking." But today I sensed a worried Liz behind the counter. Business had been slow lately and she was doing her best to pretend it wasn't troubling her.

I always feel a little bit of responsibility whenever a local store has to shut down. Maybe if I'd patronized more often they'd still be around. Of course I realize my purchases alone aren't what make or break a store--everything has to add up and opening your own small business is one of the riskiest things you can do. But nevertheless, I feel a sense of kinship, and briefly I experience their pain, because I've been there.

"Liz, did I ever tell you about one of the worst months I ever had in business?"

It was in December and on top of crummy cash flow, I was supposed to be spending money on Christmas presents for family and friends. I remember thinking maybe I'd made a horrible mistake, going into business for myself, because a few more months like this and I'd be doomed.

There wasn't much I could do to get more cash coming in immediately, so instead my husband and I decided to go to the other extreme and see just how little money we could spend during the month. Neither one of us spent a nickel without discussing it first. I'm serious, we talked about whether or not to buy a pack of gum. (We didn't.) I didn't even color my hair, instead I wore a hat to cover up my dark roots.

The "see-how-little-we-could-spend" game was actually kind of fun and it did take our minds off our troubles. But we still felt embarrassed about the whole thing, and of course we couldn't tell anyone. Customers wouldn't want to hear about how we were barely hanging on, and it wasn't exactly a topic of conversation we brought up with friends either.

"What have you been up to lately Suzanne?"

"Well, we're so broke right now that we're trying not to spend any money. See the list we've made of all the things we usually buy, but didn't." No, it wasn't the kind of thing that anyone else could appreciate, unless they knew--and soon Liz and I were smiling and laughing about the ups and downs of business.

It's so nice when you connect with someone like Liz and it's even nicer when you can tell them a story about a miserable time in your life, a time so embarrassing that I wanted to keep it buried away, but now Liz is feeling a little bit better and surprisingly, I am too.

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@firstlookbookclub.com

P. S. This week we're giving away 10 copies of the book The Correspondent: A Novel by Virginia Evans. Click here to enter for your chance to win. 

A PREFACE

At last, on Monday around ten or half past, Sybil Van Antwerp carries the mug of Irish breakfast tea with milk to her desk. The bed is made, the dishes clean and drying on a towel beside the sink, the plants watered, the shelves dusted. She scoots the chair with precision, then gazes for a few moments out the window over her garden and toward the river off and below, at the few white triangle sails there in the distance, the reflection of the sky on the wide water, the square mansions on the Annapolis side. With satisfaction, she straightens the stack of letter-writing paper and the short, always-turning-over pile of books she will read next. She arranges the pens in the mug. She counts her stamps. She consults the stack of what letters she has received and not yet answered; a list she keeps of letters she means to write; a stack of upside-down pages in the drawer, a letter she has been writing going on years now, still unsent. Sybil is a mother and grandmother, divorced, retired from a distinguished career in law, these things are all there around her, but it is this correspondence—

On Wednesday it's the same.

And on Friday.

And on Saturday.

On Monday around ten or half past Sybil Van Antwerp sits down at her desk again. It is the correspondence that is her manner of living.

* * * 

Felix Stone
7 Rue de la Papillon
84211 Gordes
FRANCE

June 2, 2012

Felix, my dear brother,

Thank you for the birthday card, the fountain pen, and the book, which I started the day it arrived (Thursday) and finished today. It was exactly as you described. Unlikely and electric, inventive, and right up my alley. Seventy-three feels the same as seventy-two for what it's worth, arthritis, constipation, and trouble sleeping, and I've decided to stop dyeing my hair. I don't care much for my birthday, as you know, though it's always nice of you to acknowledge it. Trudy and Millie of course came for appetizers and cards. The children both contacted me—Bruce had a strawberry tart delivered from a bakery (he'll be up next weekend to clean out my gutters anyway), and it was awful, so I threw it out. Probably cost him a fortune. Fiona called from London. She said she won't come home again until Christmas because work is keeping her jumping and now she is designing something in Sydney, for heaven's sake, so she'll spend a month in Australia. She assured me Walt doesn't mind how often she is gone, but I'll tell you, I don't know how their marriage will make it. She'll certainly never be able to have children at this point. (They're not even trying. At least she hasn't told me if they are. When I bring it up she chastises me.) Theodore Lübeck down the street brought me cut roses from his bushes, as he does every year, which is good of him, even if he is a renegade from the lawless fringe of the American West.

How is France? How is Stewart? What are you writing? Thank you for the invitation to visit, you're always good to refresh it. Yes, I loved The Château, but that was a novel, and as much as I would love to see your new house, no, I'll not come. Just as a summer afternoon is gorgeous from inside air-conditioning, and you step into the day, hot, muggy, miserable, a postcard of France with all the lavender and sunflowers, I imagine, is far more alluring than the place itself. It's such a hassle to fly these days with the security and all the regulations about the size of bag and transferring the creams and contact lens solution into the small bottles. Honestly, it doesn't appeal to me in the least, and I made it clear when you moved continents I wouldn't be coming.

I was going through boxes and found this photograph (encl.) from the day they brought you home from the Sisters. Your little trousers and absolutely bald head. You've come full circle. Mother looks gorgeous here and I've never seen another photo of her in this green skirt suit, but I remember it clearly. I remember that day as clearly as if it were yesterday. I remember there had been a bad storm, no rain, but a strange wind and warm temperatures and there was a tree down in the yard and branches and sticks, and I remember the neighbor, Mrs. Curry, had made a dinner of pot roast and a chocolate pie and I'd been waiting all afternoon for the car to pull up and bring you. Mitsy hadn't been able to get there for the morning chores because the storm had downed the lines on the Canton bridge, so I had dusted, made the beds, drawn the drapes. Can you think of who it would have been taking the photo? Mother's sister Heloise was there looking after me, but I can't imagine Heloise taking photographs. I suppose this is our first family portrait. I'm giving it to you, as I have my own photo of the day they brought me in.

My regards to Stewart, of course,
from your loving sister,

Sybil

Postscript: Felix, I got into a little scrape last night. It was nothing, really, I'm fine, but the Cadillac is in the shop. More of an inconvenience than anything else, honestly.

* * *

June 2, 2012

Dear Mr. Lübeck,

Thank you for the exquisite white roses you left on my porch on my birthday, May 29. Furthermore, I received your voice message this morning. I was delivered home by taxi last night due to a minor car accident, but everything is being taken care of.

Regards,

Sybil Van Antwerp

* * *

Ms. Ann Patchett
c/o Parnassus Books
3900 Hillsboro Pike
#14
Nashville, TN 37215

June 2, 2012

Dear Ann,

I am writing to congratulate you on your most recent novel, State of Wonder, which was given to me for my birthday by my brother. I finished reading it this morning. Today is Saturday and I only started the book Thursday, which says something in itself, though you wouldn't know that as we are strangers, though not utter strangers, as we have exchanged letters on one previous occasion, and that was when I read your first big smash Bel Canto in the very early part of the millennium and you sent a reply, remarking on my penmanship and encouraging me to address you by your first name. You might, though perhaps not, depending on the volume of letters you receive and read on a regular basis, recall from that letter that I enjoyed Bel Canto very much, but this new book is even better. (I should add, for clarity's sake, that I did write to you when I finished reading the book before this one, Run, but I never heard back, but that's just fine, so don't give it a second thought.)

It typically takes me four days to read a novel of standard length, but I was flying through the pages of State of Wonder, that exotic Amazonian backdrop and those smart, tremendously complex women Drs. Singh and Swenson. How did you come to be so knowledgeable about these things—the details about the Amazon, all the science—? Did you travel there? I found myself wondering about the balance of fact and fiction with the matter of the tree bark. The scene when the behemoth snake comes up from the water onto the boat and wraps its muscular snake body around the child Easter with the Americans looking on in horror, the silence of that scene was positively cinematic. I didn't take a breath for what was it then, five pages or more. And of course, the matter of Dr. Swenson, at her age (my age! Dr. Swenson is seventythree, and so am I) being pregnant. I can't imagine. When they retrieve the baby there near the end, well that sent a chill right down my spine, but it was wonderful to read such a complex woman of her vintage, bold with her intelligence and dignity as well as her errors, and the layers upon layers of her. I am not a scientist; my own career was in law, but I saw some reflection of myself in her. The agonizing ethical questions for which the reader puts her on trial. That amazement one feels at this stage of life—a sort of astonishment that is also confusion, which leads to a sort of worry, or a sort of fear, I guess. How did we get here? How can it be? My sister-in-law Rosalie and I exchange books, and I am positive she'll love this one, so that's perfect.

(continued on Tuesday)

Love this book? Share your review with the Publisher