Five beach bag books from the CBS New York Book Club with Mary Calvi
Find out more about the books below.
Five beach bag books to add to your summer reading list
The CBS New York Book Club team has selected five books, most of them new paperbacks, to consider for your summer reading.
The club reads books that have plots and/or authors connected to New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut. Our five beach bag books tell stories of love, the power of female friendships, the meaning of home, reconnecting with life and finding joy.
Here are "The Collected Regrets of Clover" by Mikki Brammer, "Where the Wandering Ends" by Yvette Manessis Corporon, "Same Time Next Summer" by Annabel Monaghan, "Neruda on the Park" by Cleyvis Natera, and "Dele Weds Destiny," by Tomi Obaro.
These books may contain adult themes.
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"The Collected Regrets Of Clover" By Mikki Brammer
From the publisher: From the day she watched her kindergarten teacher drop dead during a dramatic telling of Peter Rabbit, Clover Brooks has felt a stronger connection with the dying than she has with the living. After the beloved grandfather who raised her dies alone while she is traveling, Clover becomes a death doula in New York City, dedicating her life to ushering people peacefully through their end-of-life process.
Clover spends so much time with the dying that she has no life of her own, until the final wishes of a feisty old woman send Clover on a trip across the country to uncover a forgotten love story--and perhaps, her own happy ending. As she finds herself struggling to navigate the uncharted roads of romance and friendship, Clover is forced to examine what she really wants, and whether she'll have the courage to go after it.
Mikki Bramer lives in New York City.
"The Collected Regrets of Clover" By Mikki Brammer (Hardcover) $20
"The Collected Regrets Of Clover" By Mikki Brammer (Kindle) $15
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"Where the Wandering Ends" By Yvette Manessis Corporon
From the publisher: Corfu, 1946: Living in a poor village in northern Greece, 10-year-olds Marco and Katerina are the best of friends. But as their country erupts into war, the two are separated: Katerina's family flees on foot, desperate to find somewhere safe. Marco is sent to one of Queen Frederica's children's villages, her defiant stance against the incoming communists.
At their final goodbye, Katerina and Marco promise to find their way back to the village, and to each other. This haunting childhood vow launches events that will take decades to unravel.
Yvette Manessis Corporon lives in Brooklyn.
"Where the Wandering Ends" By Yvette Manessis Corporon (Paperback) $19
"Where the Wandering Ends" By Yvette Manessis Corporon (Kindle) $10
"Same Time Next Summer" By Annabel Monaghan
From the publisher: Sam's life is on track. She has the perfect doctor fiancé, Jack (his strict routines are a good thing, really), a great job in Manhattan (unless they fire her), and is about to tour a wedding venue near her family's Long Island beach house. Everything should go to plan, yet the minute she arrives, Sam senses something is off. Wyatt is here. Her Wyatt. But there's no reason for a thirty-year-old engaged woman to feel panicked around the guy who broke her heart when she was seventeen. Right?
Yet being back at this beach, hearing notes from Wyatt's guitar float across the night air from next door as if no time has passed-Sam's memories come flooding back: the feel of Wyatt's skin on hers, their nights in the treehouse, and the truth behind their split. Sam remembers who she used to be, and as Wyatt reenters her life their connection is as undeniable as it always was. She will have to make a choice.
Annabel Monaghan lives in Rye, NY.
"Same Time Next Summer" By Annabel Monaghan (Paperback) $13
"Same Time Next Summer" By Annabel Monaghan (Kindle) $12
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"Neruda on the Park" By Cleyvis Natera
From the publisher: The Guerreros have lived in Nothar Park, a predominantly Dominican part of New York City, for twenty years. When demolition begins on a neighboring tenement, Eusebia, an elder of the community, takes matters into her own hands by devising an increasingly dangerous series of schemes to stop construction of the luxury condos. Meanwhile, Eusebia's daughter, Luz, a rising associate at a top Manhattan law firm who strives to live the bougie lifestyle her parents worked hard to give her, becomes distracted by a sweltering romance with the handsome white developer at the company her mother so vehemently opposes.
Cleyvis Natera lives in Montclair, NJ.
"Neruda on the Park" By Cleyvis Natera (Paperback) $18
"Neruda on the Park" By Cleyvis Natera (Kindle) $13
"Dele Weds Destiny" by Tomi Obaro
From the publisher: Funmi, Enitan, and Zainab first meet at university in Nigeria and become friends for life despite their differences. Funmi is beautiful, brash, and determined; Enitan is homely and eager, seeking escape from her single mother's smothering and needy love; Zainab is elegant and reserved, raised by her father's first two wives after her mother's death in childbirth.
Now, some thirty years later, the three women are reunited for the first time, in Lagos. The occasion: Funmi's daughter, Destiny, is getting married. But as the big day approaches, it becomes clear that something is not right.
Tomi Obaro lives in Brooklyn.
"Dele Weds Destiny" By Tomi Obaro (Paperback) $17
"Dele Weds Destiny" By Tomi Obaro (Kindle) $12
Excerpt: "The Collected Regrets of Clover" by Mikki Brammer
The first time I watched someone die, I was five.
Mr. Hyland, my kindergarten teacher, was a cheerful, tubby man whose shiny scalp and perfectly round face reminded me of the moon. One afternoon, my classmates and I sat cross-legged on the scratchy carpet in front of him, enthralled by his theatrical telling of Peter Rabbit. I remember how his meaty thighs spilled over the edges of the child-sized wooden chair he sat on. His cheeks were rosier than usual, but who could blame him for getting excited over a good Beatrix Potter plot?
As the story reached its climax—when Peter Rabbit lost his jacket fleeing the evil Mr. McGregor—Mr. Hyland stopped, as if pausing for emphasis. We stared up at him, hearts thumping with anticipation. But instead of resuming his narration, he made a sound similar to a hiccup, eyes bulging.
Then, like a felled redwood tree, he toppled to the ground.
We all sat motionless, wide-eyed, unsure if our beloved teacher was just upping the ante on his usual dramatic storytelling. When he hadn't moved after several minutes—not even to blink his open eyes—the room erupted with squeals of panic from everyone.
Everyone except for me, that is.
I moved close enough to Mr. Hyland to hear the final push of air from his lungs. As the pandemonium echoed down the hall and other teachers rushed into the classroom, I sat beside him, holding his hand calmly as the last blush of red disappeared from his face.
The school recommended I get counseling following the "incident." But my parents, who were more than a little self-absorbed, noted no significant change in my behavior. They bought me an ice cream, patted me on the head, and—reasoning that I'd always been slightly odd—judged me to be fine.
Mostly, I was fine. But I've wondered ever since what Mr. Hyland would have liked his last words to be if they hadn't been about the antics of a particularly naughty rabbit.
I didn't mean to keep count of how many people I'd watched die since Mr. Hyland thirty-one years ago, but my subconscious was a diligent accountant. Especially since I was nearing a pretty impressive milestone—today the tally nudged up to ninety-seven.
I stood on Canal Street watching the taillights of the mortuary van merge into traffic. Like a runner who'd just passed the baton, my job was done.
Amid the exhaust fumes and pungent blend of dried fish and tamarind, the scent of death still lingered in my nostrils. I don't mean the odor of a body decomposing—I never really had to deal with that, since I only ever sat with the dying as they hovered on the threshold between this world and the next. I'm talking about that other scent, the distinct smell when death is imminent. It's hard to describe, but it's like that imperceptible shift between summer and fall when somehow the air is different but you don't know why. I'd become attuned to that smell in my years as a death doula. That's how I knew someone was ready to go. And if there were loved ones there, I'd let them know that now was the moment to say their goodbyes. But today there were no loved ones. You'd be surprised how often it happens. In fact, if it weren't for me, at least half of those ninety-seven people would've died alone. There may be almost nine million people living here, but New York is a city of lonely people full of regrets. It's my job to make their final moments a little less lonesome.
A social worker had referred me to Guillermo a month ago.
"I've got to warn you," she'd said on the phone. "He's an angry and bitter old one."
I didn't mind—usually that just means the person is feeling scared, unloved, and alone. So when Guillermo hardly even acknowledged me on the first few visits, I didn't take it personally. Then, when I was late to the fourth visit because I'd accidentally locked myself out of my apartment, he looked at me with tears in his eyes as I sat down beside his bed.
"I thought you weren't coming," he said with the quiet despair of a forgotten child.
"I promise you that won't happen," I said, pressing his leathery hand between mine.
And I always keep my word. Shepherding a dying person through the last days of their life is a privilege—especially when you're the only thing they have to hold on to.
* * *
Snowflakes whirled erratically as I began my walk home from Guillermo's cramped studio apartment in Chinatown. I could've taken the bus, but it always felt disrespectful to slot right back into routine life when someone had just lost theirs. I liked to feel the icy breeze nibbling at my cheeks as I walked, to watch the cloud materialize then vanish with each of my breaths—confirmations that I was still here, still living.
For someone so accustomed to witnessing death, I always felt a little adrift afterward. A person was here on earth and now they were gone. Where, I didn't know—I was mostly agnostic when it came to spiritual matters, which helped me make room for my clients' chosen faiths. Wherever he was, I hoped Guillermo had been able to leave his bitterness behind. From what I could tell, he hadn't been on very good terms with God. A small wooden crucifix hung adjacent to his single bed, the torn, yellowed wallpaper curling around its corners. But Guillermo never looked at it directly to seek comfort; he snuck darting glances, as if avoiding the scrutinizing gaze of an authority figure. Mostly, he positioned himself with his back to it.
In the three weeks I spent visiting Guillermo, I'd learned the details of his living space by heart. The thick layer of grime on the outside of his only window that muted the daylight, rendering the space fittingly somber. The piercing shriek of metal against metal from his decrepit bed frame every time he adjusted his weight. The bone-chilling draft that came from everywhere and nowhere. The sparse occupants of his kitchen cabinets—one cup, one bowl, one plate—that were testaments to a life of loneliness.
Guillermo and I probably only exchanged a total of ten sentences during those weeks. We didn't need to say more than that. I always let the dying person take the lead, to decide if they want to fill their final days with conversation or to revel in silence. They don't need to verbalize their decision; I can just tell. It's my job to stay calm and present, letting them take up space as they navigate those last precious moments of life.
The most important thing is never to look away from someone's pain. Not just the physical pain of their body shutting down, but the emotional pain of watching their life end while knowing they could have lived it better. Giving someone the chance to be seen at their most vulnerable is much more healing than any words. And it was my honor to do that—to look them in the eye and acknowledge their hurt, to let it exist undiluted—even when the sadness was overwhelming.
Even when my heart was breaking for them.
Excerpted from The Collected Regrets of Clover by Mikki Brammer. Copyright © 2023 by Mikki Brammer. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpt: "Where the Wandering Ends" By Yvette Manessis Corporon
Corfu
September 1946
Somewhere in the distance she could hear Mama's voice calling her, but Katerina willed her away, if only for a little while longer.
She was happy here, swinging back and forth under the shade of this beautiful old olive tree. Up and down she swung, soaring higher and higher and then floating back again. She could see the entire island from up here, the ancient gnarled and knotted olive tree groves, the weathered old church, the cemetery overcrowded with stones and loved ones long gone, and even Clotho's pristine house tucked into the hillside with her lush garden overlooking the sea. And as she soared higher, Katerina gazed beyond the jagged cypress-covered cliffs, across the azure Ionian Sea, to the distant horizon where fishing boats bobbed, silhouetted against the sun, and dolphins swam and jumped in unison.
The silk ribbons adorning her hair tickled her face each time she lifted back up toward the sky, and her white silk dress filled with air like a balloon each time the swing brought her back down. And then a smile unfurled across her face as she spotted her. The golden woman had come to her again.
She saw her in the distance, across the hillside, walking toward Katerina's swing. Her hair flowed free and loose behind her, lifting and lilting up and down like a sail, expertly catching the maestro winds. Katerina squinted her eyes as she leaned in as far as the swing would allow, but still she could not quite make out the woman's face. Even so, the golden woman's smile radiated light as pure and bright as the midday sun. Katerina felt so full of love for this woman, yet she did not know who she was or why she came to visit. How could that be?
Katerina continued to swing higher and higher as she watched the woman walk toward her, closer and closer. Once more her body tilted up toward the sun. She leaned her head back, as far as it would go, and felt the wonder of weightlessness as her hair floated behind her.
She soared higher, pushing the boundaries between heaven and earth, but she knew the woman would not let anything happen to her. The woman was closer now. Close enough for Katerina to smell her sweet scent, the perfume of the village itself: roses and wisteria and rosemary and basil, fermented on the breeze.
The woman was almost there; Katerina could almost see her face through the haze of light. Katerina reached out her hand, imploring her to come closer.
Please, she thought, knowing the woman could read her innermost thoughts, a silent understanding between them. She mouthed the word as she released the swing to go to her. "Please . . ."
"Katerina."
Katerina opened her eyes. Her mother, Maria, was smiling above her. "Were you dreaming? You were smiling. It must have been a good dream."
Katerina rubbed her eyes and sat up on the cot, tucked into the corner below the icons of the Virgin Mary and Saint Spyridon that were affixed to the wall with black nails. Crosses made from dried palms were tucked between the icons and the wall, replaced yearly after the Palm Sunday service. The older palms were burned every year after church, as it would be a sin to simply throw them away.
She changed from her yellowed and threadbare nightshirt to a plain brown wool dress, handed down from her cousin Calliope, that buttoned from her throat to past her knees and itched despite the undershirt and slip she wore beneath. Katerina walked out to the terrace where Mama had breakfast waiting on the table in the shade of the grape arbor that dripped with green orbs. The grapes filled the air with their sweet aroma. A symphony of buzzing bees darted about. Through the morning mist, she could see the shoreline of Albania to the east and the silhouette of the tiny island of Erikousa to the north. Katerina nibbled on the crust of yesterday's bread drizzled with just a hint of honey and sipped from a cup of goat's milk, which was still warm. She tried her best to keep her head straight and not wince as Mama brushed and plaited her hair.
"I have to tell Baba what Calliope said yesterday. She's so mean, Mama. Why is she so mean?"
"Children often mimic what they see at home, Katerina. Calliope's mother is not a kind woman. I hate to speak ill of your father's sister, but Thea Sofia is a vicious gossip and she puts her nose where it does not belong. It doesn't make it right, but Calliope is behaving the way she sees her mother behave. Just steer as clear of her as you can," Mama said.
"The way you do, Mama?"
Mama said nothing. She just kept plaiting Katerina's hair.
With her straight, sharp nose, fair hair, and green eyes, Mama looked nothing like the other dark and sturdy mothers in the village. Mama had come to Corfu twelve years earlier as an anxious young bride after meeting Baba at a cousin's wedding on her family's island of Tinos. After a few bottles of wine and an intense negotiation by their fathers over the restaurant's finest ouzo, it was decided by the end of that first night that Mama and Baba would be married. Mama, just sixteen, and Baba, twenty, had never met before that day. The wedding took place in a small village church with only a handful of family members in attendance. Mama's wedding day had been the last time she had seen her own family or stepped foot on Tinos.
With no dowry to speak of and no mother to send her off with words of comfort or advice, all the young bride brought with her to Corfu were her memories and a few trinkets: faded photos, yellowed linens, and her parents' wedding crowns all kept locked away in her mother's old keepsake chest.
Katerina loved to sit with Mama and look through all of the treasures in that chest. Each time they did, Mama would place the crowns on Katerina's head and smile, her eyes misting over as she promised to take Katerina to her beloved island of Tinos to visit the magnificent church of the Virgin Mary, the Panagia of Tinos.
"We'll go to Tinos together one day," Mama always promised. "And Panagia will bless you, Katerina. She will bless and protect you like she does all of the virtuous girls who pray to her."
Katerina couldn't wait for the day that she could go and pray to Panagia in Tinos. She knew exactly what she would pray for and hoped the Virgin would be kind enough to make her beautiful, too, just like her mother.
Excerpted from Where the Wandering Ends by Yvette Manessis Corporon. Copyright © 2022 by Yvette Manessis Corporon. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpt: "Same Time Next Summer" By Annabel Monaghan
You can't turn around once you're in the tunnel. There's no U-turn, no off-ramp. You're literally stuck under the East River. This fact exhilarated me as a kid. Next stop, Long Island. At the first sight of sunlight at the end of the tunnel, I felt the city melt away. I cracked the window, popped a juice box, kicked off my shoes, and stretched my legs across the backseat. As an adult, entering the Midtown Tunnel makes me feel sort of trapped.
The traffic slows to a standstill as we merge onto the Long Island Expressway. "And this is why we don't come to Long Island," I say, swatting the steering wheel like it's responsible. I'm not sure what I was expecting on a Friday afternoon in August.
"We both know that's not why," says Jack, scrolling through his phone.
I can handle Long Island once a summer for a long weekend, never a week. Three days at the beach is enough to warm you up but not enough to turn you into mush. For three days in a row, my sister, Gracie, drags me into the ocean, and for three days in a row, I swim. I count my strokes as I cut through the water and long for the constraints of the YMCA pool, where you can track how far you've gone based on how many times you've turned around. The ocean is a full mile long on the stretch of beach between the jetty and the wooded cove in front of our house. There's just too much room for error.
It's been fourteen years since I've spent a whole summer at the beach-since Wyatt and I broke up, and I broke apart. Putting a person back together isn't easy, but if you're smart about it you can reassemble yourself in a totally different, better way. Turn carefree into careful; bandage up your heart and double-check the adhesive. Bit by bit, I have left my childhood behind, replacing my impulsiveness with deliberate decisions and plans. Jack calls it being buttoned up, and I don't know why anyone would want to walk around unbuttoned. I know what each day is going to look like even before I open my eyes, and there's so much strength in that knowing. If I stay at the beach for too long, I get pulled back. My old self is there and she wants to drag me out through the rusty chinks in my armor. I blame the salt air.
This is the first time I've brought Jack with me in the entire four years we've been together. Travis likes to say that I've been protecting him from our parents, which is ridiculous because we see them in Manhattan all the time. Part of me has wanted to show Jack the front-yard hydrangea explosion and the delicate way the dunes blow in parallel to the ocean. To show him where the sand and the salt and the sun conspired to make me into a strong swimmer and a happy teenager. I just don't know if he can handle the summer version of my parents.
Traffic picks up when we're on Sunrise Highway, and Jack puts down his phone. "It's pretty here," he says as if looking out the window for the first time. "I found a gym ten minutes from your parents' house and got a week's membership."
"There's no way we're staying a whole week." I've packed exactly three pairs of underwear to make sure of it.
"Well you told your mom a week. Anyway, I took next week off, just in case. It's going to be a hundred degrees in the city by Thursday." He takes my hand, and I feel myself settle. Jack is the opposite of the ocean. He's more like a lake, one that's crystal clear and protected by a mountain range. With Jack, I am in no danger of being washed away. "This might be really fun."
He's scrolling through his phone again. "Oh, here's a good one. A listing for an in-house HR associate at an accounting firm in midtown."
"They're not going to fire me," I say. They're probably going to fire me. I'm in the firing business, and I can't imagine how this ends any other way. Frankly, I'd fire me, but I'm so sick of talking about this and the tight, defensive way it makes my body feel.
"They might, Sam." He puts his hand on my shoulder. "Eleanor's way of doing things is tried and true."
"I said what I said, and I apologized. It's out of my hands."
"If you're going to go off the rails, you kind of need a backup plan," Jack says.
"I'll remember that for next time. So are you ready for what you're walking into? Hippies gone wild?" My smile is a question mark. "There's no Wi-Fi or air-conditioning, but if you're looking to see a statue of David made out of pipe cleaners, this is the place for you."
Jack laughs, presumably because he thinks I'm exaggerating. "I've been wanting to see this for years, I'm ready as hell."
Jack knows my parents in the city, between the months of September and May, where they live in the same Lower East Side two-bedroom, rent-controlled apartment that Travis and I and then Gracie grew up in. After thirty-two years in that apartment, they practically live for free. My dad teaches art history at NYU, and my mom teaches modern poetry at the New School. They are like squirrels in reverse-from September to May they toil and save so that they can spend the summer at the beach doing whatever they want. Jack likes the school-year version of my parents. He thinks they seem like people in a Woody Allen movie, real New Yorkers.
In October we'll be married. Jack's parents have put down a small deposit for an October 28 wedding at their country club in Connecticut, but we haven't fully committed. The venue is beautiful and easy-they literally have three wedding options: A, B, and C. They all seem pretty much the same to me, but Jack likes B. I wanted to get married on the lawn outside the boathouse in Central Park underneath the beech trees, but apparently that gets booked up years in advance, which I find fascinating, like brides are booking venues before they've even met the guy. I don't know how I missed this.
We were ready to press go on Jack's B wedding when my mom put her foot down. She loves Jack and is definitely relieved to see me so happy, but as the wedding gets closer she's starting to feel left out of the planning. She feels like the spirit of my family isn't being represented. When she called to lay this on me, I held my ground.
"Please come have a look at the Old Sloop Inn out here. Come get reacquainted with this place and yourself. Show Jack who we are." I said no.
But when Gracie asked me to come, I caved. Unless it's been something directly related to her safety, I don't think I've ever said no to Gracie. "Please come, Sammy," she'd said. "Just so Mom feels better. Jack will love it. It'll be perfect."
Excerpted from SAME TIME NEXT SUMMER by Annabel Monaghan with permission from G. P. Putnam's Sons, an imprint Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2023 by Annabel Monaghan
Excerpt: "Neruda on the Park" by Cleyvis Natera
White Out, Washed Out
The sound of split wooden frames, shattered glass windows, and fractured brownstone woke her. Luz imagined a huge crash, her body hurling toward a windshield, or some other kind of hurt. Then, as silence followed, she'd burrowed deeper into her covers, relieved. It was only moments before her wind-chime alarm, before Mami handed her a cup of coffee and Papi looked on at her, so very proud. She left their apartment, ready. Today—the biggest day, the day that would set everything in motion.
Luz walked out into Nothar Park, where she watched a wrecking ball swing back and forth from a crane. She picked up part of a brick that had skittered out to the sidewalk, noting how close to her own skin tone it was, a color Eusebia, her mother, called casi puro cafecito. Hardly any milk there, she always said, with an edge of concern, finding it impossible to simply use the word Black. The crane's neck moved, and the metal rope swung the ball forward, striking again. The noise grew noticeably louder. The wall resisted. But the force of the pressure caused a crater where it hit, and from it, tiny lines extended like wrinkles.
This the sound that woke her.
The cold air was thick with mist. Luz turned away from the noise and rubble, making her way through Nothar Park toward the subway, intent on her destination and determined not to be distracted. Her boss, Raenna, had texted her late last night.
I got news to share, she wrote. Meet me at TSP before work.
What's the big news? Luz responded.
Raenna hadn't texted back.
As Luz reached the stairs down to the subway, the escalating noise made her pause. The wrecking ball had finally broken through the stubborn wall—the fracturing now complete. Dust rose into the damp air rapidly, then hung softly above the trees.
Was Luz upset to witness the beginning of the destruction of her neighborhood? Nope. Qué va. She was focused on a rare moment of elation. Would today be the day she'd be offered junior partner? Of course it would. Over the last five years, she and her boss had had an agreement. The minute the promotion was a go, she'd be the first to know. She pushed forward.
Although Luz wasn't upset about the crashing wall, she did worry about her mother. Eusebia often looked onto that old, burnt-out tenement building and spoke about maybe putting together a community campaign to purchase the grounds—for a garden, no less. Luz and her father, Vladimir, remained mute to Mami's inquiries, hiding conspiring smiles behind cupped palms. They both knew how hard it would be, to pull that off. The obscene asking price for the shell—over ten million dollars. They thought it would remain as it had—abandoned, neglected, unwanted—since they arrived from the Dominican Republic twenty years ago. Who would bother?
Plus. Vladimir had cashed out his retirement investments, and Luz had contributed all her savings from the bonuses she'd gotten over the years, all to build Mami's dream home back in the Dominican Republic. Mami remained oblivious to their secret scheming. Just last week, Luz and her father pored over the pictures of the terrace overlooking the sea with the hole in the ground that would soon become an infinity pool. In just a few months, the house would be completed, her parents would retire and move back, and Luz would finally be able to live her own life. Move to Central Park West, that corner building on Seventy-ninth Street she'd had her eye on since she graduated law school.
It was ironic, really, that now that she was so close to finally leaving the neighborhood, change had reached it instead. A miracle it had taken this long for the gentrification of New York to reach Nothar Park. The Lower East Side, Chelsea, Hell's Kitchen, Harlem, Washington Heights, and especially Brooklyn, washed out, white out, everything forever changed. At the firm where she practiced law as a junior associate, she had friends who'd moved into those same neighborhoods, awed at how amazing the space (actual space!) was—friends who just a few years back would have been too scared to walk down the street they now lived on. She knew what would happen when the neighborhood changed. Some of it good, some of it not good. Now here they were, at the cusp. Belowground, the turbulence of the train entering the station prompted her to hurry on. She put the neighborhood out of her mind. Her future life was waiting.
A Body Can Survive Great Pain
The Secret Place, a members-only restaurant in midtown Manhattan, wasn't listed in any online apps, didn't accept reservations. As she waited for Raenna to arrive, Luz noticed the dining room space as if for the first time. Every wall painted black, including the tall ceiling. The vases, in contrast, had an ombré gold tint and were filled with oversized tree branches sprouting yellow flowers. They enhanced Luz's feeling of pure light. She held fast to the edge of the table lest she float away. Luz tried to place the soothing, hip music flowing discreetly out of hidden speakers. Underground Portugal? Brazil?
She had often felt out of place. Just a few nights ago, at dinner with colleagues, they'd been served eel in a reduction of lime that made the flesh writhe. Nodding along with everyone else, she'd said it was delicious, while worrying that others could sense her growing discomfort and nausea. But not today.
Today, Luz ordered the expensive champagne, knowing it was ridiculous to do so at 8 a.m. Raenna would sigh at the impropriety, but find it charming nonetheless.
"Should I bring it now?" asked Henry, their usual server, with honey in his eyes, honey in his smile. Around them, bussers moved with the efficiency of those under constant threat of being fired, removing sweaty water glasses from unoccupied tables and replacing them with fresh ones.
Luz shook her head. "Let's wait until she gets here."
She stood and went to the bathroom.
Looking in the mirror, she applied another coat of lipstick. She fixed a strand that had escaped her tight bun, pushed the pinchos further in place—wincing at how tight the hairpins were, how much they hurt. It was worth the pain. She practiced how she would stand in front of her peers when they made the announcement later—each associate would clap, while drilling her with their eyes, especially those who'd been waiting to hear it was their turn.
In the dimness of the bathroom, a familiar sadness neared at the thought of all the hours, all the work, all the sacrifice, her hand first up to volunteer on extra cases—spending every weekend in the office, getting home later and later every day. Not now, she thought, pushing that sadness away. Today, it insisted. In the mirror, on her face, the outline of that emptiness. Where did it come from?
Excerpted from Neruda on the Park by Cleyvis Natera. Copyright © 2022 by Cleyvis Natera. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpt: "Dele Weds Destiny" by Tomi Obaro
"I think they've lost our luggage," Enitan announced to Remi. They both watched the only item left on the carousel—a haggard, haphazardly taped Ghana-Must-Go bag—make yet another turn.
"Well," Remi said, and then she looked at her mother and they both began giggling, the unfettered, unhinged laughter of the exhausted. Their journey from New York to Lagos had been a chaotic one. Remi was supposed to have spent the night with her mother in Enitan's new apartment in Jamaica, Queens, where Enitan now lived since she had moved out of the family's two-bedroom Park Slope apartment. But Remi had decided to take the train to Queens instead that morning, slowing them down considerably.
Even when she and Remi had finally managed to get a car, they had had to endure a two-hour-long wait to get through security at JFK because everyone, it seemed, was desperate to go somewhere warm two weeks before Christmas. Then they had another three-hour wait when they got to Heathrow because their flight to Lagos had been delayed. Now, at last, they had arrived, tired, hungry, and apparently without luggage.
Still, it was good that Enitan and Remi were laughing together. That Remi had even agreed to come had been somewhat unexpected. Since Enitan and Charles had announced their intention to separate, Remi, nineteen years old, had reverted back to a younger, more beleaguered self; her eyes had rapidly filled with tears when they had sat her down and first told her the news. They had not expected her to take it so hard. In truth the divorce had been a long time coming. Remi's departure for college had clarified that yes, this man Enitan had abruptly and dramatically left Nigeria for, while she loved him and always would in the familial sense (he was the father of her child after all), he was no longer someone she could envision spending the rest of her life with—certainly not as husband and wife. In many ways, it felt like a miracle that they had been together as long as they had. Sometimes Enitan wondered if, were it not for her utter literal dependence on him those first few years in the U.S., and the shared deep sense of mutual obligation toward the other—he for taking her away from everything she had ever known; her for doing so without complaint and even excitement—their marriage would have lasted as long as it had.
But to Remi, who was nineteen but a young nineteen, Enitan thought, a naïve nineteen, her mother was a traitor; she was breaking up their beautiful, close-knit family that had always prompted smiles from neighbors who thought that Enitan's presence in the neighborhood belied the persistent and aggressive whitening of the area. Just that morning, as Enitan kept refreshing the ride-hailing app hoping for a car to magically appear, Remi had rolled her eyes and sighed melodramatically and then suggested they take the bus so Enitan could save money for the divorce. Enitan had told Remi to cut it out and Remi had rolled her eyes again and so Enitan had slapped her reflexively. They had both stared at each other in shock. Remi began to cry. Enitan said she was sorry and then their car had come.
So yes, laughter was good and suggested momentary forgiveness, which Enitan appreciated. In general Remi had always been bad at holding grudges. And Enitan was grateful that Remi had given up a ski trip with her boyfriend's family over the winter break to attend the wedding of a girl she had only met twice. Once, when Remi was a baby and Destiny a docile five-year-old, dutifully holding on to the handle of the pram in which Remi had been lying in Washington Square Park; the second time as surly adolescents, when Funmi had come with her daughter on another occasion to the city and they had gotten breakfast at the Waldorf Astoria. Charles had insisted on paying the bill, and Enitan had felt so embarrassed she barely spoke to him on the train ride home.
She hoped that the trip would be good. Charles was going to be spending the holiday with his sisters and their children in that giant house in Newport—that last vestige of family wealth—so if Remi was feeling guilty or traitorous there was no need for that. In fact, before Enitan had finally decided to go to the wedding, Charles, ever the gentleman, had invited Enitan to join him there for Christmas. Everything had been amicable considering, but the thought of being in that drafty house—probably built by slaves, Enitan suspected—seeing the secret, knowing smiles from his sisters, who had never liked her, and all their bratty children—loud and entitled in that uniquely white American way—made her say no. Enitan genuinely would have preferred to stay in her apartment. Alone for the first time in two decades that first night, she had climbed onto the twin bed in her narrow bedroom and cried like she hadn't cried in years. Not since her mother's funeral five years ago. Which, incidentally, was the last time she had been home.
"So, what do we do now?" Remi asked. Enitan moved a strand of hair from Remi's face. Remi automatically flinched at the gesture, and they looked at each other then, the memory of the slap still fresh.
"I wish I had some water," Remi said, stepping away slightly from her mother.
"We should be able to buy some. I have to break these bills anyway," said Enitan. "But let's sort out this luggage situation first." It was hot, stiflingly so; the overhead fans didn't appear to be doing much. The bright fluorescent lights only seemed to make the hall hotter. Fellow passengers coming from abroad were quickly shedding layers in the humidity as sinewy luggage boys finessed trolleys stacked with suitcases. Cranky toddlers cried in harried mothers' arms, a phalanx of drivers with signs for clients stood near one side while oyinbo businessmen, dressed in cargo shorts and boots as if they were going on a safari, marched toward them.
"Wrong side of the continent," Enitan wanted to mutter to them.
She checked her watch—still set to New York time. It was 3:04 p.m. there, which meant it was 8:04 p.m. here. Funmi had told Enitan that Sunday, her driver, would be coming to meet them.
"We'll report the luggage missing and then we can find Sunday and head to the house," Enitan said. She scanned the crowds looking for a uniformed official. She spotted one walking without evident purpose, a walkie-talkie attached to his belt loop.
"Excuse me!"
He didn't seem to hear her. She rolled her shoulders back. She tried to channel the aggression that felt so necessary when traveling in Nigeria. As soon as the plane had slowed to a crawl on the runway, the clicking of unbuckling seat belts began even as one of the flight attendants asked, at increasing volume, for passengers to remain seated. Her pleas were futile as men, always men, sprung out of their seats ignoring her. Enitan and Remi had exchanged a meaningful eye roll after the man in front of them leaped from his seat with alarming alacrity, opening the overhead bin to retrieve a dilapidated carry-on. That competitiveness, a singular, almost-myopic self-centeredness, that dog-eat-dog mentality, permeated every interaction with a stranger in Lagos. It was why Enitan had always hated visiting Lagos as a child. She felt unprepared, caught off guard by the demands of the city.
Excerpted from Dele Weds Destiny by Tomi Obaro. Published June 13, 2023 by Vintage Books, an imprint of The Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2022 by Oluwatomilola Obaro.
