The woman put a hand on his arm. “Please,” she said. “I know what you’re saying. I don’t exactly fit your idea of an archivist, right?”

  Relieved, Hudson ran a hand through his hair. “Yes,” he said. “I was imagining someone dowdier, more ...” He stopped again, realizing he’d made things worse for himself. “Not that archivists are dowdy or—”

  Helen laughed. “It’s all right,” she told him. “I couldn’t agree more. We’re often a stuffy bunch. But as it happens, I came to archiving by way of the business world.”

  Hudson sighed. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “Can we start over?”

  The woman led him past the desk and down a short hallway, where they entered an office that was as far removed from Hudson’s idea of an archivist’s den as Helen Guerneyser was from his idea of an archivist. She motioned to a chair in front of her desk, and he sat down.

  “For many years I worked in banking,” Helen told him, picking up their conversation. “My involvement with the Steinbeck Center began when my husband was asked to be on the board. He was something of a community fixture in those days. Unfortunately, he was also something of an intellectual wasteland.”

  Hudson, surprised to hear her say something like that about her husband, started to speak.

  “I can say that now because the old fool is dead,” Helen said, saving him from the awkward moment. “And I didn’t say he was stupid. He had a great head for money. He just wasn’t a man of letters, only numbers.” She paused, smiling quietly at some private joke. “Anyway,” she continued, “fortunately for Wallace, I do have an interest in the arts. I was able to converse with the more literate members of the board, while he helped them to amass quite a substantial fortune. Gradually, I became more involved. One thing led to another, and when Wallace died, I saw no reason to cease my association with the Center. Instead, I bought myself some training and here I am.”

  Hudson leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other, his ankle resting on the opposite knee. “That’s quite a story,” he said.

  “I’ve discovered that Steinbeck has a way of bringing people together in curious ways,” Helen announced. “It was part of his magic, I think. I’ve seen a fisherman who barely made it past the sixth grade discuss The Moon Is Down with a college professor, and quite vigorously, I might add. There’s something about the man that seduces you in the best sense of that word.”

  A change had come over her voice, a kind of dreamy quality that suggested a longing for far-off places, or the remembrance of a first love. In another setting, Hudson might have mistaken it for the voice of a woman recalling a favorite suitor. But he knew what Helen meant; he’d felt it himself. It was, after all, why he was sitting in a chair in her office.

  “Did your husband know about this affair you were having with Mr. Steinbeck?” Hudson asked.

  Helen laughed briskly. “I like you, Mr. Jones,” she said. “I liked you well enough from our e-mail conversations, but now I know that I truly like you. And to answer your question, my husband no more understood my affair with John Steinbeck than I understood his love of golf. Some things are simply mysteries to outsiders. Now, are you finally going to tell me what brings you all the way to Salinas from Yale University? Surely you haven’t come just to get a look at me.”

  “No,” Hudson answered. “Although that’s an added benefit.” He hesitated, choosing his words carefully. He’d told Helen Guerneyser sort of a half truth about his project. Partly this had been pure professional paranoia, but also he’d wanted to wait until he was at the National Steinbeck Center before he revealed too much. The truth was, he was afraid that if he told anyone the full story, they might prevent him from getting his answer.

  “Well, as I said in my e-mails,” he began again, “I’m doing my thesis on Steinbeck’s journals. I’m interested in looking at the materials that haven’t been given widespread study.” He glanced at the archivist’s face, trying to read her reception to his story, but found there only polite attention.

  “Everybody has looked at the Grapes of Wrath material,” he continued. “Also the East of Eden notes. Even the Sea of Cortez stuff has been done to death. I’m more interested in the lesser known books—The Moon Is Down, The Wayward Bus—things like that. What I really want to do is compare what Steinbeck was living, what he was feeling, to what ended up in those books.”

  He stopped, hoping he’d said enough to convince Helen Guerneyser that he was sincere. He’d had a great deal of time to come up with a plausible explanation for his research. Waiting for her response, though, he wondered with no small amount of worry whether he had done enough. Even to him the story sounded weak.

  The archivist sat back in her chair. “As I’m sure you know, Steinbeck’s papers are scattered all across the country. Stanford, of course, has the largest collection. But Steinbeck himself didn’t seem to care too much about preserving such things, and certainly he never made provisions for his papers to be gathered in one place.” A manicured hand fluttered in the air as she talked, the light sparkling off a diamond ring that Hudson found himself staring at to keep from looking at her face.

  “We, however, have the majority of his journals,” Helen continued. “As well as a great number of files of articles he found of interest. Steinbeck clipped and saved everything that he thought might be useful to his writing, which for a man with such a broad range of interests amounted to a considerable pile of paper.” She shook her head. “No wonder his wives were always complaining about his being absent; they probably just couldn’t find him beneath all the junk.”

  Hudson realized that he was shaking his leg nervously. He clapped a hand over his ankle and pinned it to his knee, forcing himself to remain quiet. He wasn’t sure what the archivist was getting at, but he expected her at any moment to tell him that it was time for him to leave and never come back.

  “It’s always puzzled me why more people aren’t interested in Steinbeck’s journals,” she said. “I myself have only looked through maybe a dozen of them. There’s simply too much there to absorb easily. Every page, it seems, could yield a book.”

  Hudson held his breath, sensing that they were arriving at the moment he’d been waiting for—and dreading—since his first e-mail to Helen Guerneyser.

  “I think it’s an excellent idea,” she said. “Although I think you might have bitten off more than you can chew. You might want to focus on one or two books or, even better, a specific period of Steinbeck’s life.”

  Hudson nodded enthusiastically, agreeing with everything, resisting the urge to cheer or throw himself at the archivist’s feet. He felt as if the gates of heaven itself had been opened to him. “Thank you,” he managed.

  “There are rules, of course,” said Helen. “We aren’t the public library. You may have access to whatever you wish, but you may not take anything out. Nor may you make photocopies of anything; the paper isn’t getting any younger. If you want copies, ask me and I’ll see to that for you.” She eyed Hudson, fixing him with a keen stare. “Are you a coffee drinker, Mr. Jones?”

  Hudson, bewildered, said, “I like the odd Starbucks now and again.”

  “Well, finish it before you come in here,” Helen said. “That goes for water, juices, tea, what have you. No liquids of any kind around the materials. As far as the National Steinbeck Center is concerned, the blue laws are in effect. The man himself would call us all a bunch of tight prohibitionists, but we can’t run the risk of some clumsy academic knocking over a Diet Pepsi and ruining things for everyone.”

  “No coffee,” said Hudson. “Anything else?”

  “Just one,” Helen said. “If you find anything really scandalous, you let me know. There’s nothing I like better than good dirt.”

  “Absolutely,” said Hudson. “So, when can I start?”

  “Right now,” Helen said, standing up. “Follow me.”

  She left the office, Hudson right behind. Walking through the lobby of the building, she stopped at an elevator and pressed a button. The doors slid open and they stepped into the cool confines of the metal box.

  “Like most people, we keep our old stuff in the basement,” Helen joked as they descended. “Fortunately, ours is a little less damp than most.”

  The doors opened and they emerged into another hallway. Helen led the way to yet another door, and they stepped into a small, sparely furnished room that looked very much like just about every library research room Hudson had ever spent time in. Two large wooden tables were situated side by side, each with two chairs tucked neatly underneath. Reading lamps provided assistance to those overhead. Otherwise, the room was bare.

  “Do you have any idea at all what you’d like to see first?” Helen asked him.

  Hudson placed his briefcase on one of the tables. “Not entirely,” he said. “I was thinking perhaps the journals from 1948.”

  “All of them? There are at least seven, if I recall.”

  “How about the last half,” Hudson suggested. “Maybe from summer on. I think that’s when he first started thinking about the story that turned into East of Eden.”

  “Not exactly one of his lesser known works,” remarked the archivist, and Hudson knew she was thinking about his claim to be interested mostly in Steinbeck’s more minor creations.

  “No,” he agreed. “But it’s well documented, and I want to see how directly he comments about his creative process in his journals. I think it will help me understand the level of honesty, if you will, about his ideas that he was willing to commit to paper.”

  “I’ll be right back,” said Helen. She exited through the sole door, leaving him alone.

  Hudson paced. Afraid he’d revealed himself to be lying, or at least unsure of himself, he worried that Helen Guerneyser would see through him. So what? he asked himself. So what if she knows what you’re after? She might even be able to help.

  He was tempted. Surely if anyone knew anything about the manuscript, it would be someone like the archivist. He might be able to solve the mystery with one question. But he knew it couldn’t be that easy. If what he had was what he thought it was, there would have been some mention of it somewhere. Something so important wouldn’t just appear out of nowhere.

  Then maybe you’re wrong about it, said the voice of his doubt. Maybe no one knows about it because there’s nothing to know.

  It was an old argument, one he’d had with himself time and again. But he didn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it. There was something too real about the manuscript, something that urged him on, told him to keep digging until he found the truth.

  The door opened and Helen entered carrying a large box, which she set on the table. “Here you are,” she said. “I’ll leave you to it. When you’re done, just leave everything here and come upstairs. If you find anything you want copied, leave it here and I’ll see to it later.” She walked to the door, pausing and looking back at Hudson. “Good luck,” she said, and left him alone with the box.

  Hudson sat down. He pulled the box toward him, lifted the lid, and looked inside. A stack of notebooks rested inside, no two of them alike. It was as if Steinbeck had written in whatever was at hand, with no thought to uniformity. Hudson reflected, with only the slightest hint of annoyance, that writers were selfish creatures, seldom considering the needs of future researchers when amassing the bits and pieces that would one day represent their creative processes. How much easier it would be, he thought, if they would have the courtesy to compile indexes to their own lives, like those people who worked for the New York Times writing obituaries for the not-yet-dead.

  He removed the first notebook. The cover, a grubby brown marred by splotches of grease, was the cover of any of a million identical notebooks. But when he turned to the first page, the book revealed its true beauty. There, in a compact, tidy script that filled line after line, were the inner thoughts of John Steinbeck.

  He couldn’t believe he was holding a book that Steinbeck himself had held in his hands. His eyes ran over the words, making sense of none of them as his thoughts ran wild. What was in here? What would he find?

  He shut his eyes and forced his mind to calm. Only when he felt the surge of excitement simmer to low boil did he open them again. This time, the neatly penned words flowed smoothly and, beginning with an entry for June the first, he began to read.

  CHAPTER 18

  The sound of a car door slamming woke Caddie up. Immediately the dream she’d been having—something about being at a concert with Sam and Bree but being unable to find them in the crowd—faded away, but the feelings of disorientation and frustration remained. She glanced wearily at the clock. It was only seven.

  She tried to go back to sleep, realized she had to pee badly, and reluctantly threw back the covers. The temperature had dropped during the night, and the room was chilly. Caddie rubbed her bare arms as she walked down the hallway, wishing she’d shut her bedroom window.

  Having peed, she decided that she wanted a drink. Her mouth tasted like pot, her tongue thick and pasty and altogether unpleasant. She brushed her teeth quickly and, feeling slightly more alive, went downstairs. As she passed through the dining room, she saw that the table had been cleared. In the kitchen, the dish drainer was stacked neatly with freshly washed dishes. The scrubber in the sink was still wet. He must have gotten up practically at dawn, she thought as she filled a glass from the tap.

  She finished her drink, rinsed the glass, and placed it in the drainer. While heading back to the stairs, she noticed that the front door was open and went to close it. Through the screen door, she saw her father standing in the driveway. The rear of his Volvo was open, and the ground around him was littered with what Caddie recognized as dive gear.

  She was about to turn away and escape to the safety of her room when her father, looking up, saw her. “Good morning,” he said.

  “Morning,” Caddie replied. She waited for the accusations she was sure were coming, but her father went back to sorting the gear into piles.

  I should probably make nice, Caddie thought, dreading the prospect. Her defiance of the night before was reduced in the light of day to a feeling of vague regret, a transformation brought about not only by sleep but also by her father’s apparent refusal to be angry with her. Goaded on by a stubborn refusal to let him be morally superior to her, she opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. Perhaps if she gave him the opportunity, she thought, she might yet get a satisfying argument out of him.

  “How’d you sleep?” her father asked her, picking up a tank and sliding it into the car.

  “Fine,” Caddie said. She hoped her carefully adopted attitude of disinterest would spark him into action. When, to her frustration, her father said nothing for some time, merely adding more things to the car, she said, “Going diving?”

  Her father nodded. “Pt. Lobos,” he said. The name meant nothing to her, and she didn’t ask for more information. She didn’t care where he was going, only that he was going and that she might once again have the day to herself.

  “You could come,” her father said, not looking at her as he put a plastic box filled with gloves, a mask, and other items she didn’t recognize on top of the tanks already in the car.

  Caddie forced a yawn. “I don’t dive,” she said.

  Her father shut the Volvo’s rear door. He was wearing a baseball cap with the name of a dive operator—PNG Muck Divers—embroidered on it. As he talked, he took it off and held it in his hands, running his fingers back and forth along the brim. “You don’t?” he asked.

  Caddie shook her head. “No,” she said.

  Her father seemed genuinely surprised. She didn’t know why. It wasn’t like she or her mother was the one all into marine biology. And it wasn’t like he’d ever offered to teach her.

  “I could teach you,” he said, as if hearing her thoughts. “If you want to. I’m a certified instructor. You know, so I can teach the research assistants if they need it. I don’t actually teach classes or anything. But I could—”

  “That’s okay,” said Caddie, interrupting. His earnestness was bothering her. It made it difficult to pick a fight. “I don’t really want to.”

  Her father stopped fondling his hat. “Okay,” he said. “Well, I guess I’ll get going. Have a nice day.”

  He got into the car and started it. Caddie, half expecting him to get out and finally start the fight she still felt herself longing for, waited a minute. Then, not wanting him to think she had anything else to say, she went inside and shut the door.

  It had been an unsatisfying encounter. Her father’s refusal to even broach the subject of her behavior of the night before erased any feelings of sympathy for him she might have had five minutes before. Obviously, she told herself, he doesn’t care.

  By the time she got back to her room, she had managed to convince herself that she was the one who should be angry. Even her father’s invitation to accompany him, his offer to teach her to dive, seemed an affront. She saw him as weak, afraid of his own daughter. Why else would he let me get away with something like that? she asked herself. His lack of backbone disgusted her.

  “I would have been pissed,” she said aloud, laughing roughly at her father’s meekness.

  She got into bed and picked up her book. What, she thought as she found the page where she’d left off, was she going to do today? It was nice to have her father out of her hair, but suddenly she saw herself sitting in the same room, in the same bed, reading the same book (or slight variations on it) day after day, week after week, until her mother came and returned her to civilization.

  “Fuck!” she said, slamming the book closed.

  She couldn’t live with him. She just couldn’t do it. How was she supposed to deal with someone who didn’t even get angry? It’s like he’s goddamn Gandhi or something, she thought. He hadn’t questioned her about Nick’s shirt. He’d said nothing about her obvious dis of last night, hadn’t even seemed to expect an apology. What was she supposed to do with someone like that?