Love: A Novel

Sandler Gibbons meets Junior, a young woman in a short skirt who is walking through town looking for an address to answer a “help wanted” ad. He directs her to the Cosey residence and then greets his wife, Vida, and his grandson, Romen, who have returned from running an errand. The Sandlers are raising Romen because his parents are in the military and are currently deployed. At dinner, the three of them gossip about the history of the Cosey family. Vida used to work in the hotel at the front desk and remembers Bill Cosey fondly, but she thinks that his death was suspicious. She believes that Christine poisoned him. Romen, who is 14, currently does yard work for Christine and Heed.

Junior finds her way to the house and knocks on the door of the apartment to the side of it. Christine answers and is suspicious but eventually invites her in. She was unaware of the ad but realizes that it must be Heed who did it. She sends Junior upstairs to meet Heed after refusing an offer for help with cooking.

Alone in the kitchen, Christine reflects on her childhood memories and wonders why she allowed Junior in the house. She thinks that it was because Junior is so beautiful—though not as beautiful as Christine was as a young woman, she reassures herself. She also recognizes that there is something vulnerable in Junior, like “an underfed child. One you wanted to cuddle or slap for being needy” (22). She takes the food upstairs to see how the interview is going and hopes that the meal will “choke the meanest thing on the coast” (23)—Heed.

Junior interviews for the job with Heed, who is skeptical of her merits and her lack of references. Junior has come from a correctional institute and has no resume, but she is hiding this from Heed. She assures Heed that she can do anything that is needed and secretly is amused at Heed’s pronunciation of resume with only two syllables. Eventually, Heed accepts her on a trial basis, making Junior promise that she will keep the work private. Heed wants to write a book about Cosey and shows Junior his portrait. Christine brings up the food and Heed refuses to eat it because she hates shellfish. Junior eats it with pleasure and goes to sleep in the guest bedroom, dreaming of Cosey’s portrait.

Vida, who works at a hospital, irons her uniform and thinks about her time working the front desk at Cosey’s resort. She remembers Bill Cosey as a charming, generous host and employer and the hotel as a magical place. To her, the hotel’s decline is linked to Cosey’s sudden death and to the women in his family (May, Christine, and Heed) who “fought over his coffin” (33). Heed ran the hotel after his death and it lost clientele, no longer attracting wealthy people now that Cosey was gone. She thinks that the women around him have disgraced his legacy and remembers his daughter-in-law, May, as a bizarre kleptomaniac. The real puzzle to Vida, however, is who could have poisoned Cosey, since the only ones at the table were Cosey, a waiter, Vida, and L., the faithful cook.

Meanwhile, Sandler also thinks about his memories of Cosey, which are notably less positive than his wife’s. He remembers that Cosey refused to sell land to locals and liked to portray himself as a noble benefactor but was often less generous than he could be. Cosey liked Sandler and the two of them became fishing buddies despite the gap in social class between them. On these fishing trips, Cosey confided openly in Sandler. Sandler briefly worked at a hotel, but the two of them were much happier (and their friendship easier) when Sandler took a managerial position at the local cannery. Though Sandler has affection for Cosey, he “began to see Cosey’s wealth not as a hammer wielded by a tough-minded man, but more like the toy of a sentimental one” (44). He saw Cosey’s flaws and the way his wealth disguised them.

Romen remembers a disturbing incident at a party that he attended with teenagers from school. His friends Theo, Jamal, and Freddie tied a girl named Pretty-Fay to the bed and took turns assaulting her. Romen intended to take a “turn” after Theo, reasoning that this would make him a man and help him fit in with these new friends. However, when it was his turn, he untied Pretty-Fay in a kind of fugue state and helped her outside. Her friends rushed up and took her from him, and he left the party feeling a deep sense of shame at his inability to rape her as his friends did. To him, this signaled his own weakness. Later, his friends caught him and beat him up. Romen went home and cried in his bedroom, believing that he was weak and feminine and hearing the “trumpet blast” of a slur that Theo called him (46).

Junior recounts her life story and what led her to the Cosey house on Monarch Street. She was raised in a poor and isolated community called “The Settlement” and grew up without a father. Her family called her Junior and she was mocked for her unconventional name. Though women in her community were discouraged from attending school, she wanted to get an education and began attending a local elementary school. All the children there mocked her and treated her poorly except a Jewish boy named Peter Paul Fortas. At Christmas he gave her a box of crayons, and she brought him a baby snake in a jar. Her uncles learned that she took a snake to school and tormented her so much that she tried to run away. On the road, they encountered her and ran her over with their car, permanently injuring her foot. They lied to her mother about who ran her over. When Junior recovered, she ran away from home at age 11, but her freedom was short-lived. She stole a G.I. Joe doll from a store and was arrested and sent to reform school and then a correctional facility.

Junior feels at home in the Cosey house because of Bill Cosey’s portrait. Heed has begun speaking to her about her past and shows her a wedding photo. Junior recognizes Christine in it, but Heed denies that it is her. Junior has realized that Heed is less interested in writing a book than in talking and is distracted by seeing Romen outside the window. She manages to sneak outside and begins to flirt with Romen.

L. thinks about the difference between love and infatuation. She worked at a diner called Maceo’s after leaving the hotel. She tried to retire because she was tired, but Maceo convinced her to work for him and said that he would drive her back and forth each day. L. has become a fixture in this place and says that no one living knows her real name anymore—everyone just calls her L. (Later, it is revealed that L. died in Maceo’s in 1975, but her ghostly presence remains and she observes other characters). She notices Junior coming into the diner and Maceo’s son, Theo, trying to flirt with her. Junior is unimpressed and insults him, referencing her knowledge of the gang rape he committed earlier. L. thinks that Junior’s manner reminds her of a woman named Celestial, who was a sex worker known to Cosey. L. remembers that Cosey pretended that he came from noble beginnings but that his father, nicknamed “Dark,” was a police informant. She believes that Cosey’s openhanded lifestyle was a rebellion against his father and his legacy of misery.