Endpapers

|| ENDPAPERS ||a novel byJennifer Savran Kelly Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill 2023 For Mom,for believing in me, alwaysFor Chris and Elijah,for everything CONTENTSPart I: BuchbinderArtBookBodyLiebeMessageImpressionHomeFoilParalysisChargeBuchbinderSignalPlanHingeMotionGertrudeBackwardPart II: PreservationFlyleafPrayerNightTissueSenseEmergencyAliceInvitationPatienceHandsProofPart III: EndpapersIce CreamLukasDawnSightVoiceCoverForceSpineStrideBondRebellionHomeEvery/BodyEndpapersAcknowledgments PART I Buchbinder || ARTBECAUSE I’M NOT ready to go home. Home to Lukas. Because lately I get more pleasure from spreading open the covers of a book than my own legs. Because the pungent smell of ink and the soft touch of paper. I linger here—in the book conservation lab, after hours, after everyone has gone off to rejoin loved ones, even our boss, who usually stays because she has a project on the side.Pausing, I inhale the quiet. Soon my hand is on the heavy wheel of the press, loosening and turning, the iron cool against my fingers. Soon I’ll know if this book can be one that’s finally worthy of exhibiting. Or even one that has anything to say.Carefully I free the protective sheet of newsprint and then the pages, which I printed at the Center for Book Arts earlier this week and folded and gathered yesterday and stacked in the press today during lunch when no one was here to see. I take a moment to enjoy the uncomplicated thrill of a newly pressed book block. Perfectly flat, perfectly compact, a first hint of the separate coming together into one whole.If only it were that easy.I carry it to my workbench, where I’ve set out thread, dyed tan to match the paper, and black leather sewing tapes, lined with Japanese tissue. I promised myself I wouldn’t look at the content before sewing the folios together. I don’t want to talk myself out of finishing. But I peek at the first page, the letter-pressed words smooth and black against thick, nubby paper. It’s pretty.Pretty isn’t art.For a long time, art had been my savior. Lately it’s my spectacular failure. I’m supposed to be showing my work by now, like my former classmates, only there is no work. I’ve been vacant—of ideas, of images and words. So lately I’ve taken to spying, sitting in coffee shops and bars to eavesdrop on conversations. It’s amazing what you overhear people talking about in New York City—an old window washer who’s also an evangelist trying to convert a teenage girl; a mortified cop who had to spend his first few hours on duty investigating dolls that had been left in weird places, creating a fire hazard.Turning the pages, I scan my drawings. The window washer proselytizes from his platform high above the street, squeegee in hand, dripping water onto his adoring masses. A pretty teen angel responds to his question: Yeah, I’m a good girl. Such sadness on her face. The police officer rounds up porcelain dolls from the street. Exquisitely dressed toy girls blocking sewers, mailboxes, and fire hydrants, donning signs with feminist slogans. Behind the officer, more cops attempt to go about their business with arms full of dolls announcing: My body, my choice; The future is female; Resist.Somehow it’s not working. The renderings are competent and the scenarios interesting, but none of it has anything to do with me. I’ve been trying to find out what can happen, what I can make, if I forget everything the world wants to see when it looks at me. But under these bright fluorescent lights, my images only remind me once again that I’ve become more invested in hiding who I am than expressing it. Heart sunk, I brush my bangs across my forehead, the way the woman who cuts my hair instructed. “More feminine,” she’d said.Good girl.Am I though? I wonder to the empty room. Good? A girl?As if to save me from my own thoughts, my phone buzzes and it’s Jae. Crappy day at work. Don’t let me smoke alone?I laugh. At least I still have my sense of humor. Nice try, I write, and flip my phone closed. Jae knows I hate being high. His obsession with weed almost killed any possibility of us even becoming friends when we met a couple of years ago. I turn back to my book and rack my brain for a way to save it.My phone buzzes again. How about we dress in drag and go dancing at Pyramid? Lukas and I wear makeup, you smoke. Deal? I shake my head and start to type, You’re joking, right? But looking down at my book, I pause. Jae knows I’ve been thinking about this for a while.I type, Lukas would never, hit send, and close my phone.A few minutes later: Fine. You and me then.Ignoring him, I continue to scan my book. More drawings. More people in the city who appear to be living double lives. A businessman holding his dry cleaning high over his shoulder on a crowded sidewalk like Jesus carrying the cross. A homeless woman selling amateur magic tricks who, finally, disappears behind a cloud of smoke. Who are these people? What do they want? More important, what do I want from them?What do I want?I turn the page and my angel stares up at me, as if waiting for an answer. “Sorry to disappoint,” I say. “I don’t know how to save you.”Though I hate to admit it, maybe Jae’s invitation has come now for a reason. Maybe the way to fix this, to make art again, is to face what I’ve been avoiding. Eyeing the book, I flip my phone back open. Before I change my mind, I type, Fine, you’re on.My heart speeds up.LEAVING THE METROPOLITAN Museum of Art, I submit to the crowd on the sidewalk, keeping its erratic pace as I take a left onto Fifth Avenue and walk four blocks to catch the 5 train downtown toward Brooklyn. When the doors of the train slide closed, I catch sight of my reflection in the window. I let my hair fall over my left eye and observe how the bulk of my coat erases my curvy hips and D-cup breasts. With my new Prohibition