The Deceiver

Reading time: 8 minutes

“Ethan, I need you back here,” his mom called from the back room. Ethan worked at her used bookstore most weekends. Nicole’s Books.

He sighed and slid his phone into the back pocket of his jeans, but didn’t move from the stool behind the counter. Out the windows of the store, across the crumbling parking lot, lay the college commons covered with a thick layer of fall leaves. A few students gathered in knots here and there. Saturday mornings were always dead, except for Dr. Donegal Tiernan, Professor of Philosophy at Neville College and a regular customer. Saturdays were his day.

“You coming?”

When Ethan rose, he was still uncommitted, so he paused and pulled out his phone again. He began reading a new article he’d bookmarked in his favorite Substack: Commonplace Philosophy, a stack devoted to applying the stuff to everyday life.

“Ethan!”

“I’m coming!” With exaggerated laziness, he returned the phone to his pocket and walked to the workroom. Nicole was emptying some boxes that had arrived yesterday.

“Take those two and put them in Dr. Tiernan’s cubby,” she said, as she pointed to some books on the corner of the worktable. “He texted. He’s coming in this morning.”

Ethan took the books, but paused.

Nicole straightened and crossed her arms. “What? I don’t have any money. I gave you my last twenty.”

He looked at the worn concrete floor. “The car?”

She sighed. “Your Dad needs it. The tractor broke down out in the pasture, and he has to meet a man about a part. Something he bought on eBay.”

Ethan’s face grew hot.

“Text him!” Nicole put her hand on her hip.

But there was no getting between Dad and his tractor. And when did Dad ever respond to his texts?

“What about your car?” Ethan asked.

“I have ladies’ night at The Panther.”

“Never mind. I’ll walk.”

“Walk? Don’t be a twit. Can’t somebody pick you up …”

Ethan turned and strode back to the counter, timing his departure with ‘twit’, all for prime effect. What did he have to lose now?

He set the books down. The first was Berkeley’s Principles of Human Knowledge, Collyns Simon, ed.,1878. The pages were yellow and brittle, and even in a store full of decaying tomes, this one was old and tickled his nose. Dr. Tiernan was prepping a manuscript: a revisionist take on Berkeley’s subjective idealism. You know, the tree falling in the forest that no one hears. Spoiler alert: it didn’t fall. They’d traded comments about it on the professor’s stack.

The second book was unusual. Piaget’s The Psychology of the Child. Piaget was a huge part of his AP Psych midterm. He should mention that to the professor.

Ethan chuckled, pulling a paper bag from under the counter. Tiernan would pick up things every week, and getting these previews of coming posts gave Ethan something he didn’t get at his high school. Regard.

Slipping the books into the thin paper bag, he put them into Tiernan’s cubby behind the counter. Nicole had about a dozen such slots for her best customers. She’d watch as the boxes arrived and snag books they’d enjoy. Yes, she knew her patrons well. Better than she knew her son.

The door buzzed as it opened. A gust of damp, fall air brushed Ethan’s face, almost shocking against the suffocating dryness inside.

Dr. Tiernan. He always entered as though sweeping into a party, full of words and smiles and extravagant gestures.

But Ethan preempted. “Dr. Tiernan, I have your books.”

Tiernan wasn’t what Ethan ever pictured a professor being; he’d imagined someone in dowdy tweed, smoking a pipe, with eyebrows like shoe brushes. At forty-two, Tiernan showed no signs of gray, and his form was more athletic than it should be for someone who spent his life in libraries, researching and writing.

And a little girl held his hand.

“Ethan! My precocious protégé!”

She was perhaps four years old.

“Dr. Tiernan, I had a question about your post today.”

“Yes?”

But he’d lost it. “I can’t remember…” But the bag, the cubby. “Uh … your books.”

“Well, we can catch up later when you think of it.” Tiernan smiled.

Ethan was still holding the bag out to him.

“Keep them. We’re going to browse a bit.”

Nicole had made a crude children’s area in the front by the windows, with a cartoonish rug, a rocking chair, and a few board books scattered about.

“Ava, over here. Look, Jeremy Fisher!” Tiernan led her to sit on the rug. She flopped in his lap, and he picked up a book and began reading to her in a projecting theatrical voice.

Ethan stood transfixed at the counter as the professor acted out the worn story, replete with affected voices and grimaces.

“Don, I have those books you wanted, except for the Renouvier. I should get it next week.” Nicole had come from the back. She now crouched next to the pair, smiling.

Tiernan’s eyes lit up. “Oh, wonderful! Renouvier … in French*?*”

She put her hand on his shoulder. “All the way from Quebec.”

“Marvelous!” He reached up and touched her hand.

When she stood, her eyes caught Ethan at the counter, and her smile fell away. “I can sit with Ava while you look around.”

“Would you? Ava would love it. She hears me all the time.”

And so Nicole slid into the rocker and in a moment, Ava was on her lap with the book. Tiernan winked at Ethan, then strolled back to the academic shelves in the rear.

Now, it was Nicole, his mother, reading to the little girl. Ethan couldn’t remember her reading to him, but he was sure she must have, though the emptiness he felt said no. And she was smiling. Nicole read with exaggerated deliberateness, pronouncing the words as if for the first time. She gestured to the images while commenting in whispers in the girl’s ear. But Ava’s eyes weren’t on the book. She was staring at Ethan expressionless, her face smudged with something pink. Nicole stroked her curly waves, oblivious to Ava’s distraction.

Ethan glanced back toward the professor. His erect form flashed as he passed from one aisle to another, his eyes buried in a book. Back in the children’s corner, Ava’s unblinking eyes hadn’t left him as Nicole’s enunciations droned in his ears.

“Ethan, I want to show you something,” Dr. Tiernan called.

Ethan hesitated. Ava seemed to wonder herself whether he’d come when summoned. But he shook the thought from his head and hurried to the back of the far aisle, thankful to escape Beatrix Potter.

Tiernan was standing in the far corner, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling books. Some were the size of the shelf, others a few inches tall, thick to thin, and they were black and brown and green and red, clothbound, leatherbound, paperback. It boggled the mind, but all had one thing in common: they were old. Most were yellowed, their bindings creased and cracked.

“Look at this.” Tiernan showed Ethan the cover. “Proof that you never know where you’re going to find inspiration.”

Think and Grow Rich. Ethan wrinkled his nose. “Does anybody still read this stuff?”

It was an old edition, probably from the 1940s. The clothbound cover showed only the title, and in the lower left, a top hat, gloves, and an evening stick, all lying on a pile of bills and coins.

Tiernan furrowed his brow. “Napoleon Hill. People lived by ‘this stuff’ for decades.”

“So, just because it’s in a book, people think it’s true.”

“There’s a strong connection between perception, consciousness, and truth. Some say they’re interchangeable, but I don’t believe that.”

Ethan nodded, unsure what to say. Tiernan’s mind was quick.

“Sometimes we think things are so, and if others believe it too, it becomes an immutable reality beyond our consciousness.” He stopped and smiled, waiting.

But for what? Ethan’s mind raced, then the words came, “But that’s not right. Reality’s not independent of our perception. It just seems that way because so many of us agree.”

Tiernan was nodding. “Yes. Agreement is the deceiver. You and I perceive the same thing, therefore we believe it exists independent of us, but that’s a theory, not settled … as far as I’m concerned.”

Ethan’s heart raced, something it never did in class. “Just because we both see a mirage doesn’t mean it’s there.” He pointed his finger at an imaginary horizon. Very Dr. Tiernan.

And Tiernan patted him on the shoulder. “Exactly.” He handed him the book. “Hold this for me.”

On his finger, a gold band. A wedding ring. Ethan hadn’t seen it before, and he’d assumed differently. Until now.

He drifted with the book in his hand toward the front of the store. Ava was crying, and Nicole was trying to soothe her. “Ava. Your daddy’s right there. See him?”

But Ava would have none of it. Soon she wailed and screamed, then slithered to the floor, kicking her feet at nothing.

A few strands of Nicole’s hair had fallen in her face, but the smile, now forced, persisted. “I don’t understand, Honey, we’re having such a delightful time.”

Tiernan came from the back and crouched next to her. “Ava! What is wrong with you? Everything is fine.” He lifted her and held her tight to his chest, but this only enraged her more, and she flailed her fists, striking his back.

Finally, he came to the counter, holding Ava as best he could. His brow was pinched, and his lip quivered.

“What can I do?” Ethan asked.

“Nothing. Just give me the bag.”

Ethan grabbed the bag from the cubby and placed it under Tiernan’s arm.

Tiernan shrugged and shook his head. “I have to go.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll settle up later,” Nicole called. Her face yet held the glow from reading to Ava.

Tiernan turned and left with Ava in his arms, without a word, without a gesture of thanks, the chilly dampness rushing in after his exit. It took him a few minutes to wrangle Ava into the back of the olive Fiat hatchback, the car rocking and pitching the whole while. Then the tires threw gravel against the window, and the Fiat accelerated out onto College Drive.

Nicole, her head down, her color gone now, walked back to the workroom, leaving Ethan behind the counter, hesitant to move. A certain grief settled in him, and he put his hand to his chest.

The book was on the counter. Tiernan had forgotten it. Napoleon Hill. The top hat. The cash. The man was a charlatan, selling snake oil. Then, without a second thought, he tossed it into the box by the register, reserved for the lot going to the men’s shelter.

“Ethan! More books for the cubbies!” Nicole again from the back room.

Outside, the commons were empty. The leaves moved now in small pirouettes, and the students who had been there earlier had found a place to be. Or someone to be with. Or were they ever there?

And the dry air of the shop had resettled, bringing with it the scent of disintegrating paper, irritating Ethan’s nose.

✧ ✧ ✧

As an Advance Reader for this story, you have the opportunity to tell me what you think. Please take a moment and complete the short feedback form. Your anonymous input will help me shape the next draft of this story!