The Bookseller (11 page)

“Well.” I smile. “I guess you'll have to read it to find out.”

“I've never seen a book about baseball that I could read.” Greg is beaming. “And I've never seen a story that had Willie Mays and me in it.”

I reach into my dress pocket and pull out another item: a stack of about twelve index cards. I have punched a hole in each card and tied them together with a string. On each card, I've written a single word:
bases
,
pitcher
,
strike, catcher
. For each word, I've drawn a picture—again, terribly basic—that illustrates what the word means. “These cards will help you read the book,” I explained to Greg. “If you get stuck on a word, look in this stack of cards and see if you can find it. Once you learn to recognize these words every time you see them, reading will get easier, because you won't have to stop to think about words you already know.”

He takes the card stack I hold out to him, closes the book, and puts both items under his arm. “Thank you, Miss Miller,” he tells me. “I can't wait to get started on this.”

His words are music to my ears.

B
esides the joy of teaching a child to read, there is another benefit: for more than a week now, the dreams have disappeared. Each night of that week, I sleep well, solidly, like a stone, without any dreams.

During the day, my energy level skyrockets. I hustle around the store, rearranging everything and creating a fall display in the window: leaves that I cut from red, yellow, and brown construction paper and scatter artistically (or so I tell myself) about the window shelf, best sellers that I set up in display racks, and a banner I've made: C
OLD
W
EATHER
I
S
C
OMING
! C
OZY
U
P WITH A
G
OOD
B
OOK
!

Frieda rolls her eyes and tells me I'm getting downright annoying.
“I liked you better when you were as grumpy as me,” she says.

“I'll take it into consideration,” I reply.

G
reg tears through his book in a single day. “I read it start to finish,” he tells me proudly. “The words on the cards really helped. I know them all now. After I read the book, I read it again, and then I read it to my mother. She . . .” He looks down, sheepish, his face reddened. “She said she was really proud of me.”

“I'm proud, too,” I say. “Very proud.” I put my hand lightly on his shoulder. “Shall I write another one?” I ask. “Would you like that? I can make more cards, too. We can add to your collection of words you know.”

“I would love that,” Greg replies. “Thank you, Miss Miller. Thank you very much.” He rewards me with a big smile, then hops enthusiastically across our shared porch and goes inside his own house, cheerfully banging the door behind him.

A
nd then, after over a week of dreamless sleep, my nighttime visions return.

We are out of the house again, Lars and me. Goodness, we socialize a lot in this fanciful world. In my real life, I go out in the evening two or three times a month, perhaps. Every now and then I go see a movie with old friends from my teaching days, but many of those friends have to plan weeks in advance to get a night out of the house without their husbands and children. Frieda and I dine in a restaurant now and again, and once in a while we attend a book signing at one of the bigger bookstores or department stores around town. These stores are always the venues for such events; our little bookshop does not attract celebrity authors—or even noncelebrity ones, for that matter.

But most evenings I'm at home, curled up on the sofa reading or watching television, Aslan at my side. Thinking about this, I wonder if my subconscious wishes I spent more time dressed up and running around, like I do in my dream life.

In any event, I find myself standing next to Lars at a cocktail party. He is in a suit and tie, and I am in a satin party dress—coral-hued, a color I actually like quite a bit in my real life, too—with a sweetheart neckline, a full skirt, and a wide bow at the waist. It reminds me of something I saw Jackie Kennedy wearing
in
Life
not long ago; clearly, when doing my clothes shopping in this world, I follow the First Lady's trends. On my feet, I am wearing pointed heels in the same shade as the dress.

Music is playing from the speakers of a gleaming hi-fi stereo cabinet in the corner of the room. The Kingston Trio is singing about how they don't need booze to be high; apparently, seeing their woman smile does the same thing for them as a good stiff drink.

Well. I'm not sure my dream persona can say the same for herself. In my hand is a half-empty martini glass. Unlike Frieda, who adores a good martini, I rarely drink martinis in real life; nonetheless, I take a sip. It's surprisingly sweet. It must have something else in it, besides the usual gin and vermouth. I sip again, thinking that I could get used to this—if it were real, of course.

Lars and I are standing with a redheaded woman who is wearing a black satin sheath dress and holding a martini like mine. The room is crowded with couples, the men in suits and the women in cocktail dresses. I scan the room for Bill and Judy, our dinner companions from a few dreams ago. I smile inwardly; even here in a dream, a recognizable face would be a fine thing to see. But I don't see them.

We are in a house, but it is not our house. Like ours, however, this home is contemporary and lean. The living room stretches the width of the front of the house, with a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows looking toward the street. Over my shoulder I see that the dining area is open to the kitchen, which in turn has a sliding glass door that presumably leads to the backyard—which is no doubt as expansive as everything else in this world.

“Katharyn, that color is gorgeous on you,” the redhead says, bringing my attention to the conversation in front of me.

I smile and sip my fruity drink. “Thank you . . .” Of course,
I have no idea what her name is, so I cannot call her by it. This bothers me greatly. My mother always impressed upon me the importance of learning—and using—other people's names. “You'll always have plenty of friends and social invitations if you remember names,” Mother told me throughout my formative years. I'm not sure she's right about that, because I am quite good at names—yet in the real world, at least, I have a fundamentally nonexistent social life. I give a little laugh, and suddenly realize I feel a bit light-headed. I wonder how many martinis I've already put away.

Gently but firmly, Lars takes my elbow. “Jean, I always tell Katharyn that she's pretty in pink.” He raises his eyebrows. “Of course, I told her that tonight before we left home, and she insisted that it's
coral
, not pink, that she's wearing.” He lifts his shoulders in the playful shrug of a hapless male. “What man could be expected to know a thing like that?”

I laugh merrily. “Jean,” I say, planting the name in my mind. “Would you call this more of a coral, or more of a peach? The saleslady called it peach, but . . .”—I finger the sateen fabric of my skirt with my free hand—“I think it's more of a coral.”

“It's coral,” Jean says firmly. “Peach would be lighter, which wouldn't be suitable for this time of year. But that . . .” She looks me up and down. “It's perfect, my dear.” She glances toward the darkness outside the front windows. “Just make sure you bundle up before going home. What a storm! You didn't walk, did you two?”

“Sure we did,” Lars replies. “It's only a block.”

A mustached man walks up and hands Jean a fresh drink. “You looked thirsty,” he says to her, taking her empty glass from her hand. I notice that their fingers touch for a few extra seconds.

“Ah, George.” Jean looks impishly at the man over the rim of her glass, her green eyes large behind false eyelashes. “Such an attentive host.”

Suddenly I realize who he is. It's the man with the dog, the one I saw on the street when I walked alone past where our house would be. When I walked there in the real world.

So actual, live people reside in the dream world, too. This strikes me as amusing, and I laugh aloud. Everyone looks at me, puzzled. “Did I say something funny?” Jean asks.

“No, of course not,” I reply quickly. “I'm just in a happy mood tonight.” I raise my glass. “It's so nice to be here with you all!”

Lars still has a solid hold on my elbow. “Katharyn, do you need to sit down?”

Suddenly, what I need to do most is use the bathroom. How is that possible, when I am not even awake? I laugh again, absurdly wondering if I am wetting my bed in the real world. “No, thanks,” I say to Lars. “I'm off to the little girls' room.” I extract myself from his grip and weave toward the back of the house, figuring there must be a bathroom somewhere in the vicinity, if I just keep my eyes peeled.

In the kitchen, a gaggle of maids is preparing food and placing it on trays. To my surprise, I see Alma, our own housekeeper, among the workers. Like Alma, the others are all Mexican. Even in my imaginarily inebriated state, I find the situation distressing. This world, this place in which brown-skinned people wait on white-skinned people—this is not how I live in my real life. I'll concede that in the world where I'm Kitty, I don't personally
know
many people of other races. But I do believe in conducting myself equally toward everyone. We have the occasional nonwhite customer at the shop, and I go out of my way to treat these patrons the same as I would a white person. It's how I was raised. It's just a matter of good taste and of being a decent human being, my mother would say, and she's right. My father worked with men and women of all races at his job; my mother
cares for babies in a rainbow of colors in her volunteer work at the hospital. I may have graduated from college, and I may travel in more educated circles than my parents ever did, but my blue-collar upbringing has made me who I am.

Who I am in my real life, that is.

In any case, I am thrilled to see a familiar face at the party. “Alma,” I hiss, catching her eye. She comes over to where I stand next to the dining room table, one hand on it for support.

“You okay, Señora Andersson? You enjoying
lo borlo
?”

I giggle. “I'm fine. I'm having a terrific time!”

“
No bronca
? No trouble, señora?”

I wave my arm about and almost knock over a tray of hors d'oeuvres on the table. Alma quickly reaches forward and catches it.

“I just have a . . . lil' . . . dilemma,” I slur. “I cannot . . . for the life of me . . .'member where it . . . where it is.” I look around. “The bathroom, I mean. Do you happen to know?”

Alma smiles. She has a kind face, Alma—a warm smile with large, white teeth. Like me, she gets crinkles around her eyes when she smiles, and I wonder vaguely if she is as self-conscious about that as I am. “
No hay pedo
, señora. Follow me.”

I follow her down the hallway. I hazily make out several large abstract paintings on the walls, lit with small artist's lamps bracketed above the canvases. There are a number of sleek doors with no panels on them, all of them shut. Closets, I suppose, and bedrooms. The woodwork is rich and dark-toned. At the third door on the right, Alma knocks gently. No one answers, so she opens it for me. “
Lo baño
,” she says, as if to reassure me. “You are all right?”

“Sure, honey. Just dandy.” I slip inside and close the door behind me.

After taking care of my business, I wash my hands and splash
a little cold water on my face. I fish in my purse—it's quite a cute little thing, gold-sparkled, with a rhinestone clasp—and find a compact and lipstick. I powder my nose, notice the high flush in my cheeks, and carefully fill in my lips with lipstick that matches the color of my dress. I note that my hair looks unusually fabulous. The cowlicks have been tamed and pressed into big waves, held in place with lots of spray. I must have had it set this afternoon, I think, and then I thank the dream gods, or whoever puts me in this crazy world, for at least letting my hair look stunning when I am out of the house for the evening.

I stumble back to the darkened hallway and bump into a shadowy figure making its way toward me. “Lars?” I ask.

“Nope,” says a cheery voice. “Just your friendly host, coming to check on you.” He gets closer, and I see it is George, of the mustache and the spaniel.

“I'm fine, thanks,” I say, but he blocks my way before I can sneak past him.

“Katharyn,” he says in a low voice. “You look beautiful tonight.” He places a hand lightly but persistently on my right hip.

Startled, I back away from his touch. “Yes, my husband said the same thing.” That word,
husband
, feels peculiar on my lips; it's like speaking a foreign language. Yet I recognize the power in it. I am reminded of how satisfied I felt in high school Spanish class when, called upon to recite by Señora Torrez, I uttered some Spanish turn of phrase confidently, completely, and correctly.

George lowers his arm. “Oh, come on,” he says. “I'm just paying you a compliment. Don't take it so seriously.”

“George.” A sharp voice rises behind him, and he steps aside. A woman in a slim-fitting dress, dark-colored with pinstripes, steps quickly down the hallway. “Katharyn, are you all right?”

“Of . . . yes, of course.” Is this my hostess? Good grief, what a sticky situation.

“George, you go on back,” she says. “We need more ice from the cooler on the patio.”

He gives her a guilty look and slinks away.

The woman takes my arm. “Shameful,” she says, shaking her head. “That husband of mine has an eye for pretty women, I'll tell you that. But you'd think, in his own house . . . and with what you've been through, too.” She gives me a long, worried look. “Tell me, dear, how are you coping?”