The Bookseller (18 page)

“We'll all be fine,” my mother assures me. “As always, dear . . . we will be just fine.”

I nod. “I know you will.”

Lars and I give out kisses all around, and then we walk down the block hand in hand, heading toward the park. I sigh happily, feeling carefree and lighthearted. “What would we do without them?” I say, glancing back at my parents' house. “Whatever would we do without my parents?”

He nods and squeezes my hand a bit tighter.

T
hinking about this now, I can't help but smile. Nonetheless, I find that I don't want to go inside my parents' house at all. Not today. I am not sure why, but suddenly this is the last place I want to be.

“On second thought, maybe we ought to just go on with the shopping,” I say to Michael, taking my foot off the brake and pulling away from the curb. He does not look up, nor does he reply.

I turn left on Louisiana Avenue, then wait at the light at University Boulevard. “Since you're so good at answering questions, Michael, let's see if you can answer this one: What's the best way to get to the food store from here?”

He directs me to a Safeway store not far from the University Hills shopping center where I went with Mitch and Missy, and not far from the house on Springfield Street, either. We pull into the parking lot, and I search my purse for a list. Sure enough, there is one. On the right-hand side of the paper, I have carefully written a week's worth of dinner menus, the name of each day underlined and the main course and side dishes listed below it. On the left-hand side, divided by categories such as Fruit/Vegetables, Dairy, and Meat, I have written what I need to prepare the listed suppers, as well as breakfast and lunch staples such as bread, peanut butter, and eggs. Marveling at my impressive organizational skills, I usher Michael into the store.

We're doing quite well, working our way through the aisles, when I turn a corner and hear my name. “Katharyn, is that you?”

Naturally, I have never before seen the woman who addresses me—neither in real life nor in any of my previous dreams. Her hair is dark and pulled back into a large, elaborately braided bun at the nape of her slender neck. She wears a dark blue car coat with a black fur collar. Her lips and nails are a startlingly bright red.

“I thought it was you. Delightful to see you.” She smiles at Michael. “And how are
you
today?”

He looks at the floor and mumbles.

The woman looks back at me. “I'm sorry,” she whispers, loudly and dramatically. “I never know what I'm meant to—”

“I can hear you!” Michael yells at the top of his voice. “I can hear you, I can hear you. I—can—hear—YOU!”

During this outburst, he continues staring at the floor. Carts stop in the aisle; heads turn in our direction.

“It's okay,” I say, getting down to his level. “The river,” I say frantically, remembering what Lars did. “The river, the river, Michael . . .”

“You're not saying it right!” He breaks away from me and tears down the aisle, knocking over a display of on-sale Wheaties cereal boxes as he turns the corner. He bolts for the door.

“Oh, my, I'm—” Without finishing, I rush out of the store, leaving my cart in the middle of the aisle.

Cars screech as Michael runs headlong through the parking lot. I expect him to run toward our station wagon, but he goes in the opposite direction. He is astonishingly fast; I would not have expected that of him. I would have thought him too weak and clumsy to be much of an athlete, but his legs seem to have taken on a life of their own. Terrified, I get in the car and drive toward him, praying that no vehicle will hit him before I get there. I cut
him off and he almost slams into the front bumper of the Chevy. I get out, grab him by the arm, and drag him into the car. He is screaming incoherently, and I pray for the dream to end. I buckle him into his seat, hoping he won't know how to unbuckle it. I lock the passenger-side door and scoot around the car. Sliding in on the driver's side, I slam the door shut and pull out of the parking lot.

Having a pretty good sense of where I am now, I make my way home to Springfield Street. Though the drive is short, these are among the worst minutes of my life—real or imagined. The screaming is fever-pitched; I cannot hear myself think, and my head is pounding by the time we pull into the driveway. This has got to end soon, I think. I'm going to wake up any second now.

But I don't. I turn off the car's engine and wait to see what Michael will do. He continues to scream. There are no words, just high-pitched screeches issuing from his lungs. I don't know whether to try to bring him inside or leave him here until he calms down.

While I am thinking about it, the front door opens and Alma appears, pulling her arms into her coat sleeves. I open the car window and lean out. “Señora Andersson,” Alma says. “
¿Estás bien?
”

I can feel tears welling in my eyes. “I'm just fine,” I say. “Just dandy.” I glance over at Michael. “Please tell me how to make him stop,” I beg Alma.

She shrugs her shoulders. “Señora, I do not know,” she says starkly. “You know that you do not let me near
el niño
.”

I don't? Whyever not?

“Well, then,” I say, opening my car door and standing next to her in the drive. “If he were your child, what would you do?”

She shrugs. “I guess I do what Señor Andersson does.”

“The river song, you mean? I tried that, and he didn't like it.”

“Did you . . .” She wraps her arms around herself. “
¿Abrazarlo?
Hold him?”

“I was afraid to touch him!”

“Señor Andersson . . . señora, I know you are not comfortable doing it, but Señor Andersson holds him.”

Damn right I'm not comfortable.

She shakes her head. “Señora, the iron is on inside.
Por favor
, I go back in?”

I nod. “Yes, Alma, go on.”

“You want me
llamar por teléfono
Señor Andersson?”

I take a second to think about that. Do I want her to telephone Lars? Do I want to admit to him—even if all of this is imaginary—that I cannot handle it myself?

“No,” I say slowly. “No, thank you.
Gracias
, Alma.”

She goes inside.

Wobbly on my heels, I walk around the car to Michael's side. I use the key to unlock the door, but before I open it, I tap on the window. “Michael, honey, can you hear me?”

Rapid-fire, with astonishing strength, he pounds his small fists against the window. I am almost afraid he'll break the glass. He may be undersize, but I realize now that that doesn't mean he's weak. I open the door and lean in toward him.

He keeps pounding, but now instead of the window, he begins hitting me. I step back, rubbing my upper arm. How am I expected to hold him, when any time I come near him, he lashes out at me?

Finally I go around to the driver's side of the car. Quickly, before he can hit me more than a few times, I reach in and unbuckle his seat belt.

“You want to scream, stay out here and scream as long as you want,” I tell him. “But the seat belt is undone and the door is open if you want to come in.”

And then, letting the screams subside behind me, I go into the house, leaving the front door standing wide open.

A
lma is ironing in the living room, the television tuned to
Guiding Light
. She looks up when I enter. Neither of us says anything.

I go down the hall to Lars's office. I make a beeline for the bar and pour myself a sizable glass of whiskey. Taking it to the kitchen, I add water and ice, and then stir my drink with a clean butter knife that I find in the dish rack. I brush past Alma and stand in front of the picture window, waiting to see what Michael will do.

For a while, nothing happens. I can hear his muffled screams through the plate glass. Probably the whole neighborhood can. But I don't care.

“How long do you think he can keep that up?” I ask Alma, sipping my drink.

She shrugs, her eyes downcast. “We have seen longer, señora.
¿Sí?
”

Yes, Alma. I'm sure we have.

I press my lips together. The whiskey is starting to mellow me. I take a deep breath. “I tried to touch him,” I say, still looking out. “He hit me.”

Alma nods, but does not reply.

I face her. “He won't run away, will he?”

“So far he has not.
¿No?”

“No.” I take the last swallow of my drink. “Well,” I say. “I'm all out of answers. Time to call my husband.”

B
ut I don't get the opportunity to call Lars, because the dream does end at last.

“Well, that one was a doozy,” I tell Aslan, who yawns, showing off his cracked, yellowed teeth. He stands, executes a full-on kitty stretch, and then resettles himself on my bed. You're long and lean, I always tell him—a yellow-striped fighting machine. It's a joke between us, because he is anything but a long, lean fighting machine. My aging, chunky Aslan couldn't so much as catch a fly.

So here I am, where it's nice and quiet and I have private jokes with my cat. Back in the genuine, real world.

I smile to myself, thinking that it doesn't seem bad here at all.

Y
ou're in a good mood,” Frieda observes, a few hours later. I am humming as I dust the back upper shelves at the shop. She's at the counter, working on inventory.

“I haven't been sleeping well—but I guess I finally got enough sleep last night.” The idea amuses me; in truth, I am sure I did not sleep well at all. Anyone who dreams the kind of madness that I do is clearly not sleeping well. This train of thought causes me to break into peals of laughter. Frieda smiles, shakes her head, and returns to her books.

We have, at my suggestion, installed a phonograph, one that I purchased in a pawnshop on South Broadway. We both brought stacks of records from home, and now we have soft background music playing every day. At the moment, it's an old Ella Fitzgerald tune, about how nice it would be if falling in love was one's sole occupation.

I cock my head as I dust, listening to the lyrics. Sounds good in a song, Ella, I think—but honestly, in real life, it all depends on the circumstances, doesn't it?

I turn my gaze to Frieda. Next to her on the counter, propped on a wooden display rack, is the copy of
Ship of Fools
that I wanted to sell to the woman who came in the shop the other day. The one with the autistic daughter. In careful letters, I've printed a small sign and placed it in front of the book: R
ECOMMENDED
! B
EST
S
ELLER
!

Katherine Anne Porter, the short story writer and journalist, wrote that book. I read it earlier this year. In my view, the narration, like the ship itself, seemed rather adrift at times—but I think that was intentional, and it certainly didn't dilute the impact of the characters' struggles. Rather, Porter did an excellent job of exploring how people in a confined space can come to know more about each other than they might wish.

There's a scene in
Ship of Fools
in which one of the characters says something like, “Please do not tell me about yourself; I will not listen. I do not want to know you; I will not know you.” Those aren't the exact words, but it was something like that. It makes me think of my imaginary family. The family who, in my dream life, I'm getting to know, whether I want to or not.

From what I have heard, at some point in the 1930s Katherine Anne Porter was on a ship similar to the one she portrays in the novel; apparently she spoke little to the other passengers, but took copious notes. She let the notes lie dormant for years
before writing
Ship of Fools
. I have long admired Porter's work. Perhaps I feel a kinship with her because she lived in Denver for a time. In fact, I've heard that she almost died here in 1918, the year of the Spanish flu pandemic.

I consider this. If Porter had died in 1918—why then, she would not have written
Ship of Fools
. In that case, the woman would not have come into my shop, seeking it. I would not have had the rather embarrassing opportunity to ask her what ailed her child. And thus I would not have learned—at least not in this way—what clearly ails my own child in my dream life.

How odd—events turn so easily on a dime, don't they? In much the same way, if Lars and I had stayed on the telephone a few moments longer that night—if I had heard him having his heart attack, if I had been his savior—why then, none of this right now would be happening. Nothing in this life would be real. Instead, the life I have with him and the children would be my reality.

I shake my head and climb down the stepladder. I walk over to the counter and pick up the newspaper, turning to the sports section. I need to find out what happened last night in the final game of the World Series. “Darn it—they lost!” I exclaim.

Frieda looks up. “Who lost?”

“The Giants. They lost the series in game seven. Now what am I going to write for Greg?”

She shakes her head. “What are you talking about?”

“Never mind.” I give her a scowl and turn toward the door. I need some fresh air.

I go outside to sweep the front steps. It's a beautiful fall day, and I'm glad to be enjoying it, back here in the real world. I don't know why the dreams take place in the future; now that Michael has been so accommodating as to give me dates, I can see that it's just a few months from now. It doesn't make any sense. But then again, it's not real, so why should it make sense?

“Want to go out to dinner tonight?” I ask Frieda when I come back inside.

“What for?”

I shrug. “No reason. We just haven't had a ‘date' in a long time, sister.”

Frieda and I have been calling each other “sister” for most of our lives. That is where the name of our store comes from, of course—it was a natural choice for the store name, something we came up with simultaneously when we first discussed opening a bookstore together. Our use of the expression started in high school, when we wished we were real sisters. She was the oldest of four and the only girl in her family; I was an only child who, but for my mother's loss of those three baby boys, would have grown up with the same family structure. What each of us wanted most in her childhood was a sister.