The Bookseller (39 page)

“I want out,” I said firmly. “I don't care what you do, but I want out. This isn't working for me—and let's be honest, it's not working for you, either. You figure this out, Frieda. It's your fault, not mine. So you get out of this mess, if you can. Go on and do all the big things you want to do with this business. I don't care.”

“How can I do that?” she challenged me. “I have no money, Kitty.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “That,” I told her, “is
not
my problem.”

It
wasn't
my problem—I made sure of it. I got out, and I stayed out. I remember it now. The money I inherited, not long
after Frieda and I quarreled—in this world, that money did not go toward saving Sisters' Bookshop. What did I do with it? I shrug, and then it comes to me. I used it to hire a lawyer to get me out of the Sisters' mess—that's where most of it went. And the remainder? I smile wryly. That nice sofa and the other fine furniture in the living room on Springfield Street—that's where the rest of my grandfather's money went, in this world.

F
rieda had strode to Sisters' front windows and looked out on empty Pearl Street for a few seconds. Then she turned back to me. “What will you do with yourself?” she asked. But not nicely, not like she actually wanted to know. Her tone was mocking. “Mrs. Housewife, huh? Well, fine. It's what you always wanted, anyway.”

“It is
not
what I always wanted. It's just what happened. It's just how things turned out.” I stood up, wringing my hands. “It turned on a dime, Frieda. For God's sake, I almost didn't even
meet
him. The poor man could have died.”

She snickered. “Yes. Quite a tale. You ought to call the newspapers. It would make a charming human-interest story.”

“With what ending?” I asked softly. “How would it end?”

“Well.” She turned away again, refusing to look at me. “I guess we're finding that out, aren't we?”

N
ow, seated across from me in her office, Frieda glares at me. “You left me with nothing,” she says. “Next to nothing. A pile of bills. A few hundred books in our inventory. Some miscellaneous store equipment. And not a dime to move forward with.”

I look down at my lap. “You could have asked your parents for help.” I tentatively raise my eyes to meet hers.

“How could I do that?” She presses her lips together. “How could I ask them? How could I go to them, tail between my legs, and admit failure? I hadn't . . .” She looks out the plate-glass window, then back at me. “I hadn't made a success of the bookstore. I hadn't done anything right, in their eyes. I hadn't . . .” She hesitates, and then adds, “I hadn't married. I hadn't found another . . . person . . . to share my life with.”

I wait for her to go on. But she is silent, her eyes downcast. She taps her cigarette against the ashtray on her desk, and a few ashes float in the air for a moment before settling into the porcelain dish.

I think about Jim Brooks, the man Frieda told me about in the other world, the imaginary world. He sounds so right for where she is in her life—in that life. Well, of course, I think. Naturally, I would invent a happy ending for Frieda, in that happy-ending world.

In this world, the real world, things are different for her, both personally and professionally. I don't know where or how she got the funds to move forward with the business. I don't believe she would have gone to her parents, but Frieda is clever and resourceful enough to have come up with something. Perhaps she did find an investor, just as she did in my made-up world. Nonetheless, I doubt that the affable and smitten Jim Brooks—or any actual person who resembles him—has a place in the life Frieda has here.

And I realize, quite suddenly, why that is.

Frieda doesn't want Jim Brooks, or anyone like him. That sort of person was never the partner she longed for.

What Frieda wanted was a
true companion
. Just as my mother said. No—more than that. More than what my mother thinks Frieda and I have, in the imaginary world.

But I made a different choice. What did my choice do to her?
Not just to our business—that was one thing, a small thing, really.

The real question is, what did my choice do to her heart?

I shake my head. I can't believe I failed to see it until today.

“Freeds,” I say softly. “Freeds. I'm so . . . I'm sorry.”

She looks up. “Well,” she says, putting her cigarette to her lips. She breathes in, then turns her head to the side and exhales. “Life takes its own peculiar twists and turns, does it not?”

I lean forward, the fingers of both hands clutching my handbag, rhythmically closing and opening the gold-toned clasp. “I hope you . . . maybe someday you can . . .” I trail off, because I don't know what to say.

Frieda watches me silently. “Perhaps you're right,” she says finally. “Perhaps I can.” Her eyes gaze into mine. “Maybe seeing you is what I needed. Maybe it will help me . . . go on from here.”

I smile timidly. “I hope so, Freeds. I truly hope so.”

She stands up, takes one last drag on her cigarette, and stubs it out. “I need to return that call,” she says, her voice even. She comes around the desk and puts her hand lightly on my shoulder, then removes it immediately. “Please know, Kitty, that I really am very sorry about your parents.” Our eyes meet—and hers, usually so dancing and light-filled, look dreary and dark.

I turn away, blinking.

Frieda takes a breath. I force myself to swivel my head, to look at her again. “And I'm sorry I didn't come to your parents' funeral,” she goes on. “You were right. I should have been there.”

I rise. My knees feel wobbly. “Thank you,” I say. “It means a lot to me, hearing you say that.”

She nods. “Well. Take care of yourself, and that husband, and the children.”

“I will. You take care of yourself, too. Maybe . . .” I hesitate. “Maybe we can see each other again . . . sometime.”

“Maybe.” Her eyes turn again toward the window, then back to me. She wraps her arms around herself, tucking her hands under her sleeves. “My secretary will see you out. Good-bye, Kitty.”

Frieda swallows hard, and I can tell that she not only wants but
needs
me to leave.

I nod at her one last time before crossing the carpet and walking out the door.

O
utside, the snow is melting on the sidewalk. Cars whiz past on Eighteenth Street; a bus rumbles to the curb, then pulls away without dispensing any passengers. The sun gleams in the west, and I shade my eyes as I step through the revolving door of Frieda's building.

And there, standing on the sidewalk in front of me, are my parents.

“Mother,” I breathe. “Daddy.”

They smile at me, and I want to go to them, hold them—but I know that my parents are not actually there. They are present only inside my head.

“I'm imagining you,” I say. “I'm making this up. Right?”

“Kitty.” My mother comes forward and puts her hand on my shoulder. I marvel at the way my mind has conjured her touch, exactly as if she were truly standing there with her fingers pressed to the fabric of my coat.

The imagination, it turns out, is a remarkably clever and hardworking creature.

“We just want to say good-bye, honey,” my dad says. “That's all. Just good-bye.” He steps next to my mother, inches from me. “And that we love you.”

“I love you, too,” I whisper. I'm vaguely aware of a man in
a dark topcoat and hat passing on my right, then turning back to look at me quizzically. To him, I must appear nothing more than a crazy lady on the sidewalk, a mildly insane person who is speaking to thin air.

“So I won't see you anymore?” I ask my parents. “I won't . . . I'm not going back there anymore?” I turn away, biting my lip. “Back to the other world, I mean. I'm not going back there again, am I?”

Even as I ask these questions, I already know the answers—because I am the one who is directing what my parents would say. If they were actually here speaking to me, that is.

“Kitty.” My mother puts her fingers on my forehead. “Take it out of here,” she says. “Put it here instead.” I watch as she taps my heart.

“I understand,” I say, nodding. “I'll miss you.”

My father shakes his head. “You won't need to,” he says. “You'll always have us—just in a different form. Not in the way you thought you would.”

“You'll help me . . . watch over my babies . . . won't you?” I swallow hard. “I can't take care of my children . . . Michael . . . without you.”

My mother laughs her beautiful laugh. “You can, Kitty. Don't doubt yourself. Don't doubt Lars. And especially”—her smile is generous—“don't doubt Michael.”

I blink back tears, and then I close my eyes.

When I open them again, my parents have vanished.

I
sit in the station wagon outside Mitch and Missy's school, my gloved hands on the wheel. I am thinking about the other world, about being Kitty. I remember my mother's hand, how I could feel her touch. How I could hear her voice. I will always, I think, be able to hear my parents' voices in my head.

I glance at my watch. Two forty-five. Mitch and Missy will come out that door soon, the one to my right, the double set with the snowman drawings taped to the windows. They will emerge with satchels flying behind them, jackets unbuttoned, mittens loose on their strings. Their blond curls will shimmer in the afternoon sunlight as they skim across the sidewalk, coming toward me as I wait.

By ten minutes after three, I will have returned to the house on Springfield Street with Mitch and Missy in tow. Michael will still be counting coins. Michael has probably counted and re-counted coins all afternoon. Michael may very well do little else besides eat, sleep, and count coins for as many days as we allow him to.

Alma will give everyone a snack: milk, an apple, a cookie. I will make a fresh pot of coffee and sit with the children while they eat, while Mitch and Missy tell us about their days. While Michael rhythmically counts nickels, pennies, quarters.

Afterward, we will leave him to his counting, and Mitch and Missy will begin their homework. They will have reading to do; their reading has improved tremendously this year, and I know that if I took the time to listen to them read aloud more often, it would get even better. After each of them has read to me for fifteen minutes, I will have them work on handwriting. Alma will put a cut-up chicken in the oven and start washing and snapping green beans.

At four thirty, I will allow the children one hour of
The Mickey Mouse Club
. Michael will bring the coin jar with him to the living room and will sit on the floor counting coins, occasionally glancing at the television when the other two laugh at something one of the Mouseketeers has said or done. This activity will get us to five thirty, when Lars will walk in the door and dinner will be placed on the table.

Michael will spill his milk, because Michael always spills his milk. And I will clean it up, because I don't think it's fair to expect Alma to do that.

In the evening, we will attempt a family game of Parcheesi. Either Lars or I will have to be on Michael's team, because he won't be able to sit still long enough to move his pieces properly. He will wander away, back to the coins. He will be tired after his long day, which I know from experience means he is more likely to retreat into babyish habits that he ought long ago to have given up. I will have to keep a watchful eye on him, to make sure he doesn't put any coins in his mouth.

At seven fifteen, Missy will take a bath, and when she is done, the boys will be bathed. It will be Lars's night with Missy, so after her hair is brushed—a job he leaves to me—he will tuck her in and tell her a story.

I will supervise the boys as they don their matching pajamas and climb into their matching beds. Michael will ask if he can
sleep with the coins, and I will tell him no. He will scream, and Lars will have to come in and comfort him. We will compromise by letting him have the empty coin jar in his bed all night, the coins dumped into a bowl that I take into our bedroom and place on a high shelf in the closet. That way, I know Michael won't be able to get to them without waking Lars or me up.

Once the children are settled in bed, Lars and I will come downstairs, and he'll fix us a drink. We will catch each other up on our days. I will tell him about going to see Frieda, and he will be surprised that I did it, but not surprised at the things she said. Lars will hold me and comfort me as I choke up.

I will
not
tell him all the details; Frieda's sentiments are not mine to share with anyone, even Lars.

After we finish our drinks, we will move on to separate tasks—Lars to his office to catch up on paperwork; I to the bedroom to tidy up, then perhaps back to the living room to read. I will seek excuses to walk down the hallway. I will stare at the photograph of my parents and me. I will go out of my way throughout the evening to pass by and glance at it once, twice, again and again. When Lars catches me at this, he will put his arms around me from the back and hold me tight, looking at the picture over my shoulder.

At ten o'clock in the evening, we will retire. We will climb quietly into bed, and we will make love affectionately, openly—but slowly, as always, to protect his heart. Afterward, I will rest beside him as he gently rubs my back.

And then I will sleep.

I
know all of this. I am as sure of it as I've ever been of anything.

I am as sure of it as I am of everything in the world where I was Kitty.

The other world, I know now, has faded. I am here. I am where I belong.