The Bookseller (10 page)

The frosted-glass casement window is slightly opened, and from outside I can hear the sounds of street vendors and music—an
accordion
? How odd!—drifting toward my ears.

I stretch my arms forward and wiggle my hands in front of me. I smile, admiring the rings on my left hand. I take a closer look at them today than I did the
first time I noticed them, the first time I entered this dream world. The wedding ring is a wide gold band; along with it, I wear a brilliant diamond ring with an etched gold setting. I am no expert on diamonds, but this stone seems respectably sized. It is not so huge that it is gaudy or flashy, but it's certainly large enough that it doesn't look cheap.

My hands themselves look better than I've ever seen them—devoid of their customary ragged cuticles, the nails polished a pale pink. These hands, too, are decidedly younger and less wrinkly than they are in real life.

There is a knock on the door, and Lars hesitantly sticks his head in. “Just wanted to check on you, love,” he says. “Make sure you didn't fall asleep in here.”

I smile at him, my heart filled with adoration. “Come in and keep me company.”

He laughs. “I don't think I'd fit in that little tub.” He steps into the bathroom, closes the door, and looks around the tiny space. “The French sure don't make anything oversize, do they? Except meals.” He pats his stomach. “What a dinner that was! I can't remember the last time I ate so well.”

“Just take it easy on the pastries,” I warn him playfully. I have no idea what I am talking about, or why I am saying such a thing. It just comes out.

It is then that I notice Lars looks younger, too. He has more hair on his head, and only a few strands of gray. In casual slacks, a white shirt, and no tie, he seems leaner, his body relaxed and comfortable. When he smiles, there are creases around his blue eyes, but they are not as deep as those I remember from my other dreams.

“You look amazing,” I tell him. “You look so young and healthy.”

He leans over and kisses me. “You look pretty amazing yourself.” He deliberately looks me up and down, naked in the tub. “Every inch of you.”

Suddenly I remember the photograph on the wall of our bedroom on Springfield Street—and I understand. We are on our honeymoon. We are in Paris. “Oh!” I exclaim.

He laughs again. “Have an insight? Something you want to share?”

I smile. “Not really.” I look around. “I'll tell you this, though,” I say. “I want a green bathroom like this someday. I want all the fixtures in my bathroom to be sea green like this. It's the loveliest color I've ever bathed in.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me.” He glances around the room, then back at me. “Maybe a bathroom that's a little bigger than this, though, don't you think?”

I wiggle in the water. “Maybe a little.”

“You're going to turn into a prune if you don't get out.”

“You're right. I'll be out in just a moment.” I sneak a peek at the lingerie hanging on the back of the door.

He smiles tenderly at me. “I'll go pour us a nightcap.” He goes out and gently closes the door.

I remember the last dream I had, when we were in bed and I was afraid to shut my eyes—afraid that if I did, I'd leave this lovely, imaginary world and wake up at home. Floating here, bathed not just in water but in happiness, I feel that same way again. I do not want to wake up from this dream-within-a-dream.

D
espite this, I apparently drift off, at least for a moment or two. But when I open my eyes again, I am in the other green bathroom, the one in Denver. The one in the house that doesn't exist, that I share with the people who are not real.

I look at my hands. The rings are there, all right—looking a bit less glittery, to be sure, but nonetheless the same wedding set.
I notice with dismay that the wrinkles are there, too. I glance at my stomach, see stretch marks on the sides of my body. We must be back in 1962.

There is another knock, on another bathroom door. I hear Lars's voice. “You okay, Katharyn?”

“Yes,” I reply. “I'm fine.”

“Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

Lars enters the bathroom, looking like the middle-aged Lars I am now used to. Nonetheless, he looks gorgeous to me. He may be balder and paunchier, but his blazing blue eyes haven't changed. And I can tell that when he looks at me, he doesn't see wrinkles or stretch marks. He just sees me, and what he sees is still beautiful.

“I love you,” I blurt out. “I absolutely and positively love everything about you.”

He smiles. “Hey, now, don't get carried away.” He pulls a towel from the bar and places it on the edge of the vanity, where I can more easily reach it when I'm done. “You've been in here a long time,” he says. “You'll turn into a prune.”

I laugh. “You and your prune jokes.”

He looks at me quizzically.

“Do you remember our honeymoon?” I ask. “Remember the green bathroom in Paris?”

“Of course. You said that's why you wanted a green bathroom. You wanted one just like that one. Except larger.”

“I did say that,” I concur. “And you know what, Lars? I
remember
saying it. I remember!” I know I probably sound childish, gleeful. But I can't help it.

Lars laughs. “I'm glad to hear you sounding more like yourself.” His voice lowers. “I've been so worried about you, Katharyn,” he says. “We all have been.”

“Why?” I ask. “Why are you worried?”

“Honey.” He comes forward and kisses the top of my head. “Just relax and finish your bath. The important thing is that
you
try not to worry.”

“I'm not worried. I'm in love.”

He shakes his head. “You're cute tonight.” He turns toward the door. “Finish up, and I'll pour us a nightcap.”

A
dream inside a dream. A dream of a minor—albeit pleasant—incident that never happened. All inside a dream of an entire life that never happened.

When I wake up at home, alone in my own bed, I realize something quite unsettling.

I have fallen in love with a ghost.

I
have to stop thinking about it. I have to put these dreams out of my waking mind. They are confusing and pathetic, and they do me no good whatsoever.

Fortunately, I have other concerns with which to occupy myself. Forcefully pushing Lars out of my head—it makes me feel smugly self-satisfied, like refusing a second helping of dessert when I am trying to trim unwanted pounds from my hips—I instead turn my mind to the previous evening with young Greg Hansen.

We began with Hardy Boys and Beverly Cleary books, but he struggled with the first few pages of each. “Use the pictures as clues to what the text might say,” I'd advised him—remembering how he'd noticed the sunset, I figured that Greg likely learns best when there are visual cues. But as soon as I provided this counsel, I realized how useless the suggestion was. Mine would have been fine advice if Greg were reading a picture book, something akin to the
Madeline's Rescue
story that young Missy was reading the first time I dreamed about my other life. But books like the Hardy Boys series and Cleary's novels, books with topics that might interest Greg, have only a few pictures scattered throughout, not one on every page.

Setting the advanced books aside, I pulled my old Dick and Jane readers off the shelf. Greg scoffed when he saw the covers.

“Those are baby books. They're boring,” he proclaimed.

“Can you read them?”

Greg shrugged. I opened one and tapped the first page. He squinted at the words. “‘Spot has the ball,'” he recited. “‘See Spot run with the ball.'” He looked up at me. “There, you see? I can read that.”

“Greg.” I closed the book with a swoosh of the pages. “Why do I get the feeling you've seen this book before?”

He reddened. “Maybe I have, maybe I haven't. But I still read it!” he said defensively.

“Okay.” I placed the book on the side table next to my davenport. “Let me poke around for something else.” I looked into his eyes. “Will you come back another time, if I can find something more interesting for you to read?”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

R
emembering the conversation with Greg last night, I am eager this morning to get to the shop. My mail is arriving just as I leave my duplex; hastily I grab my mother's postcard and read it while walking.

Poor Mother. I am distressed to hear her sound so melancholy; it's not like her at all. As I unlock the shop door, I resolve to write her a long letter this evening, after work.

Frieda and I don't have a large selection for kids, just a few classics and some newer children's books from the publishers' catalogs, books that we find interesting and salable. But surely, I think as I comb the children's section, there must be something that would appeal to Greg, at a level he can comprehend.

To my surprise, I discover nothing appropriate. The books he'd find interesting would be too difficult for him to read. And those he
could
read are too lackluster to hold his attention.

On my lunch hour, I walk over to the Decker Branch Library, just a few blocks from Pearl Street. It's the same story there as at our shop. Plenty of beginning-reader books . . . as long as one assumes that the beginning reader is five or six years old. I check out a few Dr. Seuss books. I know they will not satisfy him, but I need to start somewhere.

“This isn't much better than the one from last night,” Greg complains that evening, after a few pages of
Green Eggs and Ham
. “I'm sorry, Miss Miller, I know you're trying to help me, but . . .” He looks down at his feet, embarrassed.

“Greg,” I say, an idea suddenly forming in my head. “If you could read a book about any subject, what would it be?”

“Baseball,” he says without hesitation. “I would love to read a story about baseball.”

I nod. “I'll see what I can do.”

Of course, there are no baseball stories for nine-year-olds who can't read. I look through our catalogs, I go back to Decker, and I even make a trip to the downtown library—my second time there in as many weeks, I note, and the reasons couldn't be more different. But I find no stories that would appeal to Greg.

So I decide to write some for him.

I start by asking him questions. “How exactly does the game work, Greg? What are the rules?”

He rolls his eyes. “Everyone knows the rules of baseball, Miss Miller.”

“Well, pretend that I don't. Pretend you're explaining it to someone who's never heard of baseball. Maybe someone from another country, where they don't play baseball.”

He looks astounded. “Don't they play baseball everywhere?”

I smile and shake my head. “Actually, they do not.”

It's a warm evening, and we're sitting on my porch, he on the railing and me in my aluminum rocker. I have a notebook in my lap. As he talks, I take notes on what he says.

“In major-league baseball, there are two leagues, the American League and the National League,” he tells me. “The best team in the National League right now is the San Francisco Giants. They're a shoo-in for the series.”

“The series?”

He scoffs at me. “The World Series, Miss Miller.” He looks up, thoughtful. “You know . . . it's funny that they call it the World Series, if they don't even play baseball all over the world.” He shrugs. “I've never thought about that before.”

I smile again. “Neither have I, actually.”

“Anyway,” he goes on, turning back to me. “My favorite player is Willie Mays. He's colored, and some kids at school say you shouldn't like him because he's colored, but that's just stupid, if you ask me.” His eyes narrow. “If a player can hit the ball, who cares what color his skin is? Not me. You should see Willie Mays hit. He can send it screaming out of Candlestick Park—that's where the Giants play, in San Francisco.” Greg looks up at the twilit sky. “I would give anything—
anything
—just once, to sit in a major-league ballpark and see Mays hit a home run.”

“Anything,” I repeat, scribbling in my notebook. “Wouldn't that be something?”

T
wo nights later, I knock on the Hansens' door. Greg answers.

“I'm sorry the pictures are so basic,” I tell him as I hand him a set of stapled, handwritten pages. “I'm no artist. But I thought you'd enjoy this story anyway.” I smile. “And even if the drawings are terrible, it's nice to have some pictures to go with the story.” Unlike the first books I tried to read with him—the books by Beverly Cleary, and the Hardy Boys stories—in the book I've written for Greg, I have included drawings, minimal as they are, on each page.

Greg shuffles through the pages. “It's about baseball,” he says, scanning the artwork and maybe—
maybe!
—even the words.

I nod.

“It's about Willie Mays.” He turns page after page. “I know how to read his name from the headlines in the sports section of the newspaper. You wrote a story about Mays . . . and . . . and . . .” He looks more closely at the pages. “And
my
name is in it, too.” He looks up. “What am I doing in the story?”