The Bookseller (9 page)

At the corner of Pearl and Jewell, we pause before parting ways.

“Have a good night,” I tell her.

“You, too,” she replies, fishing in her purse for her cigarettes and lighter. “Any big plans?”

I avert my eyes. “Nothing special,” I mumble. “You?”

She shrugs, lighting up. “Just the usual old-maid-reading-and-going-to-bed-early routine.”

I smile and give her a brief hug; hers in response is one-armed, the hand holding her cigarette dangling away from my body. “Well, enjoy,” I say. “I'll see you tomorrow.”

I walk east on Jewell, passing my own block at Washington. Glancing over my shoulder, I make sure that Frieda has continued on her way and can no longer see me. Then I walk the few blocks to Downing Street and turn right toward Evans Avenue. I cross the street to wait for an eastbound bus.

At University Boulevard I change buses, heading south. I am not sure where the bus line will stop; in the real world, this is not a part of town into which I've ventured. Although I've been aware that there is a lot of new construction out here, until now this area has held no allure for me. There is nothing out here but enormous new houses, with enormous new schools and churches to go along with them.

The bus goes as far south as Yale Avenue. “Last stop,” the driver calls; I am the only person left on the bus. I hop off, then watch the bus turn around in an empty lot to make its way back north on University Boulevard. I walk farther south on University and after a few blocks turn east onto Dartmouth Street. A wrought-iron sign informs me that I have entered the Southern Hills neighborhood. I pass an elementary school on my left, a sprawling one-story brick building. Like everything else out here, it looks brand-new.

I keep going until I reach Springfield Street, and then I head south. All is as it was in my dream: freshly constructed houses, most of them ranches or split-levels, and lots of land being built upon. I don't remember the specifics of which houses existed and which didn't—it was so dark in the dream—but the feel of the neighborhood is just as I had seen it last night.

Even though I have never been on this particular street before.

I look for number 3258. I find 3248 and 3268.

But there is nothing between them except for an empty, treeless, rather hilly lot.

I stare at the space. I can see the pink-orange brick house in my mind. I know exactly how the house would sit on the land, the low roofline of the attached garage and main section of the house and the higher roof over the upper level. I can envision the saplings planted in the yard, the juniper bushes by the front door. I picture the driveway where Lars smoothly rolled up and parked the Cadillac. My mind visualizes the wooden lamppost next to which Alma stood and waited for her ride home.

But there is no house here, not even any plan for a house—none that I can see, at any rate. There is nothing here except brittle prairie grass, dirt, and weeds.

A man strolls by, an unleashed spaniel walking quietly beside him. The man looks up and tips his hat at me. “Evening, ma'am.” His bushy blond mustache lifts on each side as he gives me a small smile.

I nod. “Good evening.”

He apparently reads the confusion in my expression, because he asks, “Can I help you, ma'am?”

I tilt my head and turn toward the empty lot. “I was just . . . perhaps I have the wrong address. I was looking for 3258 South Springfield Street.”

He looks at the lot. “Well, this is where it would be, if there was a house there,” he replies. “But as you can see, there's no house.”

“No.” I turn away, looking over the horizon, to the mountains in the distant west. “Tell me, do you live around here?”

He nods, glancing down the street. “On the corner.”

“Have you lived there a long time?”

“Built in 'fifty-six. So a few years.”

“You don't—there isn't a family around here named Andersson, is there? The Lars Anderssons?”

He shakes his head. “I can't say for sure I know everyone,
but the wife does try to make a point of meeting newcomers and introducing them around.” He shrugs. “Can't say I've ever heard that name, though.”

“And this lot—right here—there's never been a house here? Or any construction here?”

His mustache twitches again. “Not since 'fifty-six, ma'am.”

I smile back. “All right. Thank you, then. I must have the street number mixed up.”

“Well, good luck to you in finding the Lars Anderssons, ma'am. Have a nice night.” And he strolls off, the dog at his side.

“Yes,” I say to his retreating figure. “You, too.”

T
here is nothing left to see. Feeling at once perplexed and a bit empty inside, I leave the Southern Hills neighborhood, walking slowly back to the corner of University and Yale. After waiting almost twenty minutes for a bus, I decide that they probably don't run into the evening this far out of town. Everyone out here has a car, anyway, I realize as I watch the late-model Fords, Chevys, and Dodges roll by. So I give up and continue walking north on University to Evans, where I catch the westbound bus. Altogether, I have probably walked three or four miles since starting this adventure, and I did not think to wear walking shoes. After taking a seat, I slide my heels partially off my blistered feet. I stare out the window until the bus reaches my stop. Then I put my shoes back on, step off the bus, and make my way up Washington Street.

As I walk, I start to move my arms. Before I realize what I am doing, I am swinging my right arm as if I'm holding a tennis racquet. It actually feels rather satisfying to move my arm that way—and instinctive as well, like it's something I have the natural strength and ability to do well. My feet don't even hurt anymore;
it's as if I never even took that long walk tonight. I laugh at myself, shaking my head. Nonsense. It's all nonsense; my head is playing tricks on me, and using my body as a clever prop.

It's a crisp, just-start-of-fall evening, and some of my neighbors are out on their porches. “Hello, there, Miss Kitty,” Mr. Morris on the corner calls out. He is smoking a cigar and rocking back and forth in his decrepit wooden rocking chair with its cane back. He is close to a hundred years old. He migrated here from Ohio with his parents and sisters in the 1870s, went to one of the first secondary schools in Denver, and graduated from DU when it was in its infancy. He worked as a newspaperman, raised a family, and now lives with his widowed son, who is no spring chicken himself. Mr. Morris says that he remembers his daddy coming home from the Civil War—though you have to wonder, doing the math, if the man who showed up was actually the man who fathered him or not.

“Good evening, Mr. Morris.” I wave, but I don't step up on his porch to chat, the way I sometimes do. I have too much on my mind.

Other neighbors also smile and greet me as I pass. I am well known in the neighborhood. I can imagine how someone from this area might describe me to a newcomer:
Quirky old maid, to be sure, but nice enough, and she runs such a lovely bookshop on Pearl Street! Really, you should stop in and browse.

As I walk toward home, I can't help noticing the contrast with Southern Hills. So much land out there, so much space between the houses. And so few tall trees. Most of the yards had a sapling or two, but none of the soaring spruces and cottonwoods that line my street.

Platt Park, the neighborhood I call home, has been here since the early part of the century. It was settled by religious families who emigrated from the Netherlands to Little Holland, as the
area is still sometimes called. It shows in the Dutch-gabled roofs of many of the houses, not to mention the plethora of Christian Reformed churches. Nowadays this is mostly a blue-collar neighborhood, populated with maintenance and cleaning employees at the university, people who work in the factories on South Broadway, and some who, in the old days, would take the trolley to secretarial and retail jobs downtown.

These days, of course, folks take the bus. The bus that doesn't run by our shop, and therefore doesn't provide us with any customers.

I know that I should be pondering a solution to that problem. I know that Frieda, these days, is thinking of little else.

Still, I can't get my mind off Springfield Street and those long, lean houses. I can see the appeal. All that space. All that air to breathe.

As I approach my duplex, I spot Greg Hansen out front. He is the son of my neighbors, who own the duplex. The Hansens' only child, Greg is perhaps eight or nine years old. He is bouncing a large, red rubber ball against the brick side of the building—
my
side, I note with some annoyance. He better watch it around the windows.

Jeepers, I sound like a curmudgeon.

“Hi, Greg.” I climb the steps and retrieve my afternoon
Denver Post
from my doorstep. I'm a newspaper addict; one paper a day isn't enough for me, so I read the
Rocky
in the morning and the
Post
in the evening.

“Hey, Miss Miller.” Greg continues bouncing.

“Whatcha doing?” I ask him, fishing in my purse for my keys.

He shrugs. “Ma sent me out. Says if I'm not going to do my homework, I might as well get out from underfoot.”

I find my keys and close the clasp on my purse. “Why aren't you doing your homework?”

He shrugs again. “Don't like it.” The ball bounces against the wall once, twice, three times. “Don't like school, ma'am.” He peers up at the sky. “Wow, what a fine color the sunset is,” he remarks. “I don't think I've ever seen it so orange.”

I set my purse on the green-and-yellow nylon-weave aluminum rocking chair that I keep on my side of the porch, then walk to the railing and lean over it. Greg is right; the sunset is brilliant tonight, the orange and pink hues weaving together to the west as the sun sinks in a scarlet blaze behind the mountains. But it seems an unusually keen observation for one so young, and for a boy. Perhaps, I muse, Greg is an artist in the making.

I take a good look at him. He is lanky, dark-haired, freckled. His grubby white T-shirt and dungarees hang loosely on his body. His bangs fall into his eyes.

“Greg,” I say. He glances at me, back at the sky, and then at the wall. “Are there
any
subjects you like in school?”

He considers this, and throws the ball again. “Math is okay. I do all right in math, sometimes.”
Bounce, bounce.
“The rest is really hard.”

“What's hard? What do you find the hardest?”

He looks up at me. “Reading,” he says flatly. “I just . . . I don't know, ma'am, I just don't get it. I read real slow, and . . .” He looks away, embarrassed.

“Have you . . .” I am not sure how to word this. “Surely your teacher could give you some extra help.”

“Ma'am, no disrespect, but my teacher has a mess of kids in her class. I don't know how many there are, but it's lots. Sometimes she doesn't even remember my name.”

I nod, thinking about that. I remember that feeling from my teaching days. So many kids, all needing so much from their schoolteacher, even if they were loath to admit it. All those eyes
staring at the teacher. Some of them blank, a few of them not. A few of them following what the teacher is saying. But so many not.

But for all of them, regardless of their ability, the responsibility for their education falls to the teacher. And who can fulfill that for every single kid? What teacher is capable of that?

But what if Greg doesn't learn to read? What does he have to look forward to, if he can't even read?

“Greg,” I say firmly. “I've got some wonderful kids' books in my apartment. Some swell books for boys. Hardy Boys—do you know those?—and some very funny books about a boy named Henry Huggins and his dog Ribsy. Would you like to come over tonight and take a look at them? Perhaps we could look at them together and see if there is something you'd enjoy reading.” I smile at him. “I could help you,” I say quietly, coaxingly. “I think . . . I think it would be fun for both of us, actually.”

He bounces the ball a few more times, biting his lip. “Let me think about it.”

He doesn't look at me. After a minute or two, I go inside and close my door.

A
fter dinner, I resolutely push Springfield Street and the dream man—and his dream children and even his dream housekeeper—out of my head. Keeping my mind on young Greg Hansen, I go through my bookshelves and pull out all the children's books I have that are appropriate for beginning readers. I am not sure exactly how much trouble Greg has with his reading, how far behind he is, or even what difference I could possibly make. But if he is willing to give it a whirl—why then, I am willing to help.

Just before eight, there is a knock on my door. I dash over and
open it, and Greg is standing there in the half darkness, looking small and anxious in my porch light.

“I thought . . .” He looks down. “I thought maybe you could show me some of those books.”

“Of course.” I smile and usher him inside.

I
am floating in a pool of green. My eyes are half closed, but through the slits of them I make out that the room I'm in is dimly lit. I wiggle around a bit and feel warm water rush over my body.

I open my eyes all the way, expecting to see the sea-green bathroom in the house on Springfield Street. Instead, I find myself in a much smaller bathroom. Like the bathroom in the split-level house, this one has green walls and fixtures—in this case a toilet, a pedestal sink, and the small bathtub in which I lie, half covered with warm water. The bathtub faucet is marked with elaborately engraved letters, swirled versions of a
C
and an
F
. A thick yellow candle in a clear glass dish sits on a wooden shelf next to the sink, its flame flickering in the shadowy room. A white towel is neatly folded on the closed toilet-seat lid, waiting for me to dry off when I finish bathing. On a hook on the back of the door hangs a short peignoir—lacy, tiny, and ruby-red. Good heavens, I think, who is going to wear
that
?