by Meg Wolfe
nearly stopped to say hello, then suddenly remembered that Frank had passed away several years ago. Perhaps it was his son. Or perhaps her mind was playing tricks on her, making similar things seem like things she once really knew. A familiar-looking rusty Volvo station wagon passed by on Sheffield Street, and she expected to see one of her former colleagues driving it, but once again it was a trick of memory. Here among the old houses, the stage had changed very little as the actors came and went.
She shared this observation with Jimmy, who came over with a coffee while she ate her breakfast.
“Will this town always seem full of ghosts?”
He seemed to consider the question, but she had the feeling he was filing it away for later reference, as well—she had come to understand that there was more to Jimmy than met the eye.
“I’m certain it won’t if you open yourself up to it,” he said. “Replace the bad old memories with new good ones.”
She looked at him askance. “Sounds like positive thinking, that I’ll draw new and good things to me if I just have the right attitude.”
Jimmy burst out laughing. “Oh, c’mon, Charlotte. I’m the last person to believe in magnetic nonsense—that kind of lack of reality played a big role in our economic troubles. No, the good things are there, but you have to be open to the possibility, be open and lie in wait for things to reveal themselves.”
“Sounds like wildlife photography,” said Simon, who had walked up with his own breakfast. “Or espionage?”
“Good morning!” said Charlotte. “It’s neither, actually.”
“Charlotte here,” said Jimmy, “is experiencing a sort of Brigadoon in reverse. She’s reappeared in town after a long time and her brain is playing catch-up.”
Simon nodded in understanding as he sat down next to Charlotte at her invitation. “I’ve had that happen a couple of times when I’ve gone back to my old neighborhood. But he’s right. If it is logical that something is there, or that you have it on good authority, then it is reasonable to be open to the possibility and, well, wait for the shot.”
“I guess it’ll just take time. But I’m glad I’m back. I’m seeing a lot of possibilities for how my life here could take shape.”
Jimmy went back to the counter to help out, and Simon ate his breakfast in a hurry.
“Sorry to run, but I don’t want to be late for the faculty meeting this morning. Want to get a proposal in for next semester, and then I need to face the hordes begging for mid-term extensions. Going to Olivia’s today?”
“Yeah, in a little while. I’m actually waiting for Ramona’s Resale to open up, to see if I can find out anything about Olivia’s book collection.”
“Good idea. I’ll be by as soon as I can get away, and maybe we can get the valuation video finished up.”
“See you soon, Simon.”
He looked down at her as he slipped into his leather jacket, with an expression she couldn’t interpret, and then just turned and left.
There had been a dusty, musty, junk shop in the big old three-story building across from the Post Office for at least thirty years. It closed for a while when the owner became too old and ill to operate it, then, according to a newspaper article Charlotte read some years back, Benny Ramona bought it, cleaned it up a bit, brought in some new stock, and named it Ramona’s Resale. He used a red heart as the shop’s logo, not only for the “I (Heart) Ramona’s Resale” bumper stickers and tote bags, but on the spines of paperback books, because he ran a paperback book exchange from the shop, as well. Those stickers were on many of Olivia’s books.
The door at the front of the building was locked, with a sign saying “Entrance in Alley” and an arrow pointing one in the right direction. Charlotte went that way, and walked about a quarter of a block down the brick-paved alley until she reached a heart-shaped sign hanging over the pavement from a bracket. There was a bike rack, which she took advantage of, and with the realization that there were many, many more bike racks around town these days than ten years ago.
The shop door was a cheerful, red-painted new one styled like a full-length French door, and she went in with a more positive attitude than she would have in its previous incarnation. She knew that Ellis and her friends went there to find cheap and unusual clothes and jewelry, but up to this moment she had never had cause to go there herself.
What she saw amazed her. It was as if the owner had taken ten houses like Olivia’s and spread out the contents, from furniture to clothing to knickknacks. The checkout counter was next to the door, manned by a stout, muscular young woman whose bleached-blond hair was swept back off her face in a lion’s-mane halo. Her name tag, appropriately enough, said “Aslan.” Charlotte murmured hello, and Aslan nodded back.
There were several rooms on the main floor, mostly full of furniture and large items like a popcorn wagon and two pinball machines, and a back room with nothing but large appliances. A sign by the staircase said “Books, Clothes, More Furniture,” with another arrow, this one pointing up. Charlotte went that way, too.
The rooms with clothing were distinguished by funky (where several flashy college girls were sorting through the racks and having a laugh), and not-so-funky (where a handful of quiet older men and women did not appear to be shopping for fun). There were two rooms of books, one with mostly hardbacks and the other with all paperbacks. A large handmade sign explained the book exchange regulations in the paperbacks room. The hardback room, however, had no signs other than “Priced as Marked,” and included a couple of old-fashioned horsehair-stuffed armchairs for one’s reading comfort. A curly-headed man in his thirties, wearing tan corduroy trousers and an argyle sweater vest over a pinstriped shirt, was sitting in one of them and reading an old historical atlas. He looked up through thick-lensed glasses as she came in.
“Hello. I’m Benny Ramona. Let me know if there’s anything I can help you with.”
“There might be,” said Charlotte, and she explained her relationship to Olivia and why she was there.
“Oh, yes. I saw the obituary, and of course the article about what happened to poor Olivia,” he said. “I rather liked the old girl—she was one of my first and best customers, and then she suddenly stopped coming a couple of years ago. Probably the stairs were getting to be too much. She bought hundreds of books, including a lot from the old stock that was already here when I bought the place. Two or three times she bought so many that I delivered them to her house, they were too much for her to carry with that wonky arm of hers.”
“Do you know if she purchased any first editions?”
“She might have. She purchased quite a few books in French. There was a whole slew of books here in French and German, a lot of discards from the university library and possibly from retired professors’ stockpiles. I don’t read either language, and my profit margins don’t really allow for appraisals. If it’s new stock, I’ve put a sticker on it, like so, and specify the title on the sales slip.” He pointed to one such book on the shelf next to him. “If it’s from the stock that was already here when I bought the place, I sell it at the price already marked inside the cover, and just write ‘old stock’ on the sales slip.”
“Do you know if she bought any Seamus O’Dair books?”
Benny smiled in understanding. “Like a first edition of Least Objects? Oh, if I knew that she did, I’d be kicking myself right now. But I honestly don’t recall having come across any copies of any of his books, at least not in the new stock.”
Charlotte thanked him for his help, and complimented him on the store.
“Thank you, Ms. Anthony. Please feel free to come back if you have any more questions, or anything you think I could help you with.” He rose and proffered her his hand, and they shook. Then he continued, “May I ask you a personal question?”
Charlotte was surprised, but nodded her assent.
“You look familiar, as is your name. Would you happen to be related to Ellis Anthony?”
“Yes. That’s my daughter.”
He looked thoroughly pleased. “I knew it! Tell her I said hello, and that Aslan and I both miss her.”
Things had definitely been disturbed in Olivia’s house since they were there two days earlier. Helene shook her head sadly. “I don’t know what to do, Charlotte. Drat Donovan, anyway.” She turned to close the front door, and turned the deadbolt.
“I do,” said Charlotte, determined to keep cheerful and professional. “We’ll pick up where we left off with the notebook clues, and when Simon gets here, we’ll have him take pictures of how things are today and compare them to earlier ones. The most important thing is to try to find the notebooks, and then get out of here for good.”
“I suppose,” Helene sighed, and pursed her lips. Charlotte knew that her friend was not used to having her wishes ignored.
They once again looked at the clue in the most recent notebook: Elle et lui. Charlotte told Helene that she had entered the words in an Internet search and came up with it as a title to the 19th-century author George Sand’s account of her affair with the poet Alfred de Musset. “It’s French and literary,” she explained, “so maybe there is something to it. It looked like the strongest candidate of all the search results that turned up.”
Helene looked genuinely perplexed. “George Sand? Are there any books by her on the shelves?”
They looked along the
