I Love Galesburg in the Springtime

by Jack Finney

  "Al,.what in the world is the matter with you?" she said. Her voice was still astonished but she'd quit trying to draw back.

  "Nothing you can't remedy," I said, "in a variety of delightful ways," and I kissed her again.

  "Honey," she murmured after a considerable time, "I have to fix supper," and she made a little token effort to get away.

  "Supper can wait," I answered, and my voice was a full octave deeper, "but I can't." Again I kissed her, hard and eagerly, full on the lips. Her great big beautiful blue eyes widened in amazement—then they slowly closed and she smiled languorously.

  Marion's face abruptly rose up in my mind. There in the forefront of my consciousness and conscience suddenly was her betrayed and indignant face, every bit as vivid as though she'd actually walked in through the door to discover this sultry brunette in my arms; and I could feel my face flame with guilt. Because I couldn't kid myself, I couldn't possibly deny the intensity of the pleasure I'd felt at this girl in my arms. I knew how very close I'd come to betraying Marion and I felt terribly ashamed and stood wondering—this long length of glorious girlhood still in my arms—how to end the situation with charm and grace. A moment later her eyes opened and she looked up at me questioningly, those full ripe moist lips slightly apart. "Hate to say this," I said then, sniffing the air thoughtfully, "but seems to me I smell something burning—besides me."

  "Oh!"—she let out a little shriek and as she ran to the kitchen I actually closed my eyes and sighed with a terrible relief. I didn't know how I'd walked into this other alternate world or how I could leave it, but Marion was alive in my mind while the world around me seemed unreal. In the kitchen I heard the oven door open, heard water run in the sink, then the momentary sizzle of cooking meat; and I walked quickly to the davenport and snatched up my copy of the Sun.

  As I raised it to my face the tap of high heels sounded on the wood floor just outside the kitchen door. There was silence as they crossed the rug toward me, then the davenport cushion beside me sank; I felt a deliciously warm breath on my cheek, and I had to lower my trembling rattling newspaper and smile into the sloe eyes of the creature beside me.

  Once again—my head slowly shaking in involuntary approval—-I had to admire my own good taste; this was not a homely woman. "I turned the oven down," she murmured. "It might be better to have dinner a little later. When it gets cooler," she added softly.

  I nodded quickly. "Good idea. Paper says it's the hottest day in five hundred years," I babbled. "Doctors advise complete immobility."

  But the long-legged beauty beside me wasn't listening. "So I'm the reason you like to come home, am I?" she breathed into my ear. "It's been a long time, darling, since you said anything like that."

  "H'm'm," I murmured and nodded frantically at the paper in my hands. "I see they're going to tear down City Hall," but she was blowing gently in my ear now. Then she pulled the Sun from my paralyzed fingers, tossed it over her shoulder, and leaned toward me. Marion! I was shrieking silently. Help! Then the raven-haired girl beside me had her arms around my neck and I simply did not know what to do; I thought of pretending to faint, claiming sunstroke.

  Then with the blinding force of a revelation it came to me. Through no fault of my own I was in another world, another life. The girl in my arms—somehow that's where she was now—was singing softly, almost inaudibly. It took me a moment to recognize the tune. Then finally I knew, finally I recognized this magnificent girl. " 'Just a Japanese Sandman,' " she was singing softly through her lovely nose and now I remembered fully everything about the alternate world I was in. I hadn't broken off with this girl at all—not in this particular world! Matter of fact, I suddenly realized, I'd never even met Marion in this world. It was even possible, it occurred to me now, that she'd never been born. In any case, this was the girl I'd married in this world. No denying it, this was my wife here beside me with her arms around my neck; we'd been married three years, in fact. And now I knew what to do—perfectly well.

  Oh, boy! What a wonderful time Vera and I had in the months that followed. My work at the office was easy, no strain at all. I seemed to have an aptitude for it and, just as I'd always suspected, I made rather more money at Enterprises, Incorporated, than that Serv-Eez outfit ever paid in their lives. More than once, too, I left the office early, since no one seemed to mind, just to hurry back home—leaping up the stairs three at a time—to that lovely big old Vera again. And at least once every week I'd bring home a load of books under my arm, because she loved to read, just like me; and I'd made a wonderful discovery about this alternate world.

  Life, you understand, was different in its details. The San Francisco Giants had won the 1962 Series, for example; the Second Avenue El was still up; Yucatan gum was the big favorite; television was good; and several extremely prominent people whose names would astound you were in jail. But basically the two worlds were much the same. Drugstores, for example, looked and smelled just about the same; and one night on the way home from work I stopped in at a big drugstore to look over the racks of paperback books and made a marvelous discovery.

  There on the revolving metal racks were the familiar rows of glossy little books, every one of which, judging from the covers, seemed to be about an abnormally well-developed girl. Turning the rack slowly I saw books by William Faulkner, Bernard Glemser, Agatha Christie, and Charles Einstein, which I'd read and liked. Then, down near the bottom of the rack my eye was caught by the words, "By Mark Twain." The cover showed an old side-wheeler steamboat, and the title was South from Cairo. A reprint fitted out with a new title, I thought, feeling annoyed; and I picked up the book to see just which of Mark Twain's it really was. I've read every book he wrote—Huckleberry Finn at least a dozen times since I discovered it when I was eleven years old.

  But the text of this book was new to me. It seemed to be an account, told in the first person by a young man of twenty, of his application for a job on a Mississippi steamboat. And then, from the bottom of a page, a name leaped out at me. " 'Finn, sir,' I answered the captain," the text read, " 'but mostly they call me Huckleberry.' "

  For a moment I just stood there in the drugstore with my mouth hanging open; then I turned the little book in my hands. On the back cover was a photograph of Mark Twain—the familiar shock of white hair, the mustache, that wise old face. But underneath this the brief familiar account of his life ended with saying that he had died in 1918 in Mill Valley, California. Mark Twain had lived eight years longer in this alternate world, and had written—well, I didn't yet know how many more books he had written in this wonderful world but I knew I was going to find out. And my hand was trembling as I walked up to the cashier and gave her two bits for my priceless copy of South from Cairo.

  I love reading in bed, and that night I read a good half of my new Mark Twain in bed with Vera, and afterward— well, afterward she fixed me a nice cool Tom Collins. And oh, boy, this was the life all right.

  In the weeks that followed—that lanky length of violet-eyed womanhood cuddled up beside me, singing softly through her nose—I read a new novel by Ernest Hemingway, the best of all, I think. I read a serious wonderfully good novel by James Thurber, and something else I'd been hoping to find for years—the sequel to a marvelous book called Delilah, by Marcus Goodrich. In fact, I read some of the best reading since Gutenberg kicked things off—a good deal of it aloud to Vera, who enjoyed it as much as I did. I read Mistress Murder, a hilarious detective story by George S. Kaufman; The Queen Is Dead, by George Bernard Shaw; The Third Level, a collection of short stories by someone or other I never heard of, but not too bad; a wonderful novel by Allen Marple; a group of fine stories about the advertising business by Alfred Eichler; a terrific play by Orson Welles; and a whole new volume of Sherlock Holmes stories by A. Conan Doyle.

  For four or five months, as Vera rather aptly remarked, I thought, it was like a second honeymoon. I did all the wonderful little things, she said, that I used to do on our honeymoon and before we were married; I e
ven thought up some new ones. And then—all of a sudden one night—I wanted to go to a night club.

  All of a sudden I wanted to get out of the house in the evening and do something else for a change. Vera was astonished—wanted to know what was the matter with me, which is typical of a woman. If you don't react precisely the same way day after endless day, they think something must be wrong with you. They'll even insist on it. I didn't want any black-cherry ice cream for dessert, I told Vera one night at dinner. Why not, she wanted to know—which is idiotic if you stop to think about it. I didn't want any because I didn't want any, that's all! But being a woman she had to have a reason; so I said, "Because I don't like it."

  "But of course you like it," she said. "You always used to like it!"

  You see what I mean? Anyway, we did go to this night club, but it wasn't much fun. Vera got sleepy, and we left, and were home before twelve. Then she wasn't sleepy but I was. Couple nights later I came home from the office and was changing my clothes; she said something or other and I didn't hear her and didn't answer, and we actually had a little argument. She wanted to know why I always looked at every coin in my pocket like an idiot every time I changed clothes. I explained quietly enough; told her about the ad I used to read as a kid and how I was still looking for a 1913 Liberty-head nickel worth thousands of dollars, which was the truth.

  But it wasn't the whole truth. As I looked through the coins I'd collected in my pocket during the day—the Woodrow Wilson dimes, the Grover Cleveland pennies, the nickels with George Coopernagel's profile, and all the other familiar coins of the world I now lived in—I understood something that had puzzled me once.

  These other alternate worlds in which we also live intersect here and there—at a corner newsstand, for example, on Third Avenue in New York and at many another place, too, no doubt. And from these intersecting places every once in a while something from one of these worlds—a Woodrow Wilson dime, for example—will stray into another one. I'd found such a dime and when I happened to plank it down on the counter of that little newsstand there at an intersection of the two alternate worlds, that dime bought a newspaper in the world it belonged in. And I walked off into that world with the New York Sun under my arm. I knew this now, and I'd known it long since. I understood it finally, but I didn't tell Vera. I simply told her I was looking for a 1913 Liberty-head nickel. I didn't tell her I was also looking for a Roosevelt dime.

  I found one, too. One night finally, sure enough, there it lay in my palm—a dime with the profile of Franklin D. Roosevelt on its face. And when I slapped it down on the counter of the little newsstand next evening, there at the intersection of two alternate worlds, I was trembling. The man snatched up a paper, folding it as he handed it to me, and I tucked it under my arm and walked on for three or four steps, hardly daring to breathe. Then I opened the paper and looked at it. New York World-Telegram, the masthead read, and I began to run—all the way to Forty-fourth Street, then east to First Avenue, and then up three flights of stairs.

  I could hardly talk I was so out of breath when I burst into the apartment, but I managed to gasp out the only word that mattered. "Marion!" I said and grabbed her to me, almost choking her, because my arms hit the back of her head about where Vera's shoulders would have been. But she managed to talk, struggling to break loose, her voice sort of muffled against my coat.

  "Al!" she said. "What in the world is the matter with you?"

  For her, of course, I'd been here last night and every night for the months and years past. And of course, back in this world, I remembered it, too, but dimly, mistily. I stepped back now and looked down at the marvelous tiny size of Marion, at that wonderful, petite figure, at her exquisite and fragile blond beauty. "Nothing's the matter with me," I said, grinning down at her. "It's just that I've got a beautiful wife and was in a hurry to get home to her. Anything wrong with that?"

  There wasn't; not a thing, and—well, it's been wonderful, my life with Marion, ever since. It's an exciting life; we're out three and four nights a week, I guess—dancing, the theater, visiting friends, going to night clubs, having dinner out, even bowling. It's the way things used to be, as Marion has aptly said. In fact, she remarked recently, it's like a second honeymoon, and she's wonderfully happy these days and so am I.

  Oh, sometimes I'm a little tired at night lately. There are times after a tough day at Serv-Eez when I'd almost rather stay home and read a good book; it's been quite a while since I did. But I don't worry about that. Because the other night, about two thirty in the morning, just back from the Mirimba, standing at my dresser looking through the coins in my pocket, I found it—another Woodrow Wilson dime. You come across them every once in a while, I've noticed, if you just keep your eyes open; Wilson dimes, Ulysses Grant quarters, Coopernagel nickels. And I've got my Wilson dime safely tucked away, and—well, I'm sure Vera, that lithe-limbed creature, will be mighty glad to see her husband suddenly acting his old self once again. I imagine it'll be like a third honeymoon. Just as—in time—it will be for Marion.

  So there you are, brother, coin collecting can be profitable. And FUN too! Why don't you start—tonight!

  THE LOVE LETTER

  THE LOVE LETTER

  I've heard of secret drawers in old desks, of course; who hasn't? But the day I bought my desk I wasn't thinking of secret drawers and I know very well I didn't have any least premonition or feeling of mystery about it. I spotted it in the window of a secondhand store near my apartment, went in to look it over, and the proprietor told me where he got it. It came from one of the last of the big old mid-Victorian houses in Brooklyn; they were tearing it down over on Brock Place a few blocks away, and he'd bought the desk along with some other furniture, dishes, glassware, light fixtures, and so on. But it didn't stir my imagination particularly; I never wondered or cared who might have used it long ago. I bought it and lugged it home because it was cheap and because it was small; a legless little wall desk that I fastened to my living-room wall with heavy screws directly into the studding.

  I'm twenty-four years old, tall and thin, and I live in Brooklyn to save money and work in Manhattan to make it. When you're twenty-four and a bachelor, you usually figure you'll be married before much longer and since they tell me that takes money I'm reasonably ambitious and bring work home from the office every once in a while. And maybe every couple weeks or so I write a letter to my folks in Florida. So I'd been needing a desk; there's no table in my phone-booth kitchenette, and I'd been trying to work at a wobbly end table I couldn't get my knees under.

  I bought the desk one Saturday afternoon and spent an hour or more fastening it to the wall. It was after six when I finished. I had a date that night, so I had time to stand and admire it for only a minute or so. It was made of heavy wood with a slant top like a kid's school desk and with the same sort of space underneath to put things into. But the back of it rose a good two feet above the desk top and was full of pigeonholes like an old-style roll-top desk. Underneath the pigeonholes was a row of three brass-knobbed little drawers. It was all pretty ornate; the drawer ends carved, some fancy scrollwork extending up over the back and out from the sides to help brace it against the wall. I dragged a chair up, sat down at the desk to try it for height, then got showered, shaved, and dressed, and went over to Manhattan to pick up my date.

  I'm trying to be honest about what happened and I'm convinced that includes the way I felt when I got home around two or two thirty that morning; I'm certain that what happened wouldn't have happened at all if I'd felt any other way. I'd had a good enough time that evening; we'd gone to an early movie that wasn't too bad, then had dinner, a drink or so and some dancing afterward. And the girl, Roberta Haig, is pretty nice—bright, pleasant, good-looking. But walking home from the subway, the Brooklyn streets quiet and deserted, it occurred to me that while I'd probably see her again I didn't really care whether I did or not. And I wondered, as I often had lately, whether there was something wrong with me, whether I'd ever meet a girl I de
sperately wanted to be with—the only way a man can get married, it seems to me.

  So when I stepped into my apartment I knew I wasn't going to feel like sleep for a while. I was restless, half-irritated for no good reason, and I took off my coat and yanked down my tie, wondering whether I wanted a drink or some coffee. Then—I'd half forgotten about it—I saw the desk I'd bought that afternoon and I walked over and sat down at it, thoroughly examining it for the first time.

  I lifted the top and stared down into the empty space underneath it. Lowering the top, I reached into one of the pigeonholes and my hand and shirt cuff came out streaked with old dust; the holes were a good foot deep. I pulled open one of the little brass-knobbed drawers and there was a shred of paper in one of its corners, nothing else. I pulled the drawer all the way out and studied its construction, turning it in my hands; it was a solidly made, beautifully mortised l:ttle thing. Then I pushed my hand into the drawer opening; it went in to about the middle of my hand before my finger tips touched the back; there was nothing in there.

  For a few moments I just sat at the desk, thinking vaguely that I could write a letter to my folks. Then it suddenly occurred to me that the little drawer in my hand was only half a foot long while the pigeonholes just above the drawer extended a good foot back.

  Shoving my hand into the opening again, exploring with my finger tips, I found a tiny grooved indentation and pulled out the secret drawer which lay in back of the first. For an instant I was excited at the glimpse of papers inside it. Then I felt a stab of disappointment as I saw what they were. There was a little sheaf of folded writing paper, plain white but yellowed with age at the edges, and the sheets were all blank. There were three or four blank envelopes to match, and underneath them a small, round, glass bottle of ink; and because it had been upside down, the cork remaining moist and tight in the bottle mouth, a good third of the ink had remained unevaporated still. Beside the bottle lay a plain, black wooden pen holder, the pen point reddish-black with old ink. There was nothing else in the drawer.