The Bookseller

by Cynthia Swanson

  Dedication

  For my parents, Dennis and Audrey Fisher, with love and gratitude.

  Epigraph

  Trust your happiness and the richness of your life at this moment. It is as true and as much yours as anything else that ever happened to you.

  —Katherine Anne Porter, Letters of Katherine Anne Porter

  Contents

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  This is not my bedroom.

  Where am I? Gasping and pulling unfamiliar bedcovers up to my chin, I strain to collect my senses. But no explanation for my whereabouts comes to mind.

  The last thing I remember, it was Wednesday evening and I was painting my bedroom a bright, saturated yellow. Frieda, who had offered to help, was appraising my color choice. “Too much sunniness for a bedroom,” she pronounced, in that Miss Know-It-All tone of hers. “How will you ever sleep in on gloomy days with a room like this?”

  I dipped my brush into the paint can, carefully wiped off the excess, and climbed the stepladder. “That’s entirely the point,” I told Frieda. Leaning over, I began cutting along a tall, narrow window frame.

  Oughtn’t I to remember what happened next? Oddly, I do not. I cannot recall spending the evening painting, then standing back to admire our work before we cleaned up. I have no memory of thanking Frieda for her help and bidding her good-bye. I don’t remember going to sleep in the sun-colored room, the sharp smell of fresh paint filling my nostrils. But I must have done those things, because here I lie. And given that here is not my home, evidently I am still asleep.

  Nonetheless, this is not my typical sort of dream. My nighttime forays tend toward the fantastical, toward dreams that place one outside of conventional time and space. This, I have concluded, is because I read so much. Have you read Something Wicked This Way Comes? It just hit the stands this past June, but is anticipated to be one of the best-selling books of 1962. Ray Bradbury is splendidly readable; I press the novel on everyone who steps into Frieda’s and my bookstore looking for something “really gripping.”

  “It will haunt your dreams,” I assure such customers. A self-fulfilling prophecy: the night before last, I dreamed I was stumbling behind Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade, the two young protagonists of Bradbury’s book, as they were enticed by the middle-of-the-night arrival of the carnival in Green Town. I was trying to persuade them to proceed with caution—but they, being thirteen-year-old boys, simply ignored me. I remember how difficult it was to keep up with them, how I could not get my feet to operate correctly. Will and Jim moved farther away in the shadows, their shapes turning into dark dots and then finally to nothing, and all I could do was blubber in frustration.

  So you see, I am not the type of woman who dreams about something as straightforward as waking up in another person’s bedroom.

  This dream bedroom is quite a bit larger and swankier than my actual bedroom. The walls are sage green, nothing like the deep yellow I chose for home. The furniture is a matched set, sleek and modern. The bedspread is neatly folded at the foot of the bed; soft, coordinating linens encase my body. It’s delightful, in a too-put-together sort of way.

  I slide under the covers and shut my eyes. Surely, if I keep my eyes closed, soon I will find myself hunting whales in the South Pacific, dressed rather grubbily and swilling whiskey with the mateys on my ship. Or I’ll be flying high over Las Vegas, the wind blowing my hair back against my face, my arms transformed into enormous wings.

  But nothing of the sort happens. Instead, I hear a man’s voice. “Wake up. Katharyn, love, wake up.”

  I open my eyes and look into the deepest, bluest eyes I have ever seen.

  And then I close my own again.

  I feel a hand on my shoulder, which is nude, save for the thin strap of my satin nightgown. It’s been a good long while since any man has touched me intimately. But some feelings are unmistakable, no matter how infrequently one experiences them.

  I know I should be terrified. That would be the appropriate response, would it not? Even if one is asleep, one should be horrified to sense an unfamiliar man’s hand placed on one’s bare flesh.

  Yet, curiously, I find this imaginary fellow’s touch utterly enjoyable. The clasp is gentle but firm, the fingers curled around my upper arm, the thumb gently caressing my skin. I keep my eyes closed, enjoying the sensation.

  “Katharyn. Please, love. I’m sorry to wake you, but Missy’s forehead feels warm . . . she wants you. Please, you need to get up.”

  Eyes shut, I consider this information. I wonder who Missy is, and why her warm forehead should be any concern of mine.

  In that rambling way in which events occur in dreams, my thoughts are replaced with the lyrics to a song that was popular on the radio a few years ago. I can hear the melody, though I’m sure I don’t have the words right—Rosemary Clooney sang the tune, and it was something about having stars in one’s eyes. Something about not letting love turn one into a fool. The idea makes me smile; clearly, I am being about as foolish here as one could possibly be.

  I open my eyes and sit up in bed, instantly remorseful that this position shift causes the blue-eyed man to remove his warm hand from my shoulder.

  “Who are you?” I ask him. “Where am I?”

  He returns my quizzical look. “Katharyn, are you okay?”

  For the record, my name is not Katharyn. It’s Kitty.

  All right—it really is Katharyn. But I’ve never cared for my given name. It’s always felt too formal. Kath-a-ryn doesn’t roll off the tongue, the way Kitty does. And since my parents bestowed on me an unusual spelling of an otherwise ordinary name, I find it tiresome having to clarify whenever I am asked to spell it.

  “I think I’m okay,” I tell Blue Eyes. “But really, I have no idea who you are or where I am. I’m sorry.”

  He smiles, and those handsome peepers twinkle. Other than the eyes, he is fairly ordinary-looking. Medium height, medium build, a slight love handle around the middle. Thinning russet hair that is starting to go a bit gray. I’d put his age at around forty, a few years older than me. I inhale, noticing a woodsy, soapy scent about him, as if he recently finished shaving and showering. He smells delectable, and I feel my heart skip a beat. Good heavens, could this dream get any more absurd?

  “You must have been in some deep sleep, love,” he says. “You know who I am. I’m your husband. You’re in our bedroom, at our house.” He sweeps his arm around the room, as if to prove his case. “And right now, our daughter—whose name is Missy, by the way, in case you’ve forgotten—is likely running a fever, and she needs her mother.”

  He holds out a hand to me. As if on instinct, I s
lip mine into his.

  “Okay?” he begs. “Please, Katharyn.”

  I furrow my brow. “I’m sorry, you said you are . . .”

  He sighs. “Your husband, Katharyn. I’m your husband, Lars.”

  Lars? What a peculiar name. I cannot think of a single person I’ve ever met called Lars. I half smile, thinking about my oh-so-imaginative brain. It couldn’t just invoke a Harry or an Ed or a Bill. No, ma’am, my mind has fabricated a husband named Lars.

  “All right,” I say. “Just give me a moment.”

  He squeezes my hand and releases it, then leans over to kiss my cheek. “I’ll take her temp while we’re waiting for you.” He rises and leaves the room.

  Once again, I close my eyes. Now the dream will shift, surely.

  But when I open my eyes, I’m still there. Still in the green bedroom.

  I see no alternative, so I get up and cross the room. With its clerestory windows above the bed, its sliding glass door that looks as though it leads to some sort of patio, and its large, adjacent bathroom, I deduce that this room, were it real, would be part of a rather modern residence. More modern—and presumably bigger—than the one-bedroom, 1920s-era duplex that I rent in the Platt Park neighborhood of Denver.

  I peek into the bathroom. The fixtures are light green, shiny and chrome-accessorized. The long vanity has two sinks and a gold-flecked white Formica counter. The vanity is composed of blond wood cabinets that gently taper downward and inward toward the wall, such that the vanity is deeper at the countertop level than it is near the floor. The tiled floor is a fresh mosaic of mint green, pink, and white. I have no idea if I’m in Denver anymore, but if so, this certainly is not old-time Platt Park, where nothing new has been built since before the war.

  Examining myself in the mirror over the dresser, I half expect to see some entirely different person—who knows who this Katharyn is? But I look exactly like myself. Short, buxom, with exasperating strawberry-blond hair that cowlicks itself over my forehead and frizzes everywhere else, no matter how often I go in for a wash-and-set. I put my fingers through it, noting that on the ring finger of my left hand are a sparkling diamond and a wide gold wedding band. Well, naturally, I think. And how optimistic of my brain to have invented a husband who can afford a nice-size rock.

  Foraging in the closet, I find a navy-blue quilted bathrobe that fits me perfectly. Belting it around my waist, I enter the hallway, on my way to find the oddly named Lars and his unwell child Missy.

  On the wall directly in front of me, clearly positioned so that it can be seen from inside the bedroom, is a large color photograph. It shows a mountain scene: the sun sunk over the horizon, the peaks backlit with pink and gold tones. Ponderosa pines rise the length of the photograph on the left-hand side. I’ve lived in Colorado my entire life, but I have no idea where this is, or even if it’s the Rocky Mountains.

  I’m trying to decode this mystery when I am tackled around the waist on my right side. I struggle to regain my balance and keep from falling over backward.

  “Ouch!” I say as I turn around. “Don’t do that. Remember to support yourself entirely. You are too big now to lean on other people and expect them to hold you up.”

  What in the world? Who is this woman saying these things? It can’t be me. These words don’t sound like anything I’d ever say, or even think.

  Looking up at me is a small boy. He’s got Lars’s piercing blue eyes and a neat, short haircut that nevertheless can’t hide a reddish-blond cowlick over his brow. His peaches-and-cream face is scrubbed clean. He looks like he could be in an advertisement for milk or Popsicles. Yes, he’s that cute, and I find that my heart melts a bit, looking at him.

  He releases me and says he’s sorry. “I just missed you, Mama,” he says. “I haven’t seen you since yesterday.”

  I am speechless. Then, reminding myself that I am, after all, asleep, I smile at the boy. I lean down and give his shoulder a squeeze. I’m just going along with this dream now. Why not? So far, this is a pleasant enough place to be.

  “Take me to your father and Missy,” I say, grabbing the child’s soft, plump hand.

  We walk down the hall and go up a half flight of stairs. At the top is a girl’s bedroom, with carnation-pink walls, a little white wooden bed, and a low bookcase filled with picture books and stuffed animals. Sitting upright in the bed is an equally angelic child, a female version of the boy who holds my hand. Her expression is forlorn and her cheeks are flushed. She is about the same size as the boy. I am terrible at deciphering children’s ages, but I’d guess they are around five or six. Twins?

  “Mama’s here!” Cherub Boy says, climbing onto the bed. “Missy, Mama’s here and you’re going to be fine.”

  Missy whimpers. I sit next to her and touch her forehead, which feels distressingly warm under my hand. “What hurts?” I ask her gently.

  She leans toward me. “Everything, Mama,” she says. “My head especially.”

  “Did Daddy take your temp?” I can’t believe how easily these words, these motherly actions, are coming to me. I feel like an old pro.

  “Yeah, he’s washing the ther-mon-eter.”

  “Thermometer,” Cherub Boy corrects her. “It’s a ther-MOM-eter. Not a ther-MON-eter.”

  She rolls her eyes at him. “Mind your own beeswax, Mitch.”

  Lars appears in the doorway. “One hundred one-point-six,” he reports.

  I am unsure what that means. Oh, I know it means her temperature is 101.6 degrees Fahrenheit. But I do not know what it means in terms of medication, bed rest, staying home from school.

  Because I do not have children. I am not a mother.

  I don’t mean to imply that I never wanted children. Quite the contrary. I was one of those little girls who loved baby dolls, who fed them pretend bottles and changed their pretend diapers and pushed them around in a tiny doll-size pram. An only child, I begged my parents for a sibling—not because I wanted to be a big sister, but because I wanted to be a little mother to somebody.

  For a long time I thought I’d marry Kevin, my steady during college. He left for the Pacific theater in ’43, along with just about every other young man who hadn’t already gone. I remained faithful to him—girls in those days did that, remained faithful. Kevin and I exchanged letter after letter. I sent him care packages of cookies, socks, shaving soap. In my sorority house, we stuck thumbtacks on a map of the South Pacific, marking our soldier boys’ progress. “It’s hard to wait, but it will be worth it when they’re home,” we girls told each other. We sobbed into our hankies when we got word that someone’s fellow wasn’t coming back. But we also sent a little silent prayer of gratitude to heaven that it wasn’t our fellow, not this time.

  Much to my relief, Kevin returned from the war intact and seemingly unchanged, eager to resume his studies as a premed student and attain his goal of becoming a doctor. We continued dating, but he never did pop the question. We were invited to wedding after wedding, where everyone asked when it would be our turn. “Oh, you know, someday!” I’d say, my tone overly gay and nonchalant. Kevin simply changed the subject whenever it came up.

  Year after year passed. Kevin finished medical school and began his residency; I worked as a fifth-grade teacher. But as far as our relationship went, one year was as static as the next. Finally I knew I could no longer put off an ultimatum. I told Kevin that unless he wanted to make our relationship permanent, I was through.

  He sighed heavily. “That’s probably for the best,” he said. His good-bye kiss was brief, perfunctory. Not a year later, I heard he’d married a nurse from the hospital where he worked.

  Well, clearly, in this dream world, none of that—those wasted years, Kevin’s callous rejection—matters at all. In this world, I landed myself a winner somewhere along the line. Good for you, Kitty, I can hear my Delta Zeta sisters congratulating me. Good for you.

  The thought strikes me as absurd, and I stifle a laugh. Then I put my hand to my mouth, mortified. This is a dream; no
netheless, there is a sick child here. I ought to behave appropriately. I ought to be suitably, maternally troubled.

  I look up from Missy’s bed, and my eyes meet Lars’s. He’s staring at me with admiration and—could I be reading this correctly?—desire in his eyes. Do married people truly look at each other this way? Even in the middle of a kid-has-a-fever crisis?

  “What do you say?” Lars asks me. “You always know what to do when these things happen, Katharyn.”

  Do I? How interesting this dream is. I glance out the window at what appears to be a winter morning, the windowpane frosty and snow falling lightly.

  And then, suddenly, though I cannot explain it, I do know exactly what to do. I rise and walk across the hall to the bathroom. I know precisely where on the medicine cabinet shelf I will find the tiny plastic bottle of St. Joseph’s Aspirin for Children. I pull a paper cup from the dispenser attached to the wall and run a bit of cool water into it. Opening the bathroom’s linen closet, I remove a facecloth, hold it under cold water, and squeeze it out.

  Walking purposefully, I carry the medicine bottle, facecloth, and cup to Missy’s room. I apply the cloth to her forehead, gently pressing it against her warm skin. I hand her two aspirin tablets; these she swallows dutifully, using the water to chase them down. She smiles gratefully at me and leans back against her pillow.

  “Let’s let her rest now.” I settle Missy under the covers and fetch several picture books from her shelf. She begins paging through Madeline’s Rescue—a volume in that delightful children’s series by Ludwig Bemelmans about a Parisian boarding school student named Madeline and her eleven classmates—the house covered in vines, the girls in two straight lines. Missy’s fingers trace the words on each page as she sounds them out in a whispery, throaty voice.

  Lars comes forward and takes my hand. We smile together at our daughter, and with our adorable son beside us, we quietly leave the room.

  But then, as suddenly as it happened, the dream is over.

  My bedside alarm clock is ringing sharply. I reach over, eyes shut, and press down hard on the button that stops the alarm. I open my eyes, and the room is yellow. I am home.