The Bookseller

by Cynthia Swanson

  She nods, arranging a small blue curler around a wisp of my hair and attaching it with a roller clip. “My parents and my brother.” She bites her lip. “They’ve all passed, however.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” I can feel myself shaking. “How sad for you. Were they . . . ill?”

  Linnea nods again. “My parents did not do well here,” she says. “We started out in Iowa, where we had distant relatives. But it was the Depression, the work that was available was hard, and my mother’s heart . . . well, her heart could not withstand it.” She looks away, and then back at my hair. “More or less the same could be said of my father, I suppose.”

  It is hard for me to fathom. I cannot in my wildest imagination envision losing my parents. Perhaps it is because they are so young—my mother is not even sixty yet—but it’s hard to picture my life without them. Even this two-month period in which they are so far away is proving much more difficult than I anticipated. The whole idea of them being thousands of miles from home is starting to wear on me. I think about the postcard I received from Mother this morning.

  Kitty, my dear,

  We are so far from home. Yesterday, I asked May how far it is from Honolulu to Denver, and she said over 3,000 miles. Think about that. The earth is about 25,000 miles around; so we are almost 1/8 of the earth’s circumference from home.

  Some mornings, I get up with the sun, face east, and think about you. By the time I do this, you are halfway through your morning, probably having coffee with Frieda in your lovely little bookshop.

  Do you know how proud I am of you, darling Kitty?

  Love,

  Mother

  Reading those words at home this morning, I had an almost uncontrollable urge to pick up the telephone and call, different time zones and overseas charges be damned. I just wanted to hear my mother’s voice. I actually lifted the receiver and started to dial—but, knowing that it was several hours earlier there and they would still be asleep, I forced myself to hang up before I could complete the call.

  Turning back to the conversation with Linnea, I am afraid of my next question. But it must be asked. Taking a deep breath, I ask, “And your brother? What happened to him?”

  Linnea shakes her head. “Heart troubles again,” she replies. “Very sad . . . he was young, only thirty-four.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “Linnea, I am so sorry.”

  She steps back and shakes her head as if to clear it. “Listen to me,” she says, smiling. “Breaking the first two rules they teach you in beauty school. Rule number one: don’t tell the customer about yourself until you’ve learned all there is to know about the customer. And rule number two: if you do talk about yourself, make sure you speak only of happy things.”

  I smile in return. “I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot,” I say. “So tell me some happy things about you.”

  She wags her finger at my reflection. “Oh, no, you don’t, Kitty Miller,” she says firmly. “Not until I learn all about you first.”

  And so I tell her. We talk about my parents, and I tell her about their big trip. She says it must be heaven for them, to be able to travel to an exotic place like Hawaii, and be able to visit family and have a free place to stay. Thinking of my mother’s words, I just smile and nod.

  Linnea says she has always dreamed of traveling, but with raising two children, buying a house, and paying their bills, the best she and her husband managed through the years was an occasional auto trip. The children, Joe and Gloria, are now twenty and sixteen. “Joe is at the university up in Boulder.” Linnea shrugs. “Nice up there, I guess. Pretty campus. I hope he’s learning something, is all I am thinking.” She shakes her head. “And that Gloria. Goodness, between school, friends, clubs, boys—that girl is busy. Runs around like a chicken with its feathers cut off.”

  I look at her quizzically in the mirror.

  “Did I say that wrong?” She shrugs again. “You know, I’ve been in this country and speaking English for close to thirty years, and I still do not get the expressions right.”

  I smile and laugh, and she laughs with me. I love Linnea’s laugh. It sounds just like a female version of Lars’s.

  I tell her about the bookstore, about Frieda and how we got started in it after being disenchanted with our original career plans. “What a marvelous thing,” Linnea says. “Following your hearts that way. Tell me, what sorts of books do you carry?”

  “All sorts.” I reach into the pocket of my slacks for a Sisters’ Bookshop business card. “Fiction, travel, history, poetry, art.”

  “Classics?” Linnea asks, taking the business card from my hand. “I love the classics.”

  “Do you?” I smile. “Who is your favorite author?”

  “Oh.” Linnea waves her hand, the one that is not holding my card. “It’s difficult to pick one favorite. Shakespeare, perhaps. I love reading Shakespearean sonnets, and some of the plays, though others are quite so sad. I’m a great admirer of Henry James; I loved The Portrait of a Lady. Of more recent authors, I suppose John Steinbeck is my favorite. I just now finished reading The Winter of Our Discontent. This is a book that I know a lot of readers did not care for, and I understand; it’s not a happy story. But I think it shows the disappointing side of American life.” She furrows her brow. “Maybe Americans do not want to read about that,” she says thoughtfully.

  I nod. I had the same impression of The Winter of Our Discontent, which I read last year when it came out. After reading several reviews that proclaimed that Steinbeck’s barefaced morality was putting him on the downward slope of his career, I wondered the same thing as Linnea: is it the author’s moral high ground that we find disagreeable—or is it that he is spot-on, but the theme of his new novel makes us uncomfortable?

  “I learned English by reading,” Linnea tells me. “It’s the best way, really.”

  “Well, we have plenty of Shakespeare, plenty of James, and plenty of Steinbeck,” I say. “Anything else you want, too. And anything we don’t carry in the store, we can order for you. You ought to come by sometime.” I hear the pleading in my voice, and I pray that Linnea is too engrossed in her work to notice it herself. “It would be my pleasure to show you around.”

  She places the Sisters’ business card carefully on her side table. “I’ll do that,” she promises. “I’ll bring Gloria. She, too, loves to read.” Linnea steps back, eyeing my curler-covered head, nodding her approval. “All right, then, Kitty, I think you’re ready for a dryer.”

  Back at Sisters’, Frieda exclaims over my new look. “It’s stunning,” she says, staring at me. “Honestly, Kitty, I have never seen you look so good.” She fishes under the counter for her purse and pulls out a compact, dusting her nose. “You make me want to freshen up,” she explains, grinning apologetically. Closing the compact with a firm click, she says, “Haven’t I told you for years to get rid of that Veronica and go see someone new for your hair?”

  “You have.” I am looking at my reflection in the mirror over the counter. I cannot stop staring at myself. I look exactly like I did in the dream. Except a lot more sober, and with much less ritzy clothes on.

  “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you.” Frieda comes from behind the counter and bends down to retrieve a book that has fallen over on the Classics shelf—The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer, a substantial volume if there ever was one. The Tales should, by all means, be expected to hold themselves up. That cheeky old Wife of Bath is probably to blame.

  Frieda uses both hands to adjust the book. I think about Linnea and wonder, since she likes Shakespeare, if she has read Chaucer. I make a mental note to go through the stacks and put aside a selection of books for her—Chaucer and maybe Edmund Spenser if she likes classics, Joseph Conrad, perhaps George Bernard Shaw, if she enjoys turn-of-the-century writing, and possibly some contemporary female authors like Katherine Anne Porter and Flannery O’Connor, since it appears Linnea has primarily read works by men.

  “That Hansen kid came by,” Frieda says. “The on
e that lives next door to you. Said to tell you thanks again, said he ‘just keeps reading it over and over.’ Said he can’t wait to read more.” She stands back, waiting to see if the Chaucer will fall again, but it appears to be grounded now. Frieda turns to me. “What’s that all about?”

  Chapter 11

  Mama.”

  I open my eyes and look around. Everything is so blurry.

  “Mama, can you hear me? Are you all right?”

  There is a small pat on my right sleeve. I concentrate, and Missy’s face comes into focus. She is looking at me with trepidation. Her look reminds me of an actor I once saw playing a psychiatrist on television. In that story, the patient was a woman who had stumbled on the sidewalk and hit her head on a stone wall; she lost her memory entirely and could not even recall her own name. In the scene I am now thinking about, the doctor was looking at the patient as if he felt not only concerned about her situation, but also overwhelmingly sorry for her.

  Missy is giving me the exact same look. Her strawberry blond curls are in pigtails on either side of her head, tied with red bows that match her plaid dress. Her little brow is furrowed, making her appear much older than the age she is—which, I realize with alarm, I still don’t actually know. I have assumed the children to be about five or six, but I have no idea of their exact age, or when their birthday is. Moreover, I still assume that they are twins—nothing so far has led me to believe otherwise—but I don’t know that with any certainty. What a preposterous imagination I have. To keep dreaming about an entire made-up family, one’s own entirely made-up family, and not even know the children’s ages, birth dates, or birth order.

  “I’m . . . I’m fine, sweetie.” I look around. My vision has cleared up, and I can now see that we are in the shoe department of a large store. It is not a store with which I am familiar. I do most of my shopping at Monkey Wards on Broadway or May-D&F downtown, the store where I went in real life to seek out the coral-hued dress. This store looks a bit like May-D&F, but not like any part of May-D&F that I’ve ever been in. I can tell by the vivid yellow, red, and blue display racks, the carefully arranged patent leathers, tennis shoes, and rubber boots, that we are in a department that carries only children’s shoes. In all my years of shopping at May-D&F, I don’t think I have once set foot in the children’s shoe department—but I do know where it is, on the second floor, near the better dresses and coats. I see neither of those departments anywhere nearby, which leads me to believe we are in a different store entirely.

  A salesman briskly approaches us, his arms loaded with brightly colored cardboard boxes. RICHARD, his nametag reads, and above that I see the familiar blue May-D&F logo, with its tiny sketch of the downtown store’s iconic triangular roof standing in for the hyphen. So this is a May-D&F store—but unless they’ve rearranged recently, I don’t believe we’re downtown. I wonder exactly where we are, but of course there’s no way to ask without sounding absurd.

  “I’ve brought several styles for each of the children,” Richard informs me, and for the first time I look to my left and notice that Mitch is seated there, quietly swinging his stockinged feet and glancing around the store. “You’ve come at the right time for school shoes. Most of last fall’s styles are on clearance, and our spring shoes are not in yet. So you’ll find some excellent values, ma’am.”

  I smile. “Well, there’s no telling when children will outgrow their shoes and need a new pair.” This statement—as is the case with so much of what I say in these dreams—falls into the “How on God’s green earth do I know a thing like that?” category.

  “First, for the young lady . . .” Richard opens a box and pulls out a pair of brown Mary Janes. Charming and delicate as Cinderella being presented with the glass slipper, Missy lifts a foot. The salesman slips on the shoe and buckles it across her instep. Missy has lovely, dainty feet, similar to my own. My feet have always been a source of pride; they’re one of my best features. Judging by the graceful fit of the shoes, my imaginary daughter will likely follow suit.

  Richard pinches Missy’s toes through the shoe. I wonder why he is doing that; no one does a thing like that when you buy adult shoes. I realize he must be checking the fit. “How do they feel, honey?” I ask her as he adjusts the second shoe on her other foot.

  “Nice,” she says, standing. “Comfortable.”

  “Take a walk,” Richard suggests.

  Missy walks from one end of the shoe department to the other. “I also have those in black, if you prefer,” Richard tells me.

  I shake my head. “No, the brown is fine.”

  Missy returns and sits next to me. “They’re good,” she says. “But can I try the others, just in case?”

  I smile. That is exactly what I do when I shop. Even if I am satisfied with the first thing I try on, I always have to try all my selections, just in case something else turns out to be more to my liking.

  After trying two more pairs, Missy goes back to the brown Mary Janes. Just what I would have done, I think, nodding my approval.

  Once Missy is outfitted, Richard and I turn to Mitch. He tries on several pairs of lace-up shoes, all of which he says are uncomfortable. I look at his eyes as he uneasily watches Richard lace one pair after another onto his feet.

  “Mitch,” I say, scanning the displays in front of us. “How about a pair of loafers?” I smile at him. “They would just slip on your foot. They’d not need to be tied.”

  Relief is visible on his face. “That would be perfect, Mama.”

  This parenting thing isn’t so hard, I tell myself. I could do this, if I had to do it all the time. All you need is a little intuition, and the wherewithal to pay attention to the details.

  “Betty at the counter will ring you up,” Richard says when we are through. He stands and picks up the discarded boxes. “Lovely children, madam. You must be proud of them.”

  I smile. “Indeed I am.”

  And it’s true. I am—totally and irrationally—quite proud of these two imaginary little people.

  I fish in my handbag and find a checkbook with both “Lars K. Andersson” and “Mrs. Katharyn Andersson” printed in the top-left corner of each check. Writing a check to May-D&F for the shoes, I realize I have no idea what the date is; I scribble some illegible numbers on that line.

  I tear the check from the book and give it to Betty, the salesgirl at the counter. “You don’t want to use your account, Mrs. Andersson?” she asks me as she takes the check.

  “My account?”

  “Yes—your charge account.”

  “Oh.” I can feel my face turn slightly red. Of course I would have a charge account here. “No, not today.” I smile sweetly at her as she hands me the receipt.

  Mitch tugs at my coat sleeve as I’m placing the checkbook back in my purse. “Were we good?” he asks me.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Were we good? Missy and me, were we good?”

  “Of course you were good.” I smile down at him, thinking about what the babysitter said in my last dream. They really are good kids, you know. Of course they are; isn’t it obvious? So what in heaven’s name was she talking about?

  Mitch hops up and down excitedly. “Yippee!” he says. “Then we can go, can’t we?”

  I have no idea what he means, so I just shake my head in confusion.

  “To Bluebell Toys,” Missy explains. “Don’t you remember, Mama? You promised that if we were good while we got our shoes, we could go to Bluebell Toys and . . . well, you know. Look around.”

  I promised that? Did I promise to buy them something? Do they get a toy for being good on an errand like this? I have no idea what the protocol is. I wish Lars was here to help me navigate these peculiar waters.

  “Well, so I did,” I say. “Lead the way, children.”

  We take the escalator down. I scan the first floor as we descend, my eyes instinctively seeking out a book section. The May-D&F downtown has a rather substantial book department. They host visiting authors and book-signing e
vents—something Frieda and I would love to do, but it is impossible to get any writer with a national or even regional reputation to visit our small shop; we have tried, and always come up short in our appeals to the authors’ publicists. It’s discouraging. In many ways, the book departments at the big stores—those, and the drugstores that peddle dime paperbacks—are more our competition than other small bookshops.

  The children and I get off the escalator, then walk toward a large doorway, which evidently leads outside to the smaller stores in the shopping center. This whole shopping center experience is foreign to me; I don’t shop this way in my real life.

  Right before we reach the door, Missy points toward the women’s formal wear section. “Look, Mama, there’s your dress,” she says. “The one you wore the other night.” She smiles. “Well, not your dress exactly,” she explains. “Yours is at home, of course, in your closet. But it’s the same dress as yours.”

  She’s right. There, on the racks, is the coral dress that I couldn’t find at the May-D&F downtown the other day. It’s undeniably the exact same dress—although I can’t help noticing that it’s on a clearance rack.

  “Do you remember when I bought that dress?” I ask Missy.

  “Sure,” she replies. “Just after Thanksgiving. You wore it to Daddy’s office Christmas party. And then you wore it the other night to the party at the Nelsons’ house.”

  I nod, thinking that over. The dress must be part of the holiday line of formal wear that the saleslady downtown mentioned. If it’s on clearance now, that means that in this dream world we’ve moved into the future, as I suspected.

  How far into the future? I wonder. Are we only into 1963, just a few months from now? Or have we moved even further beyond that?

  “Here’s a quiz for you,” I say to the children as we go outside. The air is cold, but the bright sunlight warms our faces. “Can you tell me who’s the president of the United States?”