The Bookseller (36 page)

“Patsy Cline is going to die, you know,” I tell Frieda, my voice surprisingly even. I feel like I am listening to myself from a space a few feet away.

“It will happen in just a few months' time,” I go on. “She's going to die in a plane crash.”

Frieda nods, as if I'm telling her something she already knows.

“But she'll release this song as a single first,” I say, crossing the room.

Serenely—how can I be so calm?—I turn toward our stacks of best-seller fiction. My eyes go straight to the new Salinger anthology. Next to it, I see
The King's Persons
by Joanne Greenberg, the local author I'd made a mental note to learn more about, the day I browsed Frieda's big bookstore in the other world.

These books are not yet in print. They cannot be found in any stores. Yet here they are, in our little bookstore.

I run my hand over the Salinger; was this the book that Frieda placed my fingers on, just the other day, when she was trying to assure me that this world is real? I shake my head again, trying to clear my thoughts. Perhaps it was; it
seems
like it could have been.

I can't remember.

And then I think about the things that have happened in the last few weeks, things that seemed merely pleasant or convenient at the time. My peaceful, quiet mornings at home and here in the shop. Reading my mother's lovely, lyrical postcards. Stumbling across Lars's obituary so randomly, yet so easily. Running into Kevin—his misery proving that I had done the right thing in delivering him an ultimatum all those years ago. The odd, out-of-nowhere free drinks that Frieda and I received at the Stadium Inn the other night.

And finally, my parents—conveniently, pleasantly—getting on the right airplane. One that did not go down in the Pacific during a storm.

Don't leave me here, in a world . . . Filled with dreams that might have been . . . Hurt me now, get it over . . . I may learn to love again . . .

I look at Frieda. She stares knowingly at me. She seems to be waiting for me to speak.

“Sister,” I say to her, and then I say no more.

I
awake with a gasp. Lars and I are still entwined, exactly as we were when I fell asleep in the green bedroom.

Lars opens his eyes. “Are you all right?”

I am shaking, and I take a deep breath to calm myself. Slowly, I say, “This . . . is . . .
it
.” Rubbing my eyes, I look around. “This is the real world. Isn't it, Lars?”

“Katharyn.” He pulls me close and whispers in my ear, “This is the real world.”

I move my head so I can look into his eyes. “How can that be? How could that other world have felt so real, and not
be
real?”

He pulls back from me and tilts his head thoughtfully. “I don't know, love.”

I think about all the times in the past few weeks when I went into the world where I'm Kitty. Often I believed I was sleeping in this world. I believed that I had to go to sleep here to get back home, to wake up where I thought I belonged.

But—with the exception of last night's episode, which felt like a dream and clearly
was
a dream—all of those other times, I was not sleeping. I know this now. I was right here, making up stories in my head, stories that helped me cope. I was here—and yet, I
wasn't
here. I must have been completely absent to those around me.

I swallow hard. “I'm sorry,” I tell Lars. “I am so sorry.”

He wraps his arms around me again. “It's okay. I understand. It's okay.”

Tears form at the corners of my eyes. “I don't know if I can bear it,” I say. “I don't know if I can be the person you think I am. I don't know if I can be here—truly
be
here, the way I ought to be, if this is real.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, and in my head I can see myself as Kitty—but she is only a make-believe image, that person.

“You can,” Lars tells me. “You can be here, and you will be here.” He runs a hand through my hair, and I open my eyes to look at him. “I want you here,” he says. “Everyone—we all want you here.” He swallows hard. “We need you, Katharyn.”

I look into his beautiful eyes. They
need
me, I think. They need me here.

“All right,” I say slowly. “I'll try.”

He smiles and kisses me deeply.

When we break apart, I turn my head. “Look outside,” I say, pointing through the panes of the sliding glass door. The sky is strikingly blue and cloud-free; the sun is almost blinding in its brightness, reflecting off the snow on the lawn. “Such a fine new layer of snow on everything.”

He stands up and walks to the doorway. “Beautiful,” he agrees. “But Missy and Mitch will be disappointed. There's not enough snow to cancel school.”

I am actually a bit disappointed myself. A day with all three children at home sounds quite pleasant.

I rise from the bed and swing my feet to the floor. As I do so, I notice a hardback book on my nightstand.

“Lars,” I say, picking up the book and rotating it, so the cover is faceup. “Have I been reading this?”

He turns from the doorway and walks over to me. “You have,” he confirms, leaning over my shoulder to peer at the book. “You said it was haunting your dreams.”

I smile, tracing my fingers over the book's cover, the shadowed images, the flame-colored, wavy typeface rising in a ghoulish shape to spell out the book's title:
Something Wicked This Way Comes,
by Ray Bradbury.

“Indeed,” I say to Lars. “It's haunting indeed.”

T
here are minor fits from Mitch and Missy before school. Mitch is upset that a snow day wasn't called; he had planned, he explains, to spend the entire day setting up a toy train layout in the basement. “And now it's ruined!” he cries, his face flushed, his voice heightened with an uncharacteristically dramatic lilt. “My whole day—it's ruined!”

To my surprise, it's Michael who offers words of comfort. “It's okay, Mitch,” he says gently. “The weekend starts in two days. You can make the layout then.” He doesn't look at Mitch, but he sidles a bit closer to his brother. He continues speaking, his voice soft. “I'll help you.”

Missy, for her part, is angry that she must wear boots to school. “They're ugly,” she proclaims, her perky nose turned up disdainfully at her cherry-red fur-lined boots. “They're horrid boots, Mama. I need new ones.”

I shake my head. “We just got these a few months ago,” I say firmly. “They're perfectly fine. They're warm, they fit you, they'll keep your feet dry. Put them on.”

Reluctantly, she pulls on one boot and then the other, glaring at me the entire time. I shrug, not giving in.

L
ars, Mitch, and Missy leave the house at eight. Since kindergarten, when Mitch and Missy started attending the elementary school a few blocks away, Michael and I have walked them to school most mornings, and walked back in the afternoon to pick them up. It's been a few years since Mitch and Missy were in nursery school, when the separation disturbed Michael so much; he has matured enough by now that he expects and can handle these daily transitions. Nonetheless, on snowy days, Lars generally drives Mitch and Missy the few blocks to school. These are more of those household facts that I suddenly know, without any discussion of them.

After they are gone, I stand in the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen, holding the swinging door open with my shoulder and taking a look around. My eyes find Michael's slumped form; he is seated wordlessly on the living room couch, staring at the floor.

“Michael.”

He does not look up.

“Michael,” I repeat, crossing the room and standing in front of him. “It's time for your lessons.”

This gets his attention. He does not make eye contact with me, but he does speak. “We have not done lessons in over three months, Mama.”

“Well.” I stride back into the dining room, to the small desk by the wall. It's dust-free; even if it's not been used recently, Alma undoubtedly keeps it as clean as everything else in the house. I reach inside and pull out an opened notebook. A scrabbled line of capital A's is penciled on the page. The line falters to the right, and the last letter is only partway done—just the first slanting line of the A, nothing more.

I stare at the notebook for a while. My thoughts turn to Greg
Hansen, to the stapled-together books I crafted for him in the other world. The awkward pictures I drew for him. The set of index cards tied together with a string.

“Michael.” I set the notebook on the desk, walk back to the couch, and sit beside him. “You know I've asked you to learn the letter A. Can you tell me some words that begin with A?”

“Apple,” he says dully, and then he closes his mouth.

“True.” I nod. “But let's think about some more interesting
A
words. What about . . . wait a minute.” I run upstairs; I know exactly what I am looking for and where to find it. I go directly to Missy's room and pull the
Picture Dictionary for Young Readers
off the bookshelf. Hurrying down the stairs, I turn to the front of the dictionary, to the
A
section.

“Here's a word,” I say, putting the book down on the sofa between us. “
Above
. That means something that is on top of something else, like this . . .” I dash over to his desk, pick up a pencil and his notebook, and bring them back to the couch. Leaning over next to Michael, I draw an airplane flying over several tall buildings. Beside the drawing, I write
ABOVE
in capital letters. “You see, the airplane is
above
the city.
Above
.”

I wait, breathless. Michael studies what I'd written and drawn. “Above,” he repeats softly.

“Yes,” I go on. “Every word, each word has a meaning, and if you remember what it means and can picture it in your mind . . . and you can picture the letters that make up the word . . . why then, you'll be able to read that word every time you see it. Let's try another one.” I turn the dictionary page slowly. “Here's one that I think you know,” I say. “
Add
. Like adding numbers together.” In the notebook, I write
1 + 1 = 2
, and under that I write
ADD
.

“Add,” Michael echoes me. “
Add
, that word is
add
.”

“Yes. That's exactly right.”

“What's the book you're looking through, Mama?” he asks. “Can I see it?”

“Of course.” I lean back, allowing him to study the pages.

“Here's one I know,” he says, pointing at
anchor
—with, handily, a drawing of an anchor right next to it. “That says
anchor
, doesn't it? Like a ship's anchor.”

“Yes!” I cry. “Yes, it does, Michael. You've got it!” I can't help myself; I pull him—notebook, dictionary, and all—onto my lap and squeeze him with all my might.

He screams and pulls away from my grasp. “Too tight! Too much!” he yells, and runs up to his room.

Yikes—I ruined it, I think. Nice going, Katharyn.

And then I smile. I don't care. He has
learned
. He has learned something, and
I
am the one who taught him. I sigh and lean against the back of the sofa, hugging the dictionary to my chest, bathed in happiness.

A
fter a while, I go up to the boys' room and coax Michael back downstairs. “I don't want to read anymore, Mama,” he says, as I lead him gently to the desk in the dining room. “Reading tires me out.”

“Okay.” I can see there's no point in pushing it. I need to take this slowly. If I want it to happen at all, if I want Michael to learn to read, then I need to take it in baby steps.

“Let's do some math instead,” I suggest. “Can you count?”

“What a funny question, Mama.” He sits at the desk and begins to count aloud. He makes it to one hundred in less than three minutes. I interrupt to tell him he can stop.

“What about adding?” I ask. “Do you know two plus two?”

“Mama.” He rolls his eyes. “I know two hundred and two
times
two!”

“Really?” I smile. “And what is that?”

He sighs, bored. “Four hundred and four.”

“Okay,” I say, turning away from his desk. “Let's work on money instead.”

“Real money?” he asks eagerly.

The excitement in his tone makes me smile once more; he is so rarely enthusiastic about anything. “Sure,” I reply. “Real money. Come with me.”

We raid the coin jar in the kitchen, the one perched on the windowsill. Sitting at the kitchen table, we count every coin. I am astounded by his concentration, and how easily he grasps the denominations, adding the amounts in his head. “Thirty-three dollars and sixteen cents!” he says triumphantly when we're done.

“That's a lot of moolah.”

“What's moolah, Mama?”

“Money.”

He laughs, that wonderful laughter that reminds me of my mother's. What a gift, hearing that sound. “Moolah is a really funny word.”

“You're right. It is.” I stand up. “I'll go see if Alma is ready to make your lunch.”

On the way down the hallway in search of Alma, I pass the photograph of the mountain scene, of Rabbit Ears Pass. And suddenly, finally, I understand its significance: Lars proposed to me at that exact spot.

We'd been dating steadily for about six months. Our courtship was like nothing I'd ever experienced; it was as if we couldn't get enough of each other, as if we had to make up for all the time we'd lost in trying to find each other. He'd call me several times a day at the shop; I'd take the calls in a breathless voice, like a schoolgirl. Frieda would roll her eyes at me, but she did turn away to give me privacy.

Lars and I spent nearly every evening together—dinner at his place or mine, movies, sometimes going out dancing.