Lars’s eyes meet mine. “It’s quite a story.”
“Quite,” I agree, and then, not knowing where to go from there, I add, “Why don’t you tell it, dear?”
Lars places his hand over mine. “Believe it or not, this beautiful lady was looking to meet men through the lonely hearts section in the newspaper.” He goes on to tell about my ad, about the letter that he spent days writing, in an effort to get it absolutely perfect. “I waited and waited for her to call,” he says. “I was afraid I had taken too long to write. Perhaps she’d already met some other fellow.” His eyes are downcast, but I can see that they are merry under his lashes. “And then one night the telephone rang.”
“We talked for hours.” I take up the tale. “And made plans to meet.” After that, I don’t know what else to say. The story is true so far, but only in a dream could it have ended here, in this restaurant, instead of where it actually did—with Lars deceased, with me sitting alone and unaware in a coffee shop.
“And then, as we were lingering over a few last words to each other on the telephone line, I began to feel a tight pain in my chest,” Lars says. “I had trouble breathing. Katharyn must have heard it in my voice, because she asked what was wrong. I told her that I was having chest pains. ‘Good heavens, where are you?’ she asked, and the last thing I remember is giving her my address. Then I blacked out.”
I stare at him, shocked. That did not happen.
In the real world, what happened is that we said good-bye and hung up the telephone. And two days later, he failed to appear at the coffee shop.
Now it all makes perfect sense. In the real world, Lars did have a heart attack and die, just as the newspaper obituary said he did.
What I hadn’t realized—until now—is that it happened that very night.
It happened only moments after we got off the telephone.
So. This is the part where, if I were at a movie theater or watching a program on television, I might just laugh aloud. I would shake my head. Honestly, I might think, this is simply too absurd to continue. I would contemplate getting up from my seat, walking out of the theater, or turning off the television set.
But I can’t do that. I am forced to stick around. Like a bug caught on flypaper, I don’t have any choice in the matter.
Regardless of how absurd or unbelievable it may be, I cannot seem to leave. I cannot get out of this dream.
Judy leans forward. “My, what a story,” she says. “Tell me, Katharyn, what happened next?”
And suddenly, in a rush—in the way things happen only in dreams, of course—I know exactly what happened next.
“I knew something serious must have gone on,” I begin. “I knew I needed to act quickly. I’d scratched Lars’s address on a piece of paper, and I picked it up and ran next door to my neighbor’s. I wanted to leave my telephone line open, you see, in case he regained consciousness. I knocked on the neighbor’s door, and when she answered, I rushed for her telephone and called the police. When I explained what had happened, they said they’d dispatch a squad car and an ambulance right away. I explained briefly to my neighbor what was happening. Then I went back to my apartment and picked up the telephone and called his name, but he didn’t come back on the line. Finally I could hear someone banging on his door, then breaking in. I heard lots of excitement and voices, and I could tell they were trying to do something medically with him, though of course I had no idea what.”
Judy’s eyes are huge over her martini glass. “Goodness, you must have been frightened out of your wits!”
“I was.” Nodding, I continue. “I kept calling through the line, trying to get someone to talk to me. Finally a man picked up the telephone. When I told him I was the one who had rung for help, he said it appeared that Lars had had a heart attack. I asked where they were taking him, and he told me they were on their way to Porter Hospital.
“I didn’t really think. I just grabbed a coat, called for a taxi—I didn’t have a car back then—and went outside. When I got to the emergency room at Porter, I gave Lars’s name and tried to get someone to tell me what was going on, but no one would. I didn’t know what else to do, so I sat down in the waiting room. No one else was there. After what felt like an eternity, a man and a woman came in. The woman said her brother had been brought in because he’d had a heart attack. She was taken into the treatment area. The man with her was about to follow, but I caught his arm.”
Lars’s eyes are bright. “Quite forward of her, I might add.”
“‘Forward’ had nothing to do with it,” I tell him sweetly. “I just wanted to know what had happened. I explained who I was, that I was the one who had called for help. The man introduced himself; he was Lars’s brother-in-law, Steven. He told me to wait while he went inside to see what was going on. So I sat down again and waited. I was about to give up when Steven came back out. ‘He’s stable and conscious,’ he told me. ‘He’d like to see you.’
“So I was permitted to see him. He was lying on a cot in a treatment room, attached to all sorts of machines and monitors. His sister was seated at his side. When I came in, she rose and took my hand. ‘Thank you,’ she said, tearing up. ‘You saved his life.’
“It was then that Lars opened his eyes . . .” And here I stare at him again, look into the deep blue. It’s difficult to take my gaze away. Finally, I turn back to Judy and Bill. “Our eyes met, and he reached forward to take my hand. ‘Thank you, Katharyn,’ he whispered. ‘Thank you.’”
I take a sip of wine, then smile delightedly around the table.
“And that,” Lars says heartily, “was pretty much that. She visited me daily until I was released. When I went home, my sister Linnea was my official nurse, but Katharyn was the one who truly brought me back to health. I quit smoking—we both did—and started to exercise regularly. I love to hike, so we did that a lot, especially before we had children. And we took up tennis together; we still play in a doubles league. Of course, I have to take it a bit easy—I mostly play net, and Katharyn handles the back of the court.” He chuckles. “Trust me, folks, you don’t want to mess with this lady’s backhand.”
I stare at him, wondering if I look as confused as I feel. I have not held a tennis racquet since gym class in high school. I cannot imagine myself being even remotely skilled at something as athletic as playing tennis.
Lars squeezes my shoulder. “Katharyn and I were inseparable from the day we met. We got married less than a year later, and we’ve been happy as larks ever since.”
“What an amazing story!” Judy exclaims. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anything quite so romantic.”
Lars nods. “We ask each other all the time,” he says, “what if we had never met? What if we’d gotten off the telephone just a few minutes before we did? The answer is chillingly simple: if it hadn’t happened the way it did—why then, I would not have survived. We wouldn’t be here tonight.”
My hands are trembling. My whole body tenses at his words.
The dream continues. We enjoy a hearty spaghetti dinner and a bottle of Chianti. We get to hear how they met (not nearly as exciting; they were introduced via mutual friends in college), and then linger over coffee for all and cigarettes for them. As he’d mentioned, Lars does not smoke, and neither do I. He tells Bill and Judy that his doctors were ahead of their time in recognizing smoking’s role in heart troubles, so at their insistence, he gave it up following his heart attack, and I did the same.
It is then that I remember something: I did give up smoking in the fall of ’54. I could never explain to Frieda why I did it. At the time, it simply felt like something I had to do. Frieda says now that I must have had premonitions about the research they’re doing these days linking smoking to cancer, heart attacks, all sorts of ills. She says she wishes she’d had the foresight to quit with me when I did. But she, a two-pack-a-day smoker, has never even tried to give it up, and I doubt she ever will.
Outside the restaurant, we bid Judy and Bill good night and walk t
o our car. I am curious to see what we drive. It turns out that we have a late-model Cadillac, silver-blue with a white interior. The Cadillac is probably Lars’s, because unless it has been scrubbed clean that day, there are few signs that children ride in it all that often. Does that mean I have my own car, one in which I drive to the grocer’s, run errands, cart children around? Either that, or the children and I walk everywhere, which seems unlikely. I wonder vaguely what my car looks like. The thought amuses me. I do know how to drive—my father taught me when I was in high school—but never once in my life have I considered the notion of buying, much less driving regularly, a car of any sort.
“Nice night,” Lars remarks as he pulls out of the parking space. “What did you think?”
“They seemed to be enjoying themselves.”
He nods. “I hope so. It would be great to land Bill’s business.”
Impulsively, I take his hand. “You will,” I tell him. “I’m sure of it.”
He squeezes my hand back, just as we did under the table in the restaurant. “I’m so thankful that you believe in me. It means the world to me. You know that, don’t you?”
I hesitate, and then I reply, “Yes. I do know that.”
The Caddy glides smoothly onto University Boulevard. I take careful note of our route. We drive south on University, taking the underpass below the Valley Highway. Entering the more populated area around the DU campus, we pass Evans Avenue; if we were to take a right there and go west, we would be heading toward my neighborhood. Instead, we continue on University for another mile or two, then take a left on Dartmouth, near the very southern edge of town.
There is a lot of new construction out here. I don’t think the bus even runs this far south. It’s dark, of course, but I can tell how pretty it is, almost like being in the country. The streets are named after midwestern cities: Milwaukee, Detroit, St. Paul.
We take a right onto Springfield Street. Houses are scattered on the block; not every lot has been built on. Some of the empty lots have signs advertising their availability. Among these, quite a few new houses are going up; I can see their shadows looming in the darkness, like long, lean skeletons across the sweeping vista.
We pull into the driveway of a finished split-level. I stare at the facade, trying to memorize what the house looks like from the outside. It’s dark, so I can’t tell much, but the brick seems to be a pinkish orange. I take note of the address—3258—which is in brass letters next to the turquoise front door.
Inside, we are greeted by a middle-aged brown-skinned woman in a maid’s uniform. We have a maid? I hadn’t caught that in my earlier dreams, but it doesn’t surprise me. Nor am I surprised that our maid is likely from some Spanish-speaking country—probably Mexico, as so many people in Colorado are—rather than being some other race. Denver does not have large Negro or Oriental populations, and while I am in general uneducated about the world of domestic help, I would wager that white women rarely take jobs like this. Not if they can find something better.
Nonetheless, I am disappointed—not that my brain has fabricated a maid, because it makes sense that Lars and I would have help, living as we do in this large house, this fancy neighborhood. But I would have preferred my persona in this dream world to be a bit more enlightened. If I’m going to have a maid, I think, I could at least have the decency to let her wear street clothes, especially when she’s babysitting after hours.
“Everything go okay, Alma?” Lars asks.
“Sí, señor. Todo estaba bien. Sleeping just like los ángels.” Alma takes her coat from the hall closet and shrugs her shoulders into it. She picks up a large bag with a magazine entitled Vanidades sticking out of the top of it.
“It’s late,” Lars says, opening his billfold. “Is Rico coming for you?”
“Sí, I call him when you pull in the driveway.” She buttons her coat up to the collar and opens the door.
“Please wait inside,” I say. I am not sure if this is protocol or not, but it seems cruel to send her out into the chilly night.
She shakes her head. “Eso está bien, señora. Rico is here any minute. And the fresh air, it feels good.”
“Well, good night, then,” Lars says, handing Alma a small stack of bills. “We’ll see you on Monday.”
“Buenas noches, señor, señora. Have a nice weekend.”
You would expect the dream to end there, but it doesn’t. After taking off our coats and hanging them in the closet, we watch from the front window as a car pulls up and Alma gets in. As Lars turns out the living room lights, I can’t help stifling a yawn. Lars touches my shoulder gently. “Go get ready for bed,” he says. “I’ll check on the kids.”
So I make my way to the sage-green bedroom and bath. In the medicine cabinet above the right-hand sink, I find all the things I’ll need for an evening toilette. Baby oil to remove my mascara. Pond’s Cold Cream for washing my face. A special night cream called Fountain of Youth, which Frieda discovered years ago at a cosmetic counter at Joslins; at her insistence, I tried it, too, and became hooked. The medicine cabinet looks as though I have personally stocked it. But of course I have, haven’t I?
I carefully hang the pretty green dress in the closet and change into a nightgown that I find in a drawer of the long walnut dresser. I crawl under the covers to wait for Lars.
“They okay?” I ask when he enters the room.
“Fast asleep and dreaming deep.” He smiles and goes into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.
I am not sure what to do. Though I am drowsy from the wine and the late hour—not to mention the fact, of course, that I am in an imaginary world—I resist closing my eyes. I fear that if I do, the dream will end and I will wake up in my own bed. And then I’ll miss out on what might happen next.
As is no doubt evident, my lovers have been few and far between in the years since those events in the fall of 1954. After my experience (or rather, nonexperience) with Lars, I lost my motivation in the romance department. I canceled my personal ad. I rejected offers from friends to be set up with this fellow or that. If a friendly man came into the shop, one without a gold band on his left finger—why then, I would smile kindly, help him find the book he was looking for, and send him on his way. It didn’t matter, I told myself. Never again would I force the issue.
There have been a few rare occasions—at a party or once in a while at a bar, out with friends—when there was a possibility for something quick and easy, and I allowed myself to be picked up. I will admit it: over the years, there have been a couple of one-night stands. These events were the result of physical desire and drinks flowing freely. I never cared if I saw such men again. I wasn’t doing it because I wanted to find a husband.
And now I know why.
All these years, I believed it was a gradual shift, my transformation from hopeful, starry-eyed young woman to permanent old maid. But now I see that this change wasn’t gradual at all. It was quite abrupt, really.
After Lars stood me up, I realize now, I never wanted to be attached. Honestly, I never thought about it again. It was as if that idea closed itself off for me permanently on that evening when he didn’t show up to meet me.
But here I am, in his bed, waiting for him to come to me.
He opens the bathroom door and turns out the light. He is in pajama bottoms, but no top. His chest is covered with a beautiful reddish-brown fur. I want to run my fingers through it so badly that they ache.
He crawls into bed next to me. Taking me in his arms, he kisses me fully, deeply. “I have been waiting to do that all day,” he says hoarsely when we come up for air.
It sounds corny, but as our nightclothes come off and our bodies come together—naturally, as if this has been happening regularly for years—I can see why no one else ever appealed to me again.
Because this is where I belong.
Chapter 6
And of course I wake up at home. A sense of melancholy comes over me. For the first time since I started having the dreams, I feel
lonely in my own bed, my own home.
What an uncomfortable sensation, not to mention a ridiculous one. I rise and shake the covers off.
“Maybe it won’t come anymore, this dream life,” I tell Aslan. He follows me to the kitchen and winds himself around my legs, begging for food. I pour him a dish of milk, make myself coffee, and with a deep sigh force myself to realign with this world.
After an uneventful and, yet again, not particularly lucrative day, Frieda and I close the shop at five o’clock. As we are locking up, Bradley comes out the doorway that leads to his apartment above our shop. He pauses to button his cardigan, which is beige and tattered, with patches on the sleeves. His smile is friendly, but even so, Frieda and I exchange apprehensive glances.
Bradley is our landlord. He owns the building, living in one of the apartments upstairs, renting out the other, and leasing both our space and the small lawyer’s office next door to us. Bradley is in his sixties, widowed with several grandchildren. When they visit him, they come into the shop and browse the children’s section, and more often than not Frieda and I let them select something for free. Bradley is a good landlord, an honest man. It hurts my heart that we are so low on funds right now—and I know Frieda feels the same way. We have no idea how we’ll make October’s rent, which comes due in ten days.
“You girls have a nice evening, now,” Bradley says. “Enjoy the warm weather while it lasts. Winter will be here before you know it.”
He gives us a long look, one that I cannot read completely; nonetheless, it gives me a panicky feeling and makes my throat close up. Does he know? I wonder, swallowing hard. Surely he must. He has eyes; he can see out his window. Certainly he must see our shop’s comings and goings—or lack thereof—every day.
In any case, Frieda and I both nod. “You, too, Bradley,” Frieda says, and then we turn away and start walking south on Pearl Street.
We are both silent for a while. I don’t want to talk about it—the shop, the rent—and I get the feeling that Frieda doesn’t want to, either. After a few moments she begins to whistle—“Soldier Boy,” by the Shirelles, I think, although with Frieda’s off-key whistling, it’s impossible to know for sure.
The Bookseller Page 6