“Hi,” I said back.
“Good day?” he asked.
“Not bad,” I said, not wanting to say anything more.
“Coming in?”
“Sure.”
He stepped back and peered at the book I was carrying. I had unwrapped it to look at it on the tube. “What do you have there?”
“A book,” I said.
“Looks oldish,” he said.
I handed it to him. He took it reverently. “Dickens. Pickwick Papers. Oh, yes, this is splendid.” He gently turned to the copyright page. “Obviously not a first edition, but still worth some money I think. Where did you find it?”
“Not too far from here.” I told him the name of the shop. “I wasn’t really looking for anything—just browsing.”
“How much did you pay for it?”
Rather embarrassed at how much I had paid, I hesitated, then told him.
He flared his nostrils and patted the book. “You’re a good browser. I’d say that this little beauty is worth nearly ten times that much.”
“Seriously. Or are you funning me?”
“Why would I do that? Hang on to it. I think Dickens is due a revival and it will only go up in value.” He handed me back the book with reluctance. “Do you often buy old books?”
I thought of the hoards of books lining all the rooms of my house and reminded myself not to slip into librarian mode. “Only if I like the book. So, sometimes. I have a few odds and ends. You seem to collect books too.”
“Well, I’m going to Hay-on-Wye later on this week. Have you heard of this town?” he asked.
Hay-on-Wye. A small town located on the border of England and Wales with at least thirty antiquarian bookstores. Mecca to book collectors. I was dying to go there. When I had planned the trip with Dave I hadn’t dared suggest we go to Hay-on-Wye. I knew Dave would have died of boredom.
I squeaked out, “Yes. More bookstores than any other small town in England.”
“It’s about two hundred miles from London.”
One hundred and seventy-nine miles, if I remembered correctly. “How long will that take you?”
“Oh, I’ll leave early. I like to get there as the shops open and then spend the day.” He lifted his eyes up. “I would be gone for the whole day. I feel the need for some new books. Howard’s death has been such a disturbance. I need to do something to cheer myself up. Don’t you think?”
He was asking me to approve his reason for going on this long-awaited trip. “Absolutely. Cheering up is always good.”
“You wouldn’t care to go along, would you?”
I noticed that he put the question in the negative, but I jumped on it. “Yes, I would love that.”
“You wouldn’t mind being gone so long from London in the middle of your trip and all?” Again, a question.
“There is nothing I would rather do.”
“Fine then. Let’s say in two days we’ll go.”
When Caldwell smiled, I was relieved. I could tell he did want me to go.
Francine walked in from the sitting room. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“Karen and I are going to Hay-on-Wye,” he told her.
“I will go also,” she said as she slipped her hand onto his arm.
“But the whole town is filled with books, in English,” Caldwell said, pointing out, “You don’t read, and especially not in English.”
“I’m sure there will be other things to do.”
He cleared his throat. “I thought you were going back to Paris?”
She slitted her eyes like a cat. “It can wait until the weekend. I wouldn’t want to miss this voyage.”
* * *
I curled up on my bed with my new old book, on which Mr. Pickwick looked very pompous with his walking stick and waistcoat bulging at the buttons. I must admit I was handling it more carefully now that I had learned how much the volume was worth. This discovery made me wonder about some of the other older books I had picked up in my years of amateur collecting. I had never checked out how much any of them would be worth, I just paid what I could afford for what I liked. That way I was never disappointed.
Then I thought of the millions of books I would be perusing in a couple days. Going to Hay-on-Wye with Caldwell would be a dream come true, even with Madame F-F coming along. For the chance to wander through miles of books, I would not let that French fatal femme get in my way.
Just as I was thinking about what to do about Dave, the phone rang. I scrambled off the bed. I could hear my cell but not find it. It must have been in my purse but I couldn’t find that either. Maybe it would be Guy and I could find out what he thought he was doing. I had to find that phone.
On the fourth ring I thought to look under the bed and dug it out of my purse. I slammed the phone to my ear and said, “Hello?”
“Inopportune moment?” Rosie asked. “Were you in the tub?”
“Long day. Couldn’t find my phone.”
“Say no more. Guess what, guess what?”
I could picture Rosie jiggling up and down as she talked. I would not ruin her pleasure of telling me by guessing that something momentous had happened in her ongoing quest of the sci-fi guy.
“What?” I asked.
“We’re going to see a movie together. Richard and I.”
“Great!” I said. “You’re going on a date?”
“Well, I’m not sure if it’s a date. You see, I did what you told me to do. I asked him who his favorite author was. Gene Wolfe, whom I barely have read. But we got talking more and somehow I mentioned Jules Verne and he said that this funky movie theater by the university was playing Journey to the Center of the Earth, and we both started laughing and thought wouldn’t that be weird to go see it and then we kind of decided to go see it and we thought we might as well go together since we were both going to go see it and I guess it might be a date.”
“Act as if it is.”
“Oh,” Rosie said. “How do I do that?”
“Dress up. Wear lipstick. Smile at him. Be sure and go out for drinks afterward. Flirt.”
“Yeah. Flirt. I might have to take out a book on that. I don’t really know how to do that.”
I knew what she meant. I had had to bone up on flirting when I was her age. I still wasn’t very good at it. “Tilt your head when he talks. Touch his arm. Flip your hair back over your shoulder.”
“My hair’s about two inches long.”
“Doesn’t work then.”
“How’s it going with you? How’s the Frenchwoman? She still alive?”
“Yes, she is, and butting into everything. But the main thing I’m worried about is Dave.”
“What?” she said. “How can you stand to think about him after what he did to you?”
So I explained about how I had blathered away to a strange man in a pub who had some kind of connections in the criminal world about how Dave had done me wrong and then I had seen this same man talking to Honey. Then how I had tried to warn Dave but he had left his hotel and I couldn’t find him.
“I don’t know what to do,” I finished.
Rosie said, “You have to find him. If he dies, it will ruin your trip. Think. Where would an American plumber go in London?”
TWENTY-FOUR
Holiday, Anyone?
In the middle of the night, I woke and couldn’t get back to sleep. Nightmares of missed planes, sleeping men falling over dead, and geese running at me with slashing beaks had plagued me. I don’t know what Freud would have made of these images, but I understood what they were telling me: I was afraid I had set something in motion that I was unable to stop.
As Rosie put it, much would be ruined if something bad happened to Dave. Plus, I had a few other things I had been rehearsing saying to Dave on how he had treated me.
Unable to settle down, I crawled out of bed and sat down in front of Caldwell’s bookshelf. My eyes wandered down the rows of books, looking for anomalies. I liked books to be organized, not just by author, but als
o alphabetically, by name of book. Arranging books always calmed me down. Taking control of something and putting it in the proper order made me feel like I had some actual power in the world. I started moving books around and hoped Caldwell wouldn’t notice that I had messed with his library. Or if he noticed, that he would be pleased.
Dave’s toadlike head kept appearing in front of the books, rather like the pretend Wizard of Oz against the velvet curtains. The persistence of this vision told me I had much unfinished business with him.
I thought back to our travels together. Dave was the kind of guy who liked familiarity. In a flash it hit me where he might be and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it earlier. I dropped the book I had in my hand and stood up. Reaching into the drawer of the bedside table, I found the enormous London yellow pages.
Even browsing through a phone directory made me happy, especially the yellow pages. Everything organized in categories was reassuring and somehow satisfying.
I turned to the hotel section and found the middle of the alphabet. There were five Holiday Inns in London. I could call them tomorrow and find out if Dave was staying at one of them.
When we had traveled in the States, Dave loved staying at Holiday Inns. He had always been impressed by the plumbing, I guess. He had not been happy about the idea of a bed-and-breakfast when I had made the reservation. He said he didn’t want to have to eat breakfast with anyone he didn’t know.
I climbed back in bed and easily fell back to sleep, having a strong sense that I would be able to track him down and finally rid him from my life. The floating head of Dave wavered in my dream, then popped like a big balloon.
* * *
The next morning, before I ventured downstairs, I called all the Holiday Inns. I would find Dave, warn him, and then do what I planned to do today—go to the Chelsea Flower Show to see Annette Worth receive Howard’s award.
I had almost given up hope of finding Dave when the young woman who answered the phone at the second to last one said yes, a Mr. Dave Richter was staying with them. She asked if she should ring through to his room.
“No, I’d like to surprise him.”
“Lovely,” she said.
* * *
Two hours later I was standing outside the Holiday Inn, a gleaming white and silver building with a big green H cutting across the front of it like a brand on a horse’s flank. In no way did this structure resemble what one would think of as a quaint, quintessential London hotel. There was a Starbucks right next door. If I didn’t know I was in England, I would have guessed anyplace America. Sad that places had become so interchangeable. Why travel if it was all the same?
I walked into the lobby and was impressed by how spacious it felt: The ceiling went up at least three stories, the lounge chairs were large enough to fit two people, and the Persian rug was the size of a basketball court. This bigger-than-life sensation made me realize that most rooms in England—unless they were in palaces—were smaller than rooms in the States. I noticed that the British people walked with shorter steps. There was a slightly squished feeling to most restaurants and cafés, tables closer together than I was used to.
At the same time, it felt good to have a little more room around me, and yet I was disappointed to find this American hotel in the midst of London. Odd how two conflicting feelings can coexist in our brains.
I forced myself to go to the lobby phone and call Dave’s room. The operator put me through. After the phone buzzed twice, a woman’s voice answered, sounding quite sleepy, “Hello?”
I said nothing. Honey sounded about fifteen years old and slightly cranky. I could imagine her rubbing her eyes.
Why did it have to hit me again and again that Dave had dumped me and taken up with a young woman, young enough that I could, in fact, be her mother? Each time the thought of it sank in, it went a little deeper into my psyche and the air rushed out of my gut as if I’d been punched.
“Who’s this?” Honey asked.
I had no intention of speaking. I simply wanted to know if they were there, in the hotel.
“We didn’t ask for a wake-up call.” The phone was slammed down at the other end.
I walked back out to the lobby to wait. I did not want to go up to their room. It would simply be too painful to get a glimpse of their shared bed. Plus, there was less likely to be a scene out in public. Or so I’d thought.
For over an hour I sat, facing the elevators, and watched the streams of people flowing in and out of the hotel. Again, the variety of faces from all over the world was stunning to me. I became so caught up in guessing what countries different people were from that I almost forgot why I was sitting there.
The elevator doors opened and Dave stepped out with Honey right behind him. He looked rumpled and blurry-eyed in faded khakis and a Twins sweatshirt while she looked perky and ready for the day in skintight jeans and two layers of T-shirts, her hair pulled up in a ponytail as tight as her jeans.
I felt a rage inside myself pushing upward. He wasn’t good enough to have left me. How had that happened? I tried to calm myself down by wrapping my hands together and holding on.
Taking deep breaths, I let them get into the middle of the room before I approached them.
“Dave,” I said to stop them.
He turned. “Karen?” He took a step backward.
Honey stood next to Dave, looking puzzled.
“I have to talk to you.” Emotions were swamping me. A fierce and rare form of anger was bubbling up from deep inside me, something I had never felt before.
Seeing Honey up close again made me realize that she wasn’t that bad looking, thin and a little wispy, but lovely skin and big brown eyes, which made me angrier than ever.
“Who is this?” she asked Dave.
“Dave, you might be in danger. I can explain.”
Dave looked gobsmacked, a terrific Irish word that I had never had the opportunity to use. “How did you get here, Karen? My God, did you follow us all the way to England?”
“Listen, it’s a long story, but I have to warn you,” I started.
Honey grabbed Dave’s arm and asked again, “Who is this woman?”
“You want to know who I am?” I said, my voice rising in my throat. “I’m the woman whose place you took. I’m the woman who made the money for this trip possible. I’m the woman who should be standing next to Dave. This was my trip. Mine.”
“What are you talking about?” Honey said as she nervously looked over at Dave.
“I’m Dave’s girlfriend.” I refused to use the words old or ex. “Didn’t he tell you about me?”
“Since when?”
“For about four years until five days ago.”
Honey’s big brown eyes grew larger, then slitted down as she turned to Dave. In a loud-mouthy voice, she said, “You had a girlfriend? When we met you said you weren’t seeing anyone.”
Dave looked as if he had just eaten something rotten.
People turned to stare at us. The librarian in me came out. “Please lower your voice,” I said to Honey. I turned to Dave. All the words I had been storing up since he had dumped me came crowding forward, all the imaginary conversations I had had with him, all the questions I wanted to ask. “How could you treat me the way you did? After four years? After the Flush Budget? After all our plans for this trip? Why did you do that?”
Dave shrugged, lifted up his hands and said, “It just happened. She sat down next to me.”
“Hey, buddy, you came on to me. You bought me a drink. I was just sitting there minding my own business,” Honey reminded him. “Don’t make it sound like I went after you.”
I almost felt sorry for him. Honey seemed genuinely angry—but not as angry as I was. “Well, get used to it, honey. Coming here to England without him is the best thing he never did for me. I’m having the time of my life. I’m going to Hay-on-Wye, I’m seeing Shakespeare plays, I’m buying beautiful clothes, going into bookstores, doing everything I want to do. Dave would have been a dr
ag.”
At my outburst, Honey grabbed Dave’s arm and shook it. “I would never have given you the time of day if I had known you were involved. But what I hate the most is that you lied. How can I ever trust you?”
“You can’t,” I told her.
Dave’s eyes shifted back and forth. I could see that he was still having trouble taking in the sight of the two sides of his life colliding. Pathetic man. I had to get out of there before I strangled him. “Look, the only reason I’m here—and I don’t know why I bothered—is someone might be trying to kill you.”
Impossibly, Dave looked even more stunned. He sputtered, “Kill me?”
Honey started laughing at me. “Wow. You are kind of nuts. What are you talking about? Have you lost it?”
“I have lost nothing.” I had come to the hard part of what I had to do—confess to my role in this mess. “And it’s my fault because I talked to someone about what you did to me, dumping me and all. I told this guy that I wanted to kill you. I wasn’t serious, but I suppose he could have thought I was. Little did I know at the time that he was involved with criminal elements. I’m really not sure what he might do. But it was a mistake, a misunderstanding.”
Dave shook his head. “Karen, I don’t know what you’re talking about and I don’t want to know. Please leave Kirstin and me alone.”
“If you don’t believe me, ask her.” I pointed at Kirstin, not wanting to say her name. “She knows the man who might be after you.”
“What are you talking about? What man?” Kirstin asked.
“At the National Gallery. Remember when you were standing outside? I saw you talking with him—a tall blond guy.”
At this, she paused and I swore I saw comprehension cross her face. She shook her head, her blond ponytail switching back and forth. “What guy? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t talk to anyone anyplace. You’re making this all up. Stupid cow!”
After calling me a bovine creature, she lunged straight at me, both hands slamming into my shoulders with surprising force. I pitched backward and landed on my butt on the Persian rug.
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