The Bookshop of Yesterdays

by Amy Meyerson

  The summer Evelyn ended things with Billy, John’s father had died. He’d returned to school his senior year, depressed and defeated, barely able to focus. John couldn’t shake the sounds of his father’s final breaths. He was hopeful for the distraction of school, the reminder that life was nothing more than particles dictated by math, equations that produced his feelings of grief. John had always liked the emotionlessness of particle physics, but he was having trouble believing it after his father died.

  One look at Billy, and John knew something devastating had happened to him over the summer, too. Billy’s frame seemed too big for his body. He walked in a way that suggested every step was a battle. Given John’s summer, he assumed Evelyn was dead. But they’d merely broken up.

  “Of course the loss of your first love feels like the end of the world. Given the summer I had, I don’t think I was as sympathetic as Billy wanted me to be.”

  Billy spent the bulk of his time in his room with the door shut. A knock would sometimes result in a response. Other times not.

  “I guess I should have been more patient with him, but your uncle, he was always more interested in himself than anyone else. I shouldn’t say that.” I indicated that it was fine, fighting the urge to defend Billy. “Maybe he didn’t know how to ask me about my dad. After a while, I couldn’t be his sounding board anymore. It was an easy transition. Billy was in the geology department. I was in physics. Then I went east for graduate school, and Billy stayed out here. We kept in sporadic touch, but we didn’t have much occasion to see each other. In fact, I’m not sure I’d seen him since college when he turned up at my lecture.”

  “So he came to talk to you about Evelyn?” I asked, steering the conversation back to her death.

  John nodded and continued his story. He said he didn’t remember finishing his speech. He didn’t remember shaking the hands of colleagues who congratulated him. His thoughts were focused on Billy and whatever terrible news he had to tell John.

  When the crowd dissipated, John approached Billy. What happened?

  Is there somewhere we can talk? Billy asked.

  Billy, you’re scaring me.

  It’s Evelyn. Billy burst into tears, and John knew, this time, Evelyn was dead. John recalled the Christmas cards he’d gotten from them over the years. Billy and Evelyn sitting on the beach. Billy and Evelyn in ski boots at the base of Big Bear Mountain.

  I need your help, Billy said.

  John and Billy walked to Main Street where they found a pink Victorian that had been converted into a cafe. They sat at a table on the back patio. Billy handed John a sheet of paper with a series of calculations written on it.

  I need your expert opinion. Short of forming a black hole, particles can only have a finite amount of arrangements. Thus the patterns must repeat.

  That’s true, John said, unclear what his old friend was asking him.

  “They were calculations of distances to parallel universes. Theories on multiple universes had already been floating around for a while,” John explained to me. “But I wasn’t sure why Billy was showing them to me. In fact, I remember being surprised at how unsophisticated his calculations were. Any high school student with a decent physics teacher could have calculated them.”

  John sipped his coffee, waiting for his old friend to explain his rather mundane observations.

  We have to assume that the particle arrangements are randomly distributed between realms. There’s no reason that our universe would duplicate more frequently than any other. Billy pointed to the first number on the crumpled page. Within this distance we can assume there will be a cosmic patch identical to ours, where life unfolds exactly as we know it. Billy pointed to another number. And here’s where we can expect to find a copy of our cosmic patch, not an exact replica. His finger kept moving. And this is where a cosmic patch with a world comparable to ours exists but the particles have rearranged to manifest into different scenarios, different fates. Billy let his finger linger over the last number.

  Sure, Billy, theoretically, John said. Parallel universes are highly speculative. They’re beyond our cosmic horizon. We don’t have any observational proof.

  Billy kept his finger firmly indented into the paper. A world like ours, where different outcomes can occur.

  John watched the tip of Billy’s finger, wondering whether he would accidentally poke a hole in his series of calculations.

  The math works within an inflationary model, too. Billy’s mouth widened into a grin. John wanted to get up and leave, to lash out at Billy for disrupting the biggest day of his burgeoning career with shaky theories that could never be enacted in life. He reminded himself that Billy was grieving. He reminded himself to be patient.

  Billy, slow down a moment. I’m not sure what you’re asking me.

  Somewhere within our multiverse, she’s still alive.

  Billy, John said gently, we can’t know what lies beyond the cosmic horizon. You know that. Even if there are other realities similar to ours, realities where the dead are still alive, we’ll never know for sure. Our reality is the only one we can know.

  I know, Billy said. John folded the sheet of calculations and carefully placed it in Billy’s breast pocket. It helps, knowing we’re still happy somewhere.

  John didn’t know what to say. He wanted to ask Billy what had happened to Evelyn, but he knew all that he needed. Evelyn was dead, and Billy was trying to find a way to continue living with her. He wanted John to weigh in on his calculations, to help him account for variations in inflationary models. He had come to John because they were old friends, because they’d always spoken to each other through science, and encrypted in these frantic calculations was a grief Billy couldn’t express. John left a few dollars on the table, and put his hand on Billy’s shoulder. Come on, he said, I’ll buy you a drink.

  “Don’t go tête-á-tête with a grieving man,” John advised me. “He’ll wind up sadder and you’ll wind up drunker than you’ve ever been.”

  Like Victor Frankenstein, Billy had turned to science to assuage his grief. And where Frankenstein could have used a friend to tell him not to reverse the cycle of life—perhaps Victor’s childhood companion Henry Clerval—Billy had John Cook to remind him that he couldn’t outpace science. Mathematical calculations wouldn’t render Evelyn alive. And even if they could, we all knew the story of the creature and the well-intentioned Victor Frankenstein.

  “We kept in touch professionally, but I never saw him again.” John gathered a few books and an apple from his desk and placed them in his attaché. “I was very sorry to hear about your uncle.” He threw the bag over his shoulder, and I followed him into the hall. We walked downstairs toward the main doors.

  “Why did he come to your convention, though? I mean, why’d he decide to seek you out then?”

  “There was a feature of me around that time, in the alumni magazine. He must have seen it. He must have seen what I was lecturing on and thought I could help,” John speculated. I followed him through the glass doors to the shaded pathway.

  “Do you think seeing you helped Billy cope with his grief?”

  “Sadness is like a maze. You make some mistakes along the way, but eventually you find your way out.”

  We arrived at the sidewalk, and I motioned that I was parked to the right. John was going left.

  “Thanks for telling me about my uncle,” I said, and shook his hand.

  “He was one of the good ones. He just could never get out of his own head.” John waved goodbye as we walked in opposite directions.

  When I got to my parents’ car, I reread the next clue.

  Whatever happened, I knew I would survive it. I knew, above all, that I’d go on working. Surviving meant being born over and over. It wasn’t easy, and it was always painful. But there wasn’t any other choice except death.

  I tried to hear those words in Billy’s voice. I
nstead, I heard those words in another voice familiar to me. I would survive. It wasn’t easy. There wasn’t any other choice. They sounded perfect in Mom’s mellow, patient inflection. I looked at the flyer again. February 17-20, 1986, a few months after I was born. Evelyn must have died sometime between 1984 when Prospero Books opened and Dr. Cook’s convention. When I was an infant, Mom must have been grieving. As I got older, she must have hid that pain from me. Why didn’t she ever talk about Evelyn? Why wasn’t Evelyn’s picture on the bookshelf in our living room, beside our other dead but not forgotten family—Mom’s parents, Dad’s, his brother. Why didn’t we remember Evelyn that way, too?

  CHAPTER NINE

  Every Sunday since I could remember, my parents marinated a slab of meat, fired up the grill and closed the weekend with another edition of the Brooks Family Cookout. Rain or shine. In sickness or in health. Whether I was home or across the country. Every Sunday, they obeyed their routine.

  I waited for Mom in the backyard. Along the perimeter of their property, Mom’s roses were in full bloom. Ten different shades of pink, they’d overtaken the lawn. In late June, the avocado tree was beginning to show signs of fruit, green orbs as small as olives.

  Mom’s curly bob trailed her shoulders as she headed toward me with two glasses of wine. She wore one of Dad’s old polo shirts and khaki shorts, her gardening uniform. I tried to see Mom of yesteryears: Suzy, with her sleek ironed hair, the lead singer of the Lady Loves who had charmed Dad with her toughness, who had made young John Cook lose track of the song. Suzy, whose very presence in the hallway outside the biology classroom would have been enough to make Billy slip the frog he’d fabricated for Evelyn into his pocket, walking away, possibly forever. As she walked toward me with two glasses of rosé, I just saw Mom, her soft curls matted from the hat she’d worn to garden, her cheeks flushed from the unrelenting sun.

  “The alohas are coming in strong this year,” I said as she handed me a glass of wine. They snaked up the fence behind the other rosebushes, covering the wood planks in papery pink petals.

  “I didn’t realize you knew which ones the alohas were,” she said.

  “I think I’ve been your daughter long enough to know the alohas from the hybrid tea roses.”

  She winced, the air between us not quite hospitable to sarcasm. I wanted her to brush away the strand of hair that had fallen into my face, but she kept her distance.

  The sun remained obstinate, broiling the early hours of evening. I found shelter on the porch and we sat at the patio table.

  “How’s it at Joanie’s?” she asked.

  “I’m staying in Billy’s apartment now. Joanie’s house is too small for guests.”

  “Is it weird, being there?”

  “A little,” I confessed.

  “You know you can always come home,” Mom said.

  “I know.”

  We watched the cloudless sky, drinking our wine and avoiding eye contact. I continued to think about John Cook’s story, the way he shivered at the memory of Mom. As teenagers, John Cook and Billy were both afraid of Mom. I remembered the cowed look on Billy’s face when Mom had yelled at him on my twelfth birthday. As an adult, Billy was afraid of Mom, too. I’d never been afraid of Mom. I wasn’t afraid of her now.

  “How come you never talk about Evelyn?”

  Mom examined the contents of her glass, glimmering ruby in the sunlight. “There’s no reason I would talk about her with you.”

  “But she was your best friend.”

  “She was my best friend,” Mom repeated.

  “And Billy’s wife?”

  “And Billy’s wife,” she repeated again.

  “You don’t think it’s strange that I’ve never heard of her before?”

  Mom sipped her wine, contemplating.

  “Maybe,” she admitted. She glanced at her watch and stood to walk inside. “What do you want me to say? I couldn’t talk about it. I needed to move on.” She frowned as she slid through the French doors.

  I followed her into the kitchen. “What was Billy like after she died? I remember there was always something sad about him.”

  “You thought he was magical.” Mom opened the oven and placed a glass dish of gratin potatoes on the top rack.

  “Was it because of Evelyn, was that why he was always a little sad?”

  “Everything with Billy was because of Evelyn.” The oven door blocked my view of Mom, hiding her reaction. When she shut the oven, her face was red from its heat. She set the timer to forty minutes. “I’m going to take a bath before dinner. Will you tell your father to put the meat on in ten?” Her eyes drifted toward the garage where the belt sander roared.

  I followed her to the staircase. “Why won’t you talk to me?”

  She stared down at me from halfway up. “Honey, I’ve been in the garden all afternoon. I want to get cleaned up before we eat.”

  “But it’s just us. You can have dirt on your face for all we care. You can wear your gardening clothes. Hell, you can wear nothing. We can become a nudist family.” Typically, this would have made her laugh.

  “Just give me some space,” she said firmly. She skipped up the last few stairs and disappeared behind her bedroom door. The walls whined as water coursed through them, rushing up the pipes to her bathtub. I pictured Mom sticking her big toe into the water to test the temperature. I wondered if she was thinking about me, if she was thinking about Evelyn. While Mom may have survived Evelyn’s death, she clearly hadn’t moved on from it.

  “Dad,” I screamed, knocking on the door to the garage. “Dad!” The grind of the belt sander continued. I opened the door. Dad was against the far wall, working the sander up and down the side of a bookshelf. I waved until he saw me, and he turned the sander off, shoving his safety goggles onto the top of his head. “Mom wants you to cook the meat. She’s taking a bath.” Dad cast me a disappointed look. Even I heard the petulance in my tone. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” I insisted, unwilling to admit fault.

  “It’s not about doing something wrong.” Dad unplugged the sander and rested it on his workbench. I followed him through the kitchen and living room to the back porch. “You’re being inconsiderate.”

  “By wanting her to talk to me? To let me in?”

  “Sometimes it’s better to let the past go.” Dad turned on the igniter for the grill. It clicked until the burners caught fire.

  “You don’t believe that,” I argued. So much of our relationship revolved around history. The first book Dad bought me was an illustrated history of the presidents. Each night, as he tucked me into bed, we reviewed the life of a president, beginning with Washington—his favorite—and ending with George, Senior, who was president at the time.

  “Go grab the meat for me, will you?” He motioned with his chin toward the kitchen.

  I retrieved the bowl of flank steak marinating on the kitchen island.

  When I handed it to Dad, he said, “You’re lucky to have two parents who are both here, still together. Most people don’t have that.” Dad rarely spoke about his parents, but their deaths were a pain he carried daily. “I don’t think Billy was trying to hurt your mom by leaving his store to you.” Dad jabbed a giant fork into the meat and lifted it from the bowl. He allowed the marinade to drip before tossing the meat onto the grill. It made a satisfying sizzle. “But Billy was never capable of considering other people’s feelings. He always thought about himself.”

  “And Evelyn.”

  “That’s another way of thinking about himself.”

  “Why do you and Mom see the worst in him?”

  “Because we knew him.” Dad closed the grill’s lid and sat at the patio table across from me. The air grew sweet with soy sauce burning off the meat. “You were just a kid.”

  “I know Billy wasn’t as infallible as I thought he was. I’m with kids all day. They always see more th
an you think. There was this weight to Billy. I’m only now realizing it was because of Evelyn.” Dad and I stared at each other like two lawyers trying to negotiate a deal. “When I first got back, you said Evelyn died of a seizure?”

  Dad coughed, trying to mask his surprise. “Did I say that?”

  “Did Mom and Billy’s fight have anything to do with her death?” Dad gazed through the glass French doors into the living room, expecting Mom to appear any moment. “Please, Dad. Help me understand why Mom won’t talk to me.”

  “Evelyn was always this tension between your mom and Billy,” Dad finally said.

  “She and Billy were high school sweethearts?” If Dad had asked how I knew they dated in high school, I would have told him about John Cook, about Billy’s last scavenger hunt, the clues I found so far, the story I was piecing together. I would have told him everything.

  “I wasn’t around back then,” he said.

  “But Mom told you about that time?”

  “She did. She thought it was a terrible idea from the start, not that either of them listened to her.”

  “It wasn’t her place to keep them apart,” I said.

  I expected, Come on, Mimi, in Dad’s disappointed tone. Instead, he agreed. “You’re right, it wasn’t.”

  “How’d he and Evelyn get back together?” Again, I waited for Dad to ask me how I knew they’d broken up. Again, I was prepared to tell him everything, if only he asked.

  “Your mom,” he said. He walked over to the grill and opened it to check the meat. It wasn’t time to turn it yet, so he closed the lid. “Not intentionally, though. Evelyn and your mom reconnected when we moved to LA.”

  “When was this?”

  “It must have been ’75, ’76. Evelyn turned up at one of my work cocktail parties. Your mom hated those parties. I did, too, frankly.”