The Bookseller(19)

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, se?or. 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, se?ora. 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, se?or, se?ora. 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.