The Bookseller(21)
But there is no house here, not even any plan for a house—none that I can see, at any rate. There is nothing here except brittle prairie grass, dirt, and weeds.
A man strolls by, an unleashed spaniel walking quietly beside him. The man looks up and tips his hat at me. “Evening, ma’am.” His bushy blond mustache lifts on each side as he gives me a small smile.
I nod. “Good evening.”
He apparently reads the confusion in my expression, because he asks, “Can I help you, ma’am?”
I tilt my head and turn toward the empty lot. “I was just . . . perhaps I have the wrong address. I was looking for 3258 South Springfield Street.”
He looks at the lot. “Well, this is where it would be, if there was a house there,” he replies. “But as you can see, there’s no house.”
“No.” I turn away, looking over the horizon, to the mountains in the distant west. “Tell me, do you live around here?”
He nods, glancing down the street. “On the corner.”
“Have you lived there a long time?”
“Built in ’fifty-six. So a few years.”
“You don’t—there isn’t a family around here named Andersson, is there? The Lars Anderssons?”
He shakes his head. “I can’t say for sure I know everyone, but the wife does try to make a point of meeting newcomers and introducing them around.” He shrugs. “Can’t say I’ve ever heard that name, though.”
“And this lot—right here—there’s never been a house here? Or any construction here?”
His mustache twitches again. “Not since ’fifty-six, ma’am.”
I smile back. “All right. Thank you, then. I must have the street number mixed up.”
“Well, good luck to you in finding the Lars Anderssons, ma’am. Have a nice night.” And he strolls off, the dog at his side.
“Yes,” I say to his retreating figure. “You, too.”
There is nothing left to see. Feeling at once perplexed and a bit empty inside, I leave the Southern Hills neighborhood, walking slowly back to the corner of University and Yale. After waiting almost twenty minutes for a bus, I decide that they probably don’t run into the evening this far out of town. Everyone out here has a car, anyway, I realize as I watch the late-model Fords, Chevys, and Dodges roll by. So I give up and continue walking north on University to Evans, where I catch the westbound bus. Altogether, I have probably walked three or four miles since starting this adventure, and I did not think to wear walking shoes. After taking a seat, I slide my heels partially off my blistered feet. I stare out the window until the bus reaches my stop. Then I put my shoes back on, step off the bus, and make my way up Washington Street.
As I walk, I start to move my arms. Before I realize what I am doing, I am swinging my right arm as if I’m holding a tennis racquet. It actually feels rather satisfying to move my arm that way—and instinctive as well, like it’s something I have the natural strength and ability to do well. My feet don’t even hurt anymore; it’s as if I never even took that long walk tonight. I laugh at myself, shaking my head. Nonsense. It’s all nonsense; my head is playing tricks on me, and using my body as a clever prop.
It’s a crisp, just-start-of-fall evening, and some of my neighbors are out on their porches. “Hello, there, Miss Kitty,” Mr. Morris on the corner calls out. He is smoking a cigar and rocking back and forth in his decrepit wooden rocking chair with its cane back. He is close to a hundred years old. He migrated here from Ohio with his parents and sisters in the 1870s, went to one of the first secondary schools in Denver, and graduated from DU when it was in its infancy. He worked as a newspaperman, raised a family, and now lives with his widowed son, who is no spring chicken himself. Mr. Morris says that he remembers his daddy coming home from the Civil War—though you have to wonder, doing the math, if the man who showed up was actually the man who fathered him or not.
“Good evening, Mr. Morris.” I wave, but I don’t step up on his porch to chat, the way I sometimes do. I have too much on my mind.
Other neighbors also smile and greet me as I pass. I am well known in the neighborhood. I can imagine how someone from this area might describe me to a newcomer: Quirky old maid, to be sure, but nice enough, and she runs such a lovely bookshop on Pearl Street! Really, you should stop in and browse.
As I walk toward home, I can’t help noticing the contrast with Southern Hills. So much land out there, so much space between the houses. And so few tall trees. Most of the yards had a sapling or two, but none of the soaring spruces and cottonwoods that line my street.
Platt Park, the neighborhood I call home, has been here since the early part of the century. It was settled by religious families who emigrated from the Netherlands to Little Holland, as the area is still sometimes called. It shows in the Dutch-gabled roofs of many of the houses, not to mention the plethora of Christian Reformed churches. Nowadays this is mostly a blue-collar neighborhood, populated with maintenance and cleaning employees at the university, people who work in the factories on South Broadway, and some who, in the old days, would take the trolley to secretarial and retail jobs downtown.
These days, of course, folks take the bus. The bus that doesn’t run by our shop, and therefore doesn’t provide us with any customers.
I know that I should be pondering a solution to that problem. I know that Frieda, these days, is thinking of little else.