The Bookseller(22)
Still, I can’t get my mind off Springfield Street and those long, lean houses. I can see the appeal. All that space. All that air to breathe.
As I approach my duplex, I spot Greg Hansen out front. He is the son of my neighbors, who own the duplex. The Hansens’ only child, Greg is perhaps eight or nine years old. He is bouncing a large, red rubber ball against the brick side of the building—my side, I note with some annoyance. He better watch it around the windows.
Jeepers, I sound like a curmudgeon.
“Hi, Greg.” I climb the steps and retrieve my afternoon Denver Post from my doorstep. I’m a newspaper addict; one paper a day isn’t enough for me, so I read the Rocky in the morning and the Post in the evening.
“Hey, Miss Miller.” Greg continues bouncing.
“Whatcha doing?” I ask him, fishing in my purse for my keys.
He shrugs. “Ma sent me out. Says if I’m not going to do my homework, I might as well get out from underfoot.”
I find my keys and close the clasp on my purse. “Why aren’t you doing your homework?”
He shrugs again. “Don’t like it.” The ball bounces against the wall once, twice, three times. “Don’t like school, ma’am.” He peers up at the sky. “Wow, what a fine color the sunset is,” he remarks. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it so orange.”
I set my purse on the green-and-yellow nylon-weave aluminum rocking chair that I keep on my side of the porch, then walk to the railing and lean over it. Greg is right; the sunset is brilliant tonight, the orange and pink hues weaving together to the west as the sun sinks in a scarlet blaze behind the mountains. But it seems an unusually keen observation for one so young, and for a boy. Perhaps, I muse, Greg is an artist in the making.
I take a good look at him. He is lanky, dark-haired, freckled. His grubby white T-shirt and dungarees hang loosely on his body. His bangs fall into his eyes.
“Greg,” I say. He glances at me, back at the sky, and then at the wall. “Are there any subjects you like in school?”
He considers this, and throws the ball again. “Math is okay. I do all right in math, sometimes.” Bounce, bounce. “The rest is really hard.”
“What’s hard? What do you find the hardest?”
He looks up at me. “Reading,” he says flatly. “I just . . . I don’t know, ma’am, I just don’t get it. I read real slow, and . . .” He looks away, embarrassed.
“Have you . . .” I am not sure how to word this. “Surely your teacher could give you some extra help.”
“Ma’am, no disrespect, but my teacher has a mess of kids in her class. I don’t know how many there are, but it’s lots. Sometimes she doesn’t even remember my name.”
I nod, thinking about that. I remember that feeling from my teaching days. So many kids, all needing so much from their schoolteacher, even if they were loath to admit it. All those eyes staring at the teacher. Some of them blank, a few of them not. A few of them following what the teacher is saying. But so many not.
But for all of them, regardless of their ability, the responsibility for their education falls to the teacher. And who can fulfill that for every single kid? What teacher is capable of that?
But what if Greg doesn’t learn to read? What does he have to look forward to, if he can’t even read?
“Greg,” I say firmly. “I’ve got some wonderful kids’ books in my apartment. Some swell books for boys. Hardy Boys—do you know those?—and some very funny books about a boy named Henry Huggins and his dog Ribsy. Would you like to come over tonight and take a look at them? Perhaps we could look at them together and see if there is something you’d enjoy reading.” I smile at him. “I could help you,” I say quietly, coaxingly. “I think . . . I think it would be fun for both of us, actually.”
He bounces the ball a few more times, biting his lip. “Let me think about it.”
He doesn’t look at me. After a minute or two, I go inside and close my door.
After dinner, I resolutely push Springfield Street and the dream man—and his dream children and even his dream housekeeper—out of my head. Keeping my mind on young Greg Hansen, I go through my bookshelves and pull out all the children’s books I have that are appropriate for beginning readers. I am not sure exactly how much trouble Greg has with his reading, how far behind he is, or even what difference I could possibly make. But if he is willing to give it a whirl—why then, I am willing to help.
Just before eight, there is a knock on my door. I dash over and open it, and Greg is standing there in the half darkness, looking small and anxious in my porch light.
“I thought . . .” He looks down. “I thought maybe you could show me some of those books.”
“Of course.” I smile and usher him inside.
Chapter 7
I am floating in a pool of green. My eyes are half closed, but through the slits of them I make out that the room I’m in is dimly lit. I wiggle around a bit and feel warm water rush over my body.
I open my eyes all the way, expecting to see the sea-green bathroom in the house on Springfield Street. Instead, I find myself in a much smaller bathroom. Like the bathroom in the split-level house, this one has green walls and fixtures—in this case a toilet, a pedestal sink, and the small bathtub in which I lie, half covered with warm water. The bathtub faucet is marked with elaborately engraved letters, swirled versions of a C and an F. A thick yellow candle in a clear glass dish sits on a wooden shelf next to the sink, its flame flickering in the shadowy room. A white towel is neatly folded on the closed toilet-seat lid, waiting for me to dry off when I finish bathing. On a hook on the back of the door hangs a short peignoir—lacy, tiny, and ruby-red. Good heavens, I think, who is going to wear that?