The Bookseller(31)
Turning back to the conversation with Linnea, I am afraid of my next question. But it must be asked. Taking a deep breath, I ask, “And your brother? What happened to him?”
Linnea shakes her head. “Heart troubles again,” she replies. “Very sad . . . he was young, only thirty-four.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “Linnea, I am so sorry.”
She steps back and shakes her head as if to clear it. “Listen to me,” she says, smiling. “Breaking the first two rules they teach you in beauty school. Rule number one: don’t tell the customer about yourself until you’ve learned all there is to know about the customer. And rule number two: if you do talk about yourself, make sure you speak only of happy things.”
I smile in return. “I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot,” I say. “So tell me some happy things about you.”
She wags her finger at my reflection. “Oh, no, you don’t, Kitty Miller,” she says firmly. “Not until I learn all about you first.”
And so I tell her. We talk about my parents, and I tell her about their big trip. She says it must be heaven for them, to be able to travel to an exotic place like Hawaii, and be able to visit family and have a free place to stay. Thinking of my mother’s words, I just smile and nod.
Linnea says she has always dreamed of traveling, but with raising two children, buying a house, and paying their bills, the best she and her husband managed through the years was an occasional auto trip. The children, Joe and Gloria, are now twenty and sixteen. “Joe is at the university up in Boulder.” Linnea shrugs. “Nice up there, I guess. Pretty campus. I hope he’s learning something, is all I am thinking.” She shakes her head. “And that Gloria. Goodness, between school, friends, clubs, boys—that girl is busy. Runs around like a chicken with its feathers cut off.”
I look at her quizzically in the mirror.
“Did I say that wrong?” She shrugs again. “You know, I’ve been in this country and speaking English for close to thirty years, and I still do not get the expressions right.”
I smile and laugh, and she laughs with me. I love Linnea’s laugh. It sounds just like a female version of Lars’s.
I tell her about the bookstore, about Frieda and how we got started in it after being disenchanted with our original career plans. “What a marvelous thing,” Linnea says. “Following your hearts that way. Tell me, what sorts of books do you carry?”
“All sorts.” I reach into the pocket of my slacks for a Sisters’ Bookshop business card. “Fiction, travel, history, poetry, art.”
“Classics?” Linnea asks, taking the business card from my hand. “I love the classics.”
“Do you?” I smile. “Who is your favorite author?”
“Oh.” Linnea waves her hand, the one that is not holding my card. “It’s difficult to pick one favorite. Shakespeare, perhaps. I love reading Shakespearean sonnets, and some of the plays, though others are quite so sad. I’m a great admirer of Henry James; I loved The Portrait of a Lady. Of more recent authors, I suppose John Steinbeck is my favorite. I just now finished reading The Winter of Our Discontent. This is a book that I know a lot of readers did not care for, and I understand; it’s not a happy story. But I think it shows the disappointing side of American life.” She furrows her brow. “Maybe Americans do not want to read about that,” she says thoughtfully.
I nod. I had the same impression of The Winter of Our Discontent, which I read last year when it came out. After reading several reviews that proclaimed that Steinbeck’s barefaced morality was putting him on the downward slope of his career, I wondered the same thing as Linnea: is it the author’s moral high ground that we find disagreeable—or is it that he is spot-on, but the theme of his new novel makes us uncomfortable?
“I learned English by reading,” Linnea tells me. “It’s the best way, really.”
“Well, we have plenty of Shakespeare, plenty of James, and plenty of Steinbeck,” I say. “Anything else you want, too. And anything we don’t carry in the store, we can order for you. You ought to come by sometime.” I hear the pleading in my voice, and I pray that Linnea is too engrossed in her work to notice it herself. “It would be my pleasure to show you around.”
She places the Sisters’ business card carefully on her side table. “I’ll do that,” she promises. “I’ll bring Gloria. She, too, loves to read.” Linnea steps back, eyeing my curler-covered head, nodding her approval. “All right, then, Kitty, I think you’re ready for a dryer.”
Back at Sisters’, Frieda exclaims over my new look. “It’s stunning,” she says, staring at me. “Honestly, Kitty, I have never seen you look so good.” She fishes under the counter for her purse and pulls out a compact, dusting her nose. “You make me want to freshen up,” she explains, grinning apologetically. Closing the compact with a firm click, she says, “Haven’t I told you for years to get rid of that Veronica and go see someone new for your hair?”
“You have.” I am looking at my reflection in the mirror over the counter. I cannot stop staring at myself. I look exactly like I did in the dream. Except a lot more sober, and with much less ritzy clothes on.
“Oh, I almost forgot to tell you.” Frieda comes from behind the counter and bends down to retrieve a book that has fallen over on the Classics shelf—The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer, a substantial volume if there ever was one. The Tales should, by all means, be expected to hold themselves up. That cheeky old Wife of Bath is probably to blame.