The Bookseller(47)

How could I keep from loving someone who spoke so highly of me? No one else, save for my parents, had ever done so in my entire life.

And as for Frieda—how could she not love someone who was so faithful to her? For she was right. Never, no matter what, would I do anything to betray her.


And how amazing, I think as I walk toward her at the counter of our little shop—how amazing that all these years later, we still love each other more than anyone else, outside of our own families.

We are sisters.

Suddenly, I realize something disturbing: in the dreams, I don’t know where Frieda is. Obviously, in my last dream, when I was with Michael, I was not spending my weekday morning hours at the shop. Does that mean I don’t spend any hours at the shop? Do we even have the shop in that world?

I shudder, thinking about it. I can’t imagine my life without the shop. Without being around Frieda all day, every day.

Thank God, I think, as she starts throwing out restaurant names—“Rockybilt? Could you go for a burger? Or what about C.J.’s Tavern? I know it’s an expedition to get there, but I would adore Mexican food, wouldn’t you?”—thank God I’m just making up that other world in my head.


C.J.’s Tavern, despite its name and despite having a small lounge that opens into the dining room, is not actually a tavern. It’s a Mexican restaurant on Santa Fe Drive. We have to take three buses to get there, but, as Frieda says, it’s worth it. You can’t grow up in Denver without learning to love Mexican food, and C.J.’s has the best chiles rellenos in town.

Frieda and I are both upbeat at dinner. I am eternally grateful to be here with her, without having to think about that other world. As for Frieda, she simply seems happy and carefree. I know she’s been worried about the shop, so it’s reassuring to see her so animated.

We talk about the vacant storefront we saw in the shopping center at University Hills. A few days ago Frieda called the manager and set up an appointment for us to look at its interior. “It’s not that unreasonable, you know,” she tells me. “Yes, it’s more than we’re spending now for rent. A lot more. But when you run the numbers . . . I’ve been going over it, both in my head and on paper, and I think that it would only be a few months before we’d start turning a profit.”

“And what until then?” I ask. “Where would we get the capital?”

She sips her wine. “I can’t go to my parents for money. We’d have to get another bank loan.” Before I can open my mouth to protest, she goes on. “I know my father cosigned our last loan. And I know that the bank might turn us down without his cosignature on a new loan. And yes—we still owe on our current loan. I know all that.” She sets down her glass. “But if we could convince the bank that we’re going in the right direction, that this move would keep us from going under . . .” She shrugs. “Don’t you think they’d prefer to extend us just a little bit, rather than have to foreclose on us?”

I take a big gulp from my wineglass. It sounds so daunting. It sounds like the big time. Like really going out on a limb, much more so than we did when we opened our little shop eight years ago.

Frieda’s eyes are dreamy. “We could be big, you know,” she says, leaning toward me. “This could be just the start. There are shopping centers like that cropping up all over the place. And the stores that make big money—they have a formula, you know, a style, something that people come to expect when they walk in.” She shrugs again. “Now, that hasn’t been done much in the book business, at least not in Denver. But that could change, right? Who’s to say a chain of bookstores couldn’t work? If it works for hamburgers and hardware, why not for books?”

Why not indeed? She has a point. A truly good point. I can’t deny it.

Still—this feels like her gig, not mine. Like she could do this whether I was there or not. She could take all that glowing confidence she’s always had; she could use it to sail into whatever success story she wanted to write for herself.

“You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?” I ask.

Frieda shrugs. “I’ve been thinking this through for years, Kitty.”

I don’t know how to answer that. I take a bite of my chile relleno and push the rice about on my plate.

Frieda glances over my shoulder. “Don’t turn your head,” she whispers. “But I have to tell you who I see sitting alone at the bar.”

“Who?”

She raises her eyebrows. “Kevin.”

Kevin? Good grief, I haven’t seen him in more than a decade. “How does he look?” I ask Frieda.

She watches him from the corner of her eye. “Tired,” she says finally. “And old.” She smiles. “He looks old, Kitty. You ought to be happy about that.”

I laugh. “Well, I look old, too.”

Frieda drains her wineglass and lights up a Salem. “Not with that dazzling new hairstyle, you don’t.”

I put my hand to my head. Linnea’s work has held up well, although I do have an appointment to see her again next week. It’s true that when I look in the mirror these days, I see a fresher, more attractive Kitty than I’ve seen in a long time. But how much of that is a new hairstyle? And how much of it is the fact that—at night when I’m asleep, anyway—I am madly in love with my perfect dream husband?