The Bookseller(58)

I need to gather my wits, I think as I go outside for my mail. There’s a postcard from Mother—one that was obviously written well before the Cuban situation came to an end yesterday.


Dear Kitty,

I suppose by now you’ve heard the news about the weapons in Cuba. It’s dreadful, isn’t it? I must say we feel very isolated here. And I am terrified for you, darling. I don’t think that madman Castro could fire his missiles all the way to Hawaii. But on the mainland—even though you are, thankfully, thousands of miles from the east coast—even so, your father and I are concerned.

Dad is looking into flights for you to come here to us, instead of us coming home next week. Think about it, darling.

Love,

Mother



I shake my head. I adore my mother, and I love how anxious she is about me. But honestly, does she truly think I could just up and leave? Get on a plane and fly away from Frieda, the shop, Aslan, my entire life? It’s a good thing the whole Cuban incident has blown over, making it a moot point.

Today is, luckily, my day off from work. I have planned to spend it opening my parents’ house and airing it out. I will give it a good dusting, and I hope to have time to rake the leaves in their yard, too. I want everything to be perfect for them when they get home. With the Cuban situation resolved, there will be no change in plans; my parents will leave Honolulu on Wednesday night and arrive here on Thursday.

I put on old pedal pushers and a frayed denim blouse, tie my hair back with a kerchief, and retrieve my bicycle from the shed behind my duplex. It’s a cool, cloudy day, and after crossing the Valley Highway on the Downing Street bridge, I ride up the slight hill, turn right, and pedal on Louisiana Avenue, along the southern edge of Washington Park—the park I went to with Michael in the dream life, a few dreams ago.

I ride past South High School, my alma mater. Its bell tower rises above the houses and trees, the clocks on each side displaying the eight o’clock hour. There is a low buzz of students making their way into the building, starting their school day. They seem unusually subdued for so early an hour—a time, at least in my memory of high school, when everyone and everything was overflowing with noisy anticipation of the day ahead.

Deep in thought, I watch the students as I cycle past. As a student here—with characteristic teenage angst—I thought of the school as something like a torture chamber, designed specifically to heighten my suffering. Nothing ever goes my way, I would say to myself, more morose and downtrodden than any Dickensian character had ever been. Few boys noticed me, and I did not have a gaggle of girlfriends, the way so many of my female classmates seemed to. Even some of my teachers barely knew who I was. I remember one particularly embarrassing incident in which my algebra teacher, Miss Parker, mistakenly called on me in class using the name of the most unpopular girl in our grade, Melvina Jones, who was not even in the room at the time. Melvina was slovenly, overweight, wore glasses; add to those strikes a name like Melvina, and the poor girl was doomed to social failure. Unfortunately for me, Melvina also had curly strawberry blond hair, similar to my own. There was no mistaking it when the teacher looked directly at me and called Melvina’s name. “Oh!” Miss Parker said quickly, realizing her error. “You’re not Melvina. I meant Kitty . . . I’m sorry, Kitty. Would you answer question twelve on page ninety-eight? Come up to the board and show your work, please.” When I did so, my face flushed with embarrassment, Miss Parker smiled apologetically; I nodded submissively. But—as my classmates’ mirth made all too clear—the damage had been done.

If not for Frieda, those years would have been unbearable. I think about what Frieda was like back then, how that confidence of hers rubbed off on me, like so much magical dust on the proverbial timid girl in a fairy tale. I was certain that my friendship with Frieda was the only thing that separated me, at least a little, from the Melvina Joneses of the world.

At one point during those years, I remember reading a passage in the psychology section of my health textbook that said as long as a person has just one good friend, he is not abnormal. I finished the passage with a satisfied sigh; I had Frieda, and as long as I held on to her, I was going to be all right.

Thinking about these times makes me wistful. I wish I could go back and tell my fifteen-year-old self that the passage was right. All would be well. I would grow up to be happy. Someday, I would have everything I wanted.

But do I? I am not so sure anymore about this “everything” business. Yes, I am content. I’ve had to face some heartache, some loss, but what I have—the shop, Frieda, my parents, Aslan, my uncomplicated life—it feels like enough.

And in the other life? What of that?

I shake my head and set my right foot firmly down on the bicycle pedal, speeding up my journey. I am eager to get to my parents’ house, eager to get dirty and sweaty. I need to focus on the concrete, real world in front of me. I need to stop all of this idle speculation.


Inside the house, everything feels closed and heavy, casketlike. The gloom disturbs me, and I open all the curtains and window sashes.

The windows look dirty, so I mix warm water, vinegar, and lemon juice in a bucket and start rubbing them with an old cloth. The late-fall weather is cool and dank, so my efforts don’t show much, but I continue working nonetheless. A slight breeze, combined with the lemon scent from the bucket, gives the house a sweet smell, like a baby after a bath. I smile at this random thought. What do I know about how a baby smells after a bath? I have never in my life bathed a baby.