26
The bookshop is on the road to Carouge. The shop is all glossy antiqued wood and arched windows that let in ribbons of golden light. Dust motes float like dandelion seeds in the musty, paper-scented air, and breathing in, you’re automatically assured this is a place where books are sold.
Old books. New books. Rare books. Used books.
All the books.
When Mila and I push through the tinkling glass door, a quiet hush envelops us. She stops in the entry, her eyes wide and darting wildly across the antique wooden bookshelves holding a veritable forest of stories.
At the sound of a book page turning, the whisper of paper over paper, Mila grips my hand and whispers, “Mummy, do you think they have poems here?”
I smile down at her, avoiding the curious gaze of a fat gray cat perched on the cushioned window seat near the entry.
“I think they have hundreds of poems.” I point to a sign over a shelf near the back of the cozy shop, the word “Poetry” written in decorative calligraphy. “Go and see.”
With that bit of permission, Mila releases my hand and half-skips, half-walks to the back, darting around comfy wingback chairs, baskets full of books, and overstuffed shelves.
Mila has an assignment for her summer art camp. She must find a poem she loves and bring it to camp tomorrow. She’ll make a visual-art representation of the poem using watercolors or pastels or clay, or whatever she desires. But first she must find a poem.
We could search online, but sometimes feeling the smooth crease of a book under your hand, tracing the cool paper and following the smudges of ink as the words fall down a page—that is what you need to fall in love with a poem.
So here we are.
At the back of the shop, Mila stands on her tiptoes and pulls a hardcover book from the shelf. The large book dwarfs her as she clutches it in her hands, and then, looking around, she drops to the thick rug and opens the pages.
I smile, wave to the bookseller behind the counter—a short man with a tuft of feathery gray hair and a kind smile—and meander toward Mila. The bookshop is nearly empty. There are three other customers browsing shelves, and, of course, the fat gray cat.
The cozy shop has a soft, dreamy feel— the sort of place where you can easily imagine the pages of books are windows to other worlds. It reminds me of Amy. I think she would love it here.
I picture her piling books into her arms until her load is so high it reaches to her nose. She’d hurry from shelf to shelf and drag all the books down—classics, philosophy, poetry.
The image of Amy here, sharing a line of poetry with Mila, Sean chasing the cat through the rows, is so vivid that I have to blink to clear it away. Before I know it I’ll be imagining McCormick here too—no, Aaron. He’s Aaron now. If I don’t stop I’ll picture him taking Amy’s load of books with his laughing smile so that she can collect another dozen to read.
Aaron isn’t here though. Amy isn’t here. Not Sean either.
They stay in my dreams.
Maybe it should worry me that I’m bringing them into my life, creating watches based on afternoons with Aaron, thinking of Amy’s delight at a bookshop, but I push the thought aside.
Mila glances up from the book as I kneel down next to her.
“I like this one,” she says, pointing to the illustrated poem on the page. It’s an ink drawing of a little black-haired boy in a sun hat holding a bucket by the sea. “It reminds me of when we go the beach. I’ll do a painting of the lake with me and you and Uncle Daniel.”
I read the poem. It’s a rhyming verse about a little boy at the seaside, digging holes for the sea to fill up.
“I like it.”
Mila nods, her red hair curling around her face. She’s in a bright pink dress and her cheeks are red from our stroll down the sun-soaked sidewalks.
“Well done, you. Who’s the poet?”
Mila flips the book closed, displaying the cover. My chest squeezes at the gold-scripted name. Robert Louis Stevenson. The book is “A Child’s Garden of Verses.”
“May I see it?” I ask, and Mila nods and hands me the cool, glossy-paged book.
There’s something niggling at me. Amy was reading “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson, but she also quoted a poem to Sean, asking him to repeat after her.
I flip through the pages, their smooth vellum flicking across my fingers. Until—there—I hit my finger to the page, pressing sharply into the cool paper.
* * *
All alone beside the streams
And up the mountain-sides of dreams.
* * *
She was quoting a poem from this book. She was quoting “The Land of Nod.”
Goose bumps rise along my arms and I close the book.
“Mummy?”
“Grandma read this same book to me as a little girl,” I tell her, thinking of the tattered copy my mum kept for nighttime stories. “I was remembering a poem.”
“Can I have my own book?” she asks, her small nose wrinkling. “I’ll bring it to camp, and if you like, I’ll paint a picture of your poem too.”
“Yes, of course you can have your own copy.” I reach over and tug on a strand of her hair, then I hand the book back to her.
“Before we leave, may I pet the cat?”
Mila loves animals. Dogs, cats, fish, insects—really any living thing. It’s why I’m never surprised if she holds out her open palms and there’s an angler worm or a ladybug in her hand.
“We’ll ask the man,” I say, nodding toward the counter.
A moment later, he confirms Gilbert is the type of cat who loves to be pet, especially under his chin and behind his ears.
As we turn toward the window seat where Gilbert stretches lazily in a circle of sun, there’s a chirping ring, muffled by my purse.
It’s Max’s ringtone.
Mila glances between me and the cat, then toward me again.
“If you’d like to pet Gilbert, I’ll just say hello to Max.”
She’s off in a flash, her pink dress spinning with her. I smile and pull my phone free.
“Hello, Max.”
“Fiona,” he says, his voice rolling over my name with a laughing lilt.
I have a flash of Aaron raggedly whispering, “Fi.” My gut clenches, and then I squash the memory. It’s not for this place or this time.
I turn my attention to Max. “You’re in a good mood.” I can tell by the lightness in his voice.
I smile as I drag my hand across the colorful spines of a dozen paperbacks, my fingers thumping over the glossy binding.
Close by, Mila perches on the edge of the window seat, carefully inching toward Gilbert. The cat watches her with yellow-eyed, lazy indifference.
“Am I?” Max asks, the sound of traffic and wind rushing through the connection. “I hadn’t noticed. It’s strange. People have been ducking around corners and hiding behind ugly potted trees all day, every time they see me coming. I thought it was the fact I look like I could chew up a bicycle and spit it out. But perhaps they’re running from my charm.”
“A bicycle?”
“Hmm?”
“Did something happen?”
“No. The ducking and hiding is a normal day. I’ve been told I’m unapproachable.”
I cover a snort. “I’m sorry.” My smile widens. “What did you want? Mila and I are doing very important things.”
I can almost hear the gears turning in his mind. Outside the golden light of sunset has spilled down the red-tiled roofs and fallen into a dusky evening gray.
A car horn sounds and then Max asks, “How important?”
“Supremely.”
“I’ve been told I’m excellent at disrupting supremely important plans. It’s one of my best qualities.”
“Is this flirting?” I ask, wondering at the wry note in his voice.
“Fiona, if you can’t tell, then it is definitely not flirting.”
I laugh. The cat twitches his ears toward me and Mila looks up, smiling as she scoots another inch closer to Gilbert.
I think she’s being cautious and slow so he doesn’t run away at her approach.
Perhaps that’s what Max is doing. Or it’s what he’s been doing since Christmas Eve.
My stomach dips at the thought of Max flirting with me. It’s not anything we’ve done before. It’s beyond the bounds of our friendship, like the high-tide mark, never to be crossed.
But now, soon, we’ll be crossing it.
I’ve known Max for so long I know him as well as I know myself. He makes me smile. He makes me laugh. But he doesn’t make me glow.
But what am I learning from my dreams? From the dreams that supposedly show me my greatest desire.
It’s that I want to be loved. To love.
That I have to trust. Or risk living the rest of my life alone.
I have to trust.
I press the phone against my ear. “As we’ve never flirted before I wasn’t sure.”
“For the love of— Fi, you’ll be sure. When I flirt, you’ll be sure.” Max sounds grumpy now, and the rumble of rush-hour traffic accentuates his tone.
I smile even though he can’t see me. “Well then, what do you want? I have cats to pet, books to buy, and . . .” I think for a moment and then decide. “Ice cream to devour.”
We passed a patisserie on the way to the bookshop with a small freezer of ice cream displayed in the window. There was strawberry with ruby-red chunks streaked through the pink. Strawberry with chocolate sauce is Mila’s favorite. It reminds her of the small, tartly flavored mountain strawberries that are only found in markets in the first few weeks of June. We always buy containers full and dip them in melted chocolate. We come away sticky and buzzing, with strawberry juice dripping down our cheeks and melted chocolate drizzling down our fingers.
“What kind of ice cream?”
Of course he would focus on ice cream. Max has a sweet tooth that knows no bounds.
“Strawberry. I saw hazelnut in the window as well.”
Hazelnut is Max’s favorite. Mentioning it is practically an invitation.
He knows it. “I’ll be there. Where are you?”
“At the antique bookshop in Carouge.”
“I know the one. I’ll be there in five.”
“Is this a date?”
“No. I have to fly to Paris in the morning until Friday. I wanted to see you before I left.”
I smile softly. Mila has finally scooted next to Gilbert. She strokes her hand gently over the gray fur on his head. He closes his eyes and tilts his chin, offering her the smooth fur underneath.
“You wanted to see me?”
“I always see you and Mila before business trips.”
That’s true. But this time it feels different.
Mila glances at me, triumphant as Gilbert begins a slow, rapturous purr. Her patience paid off.
“I’m here.” I look up as the bells on the door jingle and Max strides inside the hushed atmosphere of the bookshop. When he sees me, his brown eyes spark and he gives me a happy smile.
He’s in a light gray summer suit, his black hair wind-blown and messy. Clearly, he came here directly from work.
He takes in the scene—the paper-musty scent, the muffled quiet, Mila on the bench petting a boneless cat—and then he walks directly to my side and says in a soft voice, “You look beautiful.”
Mila turns to him, puts a pointer finger to her lips, and then nods at Gilbert. He’s rolled on his back and is kneading his paws against Mila’s legs.
Max nods and pretends to zip his lips.
I glance at him from the side and whisper, “Was that flirting?”
He gives me a flat look that causes a laugh to bubble in my chest. I keep it contained for fear of disturbing Gilbert’s ecstasy.
“Apparently not,” Max says, the grumpy tone back.
I grin at him, and his flat look vanishes into a smile of shared history and friendship.
Max turns his attention to Mila and kneels down to carefully stroke Gilbert behind the ears.
The bookseller walks next to me and says in a quiet voice, “We close in five minutes.”
I nod, ready to check out.
But then I have a thought.
Or . . . I wonder.
Looking at the hundreds of books lining the shelves, the worlds waiting to be explored, I wonder, where does Amy get her books? Are they all tattered copies, read dozens of times, like the worn ones I’ve seen her holding? Do they come from neighbors? Or the yellow concrete one-room schoolhouse in Charlestown? She doesn’t have internet. She doesn’t have a bookstore. She doesn’t have any way of getting new books in the dream world she lives in.
I scan the bookshop, my eyes lingering on the sign that reads “Poetry.”
I can’t take a book to her. But what if I memorized a poem for her? And then another? One poem at a time.
“I have a question,” I ask the bookseller as he rings up Mila’s book. “If you wanted to buy a book for a fourteen-year-old girl who loves poetry, what would you get?”
He thinks for a moment, rubbing the tuft of gray hair on his head. “French, German, English?”
“English.”
He nods. “Emily Dickinson.” He stoops down to reach below the counter. When he stands he has a small leather-bound book in his hand. “This just came in.”
“She’ll like it?”
I’ve never read Emily Dickinson.
The man gives me his kind smile and flips quickly through the ivory pages, the words flying across them like birds, until he lands on the page he wants. He turns the book to me.
“Here. Read.”
I press my hand to the cool paper, keeping the pages beneath me.
* * *
"Hope" is the thing with feathers?—
That perches in the soul?—
* * *
My eyes fly to the man’s and he nods. “She’ll like it.”
“Yes. She will.”
I smile then and buy a book for a girl who doesn’t exist.
On the walk to the ice-cream shop Mila runs ahead, hopping over the cracks, skipping through the swathes of lamplight flickering on now that dusk is here.
In the cool summer breeze, and the gray dusk scented with old stone roads warmed in the setting sun, Max reaches over and gently takes my hand.
My heart taps out a cautious, worrying beat.
He glances down at me, dark and austere in the shadows, until he steps under a streetlight, and then he’s smiling again.
“Can I take you to dinner Friday, when I’m home from Paris?” He runs his thumb over the back of my hand carefully, slowly, like Mila petting Gilbert.
The light in his eyes?—
It reminds me of the poem.
Hope is a feathered thing.
I choose to trust. I choose to give it wings.
“Yes.”