| |
––––––––
They ambled back to Geneva’s SUV, with Drake protesting the entire time. With a sigh, he collapsed into the passenger seat while Geneva started the car.
“What would you guys like to do next? I know of a great multi-cache in a park south of Boston. It’s about a five-mile round trip,” Geneva said.
In response, Drake groaned like a giant had hauled off and kicked him in the family jewels.
Geneva turned and smiled at him. She glanced in the rearview and saw Allie holding a hand over her mouth, trying not to break out into laughter.
“So that’s a no?” Geneva asked. “How about something easier?”
Before anyone could answer, Geneva’s phone rang. She pushed a button, and it connected to the car’s Bluetooth.
“Hello?”
“Geneva? This is Stacy. Jonathan just called. He’s going into surgery early tomorrow morning to get gallstones removed. Gallstones. Can you believe it? I didn’t think people still got those. Anyway, he won’t be available on Friday, so can you step in for him?”
A wide grin crossed Geneva’s face, but she tried to hide the excitement in her voice. “Oh. I’m so sorry about Jonathan. I can sit in for him.”
Stacy’s sigh of relief came over the car speakers. “Thank you. Hey, do you think you could come down to the theater? I’m here now, and it shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours to go over everything.”
“Right now?” Geneva confirmed.
“Yes. Would that be a problem?”
Geneva looked over at Drake, who shook his head no. “No. That’s fine. I’ll be there within an hour. Does that work?”
“Certainly. See you soon.” Stacy clicked off without saying goodbye.
“Yes!” Geneva yelled as she tapped excitedly on the steering wheel. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!”
“Good news? What’s going on?” Drake asked.
“Jonathan has gallstones! That’s great!”
“Yes. We overheard, and I think Jonathan would disagree on how great gallstones are,” Drake said.
“Yeah, yeah,” Geneva said. “Anyway, Jonathan’s our normal conductor, and the backup is out of the country, so I’m going to do it. Can you believe it? I’m going to conduct a symphony!”
“Great, honey, I’m proud of you. It’s the big break you’ve been waiting for.”
“I’m happy for you, too,” Allie said from the backseat. “It sounds like an excellent opportunity.”
“Anyway, you know I need to go in for a couple of hours. We need to review the program, and oh, my, I just realized I’ll need someone to replace me. I was supposed to be the first chair cello. I guess I can move everyone up a chair and have Brad fill in the open seat, right?”
Geneva looked over at Drake, but he simply shook his head. “I have no clue what you’re talking about. Would you be able to drop us at our hotel before you go?”
Geneva laughed. “Of course. I won’t kick you out at the next corner and expect you to find your way. The hotel is a couple of miles from here, will take less than five minutes to get there.”
Geneva had covered half the distance when the Boston traffic converged around her like a tight blanket. Geneva cursed herself when everything slowed to a glacial pace, and her hand went to her forehead in frustration. She tried to adapt by honking her horn a few times, but only got honks from other cars in return.
“Sometimes I really hate this town,” she said as she slammed on the brakes as someone cut her off.
As they inched along, Geneva played tour guide and pointed out sights of interest. She also mentioned restaurants she’d eaten at, complete with reviews of what she thought of each of them. After twenty minutes, she finally turned off into the guest check-in area of the hotel.
“Boston Common is like three blocks from here. There are a few geocaches scattered around, mostly virtuals, but there are a couple of mystery caches, and other types as well. If you don’t want to geocache, there are plenty of attractions to check out. And of course, tons of stores if you want to go shopping,” Geneva said as Allie and Drake pulled their luggage from the trunk.
“I’d be fine with a shower and a nap,” Drake said. “I’m a little tuckered after that climb.”
“Great.” Geneva leaned over and gave him a kiss. “I’ll call you as soon as I’m finished and we can all go to dinner, okay?”
Without waiting for an answer, she waved goodbye, got back in the SUV, and inched back into traffic.
Drake and Geneva walked into the hotel, and although it was still a little before three, it delighted them to discover that their rooms were ready for them. They took the elevator to the fourteenth floor, and Allie unlocked the door to 1432, while Drake moved on to the room next door.
Drake pulled the folding luggage rack from the small closet, placed it next to the dresser, and set his bag on top of it. He zipped it open and pulled out the travel kit and hauled it to the bathroom sink. Drake was about to strip off his shirt when he heard a knock on the door. He moved to the door, opened it, and stuck his head out. He looked both ways down the hall, but he saw no one. As he closed the door, he heard another knock and realized it came from the inner door to his left. He unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door.
“We have adjoining rooms, isn’t that cool?” Allie said.
“Yeah, sure.”
“I’ve never had adjoining rooms before. I’ll leave my door unlocked, but knock first if you want to come in, okay?”
“Sure thing,” Drake said. “I’ll do the same. I, uh, was going to take a shower and lay down for a bit.”
“Yes, I know. You said that downstairs. I only wanted to let you know I’m going to go out for a while. I want to take a walk, see what there is to see. Give me a jingle when Geneva calls, and I’ll meet you back here, okay?”
“Okay, be careful out there.”
Allie closed the door, turned on the lamp next to the bed, checked to make sure she had her room key, then left the room.
She walked out of the hotel and stopped when she got to the sidewalk. There, she had to decide which way to go. Left or right. Since they had come in from the left, she turned right, walked to the end of the block, then looked down all the streets at her hiking options. Things seemed to open up a bit to the right, so she headed in that direction. Allie passed several restaurants and stores as she walked, but nothing captured her attention until she came to a bookstore.
It was a small bookstore, and the picture window was barely eight feet wide. She was walking at a good clip, and her brain finally registered what she’d seen in her peripheral vision once she’d already passed it. Allie came to a stop, then walked backward, and turned to look in the window.
The window display showed only one book she recognized as a recent release. The other books in the window were older editions of classic literature. She spotted a copy of A Tale of Two Cities, Robinson Crusoe, and a Batman comic book that looked to be from the late sixties.
Intrigued, Allie opened the door and stepped into the shop. Above her, a bell rang when the door opened, and rang again when she closed the door behind her.
“Can I help you?” the store owner asked.
She’d been so focused on looking at all the potential treasures on the shelves, she didn’t notice the small man sitting behind a counter.
“Not really. Is it okay if I just look around? I love old bookstores.”
“Certainly. If there’s anything I can show you, let me know.”
Allie took a brief look around at the layout of the store. The bookshelves were made of wood, well-stained and polished, and were six feet tall. They reminded Allie more of library shelves rather than those normally found in a retail bookstore. They stood close enough together such that only one person could comfortably be in an aisle at a time. Handwritten labels on the ends announced the type. The fiction labels had subclasses of genres; the non-fiction titles divided into subjects.
Usually, Allie liked to roam bookstores in a snaking pattern. She’d go down one aisle and up the next, but in this store, each aisle ended at the wall, so Allie had to go down and come up the same aisle.
The first aisle she stepped into enveloped her in a cocoon of old-book smells. The aroma, a mixture of a faint odor of vanilla combined with the scent of old leather book covers and glued spines. As she walked along, she noticed the owner cared for the books, at least in the first aisle. There was no dust present on either shelf or spine, and there was no musty odor present. She was in the mystery section, surrounded by Agatha Christie on her left and Arthur Conan Doyle on her right. She noticed several copies of And Then There Were None, the first Christie book she remembered reading, and the one that got her hooked on the author. Although there were at least a dozen copies on the shelf, none were the same. Roughly a third was hardcover, and she pulled from the shelf what she considered the prettiest one of those. It had a maroon binding, and the title stamped in gold on the spine. Allie opened the cover to the title page. Inside was a bookmark featuring the store’s name, Stanford’s Stories. On the bookmark was a sticker with the book’s name, the publication year, which was 1940, and the price, which was one hundred and fifty dollars.
Allie gently closed the book, returned it to the shelf, and selected a paperback version with a creased spine instead. The bookmark inside told her that printing was from 1991, and was only five dollars, much more in line with her budget for a used book.
She put the book back on the shelf, continued to the end of the row, waiting for something to catch her eye. When she got to the wall, she turned around and strolled up the other side.
The next aisle’s label told her she was in for romance and westerns. Since she was a reader of neither, she skipped it and stepped over to the next, which featured biographies. Allie often enjoyed a fun biography, so she ventured down the aisle hoping to find something interesting on one of the founding fathers she hadn’t yet read. She saw volumes on George Washington, John Adams, Paul Revere, and Benjamin Franklin. Every book she pulled had a price tag of twenty dollars or more, even for later printings and editions that weren’t in the best shape. For comparison, she turned around and picked a book at random. It was a leather-bound edition from 1931 on the life of Richard I, and that volume carried a cost of a more modest fifteen dollars.
In the history section in the next aisle over, she discovered the same thing. The cost of a book about the thirteen original colonies’ history was fifty percent higher than a book about the history of Texas or England.
The last aisle was what Allie really enjoyed: the world of discount, mass-market paperbacks. She picked up the first book she found, opened the cover, and without regard for any other information, looked at the price. Two dollars! She returned the book to the shelf, then scanned the spines for authors she enjoyed. Allie spotted several, and since they all wrote mysteries or thrillers, they were all clumped fairly close to each other. She bypassed the ones she’d already read, and pulled out a few that she either hadn’t read, or couldn’t remember if she’d read or not. It didn’t take her long before she had a stack of ten books to choose from.
Allie had a bad habit when picking a book off her to-be-read pile at home. She’d start reading without checking the title, and sometimes she’d read an entire book without knowing what it was called. Allie picked up the first book, read the back cover blurb, then the first couple of pages. She realized it sounded familiar to her, so she placed it back on the shelf where it belonged.
Allie repeated her process until she was down to just three books she hadn’t read. Thinking that three books was one too many, and unable to decide which one to cut, she closed her eyes and shuffled the books as she counted aloud. Once she reached ten, she opened her eyes, removed the top book from the stack, and placed it on the shelf. Satisfied, she carried her two selections to the counter.
“Did you find what you wanted?” the bookseller asked as she approached. He was a short, rotund man, with hair swept over one side of his head to hide his bald spot. He wore gray slacks, a dark green dress shirt, and had a pair of reading glasses that dangled from a chain around his neck.
“Sure did,” Allie answered. “Just some light bedtime reading for the week while I’m in town.”
“I noticed you spent a lot of time in the history section. Did you not find anything to your liking?”
“To be honest, Mr....”
“Stanford Edison. You can call me Stan if you like.”
“Okay. To be honest, Stan, I thought the books on local history and biography were a little overpriced for my liking. Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you if I did.”
Allie expected Stan to get angry, but to her surprise, he just smiled at her. “Sorry, my dear. Most people who come in here don’t even bother to check the price. They’re more than happy to pay for whatever I ask, so why not get what I can for my books? It helps me keep the lights on.”
“I understand,” Allie said. “Trust me, if I lived here, I’d be in here all the time buying things, but I’m just here for some easy reads to get me through the week.”
“If I may be so bold, perhaps I can interest you in this.” Stanford reached to a stack of books behind him and handed one to Allie.
“The Mystery of Quincy Bay. What’s this about?” Allie asked.
“It’s part local history, part lore, part urban legend. It tells the story of a group of patriots who hide a treasure from the British during the early days of the revolution. According to local legend, the treasure is still out there, hidden in the area somewhere.”
“Didn’t Nicolas Cage make a movie about that?”
Stan smiled. “Well, similar concept, but this book is based on research done right here in Boston. It’s more fact than fiction.”
Allie flipped through the book. It was smaller in dimension than an average magazine, and she estimated it was fifty or sixty pages long. Inside, she saw several maps and photocopies of original source material, seemingly to support the printed text. She closed it, set it on the counter, and pointed at the author’s names.
“S. Edison and H. Handon. Is S. Edison you?”
Stan grinned. “Yes. Hailey Handon is my co-author. She runs a local history museum not too far from here.”
“Have you looked for the treasure yourself?”
“Oh, yes. Many times, in fact. The story has intrigued me since I first heard it as a little boy. Even now, when I get a day to myself, I chase down leads. I’ll find it someday, I’m certain of it.”
Allie thought about it for a second, then pushed the book forward. “No, thanks. Lost treasure stories aren’t really my thing.”
Stan pushed it back toward her. “Trust me. With all the local history in here, you’ll love the book, even without the treasure aspect of it. Besides, it’s only ten dollars.”
Allie shook her head. “No. But thank you. I’ll just take these two paperbacks.”
Stan took the books from her and rang them in on his register. “How about five dollars? Come on, you’d be helping an independent author.”
Allie gave him a deep sigh. “Okay, five dollars, but you’ll have to sign it for me.”
“Excellent,” Stan said. He grinned as he found a pen, opened the front cover, and signed his name in a large, fancy script. As he did so, Allie dug a ten-dollar bill from her wallet and placed it on the counter.
“That will come to nine twenty-five,” Stan said as he took the ten and replaced it with three quarters. As he placed her books into a plastic bag, Allie slid the coins into her pocket.
“Thank you,” Allie said.
“No, thank YOU,” Stan responded. “If you have questions about that book, any at all, I’d be happy to talk with you about them. You can stop by in person while you’re in town. Or, if you prefer, contact me via phone or email on the bookmark I put in your bag.”
Allie smiled and did a hasty exit from the shop. She gave a large exhale, thought about going back to the hotel, changed her mind and jaywalked across the street to the Boston Common. There, she found a bench in the sun, took out one of her new paperbacks and turned to the first page.
