Now
What is peter?”
The question sounds like it’s coming from beyond a closed door.
“Who,” I say. “Who is Peter.”
“Please state your answer in the form of a question,” The Professor admonishes.
“Oh, Peter, like the disciple,” says Dawt Pi. “Who is Peter?”
“He’s . . . just someone I knew who liked this book.” I am starting to regroup. “I think we can still sell this with the markings. They’re pretty light. There’s nothing we can do about the coffee stain. We may not get as much, but it’s a valuable book all the same. We should list it online. I don’t know if anyone in this town would pay what it’s worth.”
“What is it about?”
“It’s about a boy who leaves his boarding school and, well . . . he complains about a lot of people . . . He’s trying to protect a younger girl—his sister.”
“From what?”
I think of the curse word spray painted on the wall outside. “Life, I guess. Like he wants her to be able to stay innocent for as long as possible, keep her safe from the bad things of the world and the bad people.”
Dawt Pi frowns. In the refugee camp, she began working at the age of twelve to help keep her six younger brothers and sisters fed. After years of trying to save as much as possible, her family could only afford to send one person to the United States. As the oldest child, Dawt Pi came alone at age nineteen to a country that worshiped youth rather than sending them to work. The reverence for childhood here is as incomprehensible to her as child labor is to Americans.
“Does he protect her?” Dawt Pi asks.
“No,” I realize now, though I don’t think I really understood it when I read it in the death throes of that long-ago summer when my life had changed forever. “He can’t protect her. Nothing can.”
I slide The Catcher in the Rye onto the shelf behind the counter where I keep the few truly valuable books. I will research its worth later. For now I realize that my best hope for understanding why Peter Flynt has reestablished contact with me is upstairs under a blanket and probably drooling on my throw pillows.
“Can you hold down the fort a few minutes? I have to run upstairs.”
“What is hold down the fort?”
“Oh, um, watch the store and serve the customers while I’m gone.”
Dawt Pi nods and I trot up the stairs to my apartment. The TV switches off when I open the door, but not before I see that it’s on a news channel.
“Sorry, Robin. I didn’t know you were coming.”
I ignore Sarah’s apology. It’s not what I want to talk about right now anyway. “How are you feeling?”
“Awful.” Sarah’s squinty gaze follows me to the kitchen. “What about you?”
I avoid her bloodshot eyes. There’s nothing worse than getting pitied by a complete train wreck of a person. “I’m fine. Didn’t you drink any of this coffee?”
“I can’t get off the couch.”
“It’s cold. I’ll make some more. Sorry I left you here alone so long.”
“It’s okay. I was watching . . . Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.” I fill the coffeemaker with fresh grounds and water and turn it on. “So, how was last night? See anyone back in town for the festivities?”
“A few. Did you know Ashley got divorced?”
“Which Ashley?”
“Galicki. She’s staying with her mom. Mitch is in town too. They ended up at the same bar last night—Pepper’s, I think—and it was super awkward for everyone.”
“That’s rough. Anyone else?”
“I saw Mr. Pietka!”
“At the bar?”
“Yeah. He was talking to Julie Szczepanik. Like talking talking.”
“I don’t think I know her.”
“That’s right. You were gone by then.”
“Wasn’t he married?”
“Still is.”
“Oh.” Time to dive in. “You ever see Peter anymore?”
Sarah hesitates. “We’ve talked on the phone a time or two.”
“Lately?”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Why?”
“Just curious.” I pull two clean mugs from the cupboard. “It’s been a long time.”
“What did you expect? You really messed him up.”
“Good.”
It has been my standard answer to any creeping regret I’ve felt for the last eighteen years. I thought with practice that ambivalence would become a genuine feeling. But even on the day I’d cut all ties with Peter Flynt, I hadn’t truly felt I was doing the right thing.
“Only he sent me a book. Totally out of the blue.”
Sarah shrugs and busies herself with a loose thread at the hem of the blanket. “Can’t help you there.”
“You’re not connected on social media or anything?”
“No. He’s off the grid. Kind of like you.”
The coffeemaker beeps and I pour two cups. Sarah sips. In the silence I sense the wisp of something she’s not telling me. It’s a common feeling any time I am with her, but it’s always hard to tell if the reticence to talk about certain things is coming from me or from her. We both lug around our own share of baggage.
The bell rings on the door downstairs. Dawt Pi is fine by herself, but I hate to miss a customer.
“I have to get back. Stay as long as you need to. Take a shower if you want.”
“Do I look that bad?”
“Yeah.”
Sarah nods slightly. “Hey, where’s that painting I gave you?”
It’s down in the back room. In a box. Where no one will see it.
“It’s down in the store. On the wall. Didn’t you see it?”
“No.”
“I’ll point it out.”
I shut the door behind me and make the dark descent to the store. The Professor is back on his perch and Dawt Pi is standing on her step stool behind the tall counter. Her fingers rest on top of The Catcher in the Rye, now down from the shelf and under the examination of a rather portly bearded man in a trucker cap and a camouflage coat over a plaid flannel.
“How much is it?”
“Very valuable,” Dawt Pi says, tripping a little over the pronunciation.
“We’re not sure yet.” I slip the book out from under her hands. “I need to do some research before we can make this available.”
“I liked that book in school,” the man says. “I didn’t know it came so big, though. The one I read was littler.”
“Generally students read a cheap mass market edition. There are far fewer of these hardcovers, and it’s rare to get one with an intact dust jacket in this condition. I’m sure there are a few of the mass market edition on the shelves. They’re only fifty cents today.”
“How much is that one? Ballpark?”
I don’t really want to say it out loud around Dawt Pi. She’s told me how little the average subsistence farmer in Myanmar makes in a year, and I know how much money she needs to get plane tickets for her parents and siblings once they’re finally cleared for immigration, how impossible it must seem to her to save that much after living expenses. So I say it as quietly as possible, slurring the words together in the hopes that she won’t be able to separate them.
“Prollyroundfivethousindollars.”
He laughs out loud. “Dang! Who would pay that much for a book?”
I feel heat blossoming in my face. “There are people who collect rare books.”
“No one I know.”
I don’t doubt this, but I don’t say it. “Dawt Pi, can you show this gentleman to the classics section?” To him I say, “I’m sure you’ll find several things that might work for you.”
“I ain’t really looking,” the man says. “I’m waiting on my mom’s dog. It’s getting groomed down the street. But I’ll take a look.”
He follows Dawt Pi, and I scoot off to the back room to find Sarah’s painting. It’s exactly where I left it last June. An odd combination of fairly random items spackled together and adhered to a piece of plywood, then slathered over with black and red paint and sprinkled with silver glitter. The creation is not something I would choose to look at more than once, let alone hang up in a place where I spend all of my time. It reminds me of a car accident. I find a spot of wall by the mysteries, remove a poster for a classic film I’ve never seen, and replace it with Sarah’s piece.
Moments later the big guy is at the register digging in his pockets. He slaps two quarters beside a dog-eared mass market copy of The Catcher in the Rye.
“Fifty-three cents with tax,” Dawt Pi says.
“It’s fine.” I slide the quarters off the counter and open the cash register.
The man shoves the book in his back pocket and walks out into the wind.
Dawt Pi puts her hands on her hips. “We have to pay for tax.”
“It’s just three cents.”
“Just three cents to you.” She steps down from the stool and walks away.
I slip the hardcover of The Catcher in the Rye onto the shelf again, this time with the spine to the back to hide it from prying eyes. Then I pull out my prehistoric laptop and begin to research its value. Several minutes later the bell rings.
“Can I help you?”
“Just browsing.”
The woman hugs her long wool coat close to her body and begins a circuit of the shelves, not quite slow enough to be browsing, in my mind. I watch her for a moment. She glances at me twice.
“Are you looking for something in particular, ma’am?”
“Now that you mention it.” She approaches the counter. “You’re Robin Windsor, right?”
Every pore prickles. This can’t be happening again.
“I work for WRST,” she continues, pulling a little notepad and pen from her pocket, “and I was wondering if you have a statement about what today means for you.”
I know I’m glaring at her.
“Just a few words?” she says through her smile.
A few words?
“I’d like you to leave,” I say.
Dawt Pi walks up beside me and grasps my hand.
“I’m sorry,” the woman says. “I know today must be difficult, but if I could get a few words about how you feel about your father’s—”
“I want you to leave.”
The woman opens her mouth to speak again, but Dawt Pi plants herself between us and pushes the much taller woman toward the door. “Out. We call the police.”
A moment later I feel a gust of cold air as the reporter stumbles onto the sidewalk. Dawt Pi locks the front door, flips the sign to Closed, and marches back to where I am frozen behind the desk.
“Who was that?” she asks.
But I can’t answer. All I can think of is the last time I heard the name Robin Windsor spoken by a reporter. I see Dawt Pi’s lips moving, but all I hear is the scrape, scrape, scrape of bricks being removed from my carefully built walls of anonymity. Peter Flynt is making contact. A reporter knows exactly who I am and where to find me. It can’t be a coincidence.
Through the large picture window at the front of the store, I see a news van parked by the curb. With effort, I focus in on Dawt Pi.
“Turn off the lights.”