“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?
“I think Kevin just noticed me,” Frieda says. “And you, too. He’s getting up.” She lowers her voice. “Take a deep breath, sister. He’s on his way over.”
She looks up at him and smiles, and that gives me an excuse to turn my head. I feign surprise, but I’m sure he’s not fooled.
“Hey. I thought it was you two.” Kevin leans over our table. He is as long and gangly as he was back in the day, with those sloping shoulders of his. Still built like an adolescent boy. I realize that I have become used to Lars’s broad back and shoulders, his stockiness, which complements my own. Kevin and I were never a very good match physically. He was too tall when we danced; the top of my head barely made it to his collarbone, and I felt like I was straining my neck looking up at him. He always tried to get me to wear the highest heels possible, to get us closer in size. That only made things worse; my feet would be killing me by the end of the evening. He also thought I was too chubby, although he did appreciate my bountiful breasts. Despite these noteworthy assets, he was constantly urging me to go on a diet.
Unlike Lars, Kevin has managed to hang on to his hair all these years. He always had a lot of it, dark and wavy, and he still does. His eyes are the same warm brown they always were, but they look glassy. I can tell he’s had too much to drink.
Frieda motions toward the empty chair between us, then stubs out her smoke in the ashtray by her side. “Have a seat, Kev.”
He pulls out the chair and sits. I give Frieda a questioning look. She glances down at her hands, which are folded neatly in front of her; she ever-so-slightly motions with her right pinkie toward her left ring finger. I sneak a peek at Kevin’s left hand and see that it is ringless.
Aha. Did she see that from all the way across the room? Or did she just guess it, since he’s here all by himself this late at night? Married men—happily married men, at any rate—are not sitting alone in a bar at this time of night. They are at home with their wives, their children, and probably in most cases the proverbial family dog.
“Long time,” Kevin says. He has brought his drink, and he empties it and motions to the waitress to bring him another. “You girls fancy a round on me?”
Now this is a surprise. He was always a cheapskate. Not that he didn’t pay for our dates, of course, but I always felt like he took me to the most inexpensive places he could get away with, and spent as little on me as he could. Even for my birthday and Christmas, his presents were things like a tiny bottle of perfume or a cut-rate scarf or hat. He always said he was saving for our future. Well, that didn’t turn out to be all that accurate, did it?
Frieda nods at the offer of a drink. The waitress brings Kevin another Scotch and the bottle to fill our wineglasses. “On my tab,” Kevin says pointedly. The waitress smiles stiffly at Frieda and me, and withdraws from the table.
“How is life treating you girls?” Kevin relaxes back in his seat, and for a moment I think he’s going to fall over backward. Good heavens, how many has he had? You’d think, on a weeknight, out in public—and him a doctor now, too; I can’t forget that. You’d think a doctor with a drinking habit would be more discreet.
“We’ve been quite well,” Frieda replies. “We have a bookstore on South Pearl Street.”
Kevin nods. He pulls a pack of Pall Malls from his jacket pocket and lights one. Frieda immediately joins him by selecting a Salem from her pack on the table. He holds out his lighter to her, and she leans forward to accept the flame he offers. I watch them both silently, trying to relax my heated face and my furrowed brows.
“I’ve heard about your bookstore,” Kevin says, clicking his lighter closed. “Been meaning to stop in for ages.”