I am silent for a moment, taking this in. I do remember that conversation. We had it over drinks downtown one night; I think we were celebrating our five-hundredth book sold, or something such. “I can’t believe I actually said that.”
“Oh, you said it, all right.” Thoughtfully, she fingers her coffee cup. “So, how does this fairy tale end?”
I shrug. “As you would expect it to,” I tell her. “We fall in love and get married. Quite quickly, within a year, and not long after that I get pregnant and we think it’s twins, and when they’re born, it turns out they’re triplets.”
Frieda bursts out laughing. “Jesus H., this gets better and better,” she says. “Tell me you get fat as a pig from having them—please.”
“I’m already fat,” I point out, smiling.
Frieda shakes her head. “You are not fat, Kitty.” She pours herself more coffee, and holds out the pot to me. “You’re generously endowed, sister.”
I roll my eyes, accept a refill, and wait for her to sit down. “The thing is,” I tell her, “the thing is, at first it did seem perfect. He was perfect. The house was perfect. The children were perfect—well, sort of, but that’s another story. But now, the more time I spend there, the less . . .”
I trail off, because I don’t know how to explain any of it. Not Michael and my guilt about his condition—which I can tell, even from this distance of an entirely different world, wears on me greatly in my imaginary life. Not what happened with Frieda in that life. How can I explain that we aren’t even on speaking terms there?
And certainly not my parents. I can’t tell her what happens to my parents.
“The less perfect it seems,” I finally finish, and let it go at that.
Frieda puts her hand on mine. “Oh, honey,” she says. “I don’t know why you’re letting it get to you like this.” She looks out the window, then back at me. “It’s been a tense time for everybody lately—the thing in Cuba, the uncertainty about what’s going to happen, both in the larger world and here in our own little world. But this dream life of yours . . . it’s just an escape, Kitty. It’s not real.”
“But it feels real!” I cry. “It feels absolutely real, and when I’m there, I can’t help feeling . . . I can’t help worrying . . .” I shake my head and look out the window. “I’m terrified that one of these nights I’m going to fall asleep and end up there permanently. And I will not be able to get back here again.”
There. I’ve said it.
Frieda stands and goes to the window. She beckons me to join her. “Put your hand here,” she says, pressing hers against the glass. I do the same. “Feel how warm?” she asks. “Feel the sun?”
She’s right. When did it get so sunny out? The cloud cover we had this morning seemed like it was going to last all day, but now the sun has broken through, and the glass feels almost hot. I look at Frieda and nod.
She takes my hand and turns to a bookcase. She places my fingertips against a new hardcover, sleek in its gold-hued paper casing and crisp along the edges of the pages. “You can feel that, too, right?”
I nod again.
She leads me to the doorway, and we walk out onto the sidewalk. A truck passes, filling our nostrils with diesel fumes. “You can’t tell me you didn’t smell that,” Frieda says. “And the coffee. You tasted that, right? You felt your mother’s good-bye kiss, your father’s hug. You can feel your stockings against your legs, you can feel your earrings pressed to the fronts and backs of your ears. Right?”
I sigh. “Frieda, I can feel all of that. But the point is, I feel those things in the other life, too.”
She shakes her head. “No,” she says. “You have a very active imagination, Kitty. That’s a great thing. An active mind—even in sleep—that’s a sign of intelligence.” Her look, when my eyes meet hers, is kind. “But that dream world is not reality. This . . .” She sweeps her long, lovely arm around, taking in the space, our space. And then she puts her arm around my waist and holds me close. “This,” she whispers. “This is where you belong.”
Chapter 27
I am—as I told Frieda I would be—frightened to go to sleep that night.
I put it off as long as possible. As promised, I make my parents a full dinner: lasagna, garlic bread, salad. I have wine on hand to celebrate, but I am careful to drink only one glass myself. The three of us stay up late—talking, remembering old times, and giggling at pictures of clumsy me and so-young them in the photograph album I keep on my desk.
Finally, at eleven o’clock, they yawn and say it’s time to leave. At the door, they both hug me tight. “Welcome back,” I whisper. “I’m so glad you’re home.”
After they’ve climbed into their car and driven off, I sit upright on the sofa, scratching out a draft of Greg’s next book. It will be about what baseball players do in the off-season, I’ve decided. Of course, what they do is make personal visits to their most loyal fans, people like Greg Hansen. I get through the middle section, where Willie Mays shows up on the doorstep of our little duplex on Washington Street. I underline words I want Greg to memorize: season, street, taxi. Not sure how the book will end, I chew thoughtfully on my pencil, considering. But I can’t concentrate.
Finally I put the draft pages aside and begin reading Fail-Safe, the novel about nuclear war that we just got in at the shop. It received a marvelous review in last Sunday’s Denver Post, and I expect customers to begin asking about it. The story is not particularly interesting to me, but I need to read it so I can answer customers’ questions.
As I stare at the pages, rereading the same lines over and over, my eyes cast longingly toward the end table, upon which rests a copy of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark. I read it last year when it first came out, but it was so good, I want to read it again. Well, I tell myself, despite my need to keep up with frontlist fiction—those newly released titles that are popular with customers—the more important thing right now is that I stay awake. I set down Fail-Safe and pick up Miss Brodie.
Another half hour passes. But despite the switch to a book that’s more to my liking, I am unable to keep my eyes open. I go to the kitchen and brew strong black tea. Cup at my side, I settle back on the sofa with the Spark novel. I sip my tea, read a few more pages, and fight to keep from nodding off.
When I awake, I cannot say I am entirely surprised to be in the house on Springfield Street. But even so, a moan catches in my throat as I open my eyes and see the green bedroom. I close my lids, hoping I can make it go away, knowing full well that I cannot. Heaving a sigh, I open my eyes again.