Free The Bookseller by Cynthia Swanson Page B

about the world of domestic help, I would wager that white women rarely take jobs like this. Not if they can find something better.
    Nonetheless, I am disappointed—not that my brain has fabricated a maid, because it makes sense that Lars and I would have help, living as we do in this large house, this fancy neighborhood. But I would have preferred my persona in this dream world to be a bit more enlightened. If I’m going to have a maid, I think, I could at least have the decency to let her wear street clothes, especially when she’s babysitting after hours.
    â€œEverything go okay, Alma?” Lars asks.
    â€œ Sí , señor. Todo estaba bien. Sleeping just like los ángels .” Alma takes her coat from the hall closet and shrugs her shoulders into it. She picks up a large bag with a magazine entitled Vanidades sticking out of the top of it.
    â€œIt’s late,” Lars says, opening his billfold. “Is Rico coming for you?”
    â€œSí , I call him when you pull in the driveway.” She buttons her coat up to the collar and opens the door.
    â€œPlease wait inside,” I say. I am not sure if this is protocol or not, but it seems cruel to send her out into the chilly night.
    She shakes her head. “ Eso está bien , señora. Rico is here any minute. And the fresh air, it feels good.”
    â€œWell, good night, then,” Lars says, handing Alma a small stack of bills. “We’ll see you on Monday.”
    â€œBuenas noches , señor, señora. Have a nice weekend.”
    Y ou would expect the dream to end there, but it doesn’t. After taking off our coats and hanging them in the closet, we watch from the front window as a car pulls up and Alma gets in. As Lars turns out the living room lights, I can’t help stifling a yawn. Lars touches my shoulder gently. “Go get ready for bed,” he says. “I’ll check on the kids.”
    So I make my way to the sage-green bedroom and bath. In the medicine cabinet above the right-hand sink, I find all the things I’ll need for an evening toilette. Baby oil to remove my mascara. Pond’s Cold Cream for washing my face. A special night cream called Fountain of Youth, which Frieda discovered years ago at a cosmetic counter at Joslins; at her insistence, I tried it, too, and became hooked. The medicine cabinet looks as though I have personally stocked it. But of course I have, haven’t I?
    I carefully hang the pretty green dress in the closet and change into a nightgown that I find in a drawer of the long walnut dresser. I crawl under the covers to wait for Lars.
    â€œThey okay?” I ask when he enters the room.
    â€œFast asleep and dreaming deep.” He smiles and goes into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.
    I am not sure what to do. Though I am drowsy from the wineand the late hour—not to mention the fact, of course, that I am in an imaginary world—I resist closing my eyes. I fear that if I do, the dream will end and I will wake up in my own bed. And then I’ll miss out on what might happen next.
    As is no doubt evident, my lovers have been few and far between in the years since those events in the fall of 1954. After my experience (or rather, nonexperience) with Lars, I lost my motivation in the romance department. I canceled my personal ad. I rejected offers from friends to be set up with this fellow or that. If a friendly man came into the shop, one without a gold band on his left finger—why then, I would smile kindly, help him find the book he was looking for, and send him on his way. It didn’t matter, I told myself. Never again would I force the issue.
    There have been a few rare occasions—at a party or once in a while at a bar, out with friends—when there was a possibility for something quick and easy, and I allowed myself to be picked up. I will admit it: over the years, there have been a couple of one-night stands. These events were the