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“I can say the same about life in general.” He smiled a bit sadly. “Take a little advice from me. Don’t waste your life hidden away in your own mind. Make the most of the time you have, otherwise before you know it, you’ll have no time left.”
“I know,” she said.
“And I want to say one other thing, while we’re being all emotional here. I want to thank you for being with me these last ten years.” He reached out for her, and she held his hand. “It has truly been the best ten years of my life.” He was smiling, but she saw there were tears pooling in his eyes. “I am so pleased that you could be my friend, it has meant so much.”
“Me too,” she said, tears in her own eyes.
“But don’t worry,” he said, releasing her and sitting up straight. “I will keep looking in on you at Kellner Books. We can still be friends, you just won’t know how deep that friendship is, not yet.”
Cassie smiled and nodded, knowing that he would not be looking in on her for very much longer.
“You know that story, about your first day in Rome and the woman coming into your room when you were naked?”
“Mmm.”
“You told that to me several times over the years when I saw you in the bookstore,” she said. “I always thought you were forgetful, but you’re not, not at all. Had you told me that story several times because you wanted me to remember it? Because it was the thing that made you believe me when I told it back to you that first day I was stuck here?”
He smiled. “She saw me in my entirety, you know!”
She left Mr. Webber’s apartment for the last time in early winter. She had a bank account with some money he had given her, some of the clothes she had accumulated over the years in a bag, and the phone that she had brought with her into the past, freshly charged using a charger she had bought as soon as the right type had become available. Shehadn’t switched the phone on yet, not knowing if that would interfere with the other version of the phone the other Cassie carried. She didn’t want anything to change the events that had led her to where she was.
“Well, I’m ready,” she said, Mr. Webber standing by in the kitchen. They both nodded, suddenly awkward. Then she stepped close and hugged him. “Thank you,” she said.
“No,” he said. “Thank you.”
They released each other after a moment.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll take a walk later today. I’ll head around by Kellner Books and see the other you there. And in a few months, once this is all over, maybe you can come see me again? No reason for the friendship to end, is it? We will be living in your present then.”
“No,” she said, trying to smile.
“I look forward to hearing all of your adventures,” he said, leading her to the door. “All about your magical books. Meanwhile, I’ll keep myself busy. Plenty of books to read.”
“There are always books to read,” she agreed, as she stepped out into the hallway.
“I am thinking of going back to an old favorite,” he told her. “I might read throughThe Count of Monte Cristoone more time.”
Cassie smiled at him as her heart broke a little. “Such a great book,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, it is.”
She hugged him again, a hug that seemed to last forever but which wasn’t long enough.
“Go now,” he said. “Go do whatever you need to do. I will see you soon.”
She kissed him on the cheek and then walked away without looking back, her final goodbye to Mr. Webber.
From the apartment she walked through the city to Penn Station. She had a ticket for a train ride south, and a meeting in a few days’ time. It would be a short meeting, she knew, and then she would be heading straight back north to New York.
The Bookseller (2)
For the second time in her life, Cassie met Lottie Moore, the Bookseller, in New Orleans. They met, as had been agreed several years earlier, at ten at night in Café Du Monde on Jackson Square. When Cassie arrived Lottie was already sitting at one of the outside tables, under the green-and-white awning, with coffee and beignets on the table in front of her. The night air was thick and warm like a rich stew, and Cassie was sweating.
“I had wondered if you would show up,” the Bookseller said, as Cassie sat down next to her. “I had begun to wonder if I had imagined the whole thing.”
“I wasn’t sure you would be here either,” Cassie said. There were other people sitting around the tables, despite the lateness of the hour: young people taking a break from their drinking and partying, a couple of tourists finishing the night with coffee and beignets. Out on Decatur Street an old Black man was sitting on a stool and playing a battered tuba, brassy notes punching holes in the dense night air. Every now and then the tuba would stop and he’d sing a few lines of lyrics in a nasally, scratchy voice, cutting through the background noise like a knife.
“Much better at this time of night,” Lottie explained, as Cassie looked around. “During the day it’s full of tourists. I prefer it when it’s not so busy, when I can get a seat, and nobody is trying to hurry mycoffee. I can’t live without this place. This coffee, these pastries. This is life.”
