The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown

42

At lunch time Monday, Carolyn showed up at the bookstore with bento boxes from a sushi joint we’d been meaning to try. There are high-end sushi restaurants that charge the earth, and maybe they’re worth it, but I’ll never know. I figure sushi is either all right or it’s not, and if it’s not you go to the emergency room.

Monday’s sushi was fine. Carolyn reported on the three-month anniversary party, which had been happily uneventful, and I reported on my evening with Katie, which had not.

“I really like her,” I said. “You know how it is when you get together with someone you haven’t seen in months? With most people you have to catch up, but with some you don’t. You’re both just there.”

“You had a good time.”

“A very good time.”

“Will she be around for a while, Bern?”

“This morning,” I said, “we had omelets at my usual breakfast place, and finished up just as her Uber showed up to take her to the airport. Right now she’s somewhere between here and Amsterdam.”

“Wow.”

“That’s a good word for it.”

“It sounds as though the two of you really get along, Bern. If she was back in New York full-time, or even most of the time—”

“What would probably happen,” I said, “is things would run their course, because they always do.”

“For you and me both,” she said.

“Right.”

“I’ll meet somebody, and I’ll think Hey, maybe this’ll work out, and then it crashes and burns.”

“That’s what happens, all right.”

“And then I think, Shit, I really thought maybe that would work out.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And then I think, You dimwit, it just did. This is how it worked out.”

“There you go.”

“There we both go,” she said, “time and time again. I guess that’s okay, isn’t it?”

“I’d say so.”

“Sooner or later,” she said, “Katie and her flute will be back in New York for longer than a day or two, and you’ll get together. And it’ll last until it doesn’t.”

“The way things do,” I said, “until they don’t.”

“And you never know who might pop into your store, and what might come of it.”

“Just the other day,” I said, “two great-looking women came by, one after the other. And there was a certain chemistry in the air, I have to say, and it wasn’t just my imagination, because each of them made a point of giving me her phone number.”

“Really? How come you never told me?”

“I told you. How come you don’t remember?”

She looked puzzled, and then light dawned. “That was in—”

“Another world,” I said. “Their names, you may recall, were Mallory Eckhart and Gretchen Kimmel, and they both bought plenty of books, too, which shows you what a different world it was.”

“And gave you their numbers, and didn’t you tell me you copied them into your phone? Bern, what would happen if you called their numbers?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“Nothing? How can you be sure? Bern, it seems to me it’s worth trying.”

“It seemed that way to me, too,” I said. “Saturday night, while you were partying and the Law & Order rerun was failing to hold my interest. I called both their numbers, and both were in service, but not in the service of Mallory Eckhart or Gretchen Kimmel, not in this world. I got a man who spoke a language I couldn’t identify, let alone speak, and a machine that told me I’d reached the offices of some generic-sounding firm, but that my call was very important to them, and the last thing I should do was hang up.”

“But I’ll bet you did, didn’t you?”

“I did,” I said, “and then I made one more call.”

“Oh?”

“I still remembered Abel’s original number. And the last time I dialed it—”

“He answered, and we wound up eating Girl Scout Cookies.”

“And I told myself that world was closed to us now, but I called the number anyway, and some woman answered. She told me I had the wrong number, and I said I was sorry, and we were both telling the truth.”

After a long moment she said, “Bern, we don’t get to find out what happens in that other universe, do we?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Will anybody wind up going to jail?”

“Probably not. The Tweedles were the only victims, and I don’t have a clue who killed them, and neither does anybody else.”

“That daughter from Transnistria, out to avenge her father.”

“Edgar Margate got his collection back,” I said, “and the worst case scenario is he’ll have to reimburse the insurance company. My guess is it won’t get that far, because he and Ray will work something out to their mutual advantage.”

“Whatever world he’s in, Ray’s pretty good at coming out ahead.”

“I don’t know if Mr. Pennybags and Katrina Beckwith will have a future together,” I said, “but they’ll have to sort that out themselves. And Byron Fleegler doesn’t have to worry about going to jail, and neither does Peter-Peter.”

“So it all works out,” she said, “but then I guess it always does, doesn’t it? One thing keeps on leading to another. Something happens, and you sell a book and I wash a dog, and life goes on. We keep on keeping on, don’t we?”

I thought of the proverbial lady who fell off the observation deck of the Empire State Building. I said what she said as she passed the thirty-fourth floor: “So far so good.”

“And that’s good enough, Bern. Somehow we survive. Even when we have the bad luck to get what we want. What’s the matter? Where are you going? Did I say something?”

“I keep forgetting to give you this.”

“The Screaming Mimi. By our old friend Fredric Brown. I don’t know, Bern. Are you sure it’s safe for me to read this? I won’t wake up in a world where parallel lines meet?”

“Like at the Cubby Hole? At the corner of West Fourth and West Twelfth?”

“Bern—”

“I think you’re safe,” I said. “You can read anything you want. We’re back in this universe for keeps.”

“I hope so.” She weighed the book in her hand. “If you want something badly enough, you’ll get it. That’s the book’s message, right?”

“Half of it. The other half is that once you get it, you won’t want it anymore.”

“I guess we both already know that, don’t we? But I’ll read it anyway, and after that I think I’m gonna have another go at Candide. I read it in school, but all I remember is that this is the best of all possible worlds, and I have to say I see that a little more clearly in the light of recent events.”

“I know what you mean.”

She didn’t say anything, and neither did I, and the silence stretched a bit, and then our eyes met and locked.

She said, “I never knew I wanted it, but I guess I must have. And you must have wanted it, too, whether you knew it or not.”

“I guess.”

“I swear I never knew I wanted to sleep with you, Bern. I’ve known I was a lesbian since before I even knew there was such a thing. And then my Metrocard turned into a SubwayCard and took me places I never dreamed I wanted to go.”

“I know.”

“And all of a sudden,” she said, “you were the only person in the world I wanted to go to bed with. I never stopped being a lesbian, but it was sort of beside the point.”

“I know what you mean.”

“And it was just wonderful, but at the same time it scared the living crap out of me. Because what would it do to our friendship?”

“I was going through the same thing,” I told her. “Our friendship’s the best thing in my life—”

“Mine too, Bern.”

“—and could we ever go back to being the way we were?”

“Well?”

“I think we’re fine,” I said. “I think I feel exactly the same way about you as I did before.”

“Me too.”

“Except with one slight difference.”

“Oh?”

“Well, we’ve had the experience,” I said. “And it’s not like it happened in an alcoholic blackout and we don’t remember it.”

“I certainly remember it,” she said.

“Me too.”

“Vividly.”

I nodded. “And fondly.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So for years we were best friends who had this unconscious and unacknowledged itch—”

“And now it’s been scratched.”

“Right.”

“And scratching it turned out to be very satisfying, and now it doesn’t itch anymore. Bern? I’m glad it happened.”

“So am I.”

“Genuinely glad. And I’m glad we’re back the way we were before.”

“Me too.”

“Right where we belong, living our lives in the best of all possible worlds. It really is, isn’t it, Bern? The best of all possible worlds.”

“There are a lot more possible worlds than I ever imagined,” I said, “and God knows there’s a lot wrong with this one, but when all is said and done, yeah, I have to say he was right.”

“The best of all possible worlds. Aren’t we lucky to be in it?”

“Very lucky.”

“A straight man and a gay woman, and on some level there was some sexual tension between them, even if they never suspected it. And they slipped off to another universe and dealt with it, and now they never have to do it again, do they?”

“It’s been handled.”

“It has,” she agreed, and something came into her eyes. “On the other hand—”

“On what other hand?”

“Well, life’s never a hundred percent predictable, is it? And who’s to say what might happen some night after a few drinks, with Patsy singing “Faded Love,” or Ron Carter playing bass behind Ethan Iverson. I mean, you never know what could happen, do you?”

“No,” I said, “guess you don’t.”

“What’ll probably happen,” she said, “is nothing, and that’s fine. But if something does, well, I just want you to know I’ll be okay with it. Because as long as we’re in it together, this’ll still be the best of all possible worlds.”