Chapter One
Elizabeth Ash tiptoed past the long table of kitchenware
-- knives, serving spoons, eggbeaters, and Tupperware -- as
though she might awaken their owners' ghosts. She paused at
a set of measuring cups that was missing the one-cup
measurement. Picking up a set of copper measuring spoons,
she dangled them from one hand like a pair of castanets.
She wasn't in need of any bargains. She hardly had room
for anything. She lived on the third floor of a brownstone.
One oddly shaped room that had to serve as living room,
bedroom, rehearsal space, and studio when she gave flute
lessons. Its principal virtues were a high ceiling, two tall
windows that faced south, and a deaf neighbor in the
apartment next door. She could practice at all hours until
the woman across the garden called to complain.
An apartment like that hardly allowed for a rummage sale.
What could Elizabeth do with the laminated wood sideboard
that stretched against one wall? And where would she put a
velvet sofa that could unfold into a queen-sized bed? She
might have room for a magazine or two. She remembered making
a Christmas tree once out of an old Reader's Digest
by folding over the edge of every page and spray-painting
the whole thing green. But she didn't feel very crafty, and
Christmas had come and gone.
Then there were the books.
"Books furnish a room," her mother used to say. An
aphorism that never made much sense to Elizabeth until she
moved to New York and tried to make do on a freelance
musician's spotty earnings. Books would have to furnish her
room.
And they did...double-stacked in one tall bookcase in her
living room/bedroom. Stacked horizontally and vertically in
a narrow bookcase in her narrower kitchen. Books in the
bathroom -- those that didn't risk getting damaged by the
steam from her shower. Art books and musical scores stacked
on the floor so they could form a coffee table.
Now she looked greedily at the table of books at the
rummage sale. Maybe there was something here.
"The last thing you need is more books," her friend
Dorothy Hughes said.
"There might be something here I'd like to read."
"You can get what you need at the library."
"All the good books are always checked out at the New
York Public Library. That's why I buy them."
"And let them fill up your apartment." Dorothy ran her
finger through her thick, perfect-for-a-shampoo-commercial
hair. She usually wore it in a ponytail, but today she wore
it loose -- probably to look more alluring.
"I reread them." Elizabeth could reread anything she
liked. She could even reread a murder mystery and pretend to
forget who had committed the crime.
"A sure sign that you don't get out enough. Remember,
we're not just here to buy. We're here to meet people."
It was Dorothy's conceit that two single women together
were more likely to "meet people" than one single woman by
herself, and therefore in the last few months she was
forever dragging Elizabeth to events where they could
socialize. Play readings, art openings, book signings.
Elizabeth scanned the crowd. "Who are we going to meet in
a church basement?"
"All sorts come to rummage sales. Look at that guy over
there. You could meet him."
A tweedy type lingering over a table of garden
appliances. Trowels, clippers, hoes, gloves, and pots.
Window boxes for fire-escape gardens.
Elizabeth turned to her friend. "Doesn't really look like
he's here to 'meet people.'"
"You can't know until you talk to him." Dorothy smiled
radiantly so her dimples showed. She crossed the room.
Leave it to Dorothy to do the meeting, Elizabeth
thought. She wasn't in the market to meet anyone. She would
rather look at the junk.
It was a wonder what people held on to. A cigar box full
of bolts, nuts, rubber bands, broken pencils, a shard of
pottery, canceled stamps, and paper clips. A card table
cluttered with jewelry. A tie pin, a beaded bracelet, a
brooch with a huge fake emerald. The prices on these items
were overly optimistic. Twenty bucks for the brooch.
First-day-of-the-rummage-sale prices. By Sunday anything
left on the table would be marked down to ten bucks. Or
five. Anything to keep the goods moving.
Elizabeth assumed the money would go to a worthy cause. A
soup kitchen or homeless shelter. New pipes for the organ.
The church benevolence fund. Elizabeth didn't object to
churches at all. She just didn't go in them, unless she was
playing at a church concert or hearing one. She was always
surprised how chic the ladies in New York churches could be,
dressed in their slacks and cashmere sweater sets. Not like
the frumpy church ladies of her imagination.
She turned to see if Dorothy was having any luck
"meeting" the tweedy man at the gardening table. He looked
like a copyeditor or computer programmer. One of those guys
who would talk for hours about his job. Deadly dull. He
didn't seem the least bit interested in being met. What was
Dorothy thinking?
Everyone was completely absorbed in shopping. It was like
being in a research library. Or at an Internet café with
every person scanning a screen. The people here were in
search of bargains. All they saw were objects on tables --
knives, spoons, napkin rings, salad bowls. All they could do
was calculate prices.
Dorothy was now arguing with a woman over a ratty fox
fur. Any moment now they'd pull it back and forth between
them. Elizabeth tried to read their lips.
Mine!
No, it's mine!
But I saw it first!
What did Dorothy want with the jacket anyway?
A pillow, the other woman seemed to say.
A pillow out of the fur?
Dorothy had her hand on her hips, and she was explaining,
gesturing to the fur. Trim.
Possibilities. That's what brought people to a rummage
sale. A world of possibilities. Who knew that a ratty old
fur could have a second life as a stage prop or a stuffed
pillow or trim on an opera cape? People came to try on new
possibilities for themselves. They wondered how they would
look in that jacket and would they ever find the right place
to wear a fake emerald brooch.
Elizabeth sighed. Possibilities are just what she wished
she had less of. She preferred certainties. She was certain
she was a very good flutist. She was certain she had a job
for the next week subbing in the pit of a Broadway show. And
she was certain she would never find anybody to share her
life with.
Dorothy's hand was off her hip, and now she was rubbing
the fur like it belonged to her cat. She was grinning,
chatting. She had made a friend. Not a boyfriend, but
someone. Dorothy could find a new friend in the Sahara.
Elizabeth cast her eye on a stack of records. Maybe
there'd be a recording she'd like. An unusual flute
concerto. A piece of chamber music that no one played
anymore. Probably not. They looked like old pop recordings,
and nothing was more useless than a record anyway. Give her
CDs or an iPod.
Books would be better. If she could find one paperback.
Something light. Even if it were something she'd read
before. Something she'd want to read again.
She ran a finger along the top of the dusty spines,
studying titles. Someone's old chemistry textbooks. A
collection of Shakespeare. Self-help books. A faded copy of
Love Story. Volumes of science fiction that didn't
interest her in the least.
What she wanted was a late-night comfort book. Something
to read when she couldn't sleep or when she felt too alone
in her small apartment. Something to give her a sense of
certainty. A book with a world that would take her out of
her own world. Something that would make her forget.
One cover was too lurid. The writing on the opening page
of another was too raw. She needed something with smooth
prose. Better yet, a book that didn't make her think of the
words at all. A story so big she could lose herself in it.
Then she saw the Harriet Mueller. Historical romance. Now
there was something dependable. Every volume was set in
Regency England and featured women in high-waist dresses who
were swept off their feet by dandified rakes in black riding
boots and puffy shirts with collars so starched they
scratched the men's cheeks. Women who were sensitive but
brave...and men who seemed gruff and cool but burned with
secret ardor.
Elizabeth had read her first Harriet Mueller when she was
a suggestible twelve-year-old with a crush on the boy next
door. She had spent the summer reading on her front porch,
hoping against hope that he would notice her. He didn't, but
she made her way through the local library's entire
collection of Harriet Muellers. The librarian couldn't
object to a Harriet Mueller. There was nothing too racy in
them, and the historical details were all well drawn. Beau
Brummel and the Prince Regent. Scenes set at Brighton or in
Bath.
Now she was looking at Harriet Mueller's Secret
Vows. She fingered the corners of the brittle pages.
This was a volume that had been passed along and savored,
like the score of a great concerto. Somehow that added to
the value. Secret Vows. She held it in one hand and
looked for more.
Yes, there was another Harriet Mueller. A Lark for
Love. With birds on the cover and a couple embracing in
a distant gazebo.
And a third. What Price Glory. This one had a
military theme. The man on the cover -- with dark,
fluttering sideburns like a young James Caan -- was squeezed
into red slacks and a navy blue coat with gold epaulets.
Another paperback edition.
Elizabeth couldn't believe her luck. Three Harriet
Muellers in one day. She dared not continue looking for
more. If she brought any more books into her apartment, even
books this thin, she would have to get rid of some she
already had. It would be like dumping an old friend.
"So you've found something," Dorothy said.
Elizabeth downplayed the discovery. "A couple books,
that's all."
"You'll just stay inside reading instead of getting out
and meeting people."
"What about you? You looked like you were having some
success."
"With this?" Dorothy held up the old fur.
Elizabeth smiled. "At least you made a friend."
"Next time we'll both come away with boyfriends, I assure
you."
Reading between the Lines © 2006 by Rick
Hamlin