When she asked her grandmother about the intriguing bookseller, she was shrugged off.
“It’s like he’s from another planet, Grandma.”
“He’s old-fashioned…and European. Maybe he just doesn’t advertise online. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“But not even a public telephone listing for his business? Not a single mention? It just seems odd.” She sat at the breakfast table, drinking coffee and watching her grandmother start the chili verde for dinner that night.
“Do you feel unsafe with him?” Isadora turned to her, a look of concern evident on her face. “You’re alone with him in that reading room for hours every week. I won’t have you feeling unsafe.”
Beatrice shook her head. “No, it’s not that. There’s just something…”
Isadora turned back to the stove. “You’re creating a mystery where there is none, Mariposa. I think he’s a nice man. Just old-fashioned.” Her grandmother fell silent, and from her expression, Beatrice could tell she was reliving some of the dark times that had marked her granddaughter’s teenage years. Not wanting her grandmother to worry about her strange fascination, Beatrice attempted to lighten the mood.
“Do you know he doesn’t even have a mobile phone? Can you imagine?”
“Really?” Isadora may have not been as fond of technology as her granddaughter was, but she’d jumped at the chance to have a mobile phone when she realized she could talk with her circle of friends almost nonstop.
“Nope. I’ve never seen him with one. Come to think of it, he doesn’t have a laptop, either.” She frowned again. “And what researcher doesn’t have a laptop these days? It’s just odd.”
Her grandmother laughed. “Maybe he’s allergic to technology, mija.”
In the weeks that followed, Dr. Giovanni Vecchio became a small obsession to her.
He was rich, she determined, after noticing a silver-haired man hold open the back door of a Mercedes sedan for him on more than one occasion when they left the library. Giovanni had taken to walking her to her small, hand-me-down Civic some evenings when she got off of work, most often to continue a conversation they were in the middle of. He’d also tried to convince her that a brisk walk down five flights of stairs was the key to good health. She sometimes joined him and sometimes simply waited near the elevators. He was an unusually fast walker.
She also determined he was in his early thirties. He looked younger but had casually mentioned too many foreign universities for her to think he had seen them all in less than that.
What bothered her the most was that something about his appearance stirred memories of a time in her life she had tried very hard to forget, and reminded her of a face she had relegated to the back of her mind. She’d tried for years to put that dark chapter of her teenage years behind her, but the more time she spent with the mysterious book dealer, the more thoughts and memories began to surface.
He stood before her now, his soft smile and beautiful eyes the very picture of politeness. He was wearing a moss-green sweater that evening which made his eyes look both green and grey at once.
“Can I walk you to your car?”
She paused, and he must have been confused by the odd look on her face because he stepped away.
“I…sorry, kind of lost in thought.” She smiled. “You know, thinking about my indecisive hair.” She closed her eyes and shook her head, embarrassed that she’d used thinking about her hair as an excuse for her quizzical expression.
He frowned. “Did you want—”
“Sure,” she continued. “I’d like the company. Just let me shut the computers down. Can you get the lights by the door?”
He paused almost imperceptibly but turned to walk toward the doorway. As she waited to log out of the library’s system, she glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He slipped his hand into his messenger bag and pulled out a pencil to flick the lights off before he tucked it back in his bag. His movements were smooth and practiced, and if she hadn’t been observing him, she realized she never would have noticed.
She forced herself to look back at the computer and stood up straight when she heard the electronic sigh that indicated the machine was off. Gathering her bag, Beatrice plastered a smile on her face and walked toward the doorway to meet him.
“Join me on the stairs tonight?” he asked.
“I don’t think so. My feet are killing me. Join me in the elevator?”
He looked at her for a second, surprised by her question. She’d never asked him to join her before and was curious how he would respond.
“No, thank you. You know me—I like the exercise.”
She chuckled a little and smiled. “Right.”
“I’ll meet you downstairs.”
He turned and loped toward the stairwell, his quick feet almost noiseless in the dim corridor. She muttered under her breath as she watched him.
“Right…sure I know you.”
She ran into him again two nights later while she was working on a paper for her Medieval Literature class. She’d just finished her paper on the role of illuminations in devotional manuscripts when she saw him watching her from the archway by the coffee shop. She caught a glimpse of his pale face and was immediately thrown back to a memory from the summer she turned fifteen.