The Old Book

The title had come up in conversation.  It popped into my head as I spoke. There
was real delight in finding the entire course of the novel still fresh in my
thoughts, each character and scene emerging from the mists of memory like an old
friend.  I resolved at once to try and find a copy of this book I had left behind
so long ago.  But the novel I sought was out of print and generally inaccessible.
 It was not the kind of writing which would generally find its final resting
place in the noble crypt of a library.  I had no choice but to begin digging in
the graveyards of forgotten books – used bookstores.

I was driving through the other side of town when I spied one of those venerable
shops.  I parked my car and entered the old store.  I didn’t ask the proprietor
for help, reluctant to make too straight a line toward disappointment.  The
regularity of continually failing to discover the object of my quest led me to
pretend I might be shopping for any good book which caught my eye.  I began
wandering the maze of shelves, looking high and low for some book which might be
interesting, perhaps even the one that I sought..

There were picture books and treatises, texts and tomes, gnarled
once-best-selling paperbacks and majestic timeless volumes bound in fine Moroccan
leather.  I moved along the lines of non-fiction to fiction, past poetry, through
literature.  I turned the corner of mysteries and at once caught a glimpse of the
book I had been searching for.  An attractive woman held it open in her hands,
reading the yellowed pages with a smile.

Ordinarily, I would have been too shy to say anything to the woman more
communicative than a nod, but I had been searching for that book for so many
months that my courage was roused.  I couldn’t let her take my grail right out
from under my nose without making some effort to keep it.

“Excuse me, Miss,” I said.  She looked up, started slightly and then cocked her
head to one side.  Her fine hair flowed like liquid over her shoulders.

“Harry?” the woman asked.  “Aren’t you Harry Anderson?”

Surprised, I nodded my acknowledgement and then suddenly caught a vision behind
the veil of changes.

“Melanie?” I said in a sudden state of shock.

“How are you, Harry?” she asked tenderly.  The years had been good to Melanie. 
If anything, she looked better than she had before, maturity agreeing with her as
it filled out her somewhat bony figure with more feminine curves.   The forever
buoyant energy of her youth seemed to have given way to a cool and playful
steadiness.

I struggled to tell her briefly all the highlights of the decade that had passed
since the last time we parted, quickly giving her a fair rundown of where I stood
at that time.  I politely asked about her.

“I was married for a time, but not anymore,” she began coyly.  Melanie told me
about her job, and her trips to Europe and South America and her brother and her
parents.  Her words amazed me.  I had known her so well at one time in my life,
and it seemed so strange that I could simply forget it all.

“So, you looking for anything in particular?” I asked.

“Me?  No, I was just browsing, hoping something would catch my eye.”  Her long
floral skirt swung loosely as she gestured down the long shelves of paperback
novels around us.

I quickly confessed to her my earnest quest for the sacred book she still held in
her hand.  Melanie laughed, a joyous explosion of mirth, so familiar in my
distant memory, so terribly lost in the rushes of time.  With every passing
moment, I wished even more that I hadn’t forgotten her.

“Are you virtuous enough to receive this holy object?” Melanie asked.

“Probably not,” I admitted with a grin.

“Well then, good sir knight, I’m afraid you must undergo the test.  As the Lady
of the Stacks, it is my solemn duty to protect the holy books from the corrupt
hands of evildoers.”  Her smile betrayed her immense pleasure in formulating her
little game.  Melanie’s tone grew softer as she asked, “Are you very busy?  Can
you come over to my place for a drink?  I just live a few blocks from here.”

I agreed to her proposal.  Melanie bought the book I had been searching for and
we walked together to her home.

Melanie brewed some tea and then opened some wine and for hours we indulged
ourselves in remembering old times.  As she reminded me of the day her brothers
and I had been caught spying on her and her friends, of the ruse she had
concocted to spare us from punishment, my heart filled with longing for this
woman.  I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed her company.  Her pretty smile
brightened all my thoughts.

“You know, I don’t remember why we split up,” I said, hoping that this line of
inquiry wouldn’t open some old wound and imperil my chances of receiving my
bounty.

“That’s because we didn’t,” Melanie said solemnly, pushing a long strand of fine
hair behind her ear.  “When the summer ended, you took a new job and I moved in
with Sally and we just drifted apart.  Besides, Harry, I don’t think we were
really going together, so there wasn’t anything to break up.”

“But we had so much fun together.”

“Yes, we did.”

“And we just let that slip away?”

“It was my fault.  You were so shy back then,” she said.  “I stopped pushing you
to come out and play and our lives just drifted apart."

“But,” I said.  I couldn’t think of anything to say and so I leaned over and
kissed her.  Melanie fell into my arms.  It felt so familiar, the taste of her
breath, the press of her lips, the feel of her there, held against me. Passion
for this fond memory come alive suddenly enflamed me and I willingly surrendered
to all my desires.  My hands caressed her back as we kissed, pushing the cloth
out of the way to feel the warmth of her soft flesh.

We made love in a tangle on the couch in her front room.  Ten years had slipped
by us, but her body still seemed perfectly familiar to me.  I suckled her breasts
as I had long ago.  I kneaded her legs and kissed her soft toes.  The sound of
her moans as she reached for her climax sang like an old lullaby, so soothing in
its excited familiarity that I quickly came myself.  We fell in a heap on the
floor, laughing and sighing.

“Oh, Harry, I’ve missed you,” she said tenderly.

“More than I knew,” I replied with a kiss.

When so many hours had passed that we couldn’t avoid parting any longer, Melanie
handed me my book.

“You’ve proved your virtue, good sir knight.”  I took my prize and drove home in
a daze, happy to have found Melanie, hoping my new found delight would never come
to an end.

I laid down in  my bed, my heart pounding.  I swam in the intoxicating swirl of
reminiscences of our past and dreams of our future.  Finally, I picked up the
book I had searched for so long.  I opened it, leaned back against my head board
and started to read.

The old book was better than I remembered, better still by far.