Just Looking

Years later

“We could use this,” Lisa said.

J looked at the shallow wooden tray in her hands. It had six small compartments and a carrying handle. “For what?”

“I haven’t decided.”

He nodded. “That’s usually my argument.”

“I know. I thought I’d try it.”

She turned it over to check the price. They were in the second shop on the uphill side of the street. The first had sold coffee, knitted hats, handmade soap, and appointments with someone who wasn’t there. He had bought coffee. It seemed the safest thing to ask it to do. Outside, afternoon sunlight ran along the opposite sidewalk. Their side was still cool enough for jackets. Pines crowded against the backs of houses as if the town had arrived without asking them to move.

Lisa ran her thumb over one corner of the tray. “Eight dollars.”

“Does it come with six things?”

“We have things.”

That was true. They had been together long enough to own things neither remembered acquiring.

They hadn’t made much of a plan for today. Walk around, eat somewhere, go into anything that looked interesting. Lisa had put it on the calendar, and he’d kept the day clear. Before they left, he’d set three mugs beside the kettle. The third was still there. She carried the tray toward the front while J stopped at a bin of tools. Between a wooden level and three old door handles was a small metal object with a wheel at one end. He picked it up.

“Don’t know what that is either,” said the man behind the counter.

J turned the wheel with his thumb. It clicked pleasantly.

“That makes two of us.”

“Somebody’ll know.”

He put it back with the others. As he did, Lisa reached past him and gave the wheel a turn.

“Oh, that’s nice.”

“Right?”

“Still don’t need it.”

“No idea what it does.”

They left it there. The man wrapped the tray in a sheet of newspaper. Lisa declined a bag and tucked it under her arm. Outside, she stopped to move her sunglasses from the top of her head to her face. J took the tray while she did it, then kept carrying it.

“Which way?” he asked.

Lisa looked uphill. A narrow bookshop sat beside a store with lamps filling both windows. Farther along, somebody had put a rack of brightly colored clothes on the sidewalk.

“I want to look in there.” She pointed past the lamps.

J nodded. They walked up together, and she stopped at the clothes rack. While she was checking the size of something green, he noticed a box of books just inside the other doorway. He went to look. The door caught on the floor. He lifted as he pulled and got it open without dragging it over the worn boards. Inside, it smelled of paper and the last inch of coffee in a cup. Shelves filled the walls; boxes occupied the places where the shelves had given up. A woman at the desk glanced at his cup.

“If that doesn’t have a lid, there’s a place for it here.”

He held it up. “Lid.”

“Then you’re ahead of most of us.”

She returned to the book she was covering in clear plastic. J went sideways between a stack of magazines and a chair holding more books. The first section was gardening. The second was military history. Between them sat a single volume about raising rabbits. He considered the arrangement for a moment and moved on. Near the back, he found a book of old photographs. Its cover was faded almost white along the spine. The price, penciled inside, was six dollars. He opened it somewhere in the middle. There was the street outside.

Or most of it. The road was dirt, the sidewalks wooden. A row of men stood in front of a building he thought might now sell fudge. Nearly all of them faced the camera. One had turned to look up at a second-floor window. J brought the page closer. There was someone in the window. Just a pale shape behind the glass. The caption named the men and the business. He counted the names against the men below. They all matched. Nothing about the person upstairs. He checked the date and the facing page, then went back.

“There you are.”

Lisa came around the shelf carrying a small paper bag. He looked up, pleased to see her, and started to turn the book around.

“Look, this is—”

“You could say where you’re going.”

He paused. “Sorry. I just came in to look.”

“I know. I turned around and you were gone.” She set her bag on the chair. “I was talking to you for a while, too.”

“Anything good?”

She gave him a look.

“Sorry,” he said again, this time without the joke. He closed the book over one finger. “What’d you get?”

“A scarf.”

“The green one?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Let me see.”

She took the scarf from the bag and shook it loose. It was a deeper green than he’d thought from the street, with a thin pattern running through it. She draped it around her neck. He smiled.

“What?”

“That’s a good color on you.”

She looked down at it, then back at him.

“Seven dollars.”

“Even better color.”

She laughed and left it on.

“What have you found?”

He held the book so she could see the photograph. “That’s outside.”

She leaned in. “Which one?”

“I think that’s the place on the corner. Look at the three windows.”

Lisa took the book and tipped it toward the light.

“No, the one beside it.”

“You sure?”

“The corner one’s narrower. Look at the upstairs windows.”

He looked again. She was right.

“Huh.”

“And that’s still there.” She pointed to a little fan-shaped piece of wood above a doorway. “We walked under it.”

“We did?”

“You were reading the parking sign.”

“The parking sign had conditions.”

She turned a few pages. There was a photograph of a kitchen with a large stove and two women standing beside a table.

“I like that sink,” she said.

He looked at the enormous sink.

“You could bathe in that.”

“You could wash a baking sheet without flooding the floor.”

“That too.”

She studied the photograph a little longer, then handed the book back.

“Get it.”

“I was going to.”

“I know.”

At the counter, the woman took six dollars and slid a paper bookmark between the pages. J asked whether she knew which building was in the photograph. She put on her glasses.

“Oh, that one. Couple of doors up. Used to be the hardware store.”

“It’s still there?”

“Most of it. The front’s been changed.”

“Was it apartments upstairs?”

“Rooms, I think. Couldn’t tell you who lived there.”

Lisa gave him a small, pleased look.

“What?” he said.

“Nothing.”

They went out to find it. J held the photograph beside his view of the street while Lisa counted doorways. The upstairs windows had been replaced, but the openings matched. A family with a stroller went around them. He apologized and moved closer to the wall. Lisa pointed up.

“There. Under the sign.”

A wooden fan, painted cream now. One of its little spokes was missing. He lowered the book. It pleased him more than it probably should have, finding the thing still there. Somebody had cut those pieces and fitted them together, and now they were above a shop selling socks with bears on them. Lisa was already looking in the window.

“These are terrible.”

He joined her. One pair said that hiking was cheaper than therapy.

“Depends on the shoes,” he said.

She pointed to another pair. He read it, looked at her, and shook his head.

“Oh, those are you.”

“They absolutely are not.”

She was laughing as she went inside. He followed. By the time they stopped for something to eat, they had acquired the tray, the scarf, the book, and a card Lisa wanted to send to a friend.

They found a small table where the sun had finally reached their side of the street.

J unzipped his jacket. “Good spot.”

Lisa closed her eyes and turned her face toward the warmth. He put her tea where she could reach it and opened the paper around their food. A delivery truck stopped across the street. Somewhere behind them, a doorbell rang each time someone went into a shop. For a few minutes they ate without saying much. J looked from the book beside his cup to the buildings across the street.

Lisa checked a message, typed a reply, and put her phone back in her bag.

“Kira says somebody in the dorm used her mug.”

“Did she talk to them?”

“She’s telling me first.”

He nodded. Lisa took another bite of her pastry.

“You know, with those old photographs, there’s this thing about time—”

Lisa stopped with her pastry halfway to her mouth. “Are we doing physics?”

“Only a little.”

“I’d rather not.” She took the bite, then added, “I’m happy sitting here.”

He still wanted to tell her. He’d just made a connection, and it was a good one. But he knew the look. She had listened to enough beginnings to recognize when one was likely to end somewhere in space.

“Okay,” he said. He tucked the bookmark into the book and put it under the tray.

Lisa broke a loose piece from the edge of her pastry and put it on his paper.

“Try that.”

He did.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

He offered her his. She took a bite and gave it back.

“Mine’s better.”

“It is.”

She looked pleased with herself. He brushed a crumb from her scarf. She caught his hand before he could pull it away and held it on the table while she finished chewing. A dog passing with its owner paused hopefully beside J’s chair.

“Sorry, buddy.”

The dog looked at Lisa.

“Smart dog,” J said.

The owner laughed and coaxed it onward. They sat until the cups were empty. Lisa watched people going by. J opened the book again, then closed it and watched with her. Neither checked the time.

On the way down they stopped at the last place Lisa wanted to see. It occupied two narrow storefronts joined by an opening through the wall. The front room held old furniture, framed prints, and enough lamps to furnish several houses. Beyond the opening were shelves of china, small boxes, records, books, and objects waiting for someone to remember what they were for.

Lisa stopped at a small chest of drawers. She pulled one drawer halfway out, pushed it back, then tried the next.

“Those work nicely,” J said.

“They do.” She checked the tag and made a thoughtful sound. “Wouldn’t fit, though. Unless we moved the—”

By then he had noticed the glass spheres in the front window. Different sizes, different colors. He took a step toward them, then turned to say something to Lisa.

She was still beside the chest, pulling the drawer out again.

He went back.

“What were you showing me?”

“Watch.” She pushed the drawer in. It went all the way without catching. “Usually these have something wrong with them.”

He crouched beside it and looked at the runner. Somebody had replaced a strip of wood underneath. The work was neat.

“That’s been fixed.”

“I know.” She tried the bottom drawer. That one worked too.

He stood and looked at the chest. “Might fit beside the door.”

“We’d have to measure.”

“We could.”

Lisa took a photograph of the tag and put her phone away.

“What were you looking at?”

He pointed toward the window. “Planets.”

“Of course.” She pushed the last drawer shut and came with him.

The spheres sat on small clear stands, planets or near enough. One, about the size of a softball, was a deep green-blue with an azurite-colored band that caught the late light and held it. J set down the tray and his bag beside his feet and leaned closer. Bubbles lay inside the glass. From this side, a few looked like clouds.

“That’s a good color,” Lisa said.

“Don’t know which planet it’s meant to be.”

“Does it have to be one?”

He smiled. “Fair point.”

A small radio near the desk had been playing quietly. J caught a name between the music and an advertisement: 4I/Kestrel. He straightened to listen.

The interstellar object was getting time on more telescopes. New observations suggested it might be a little brighter than predicted.

“Teams are comparing measurements taken with different instruments,” the presenter said. “It’s not yet clear how much of the difference belongs to the object and how much to the measurements. Astronomers say they need more observations before drawing conclusions.”

J waited to hear how they measured the brightness of something that far away. It was the sort of detail he liked in the astronomy talks he listened to. The radio went on to a furniture sale.

Lisa had moved to a table beside the window. She picked up a bowl with a green rim and turned it over to look at the base.

The sunlight had shifted across the planets. J leaned sideways to see where the band ended inside the green-blue globe. The color deepened. A tiny point of azurite blue appeared just beyond its edge, much sharper than the wash of color on the wood below.

He looked directly at it. For an instant he couldn’t tell whether it was on the globe or somewhere behind it. He moved his head a little, trying to place it. Lisa shifted the bowl in her hands, and the point was gone.

“Did you see that?”

“What?”

“Little blue light. Just there.”

She looked where he was pointing. “There’s light all over that cabinet.”

There was. Glass ornaments hung above the planets, and a tall mirror stood at an angle beside the window. A pale patch slid across a drawer as one of the ornaments turned.

“Could’ve been this, too.” She tipped the bowl. A bright sliver moved over the globe’s stand.

“Yeah.”

He leaned back to where he thought he’d been standing. The band was still blue, but he couldn’t find the little point again. He wasn’t sure he had the angle right.

Lisa held up the bowl. “This one’s nice. For the tomatoes.”

“That’s what it’s for?”

“That’s what it’s for now.”

They bought the bowl. At the counter, J held their other things while the shopkeeper wrapped it carefully in two sheets of paper. Lisa watched him put it into the bag.

While the shopkeeper counted out their change, J noticed a wooden box of old postcards near the door. He took a step toward it.

“I’m going to look at those,” he said.

Lisa followed his glance. “Thank you.”

He grinned and went over. By the time she joined him, he had found a postcard of the street under several feet of snow and wanted to show her where they’d just eaten. Outside, the air had cooled. They walked downhill toward the car, stopping once to let an elderly couple come through a narrow stretch of sidewalk. Lisa slipped her hand into his.

“Good day,” she said.

“Yeah.”

At the car they rearranged their few purchases on the back seat. J put the bowl where it wouldn’t slide and laid the book beside it. Lisa unwound the scarf and folded it into her bag. He settled behind the wheel.

“Hungry?”

“Still?”

“Later.”

“There’s stuff at home.”

“That sounds promising.”

She reached over and brushed something from his sleeve.

“Pastry.”

“Saving it.”

“I figured.”

He smiled, started the car, and waited for a gap in the traffic. As they pulled away, Lisa pointed out another shop they’d missed.

“Next time,” he said.

He glanced once more along the row of windows. Hanging glass, lamps, the green-blue globe still on its stand. Plenty of things for sunlight to catch.

Lisa was talking about the chest of drawers and whether they should measure the space by the door.

“We’d have to move the shoe rack,” he said.

“It could go on the other side.”

He pictured it there. “Let’s measure when we get home.”

She opened the photograph of the tag to check the price again. He could still picture the little point of blue. He just couldn’t remember what it had been on.