An Illustrated Death by Judi Culbertson

bookselling. What are your plans for my books anyway?”
    “Your books? You mean the ones you sell? A lot of these houses have sheds out back.”
    “For eight thousand books?”
    “You could scale down. Specialize in one area.”
    “I’ve thought of that,” I admitted. What bookseller hasn’t fantasized about concentrating on selling a few expensive books to wealthy collectors? I thought of Charles Tremaine though I didn’t know what he specialized in. But there were dealers on BookEm.com who looked down from that snowy summit at the rest of us selling ten-dollar books. The trick was to figure out how to scramble up there with them. Besides, I was fascinated by all the different kinds of books I sold. How could I turn my back on any of them?
    “And you’d have to do something about your hippie wardrobe,” he teased.
    My wardrobe? As if.
    Jeff was back. Without removing my untouched salad, he arranged a steaming bowl of pasta in front of me. “Pepper?”
    “Yes, please.”
    He produced a pepper mill the size of a softball bat and twisted it over my plate.
    Colin had ordered a large porterhouse steak with sweet potato fries, and was contentedly digging in.
    “Remember the restaurant in Santa Fe where the waiters and waitresses suddenly went over to the piano and started singing songs from The Music Man ?” I asked. We had turned and watched them, openmouthed. I couldn’t imagine Jeff breaking into song.
    “La Cantina. They still do. I was there this summer.”
    Without me. I was shocked at the depth of the wound that created. What adoring young graduate student had been there in my place? We had had a life, a good life together. If I had been more obliging . . . If he had stayed more intrigued by me . . .
    I leaned forward, crushing the napkin in my lap. “Are you propositioning me?”
    He laughed. “Can a man proposition his own wife?”
    “I don’t know. But you haven’t said anything about love.”
    “ Love .” He closed his eyes as if exposure to the brightness of the word might injure his corneas. Or perhaps it was to demonstrate that he was lost in thought. Finally he opened them and jabbed his fork at me. “Define love.”
    “Colin . . .” I paused for another bite of ravioli that melted to nothing in my mouth. “Don’t do this to me. A year ago you decided that being married was holding you back. Living with me was keeping you out of the stratosphere where National Book Awards are given.” Shut up, Delhi. Be nice. I tried again. “As you may remember, I was devastated. We’d been through a lot, but I never saw that coming. All of a sudden I was on my own and had to think about how to survive.”
    “You don’t—”
    I put up a hand to keep him quiet. “What I found out was, being by myself isn’t that bad. It’s not bad at all. I finally have a life I’m in control of. I can eat McDonald’s every night if I want. So when you come along with what sounds more like a business proposition, I have a few questions.”
    The restaurant door slammed and the candle on our table flickered in agitation. “If you told me you loved me and planned to spend the rest of your life with me, that would be different.”
    Say it, Colin. Make it different .
    He sighed and pushed back as far as he could in his chair—not very far. “What you don’t understand is that life is a fast-flowing stream. You can’t freeze relationships. We aren’t where we were a year ago, and we don’t know where we’ll be in five years.”
    “That’s the point. I have to know.”
    “Why do you need so many guarantees? Why can’t you let things just play out? All I know is that I’m the new department head and that certain expectations come with the job. I can’t go on living in a rented condo. What I’m offering you is a chance to be part of a great new adventure. A chance to trade in your Berkeley mentality for a truly adult life. We’re not kids anymore.”
    “But without love.” I saw that my hand