Echoes of Tomorrow

The first thing I notice is the smell. Not the sweat, though there's plenty of that, or the cheap cologne the man beside me has bathed in. It's the paper. Old paper, the kind that's been sitting in a box in someone's basement since before I was born, all dust and vanilla and a faint, sweet rot. I'm surrounded by it. It's in my nose, my throat, the weave of my coat. I'm sitting on a folding chair in a VFW hall in Queens, and I'm pretty sure I've made a terrible mistake.

The man on my left, the cologne guy, is breathing through his mouth. He's got a cardboard box on his lap, the flaps folded down, and he keeps lifting one corner to peek inside like he's checking on a sleeping animal. Across the aisle, a woman with hair the color of a nickel is arguing with the auctioneer about a lot number. She's wrong. He's wrong. They both know it, and neither one is going to give an inch. This is what I walked into. A room full of people who care too much about things no one else wants.

And I'm one of them.

"Lot forty-two," the auctioneer says, his voice a flat drone through the tinny PA system. "First edition, 1947. *The Plague*. Camus. Dust jacket intact, minor chipping at the spine. Bidding starts at eighty."

Eighty dollars. For a book. I shift in my chair, and the metal legs screech against the linoleum. A few heads turn. I stare straight ahead, at the card table up front where the auctioneer sits, at the stack of books beside him, at the exit sign glowing red in the back. I could leave. I should leave. I've got a shift at the bar at seven, and it's already a quarter past four, and I haven't eaten since a stale bagel this morning.

But I don't move.

"Eighty," the auctioneer repeats. "Do I hear eighty?"

A hand goes up in the back. A man with a beard like a bird's nest. Eighty. Then ninety from the woman with the nickel hair. Then a hundred from someone I can't see. The number climbs, slow and steady, like water filling a tub. I don't bid. I just watch. I watch the way the auctioneer's eyes flick across the room, tracking each raise, the way his mouth twitches when someone drops out. He's good. He knows exactly how much each person in this room is willing to pay, and he's not going to stop until he finds the ceiling.

The book sells for two hundred and ten dollars. To the bird's nest beard. He clutches it to his chest like a newborn.

I exhale. My fingers are cramped around the edge of my chair. I let go.

The next lot is a stack of pulp paperbacks from the fifties. Sci-fi, mostly. Covers with half-naked women and rocket ships. The auctioneer starts at forty. No one bids. He drops to thirty. Nothing. Twenty. A man in a Mets cap raises his hand, almost apologetically. Sold. Twenty dollars for twelve books. I do the math in my head. Less than two bucks a piece. That's not a collection. That's a rescue mission.

"Lot forty-four," the auctioneer says. "A box of assorted ephemera. Letters, photographs, some pamphlets. Sold as-is. No reserve. Bidding starts at ten."

A box of assorted ephemera. That's what they call it when they don't know what it is. When they haven't bothered to look. I've been to enough of these auctions to know the code. Assorted ephemera means someone died and their family didn't want to sort through it. Or someone got evicted and left it behind. Or someone just got tired of carrying it around. It's the stuff that doesn't fit anywhere. The stuff that's too personal to sell and too worthless to keep.

I should know. I've got a closet full of it.

I raise my hand.

The auctioneer nods. "Ten to the lady in the green coat. Do I hear fifteen?"

No one moves. The room is quiet. Even the nickel-haired woman has stopped arguing. I can hear the hum of the fluorescent lights, the tick of the clock above the exit sign, the blood in my ears.

"Ten once. Ten twice. Sold to number forty-seven."

I stand up. My knees pop. I weave through the rows of folding chairs, past the bird's nest beard and the cologne guy and the woman who's already moved on to the next lot, her hand in the air, her mouth open. The box is on the table by the auctioneer's elbow. It's a banker's box, the kind with the lid that folds down and the metal handle that cuts into your palm. I hand over a ten-dollar bill. The auctioneer doesn't look at me. He's already onto lot forty-five.

I carry the box to the back of the room and sit down on the floor, my back against the wall. The linoleum is cold through my jeans. I open the lid.

The first thing I pull out is a photograph. Black and white, curled at the edges. A woman in a sundress, standing in front of a car. The car is a Chevy, maybe a '57, all fins and chrome. The woman is laughing. Her hair is short and dark, and she's holding a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. Behind her, the sky is enormous. Flat and endless. The kind of sky you only see in the middle of the country, where there's nothing to stop it.

I flip the photo over. On the back, in blue ink, someone has written: *Ruth, summer '62. Don't let her fool you. She was mean as a snake.*

I laugh. It comes out loud, a bark that echoes off the cinderblock walls. The cologne guy glances over. I ignore him.

The next thing is a letter. Three pages, handwritten, the ink faded to a brownish gray. I unfold it carefully, the paper brittle as a dead leaf.

*Dear Ruth,*

*I got your letter. I'm not going to apologize for what I said. You know I'm right. You've always known. That's why you're so mad.*

I stop. I look up. The auctioneer is selling a set of encyclopedias from 1972. The nickel-haired woman is bidding against the bird's nest beard. The clock ticks. The lights hum. And I'm sitting on the floor of a VFW hall in Queens, holding a letter that wasn't meant for me, reading words that were never mine to read.

I should put it back. I should close the box and walk out. I've got a shift at seven. I've got a life that doesn't include other people's ghosts.

But I don't.

I keep reading.

*You think I don't know what you did? You think I didn't see? I saw everything, Ruth. I saw the way you looked at him. I saw the way you touched his arm. I saw the way you laughed at his jokes, even the bad ones, even the ones you'd heard a hundred times before. You think I'm blind?*

*I'm not blind. I'm just patient.*

*I waited. I waited all those years, through the moves, through the babies, through the nights when you'd cry and I'd pretend to be asleep. I waited because I thought you'd come back to me. I thought you'd remember who you were. Who we were.*

*But you didn't.*

*So I'm done waiting.*

*You can keep the house. You can keep the car. You can keep everything. I don't want it. I never wanted it. I wanted you, and you gave me a life instead. A nice life. A good life. A life I never asked for.*

*I'm leaving. Don't try to find me.*

*Michael*

I read it twice. Then a third time. The words don't change. They sit on the page, flat and final, like a door closing. I think about Ruth, the woman in the photograph, laughing with her cigarette and her beer. Mean as a snake. I think about Michael, whoever he was, waiting all those years. Patient. I think about the house and the car and the babies and the nights.

I think about my own apartment, six blocks from here, with its leaky faucet and its stack of unopened mail and its bed that's too big for one person.

I fold the letter and put it back in the box.

The auction is winding down. The auctioneer is on lot fifty-three, a set of vintage postcards from Coney Island. The crowd has thinned. The nickel-haired woman is gone. The bird's nest beard is gone. It's just me and the cologne guy and a few stragglers, the ones who stay until the end, hoping for a bargain.

I should go. I should stand up and walk out and leave the box on the table. But I don't. I sit there, on the cold linoleum, with a box of someone else's life in my lap, and I wonder what it means that I'm the one who ended up with it. What it means that I paid ten dollars for a stranger's heartbreak. What it means that I'm still here, still reading, still hoping for something I can't name.

The auctioneer calls lot fifty-four. A box of assorted ephemera. Sold as-is. No reserve. Bidding starts at ten.

I raise my hand.