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Back When We Meet Again
Chapters (57)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. Prologue
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-one
  26. Twenty-two
  27. Twenty-three
  28. Twenty-four
  29. Twenty-five
  30. Twenty-six
  31. Twenty-seven
  32. Twenty-eight
  33. Twenty-nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-one
  36. Thirty-two
  37. Thirty-three
  38. Thirty-four
  39. Thirty-five
  40. Thirty-six
  41. Thirty-seven
  42. Thirty-eight
  43. Thirty-nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-one
  46. Forty-two
  47. Forty-three
  48. Forty-four
  49. Forty-five
  50. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  51. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  52. POPULAR BOOKS FROM THE ERA
  53. When We Meet Again
  54. A Conversation with Caroline Beecham about When We Meet Again
  55. Discussion Guide
  56. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  57. What’s next onyour reading list?

“They’re doing okay. Pop’s getting some extra help now he’s not so mobile, gives Mom a break. He’s gained a few pounds since he stopped working.” Theo raised his eyebrows. He was making light of the situation; he had learned few people really wanted to know the truth, which was that his father wasn’t doing well at all. The doctors couldn’t get his insulin levels right, and his swollen legs meant he walked less and less, exacerbating his condition. If only he’d taken notice of the honey urine earlier, or lost weight as the doctors had advised him years ago.

“That’s good,” Ike said. “I should visit. . . .”

“It’s okay, they understand. It was seven days for them too, once. They remember what it’s like.”

Ike wasn’t getting any younger; strands of fine brown hair were combed across the top of his balding head, and his beard was wispy and gray. He wore his clothes loose, but Theo could see that his pants were hitched high around his rotund stomach; it was the sedentary job and the temptations of the area.

“Tell me about the association . . . what are your plans?” he asked.

“You know what cowards those city officials can be. They just got nervous and tried to make us move the stands from the sidewalks. You know we can’t do that—it’d be bad for business. Besides, those stands have been there longer than any of us.”

Theo already knew the background but also how much Ike liked to chat—he was informally known as the grandfather of Book Row. Over the weekend, Theo’s father had told him all about how the labor troubles and worker strikes had made the authorities cautious. Just as Ike said, the New York City authorities had asked the sellers on Book Row to remove their stands. They’d fought back by forming the Fourth Avenue Booksellers’ Association, and now they needed help getting things to the next level when the authorities had refused to take any notice of them. These seven blocks between Astor Place and Union Square had been home to more than thirty bookshops since the end of the last century, and there were nearly as many stories about them as between the pages of the books they sold.

“No, that wouldn’t be good for business at all,” Theo replied, holding Ike’s gaze.