For the second time in one afternoon, Steven Taylor found himself at a loss for words. ‘Uh,’ he muttered, his breath catching in his throat, ‘what’s this music?’
The young woman laughed. ‘Oh, that was my grandfather’s doing. He loved this stuff. It makes me a bit crazy in the mornings, but after a while, I manage to ignore it. Do you like it? I think it’s Lawrence Welk after a triple helping of spa?tzle.’ She made a quick adjustment to her glasses and looked questioningly at Steven. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Uh, yeah, I’m fine… It’s just that it’s hot in here and I… uh… I’ve been moving all these cases.’ Steven wiped several beads of sweat from his forehead as his mind raced for something interesting to say. ‘Actually, I really like this cabinet. It’s for my sister’s wedding. She’s marrying some guy I don’t know very well and I wanted to get her something special.’
Why was he telling her all this? He couldn’t stop himself. ‘She moved away several years ago and not having her around has helped me see that I could’ve been nicer to her when we were younger.’ Now he really was rambling. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have room for it in my car. I’ll need to come back, maybe tomorrow, to pick it up. Is there any way you can keep from selling it until tomorrow?’
He wished for a massive, exploding aneurysm to haemorrhage and kill him on the spot.
‘Well, I do plan to lock the door behind me, and you are the last customer here. So I don’t think that will be a problem.’
‘Oh, great, thank you. My roommate has a pick-up and I don’t have to work most Saturdays, so if that’s okay, I’ll be back in the morning.’
‘I hope so.’ She smiled again and Steven’s heart pounded in his chest. He was certain she could have seen it moving his shirt from across a stadium parking lot. She went on, ‘A lot of people say they’ll be back tomorrow, but they don’t come back. It’s okay if you don’t, but I hope you do. My mother and I are hoping to have everything sold off in the next couple of weeks-’ she gave a quick glance around the storefront ‘-it’s a lot of stuff, though.’
‘No. I really will be back. I have a bit of a drive from up the canyon, so it may be later in the morning before I can get down here.’
‘Well, don’t worry. I won’t sell this piece.’ She reached over and gave his forearm an amiable squeeze. ‘I’m Hannah.’
Steven watched as she removed her hand from his arm. His breath came in short gasps and he thought how embarrassed he would be if he passed out at her feet. He struggled for composure and introduced himself: ‘I’m Steven Taylor.’
‘Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, Steven Taylor,’ Hannah said as she turned and began walking him out.
Meyers Antiques opened at 8.00 a.m. the following morning. Steven was parked out front by 7.15. ‘So much for getting here late,’ he said to himself as he walked along South Broadway Avenue looking for a place to get coffee. He had thought about Hannah all night, remembering that moment when she reached out to touch his arm. He was so excited about seeing her again that he had found it impossible to sleep, and was on his way in Mark’s truck by 6.20. Was she married? Engaged? He had seen no ring on her finger yesterday. Was she involved with someone? Would it be too soon to ask her to dinner that evening?
Steven was determined to linger over breakfast for at least an hour so he didn’t appear too eager to see her. She was so beautifuclass="underline" he found it hard to think straight when she was there. He was a little afraid he would look like Quasimodo begging for a glimpse of her through the windows if he showed up right on the dot of 8.00 a.m.
Steven walked through the door of Meyers Antiques at 9.15 a.m., inordinately proud of himself for holding off that long. He had eaten pancakes, followed by an omelette with hash browns, two rounds of toast and about six cups of coffee as he waited for 9.00 to roll around on his geologically slow wristwatch. He laughed at himself: if the anxiety failed to kill him in the next hour, the cholesterol certainly would.
The store was already bustling with activity as two dozen customers moved items, tried out chairs, examined first-edition books and pored over china sets for cracks or imperfections. Looking towards the rear of the store, he saw his sister’s china cabinet was still there, leaning up against the far wall.
He started when he heard someone calling his name.
‘Excuse me, Mr Taylor.’ It was Jennifer Sorenson. He saw no sign of Hannah.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he answered, navigating through a mismatched bedroom set to where she stood waving.
‘I’ll help you get the Duncan Phyfe out to your truck. Hannah’s making a delivery and stopping off at the post office for me this morning, but she told me to expect you.’
‘That’s right, ma’am,’ Steven answered, furiously thinking of some way to delay his departure until Hannah returned. ‘Uh… do you know if the keys are available?’ The cabinet had two sets of double doors, and both had locks but no keys.
‘If they aren’t taped inside, you may be out of luck. There’s one place you can look if you feel like taking the time.’
‘Where is that?’ Steven felt his hope rising.
‘In the keys to the known world,’ the older woman responded, adding nostalgically, ‘my father kept a jar of keys. Most of them don’t fit anything, but he liked to let children drop keys inside and make a wish. It was a fun way to keep them occupied while their parents browsed around. Sometimes children would come in by themselves just to drop off keys.’
The idea of picking through sixty years of discarded keys did not sound very appealing, but it was a sure-fire way to ensure he’d be around when Hannah returned from her morning errands.
‘Terrific,’ he said. ‘Point me to them and I’ll get started.’
The jar was actually an enormous glass container the size of a small barrel. It took him and Jennifer working together to lift it over to where he could sit and try out possible matches in the cabinet’s locks. He estimated there were some two or three thousand keys in the container; the task would take hours – but the longer he stayed at Meyers Antiques, the more courage he would summon to ask Hannah to dinner that evening.
By 11.00 a.m. Steven’s four-course breakfast was sitting in his stomach like a bag of wet cement, and he was now certain these were the keys to the known world. He had seen every imaginable size and style: skeleton keys, house keys, boat keys, even keys to an Edsel – he’d never seen an Edsel outside the movies, yet here he had found the keys for one. He tossed them into a pile at his feet.
He had a rough idea what he was looking for – a type of skeleton key with teeth on one side of a short barrel and a small hole in the end – which at least made searching a little easier.
Steven was both an avid hiker and a mountain cyclist, and he had memorised each turn and switchback of many of the routes in Rocky Mountain National Park. When work at the First National Bank of Idaho Springs began to feel like drudgery, he would drift off in quick, escapist daydreams, remembering fondly every detail of a great climb or a bike trip over the Continental Divide. He sometimes worried this escapist tendency was dangerous, part of his ongoing propensity to avoid living in the moment, but it helped him control stress, and reminded him there was an end to every boring task. Working through the keys, he found himself drifting back to a long climb he and Mark had completed several weeks earlier, along the Grey’s Peak trail just below Loveland Pass. He remembered the picturesque vistas and autumn aromas, and the feel of the earth beneath his boots. Before long he was immersed in his memories, absentmindedly checking the keys, but otherwise paying them little attention.