At first, I didn't know what was going on. I was standing in the middle of a long corridor and there were finely dressed people walking ahead of me and nicking me with their elbows.

One person said, “The show starts soon.”

The next one said, “We'll have to see if she went in already. Maybe she's already in her seat.”

I felt hopelessly out of place until I saw I was wearing a suit. No problem there. I checked my pocket. I had a ticket. It was an opera ticket. They were showing Tosca. I had never seen it. I rubbed the ticket between my fingers to see if there were two tickets and I was supposed to meet someone. The paper was solitary. I was alone.

I glanced over my shoulder to see where I had come from. There were doors, but they were thronged with ticket holders moving forward. I recognized that I was one of them and I had to move forward also. I walked with steadiness until the hallway broke open to an atrium. Outside the theater doors, was the coat check, the ticket counters, and a candy stand. I did a double-take. One side sold candy like we were about to enter a carnival and the other sold tall goblets with sparkling liquids.

Checking my pocket again, I found that I had no wallet and no money.

I put myself in que to turn in my ticket and see the show. Despite all the people coming in behind me, I somehow managed to be the last in line. The lobby was emptying.

Then, I saw her.

At first, I didn't think the woman before me could be the girl I knew in real life. How could she be the same? This girl wore a dress the color of raspberry wine. The skirt was made up of hundreds of ruffles and the bodice was a mass of wondrous stitchery. It was her. The hair was the same. That same hair that was always enchanted in real life was still enchanted while a story unfurled around her. I wondered again who the author was and how did they know Veda to write about her with such detail?

She wasn't in line. She was coming out of a door marked, 'Staff Only.' I wondered for a moment if she was going to be performing that night. After all, in a book, she might very well have the part of Tosca herself. Instead of going back through the door, she weaved through the line of ticket holders next to me and then behind me, moving out of my grasp but leaving her scent behind her. It made my head swim.

I ditched my place in line and followed her.

She disappeared behind another door, and when I finally caught up to her, she was already at the end of the hallway. The area looked like the offices of the people who ran the theater. She tried three doorways before one of them gave way to her and she disappeared inside.

I went for it, too, but by the time I got there, the room behind the door was empty. There were doors everywhere. When I tried them, all of them were locked. No amount of banging on them did anything.

In the end, I returned to the lobby.

The lines were gone and when I went to speak to the ticket master, I saw that he was not a real person at all, but a robot made of aluminum. He had black camera lenses for eyes and only one leg that made him the right height for the people he collected tickets from.

“So sorry, sir,” the robot said, opening his shining jaw once to show speech but not moving it up and down to match his words. His accent was cultured, like a search engine. “The opera is closed for the evening. The performance is over and all the guests have gone.”

I stared at the machine. There had to be a malfunction. “How is that possible? I'm only two minutes late.” I looked at my watch. It said ten o'clock. I looked at my ticket. It said seven.

“So sorry, sir. The opera is closed for the evening.” The machine's camera lenses closed and his head slumped to the side. He looked like a zero instead of a one.

I knocked him on the side of the head with my knuckles, but nothing happened. Glancing around, the place was as deserted as a horror movie. I stood there stupidly for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do. Finally, I decided to check the robot in front of me for a power switch. I got in the booth with him and lifted the back of his coat to find the button. That was when Veda returned to the lobby.

She swept up to the concession and bought herself an enormous ball of cotton candy on a stick. I abandoned the mechanical ticketmaster and joined her. Unlike me, she had money in a little black sequined purse.

I had been about to say, 'Hi Veda,' when I checked myself. Whatever book I was reading, I bet my character would not have much success addressing her like that. I opted for a classy, “Good evening,” and brushed her bare elbow with my fingertips. Unobtrusive, but still physical contact. Smooth.

Her eyes were enormous with curiosity when she turned to face me. “Good evening to you, Mr.?” She paused to let me fill in the blank. She didn't know me in this world.

There was a moment where I struggled to know what I ought to say to her. It was a fake world so technically, I could answer, 'Bond,' and her character would call me Mr. Bond for the rest of the book, but my mind revolted against the idea. Her beautiful red lips were parted, waiting for my response. Why on earth would I want her to say a name that wasn't mine?

“I'm Salinger Meriwa. Don't you remember me?”

She blushed mildly and looked at the floor. “You're confused if you think you've met me before. This isn't exactly my normal hangout.”

“Why are you here tonight instead of where you usually play?”

Her eyes twinkled. “Big plans. Have you seen a girl wearing a green dress?”

I scoffed. “I haven't seen anyone, but you.”

She rolled her eyes playfully. “Stop it. I'm talking about a real girl. She has green eyes and a green dress. I came with her tonight. Have you seen her? Her name is Vanya. I’m trying to set her up with the owner. His name is Darnell Wickmore.”

I stared at her. For some reason, that did not strike me as a hobby of the Veda I knew. She was not the kind of girl who would indulge in a figurative tug-of-war, but for her to take on the role of matchmaker struck me as one hundred percent weird. “Why?” I asked her, my voice surprisingly loud.

“What do you mean?” she giggled.

Veda was giggling. It was so uncharacteristic of her that it seemed like something undeniably bad was about to happen. Then she touched my elbow. I almost jumped.

“My friend Vanya is a very good person. She has wonderful taste in books and I have never seen her watch a stupid movie. She is careful with her money and her grades in university make grown women weep. She deserves a good man, but she doesn't exactly have the confidence to date on her own.”

“Why?”

“I'm not sure,” she said absently, tearing the cotton candy. “I never really thought about it.”

“And why do you think this man, Darnell, is the best match for her?”

She shrugged her beautiful shoulders. “There aren't that many men to choose from who have reasonable credentials. For instance, did you know this theater is not a public place? This is his own house. We're in the north wing. His house is supposed to have all kinds of amusements for the winter months, so he has a house with a theater for opera or ballet. He also has a ballroom and--”

I cut her off. “I get it. He's rich.”

“It's not just that he's rich,” she retorted quickly. “I don't know that many men, but I know even fewer who are long time friends of the family.”

It started to make sense to me. This was exactly who Veda was and I just hadn't seen it before. At that moment, I realized that Pearl and Antony was not something that just happened. It happened because Veda made it happen. I started to wonder if Darnell was Antony.

She suddenly dropped her cotton candy in a garbage can like it hadn't interested her in the first place. A squat door spontaneously opened and an enormous automated stuffed animal rolled through it. Veda stepped aside and held the door open for its long body to emerge. It was brown and rough like a sack of potatoes. It took a second for me to figure out what it was supposed to be. It was a sea cow. It was on its stomach. As it came out of the room, I saw its fan-like tail sweeping up behind it.

Veda did not seem alarmed or surprised, even though the thing came up to her waist. When there was enough room for her to pass by, she bent and slipped in the door behind it. It was a kitchen and the little candy counter was a small extension of it. I saw deep frying vats and rows of waffle irons. There were clusters of burners so twenty chefs could all work at the same time. And, of course, there were many other doors.

Veda didn't seem to know which one to choose and she stood examining them with her fingers on her chin.

I went to open one when she pulled me back.

“Salinger, wait. I'm pretty sure one of these doors opens the door to the main dining room and the other opens the door to the indoor pool. We can't choose the pool. There is no reason for us to be in the pool area, though we would be able to explain the dining room.”

“Why can't we just open them both up and then pick the right one?”

“I'm not sure. I just know that if we choose wrong, we'll get hopelessly lost. The next thing you know, we'll be on an island owned by scientists with tubes in our arms.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Why would that happen? I thought you said this guy, Darnell, was a good guy.”

“I did not say he was a good guy. If anything, I said he was better than the other men I know. That does not make him a good person. Besides, why are you thinking about that now? I'm busy. I have to figure out which of these two doors has more wear and tear on it. Which one do you think? The left?”

I glanced at her. “You don't have a very high opinion of men in general, do you?”

She looked at me like I was incredibly stupid. “Why are you making me reconsider setting my friend up with him? I was planning on introducing him to Vanya tonight, but since I don't know him very well, I guess it's better to meet him myself before I make up my mind.” She tapped her foot impatiently. She was waiting for me to answer her first question.

“I also think it's the left.”

We pushed through and ended up in the dining room. “See? Perfect! I knew there would be more traffic through the main dining room than the pool. Why don't these doors have windows in them?”

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“I suppose they want visitors to get lost.” I slipped my hand around her waist and rested my chin on her shoulder. “If we get lost, I'll find a blanket and make us a tent.”

She let out a throaty chuckle and slipped out of my grip. “You thought I was joking about the test tube thing? We can’t be caught. Come on, let's check the table. There might be a clue as to where my friend and Darnell are hiding.”

“I thought they didn't know each other?” I reminded her.

“They don't. I don't expect them to be together now, but they supped here this evening... with about thirty other people. I was here too. She sat there.”

I bent down and looked under the chair since Veda wasn't exactly dressed for exploration. I found a crumpled up piece of paper. I handed it to her.

Unfolding it, she almost spat in disgust. “This is Vanya's handwriting. It's her phone number. She was giving it to the man next to her. He crumpled it up and threw it on the floor.”

“It wasn't Darnell who was sitting next to her, was it?”

“No. He sits at the head of the table. Let’s look there.”

At the head of the table, I found five cloth napkins sitting on his chair in a crumple. I didn't think there was anything important about them, but Veda thought they were very important and spread each one out on the table. The first one was a phone number written in lipstick.

“Very flirtatious. It's on a napkin so that it doesn't seem like she was planning to give him her number and it's in lipstick to ensure it's feminine. Tricky.”

The second one was also lipstick on a napkin. The third was eyeliner on a napkin. The fourth looked like the one he had used for dinner, but the fifth was another phone number, in lipstick again.

“The competition for this guy is fierce,” I said, bending over the table to be closer to Veda.

She sighed, stood up straight, and almost knocked me over, but didn't seem to notice as she went back to the doors, trying to figure out which one to use.

I ambled up behind her a second time. “Trying to figure out which door is used the most often?”

“No. I'm trying to figure out which one has the most expensive lock. What do you want to bet, he has a special quick route from the kitchen to his bedroom? If I had a house this expensive and luxurious, the kitchen and the bedroom would be beside each other. I love food.”

“Wouldn't it be directly into the kitchen then?” I asked, pointing behind me.

“Maybe.” Then her whole body sagged. “I suppose we've blown our chance to go back into the kitchen. All the doors lock after you've been through them.”

I looked around. “It's still kind of messy in here. Do you think the sea cow will come in here to sweep up the crumbs?”

“I hope so.” She brushed me aside again and found a place at the table to sit.

I sat down beside her and reached down under her dress to pull her foot up on my lap. If there was one thing I had learned since I got to Edmonton, it was that teenage girls wore ridiculous shoes and a good trick that was cheaper than prince charming presenting a shoe was removing a shoe. A tiny foot rub made girls eat out of my hand. Veda’s shoe was not like the others. It was a tiny black slipper. No heel. Her feet were not tired and she was completely unmoved by my gesture. She politely declined and crossed her ankles under her dress.

Leaning on her palm she looked at the table mournfully. “I hope my friend is okay. Do you think she found her way out of the theater with everyone else when the opera was over, or do you think she stayed like a good girl to find me?”

“Were you supposed to meet her here?”

“No, but we came together so it would be sort of bad manners for her to leave without me.”

A strange thought occurred to me and after the crumpled scrap of paper we found, it made perfect sense. “Your friend doesn't know you are trying to set her up with someone, does she?”

“Of course not. I have to work with utmost secrecy.” She put her finger elegantly on her lips.

In the next moment, a cat jumped up on her lap. He was a mass of gray fur with vivid green eyes and white markings around his eyes.

Veda smiled pleasantly. “I have been wishing that we would meet this fellow. You know, there is more information on the internet about this cat than there is about Darnell.”

“Is he a cat lover?”

“Not that I know of. This cat owns a portion of the estate. I think he owns two cottages and a pond. His name is Roc. He's the richest kitty in the western world. I have been looking for a cat like this all my life.”

“What for?”

“To be my familiar, of course. I'd smuggle him away in my pashmina if I thought he would do it, but he won't. He thinks I'm only a little better than a cushion. Isn't he beautiful?”

To me, the cat looked handsomer than an ordinary tabby, but I didn't know anything about cats. I was a dog person because dogs were functional and in desolate places, their bark was essential to safety. A cat was a luxury to me and I couldn't even remember holding one.

Just as suddenly as he arrived, Roc leapt over to one of the doors and started pawing at it.

“That's the door!” Veda exclaimed.

“Why? Because the cat is scratching it?”

She twisted the knob. “Wherever this cat wants to go is where we want to go.”

We entered a hallway with many doors. She opened the door the cat sniffed and even though the cat slipped inside, Veda stayed at the threshold—frozen—staring into the room.

I looked in. It was the rich man's bedroom. He was alone in the bed, and even though his eyes were wide open, it was obvious that he was asleep. He couldn't be dead, his chest rose and fell with his breath, but there were half a dozen machines hooked up to him.

“Do you know what they're for?” I whispered.

“They mean he's sick. He's so sick that he's not much better off than the mechanical man in the lobby who was taking the tickets or even the stuffed cow that cleans the floors. There's not much left to him that's human. I wonder if those other women know that he could never give them a proper life. If they do, they must want the money badly.”

She let the door fall closed, leaving Roc inside with his master. In a daze, she stumbled away. “I can't set Vanya up with him.”

“I guess not.”

“I don't know where to find her, or if we can even contact her to make sure she got home safely. I'm always bungling up things like this.” She began wringing her hands and twisting her fingers.

I reached out and took hold of her hands to still them. “How about if we try one of these doors? One might be the way out.”

She nodded and allowed me to lead her to another door. I opened it. It was a sitting room. Following her advice on using the doors that had the most wear and tear on them, I chose another door, but Veda stopped me from going any further. There was a fireplace in the room and some logs were burning.

“I'm cold,” she whispered. “Couldn't we stop here for a minute? You said you would find me a blanket. Could you?”

My forehead involuntarily creased. “Aren't you worried about being caught?”

She shook her head. “Why would that matter when I'm so cold?”

I saw an afghan on the couch, but I couldn't let go of her. She had been so brave and daring before her hopes had been dashed and now she was like a little girl who had become separated from her mother at an amusement park.

I wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. Then, I realized she was letting me touch her. The real Veda did not allow much physical contact. Aside from the date I took her on where we went to visit Emi at the art gallery, she never let me touch her unless it was unforgivable rudeness for her to forbid the contact. She evaded here too, but now that she was cold, she was tolerant of my holding her hand and tolerant of my arm over her shoulder.

“You're not running away?” I asked.

She rubbed my hand. “I'm cold. I don't like being cold.”

“Who likes being cold?”

“Agreed. I just seem to take it more personally than other people,” she said, shivering. “Being hot is just as bad, it's just different. When it's cold, I feel myself shutting down. I suppose it's like dying slowly.”

I nodded, thinking privately that she couldn't know much about cold if Edmonton was the threshold of her experience, but I let her go on.

“Being hot is just as bad,” she repeated. “It's just different. It makes me crazy, short-tempered, and panicky. Do you know what's the worst? When someone tries to touch me when it's hot. The heat of their skin makes me feel like I need to crawl out of mine. I don’t want to live alongside people.” Uncharacteristically, she settled into my arms on the couch and put her hand on my chest, like she was about to slide her fingers between the buttons of my shirt, if only to warm her fingers.

“They're always doing bad stuff?” I asked, enjoying myself.

“Yeah, they're always sneaking up on me. I don't like it when people sneak up on me. Something is funny about my ears and a lot of the time I can't tell which direction someone is coming from. If they are quiet, I might not notice at all until they lay a hand on my shoulder. Then I'll jump and scream. Then they think I'm doing something bad, and they've caught me. It's not normal for someone to be so shocked, but I really didn't hear them.” Suddenly, she took her hand off my chest.

“Why'd you do that?” I reached for her hand again.

“I don't want to make you cold.”

“I'm not cold. Give me your hand. I'm happy to warm you up.”

Her eyes were enormous as she turned to face me. “Really?”

“Yes. Really.” I snatched her hand back.

She leaned into me and I rested my face on her hair. There was that scent again. I thought I would be swept away. Why couldn't we connect like this when I saw the real Veda in person? As it was, I was reading a book, and who could have written it?

“Is there anything else that bothers you?”

“Like what?”

“I don't know. You don't like being surprised by sudden visitors. What else?”

“Loud noises. Sometimes even just music is too much for me.”

“What else?”

“Horror movies. They upset me because I can never forget what I've seen, so I don't like to look at things that upset me. The images flash in my mind for years and years. People disagree that I can have a photographic memory. They seem to think having something like that would be wonderful talent akin to the genius only an incredibly conceited person would confess to. Then they make fun of me when I can't remember my keys.” She sighed. “It's not the same thing. Where you have placed your keys is different. You may not look at your keys when you set them in the dish when you take your coat off. A movie is a completely different experience. There are flashing lights and a soundtrack. Even if you only see a movie once, you will identify the uniqueness of the music played for the next hundred years.”

I smiled. This was a great book. I found it in the cupboard Veda showed me in the hidden library. Clementine hadn’t been there, only this book. It was typed, so it didn't look like the books I had written, but it dragged me into the story and I got to hear Veda tell me all these things about herself that she would never tell me in real life.

Had someone left it there for me intentionally?

“Are you any warmer?” I asked, rubbing her shoulder.

“I'm melting like an ice cube, and very happy.” She turned to face me. “Who are you really?”

“Salinger.”

“No. I mean, why are you here, following me around and helping me out? Don't you have somewhere else to be? Isn't there someone waiting for you? You can't be single.”

“I'm single,” I assured her.

“Still, why are you here?”

I took a breath in. “I suppose I'm here to help you with your problem, like a guardian angel.”

Doubtful, she bit her lip. “That sounds like a lie.” Her voice gained energy and she put more space between us. “That sounds like a really big lie.”

“Why?”

“I already have one and it's not you. What do you want?”

“I'm getting what I want, right now.”

“What?”

“I'm holding you. Trust me. At this moment, I am very satisfied.”

“So,” she said, relaxing to her former position. “You are looking for romance? That's why you're here?”

I nodded.

She closed her eyes for a moment like she might go to sleep when suddenly, a knock came at the door. The voice of a girl came through the wood. “Help me! I'm lost!”

Her distress made me get to my feet and rush to the door. I opened it and a girl in a green dress rushed in.

“Thank you!” she exclaimed, hurrying to the fire. “Veda! You're here. How lucky! This is an awful place! Why couldn't I find you after the opera? I looked everywhere.”

Veda stood and hugged her friend. “I'm so glad you're safe. I have someone I want you to meet.” She led Vanya toward me. “I met this new friend. His name is Salinger. He's looking for romance and I think you two would make the perfect couple.”

I paused in horror. What had she said? I looked at the girl in the green dress. I hadn't seen her face when she rushed in and now the fire made her into a perfect silhouette. She was familiar, but unidentifiable.

Veda took my hand in one of hers and Vanya’s hand in the other. She put our hands together and said, “I know you two will make the best couple.”

As her hands released ours, the other girl's fingers curled around mine in a death grip. I tried to shake her hand off, but before I knew it, Vanya was in my arms and her free hand curled around my neck.

“Wait, Veda!” I cried, trying to pull the second girl off me, but Veda was nowhere to be seen.

I had one whole horrible minute in which I stood in confusion and misery before the book booted me out and I found myself back in the hidden library.

I set the leaflet down, exactly where I had found it, and backed out.