Antiques Maul Page 7

  We had just piled into my car when a powder-blue Cadillac pulled up in front of the house and an older woman climbed out in an array of endless limbs.

  Tall, slender, with striking, shoulder-length, gunmetal gray hair (fixed in a forties Joan Crawford pageboy), she wore black tailored slacks and a tan cardigan over a crisp white blouse. It took me a moment to separate this Bernice from the little stooped-shouldered old lady murderess she had played opposite Mother this past summer.

  Mother, seated next to me, became immediately agitated and got out of the car. Sensing disaster, I did likewise.

  Bernice strode purposefully toward us. Her expression seemed pleasant enough, although it was hard to tell because of the troweled-on makeup (a hazzard of show business, I suppose).

  “Thank goodness I caught you before you left,” Bernice said, smiling at Mother. “I want to apologize, Vivian, for my absolute rudeness on the phone . . . I’m afraid I was having a personal problem at the moment, and I took it out on you, my darling, which was an inexcusable thing to do to a dear, close friend.... You will forgive me, won’t you?”

  I was ready to forgive her, just in hopes she’d stop making speeches.

  But I wasn’t sure about Mother, who only grunted.

  Bernice stepped closer to Mother. “Why, what an adorable dog!” she said with a smile displaying lovely, expensive choppers. “I wish I could have a pet . . . but they’re not allowed by my condominium association.”

  “What do you want?” Mother asked coldly.

  Bernice’s smile vanished, hurt showing in her eyes. “Why, I’ve come to buy the cigar store Indian. You were right, Vivian . . . I did give the statue to you, wholly and completely, and it’s yours to do with as you please . . . and if that means selling it, well, then, I’m willing to pay for it.”

  Her saddened eyes moved past Mother to the backseat of my car where the leaned-back Indian stared stonily straight ahead. This calculated slice of ham put both Mother and Sushi to shame. Like many stage actresses’ performances, Bernice’s were better viewed from a distance.

  Mother said haughtily, “It will be available this afternoon in our booth at the antiques mall!”

  I butted in. “Mother! Bernice is here now, and it will save us hauling the stupid thing downtown.”

  Mother said, “Brandy, I’ll thank you to stay out of this. And it’s a precious collectible, an American artifact, not a ‘stupid’ thing.”

  I tried again, because Bernice’s eyes now had tears in them; these seemed genuine, unless she’d doused her orbs with glycerin when I wasn’t looking.

  “Well,” I said, “what difference does it make if she buys it now, or in a few hours at the shop?”

  Mother put her hands forcefully on her hips, jostling Sushi. “It matters a great deal! An immediate sale in our booth today will make us look good . . . plus, I’ll see to it Bernice will receive a store discount—perhaps as much as fifteen percent—off the purchase price.”

  “Oh.” I shrugged and looked at Bernice.

  Bernice, blinking away the tears, said, “What if . . . if someone else buys the statue before I get there? I have a director’s meeting at the playhouse this afternoon that could last quite a while. . . .”

  Uh-oh. Not the right thing to say.

  Stiffening at the mention of the lost director’s position, Mother sniffed, “Well, then, you’ll just have to take that chance. We all have our priorities.”

  And Mother abruptly left us and got back into the car.

  I said softly to Bernice, “Don’t worry . . . I’ll put a sold sign with your name on it.”

  Bernice smiled warmly. “Thank you, Brandy. I would so much appreciate that. I’m . . . I’m afraid I’ve permanently damaged our friendship, your mother and me.”

  “Give it time. Offer her a nice role, and all will be forgiven.”

  Bernice nodded and smiled and clasped one of my hands in both of hers. All of it played a little phony to me. Mother, for all her theatricality, was real. Had Bernice forgotten how to climb down offstage and just live?

  I pondered this as I watched the woman return to her car and drive away too quickly, before I got back in behind my own steering wheel.

  Jake was the first to speak. “Wasn’t much of a fight,” he said disappointedly from the backseat.

  I looked disgustedly at Mother. “Really! Did you have to be so mean? She used to be a good friend.”

  “Key phrase,” Mother said acidly, “‘used to.’”

  “She was crying!”

  “Those weren’t real tears! Those were acting tears!”

  How could I argue with that? I’d had my own suspicions.

  Mother was saying, “Honestly, Brandy, sometimes you can be so gullible.”

  I started the car, making a mental note to call Mother’s doctor about her agitated behavior. (We regularly ratted each other out to our respective shrinks.)

  But soon we were tooling along picturesque Elm Street, the recent unpleasantness having vaporized in the bright autumn sun. As we drove by, a woman who was out for a morning walk stopped in her tracks and gawked. Couldn’t blame her . . . wasn’t every day a pedestrian saw both a woman with a fur ball growing out of her chest and an Indian chief glide by in a car.

  I smiled and waved.

  You’d think people would be used to us by now.

  A Trash ’n’ Treasures Tip

  Most antique dealers have a “buyer beware” attitude about their merchandise . . . so before laying down the cash, examine the item closely. Mother uses a magnifying glass and, if she finds the slightest defect, demands a deep discount.

  Chapter Five

  Teacher’s Pet

  With Mother, Sushi, Jake, the Indian, and the trailer in tow, I drove down Main Street, five blocks of regentrified Victorian buildings, quaint retro lampposts, redbrick sidewalks, and the occasional ornate wrought-iron bench.

  Most store windows displayed colorful fall and Halloween decorations and merchandise . . . with a glimpse of Christmas waiting impatiently in the wings. Our destination was Pearl City Plaza, at the end of Main, where an antiques mall recently opened in a four-story building built in the 1860s that had been originally—according to Mother, who knew Serenity history—a wholesale grocery business for over a hundred years; since then the building had been occupied by a variety of businesses: a disco, a sporting goods store, an exercise club, a photography studio, a Mexican restaurant, and an antiques shop. Proprietors came and went so fast that townspeople were beginning to say the building was cursed.

  But all the bad luck the corner spot had endured did not faze the building’s current owner, Mrs. Norton, a retired teacher (I had her for Algebra and got a D, which in this case stood for “deserved”) who had transformed the venerable structure into an antiques mall with fifty-odd dealers—and I do mean odd.

  I pulled my Buick into the alley behind the antiques mall and, remembering Mother’s think-opposite instructions, backed the trailer up to a loading dock on the first try. I got out and so did Mother, sporting Sushi on her chest. We left behind a Game Boy–playing Jake in the backseat to guard the goods, and I did my best not to picture the entire trailer being pillaged while my son’s focus remained on the blips and bloops of his game.

  Even though the mall wasn’t due to open for another hour, the eternally officious Mrs. Norton wanted us there early (would she take attendance and report tardiness—to the janitor, maybe?) to fill out the necessary paperwork and give us pertinent information regarding what could, and what could not, be put in our booth (which Mother, naturally, would ignore) (risking detention).

  We found the door next to the loading dock unlocked, and went on in—Mother, me, and Sushi makes three—then up a short flight of cement steps to the first floor.

  Mrs. Norton had done some remodeling since the last tenant, the original wood floor now covered with gray industrial carpet, the once cavernously open area transformed into tidy rows of partitioned booths and glassed-in cases fille
d with furniture, glassware, pottery, kitchen gadgets, tools, toys, trunks, clocks, and every other antique and collectible imaginable. Because of the time of year, especially showcased were Halloween decorations of bygone days, like papier-mâché masks of witches and ghouls and goblins, wildly cartoony designs that were somehow creepier than the more realistic gory ones of today.

  But what really caught my attention were the signs posted everywhere:

  CHECK ALL BAGS AT THE COUNTER!

  CREDIT CARD OR CASH ONLY!

  CHILDREN MUST BE SUPERVISED!

  SHOPLIFTERS WILL BE PROSECUTED!

  BATHROOMS RESERVED FOR CUSTOMERS ONLY!

  And the ever-popular YOU BREAK IT, YOU BOUGHT IT! (Remind me to tell you how to wriggle out of that one.) (If the U.S.A. doesn’t have to obey the Pottery Barn rule, why should you?)

  Clearly, the former teacher in charge had residual issues from her years in the educational trenches . . . and perhaps did not have the right temperament to deal with antiques shoppers, who can be an eccentric, maddening bunch . . . much less the dealers.

  Mrs. Norton stood stiffly—were we tardy?—by the circular checkout counter in the middle of the large room. In her early sixties, tall and slender, with straight, chin-length gray hair, and a face turned permanently tired from years of yelling at mischievous kids like me, she wore tailored brown slacks, an orange cardigan, and red-framed half-glasses on a silver chain as a necklace.

  I hoped Mrs. Norton wouldn’t remember the irresponsible me (well, the even more irresponsible me) of years gone by.

  No such luck.

  “Hello, Vivian,” she said to Mother, then looked at me. “Well, Brandy . . . it’s been a while since algebra class.”

  I sighed inwardly—the “well” alone had conveyed Mrs. Norton’s wealth of disappointing memories; no new first impression for me.

  “Hi, Mrs. Norton,” I responded sheepishly, transported back to middle school, somehow managing not to scuff the floor with the toe of a shoe. “I hope you don’t mind that we brought Sushi along.”

  Mrs. Norton’s gaze returned to Mother, settling on her enormous bosom; perhaps she had thought Sushi was a blanket Mother was holding or some funky backpack worn on the wrong side. Or maybe she thought Mother’s chest really was that hairy.

  Then, suddenly, alarm flashed in the former teacher’s eyes; it was as if the overhead sprinklers had all gone off. “Oh! I . . . don’t . . . I really . . . this might not be . . .”

  A low-slung but nonetheless large dog galloped out from behind the circular counter, having caught wind of Sushi, and the creature screeched to a stop at Mother’s feet and began to snarl and snap, flicking flecks of canine spittle.

  Mother and I jumped back, my fleeting thought that somehow the two of us dying in an antiques mall seemed fitting. Nostrils flaring, Sushi’s reaction to this affront was a crescendo of ear-piercing yapping that sent the pit bull fleeing back from whence it came, clawed paws slowed by the industrial carpet.

  Mother’s eyes behind the thick lenses were so wide they filled the glass. “My goodness! What was that? The Hound of the Baskervilles?”

  “No, dear,” Mrs. Norton said, actually smiling—the woman did like a good literary reference, even if she had been a math teacher. “That is my dog. . . . His name is Brad.”

  “Brad?” I asked. This seemed an unexpectedly benign name for such a creature.

  “Yes, Brad Pit Bull. My niece named him after an actor she adores.”

  I suppose I should have smiled politely or laughed a little, but I was still congratulating myself for not soiling my slacks over the vicious dog that had been inches away not so long ago.

  Mother, ever helpful, said to me, “Brad Pitt, darling. Get it?” Then to Mrs. Norton, Mother said, “Brandy isn’t hep to all of the new young actors. She didn’t really inherit my thespian interests.”

  I might not have been “hep” to actors like Mother, but I was hip to the dangers of having a beast like Brad on the loose.

  Before I could express this sentiment, which most likely was written all over my very pale face, Mrs. Norton explained. “You needn’t be worried, girls—Brad’s bark is much worse than his bite.”

  From the sound of Brad’s bark, that left lots of room for his bite to be plenty bad.

  But the former teacher was saying, “Brad’s really a sweet, gentle creature, though I hope you won’t advertise that fact! You see, I keep him here at night to discourage break-ins. . . . I just hadn’t gotten around to putting him in the back room before you arrived.”

  So we were early, not tardy. You couldn’t win with this teacher.

  “Here’s an idea,” I said, my skin still feeling crawly. “How about a security system? A burglar alarm would give you all the ‘teeth’ you need.”

  Mrs. Norton gave me an I-see-you’re-still-a-troublemaker look, sniffing, “Nonsense. I told you, Brad is really quite timid. You saw how your little dog frightened him away.”

  I wasn’t convinced. Little dogs yapping often scare off larger ones. That didn’t erase the fact that pit bulls can—and do—kill people, and many towns ban them. Having a cutesy movie-star name didn’t make Brad’s fangs any duller, or take the kill out of killer instinct.

  Mother, not wanting to get off on the wrong foot on our first day, suggested, “Perhaps if we were properly introduced, the animal might take to us.”

  “Yes, you’re right, of course,” Mrs. Norton said, then called, “Here, Brad! Come here, boy! It’s all right, they won’t hurt you.”

  That was true. The only way I could hurt that dog is if I tripped and fell on him, fleeing in terror.

  But Brad Pit Bull did not emerge—afraid of paparazzi, maybe.

  “Come on, dear! Brad! Oh, Braa-ad!”

  Jeez, maybe Sushi had traumatized the tender critter, like that poor bulldog Tom and Jerry made such a nervous wreck out of in the cartoons.

  Finally, after many long moments, a tentative Brad reappeared from behind the counter, his expression more pitiful than pit bull, and cautiously approached our little group.

  As Mrs. Norton began the ridiculously formal introductions (somehow I managed not to curtsy), Brad—his confidence bolstered—began to pant and loll his tongue and wag his tail.

  When he brushed up against my legs, with what seemed to be shy affection, I took a risk and extended a hand for him to sniff. Which, oddly, is exactly what I’d do if the real Brad Pitt brushed up against me. . . .

  “Nice doggy,” I said, then drew it back, and counted all five fingers, which I was able to do thanks to the able educational skills of math teacher Mrs. Norton.

  “There, now,” Mrs. Norton said with a patronizing smile known only to teachers (and their best students), “we’re all going to be great, good friends.” She bent and gave Brad’s collar a little tug. “Come along, Brad! Time to go to the back. . . .”

  Once Brad Pit Bull was shut away, Mrs. Norton showed us to our booth, which was nicely positioned near the front entrance. Since we’d nabbed one of the last available stalls, this surprised me (I learned later that was because it was booth 13, and no one else wanted the unlucky number).

  Leaving Mother and Sushi, I went back to the car and stuck my head in the rear window.

  “Time to pitch in, Jake!” I said, trying to make the load-in sound like fun.

  Jake ignored me. The cigar store Indian paid me more attention than my son.

  “Jake? Would ‘now’ be a good time for you? Because ‘now’ would be a good time for us.”

  Jake’s growl rivaled Brad Pit Bull’s: “I’m just about to beat this game!”

  Rather than start an argument, I began unloading the trailer without him.

  But after a few minutes, Jake was suddenly alongside me, giving me the smallest I’m-sorry grin ever given, but soon was helping out with all his youthful energy.

  With the aid of a dolly and cart, in less than half an hour we managed to get everything in through the freight doors, and up the few steps with
little trouble . . . with the exception of the rolltop desk, which was way heavier than I had figured. We started by taking the drawers in first, but the thing still seemed like deadweight.

  But Jake was strong for his age, and I was no slouch, either, and with some extra huffing and puffing, the desk arrived at our booth unscathed (well, maybe a little gouge on the back . . . but that wouldn’t show).

  While we toiled, Mother sat on the brassbound trunk and ordered us around, her performance as General Patton blowing George C. Scott’s away—thank God she didn’t spot the horsewhip in the booth across the aisle.

  When everything got into the area where Mother had bidden us put it, she shifted from general to movie director, getting very specific about the placement and positioning of each item in the booth . . . and although she got on my nerves, I had to admit that the woman did have an aesthetic eye for display. For a star performer, she knew her way around props and art direction.

  Several times, Mrs. Norton came over to appraise our work, bestowing an encouraging word or two upon her newest pupils. Funny how, after all these years, some part of me was stilling hoping to finally earn an A from my former teacher....

  When it came time to install the cigar store Indian in its place of honor, the big lug slipped from my sweaty hands and tipped over in the aisle. And as I righted the statue, I heard an ominous thunk.

  “What was that?” Mother asked, alarmed.

  “I don’t know,” I said, with a gulp, hoping I hadn’t damaged the statue. What a horrible thing to have happen to such a precious artifact—or to the new tires I’d buy when the stupid thing sold.

  Mother slid off the trunk, like a coach coming off the bench to personally get into the game.

  “Sounded like it came from inside,” she said, then added excitedly, “Maybe it’s the missing cigar!”

  Jake—who had been taking a breather on the floor, sitting Indian-style—got to his feet, saying even more excitedly, “Or maybe a tomahawk!”