“I knew Frederick,” she said in a low, sympathetic voice, as if they were at the funeral,
although that had been over a month ago, early October, and no one from town had been there
except the lesbian couple who ran a candle and macramé shop out on Sparksburg Pike, and a
handful of Frederick’s former students. “He might not have known me, though,” she admitted. “My
boy Joshua was in his literature class for a while, but we put a stop to that when we heard.”
Heard what, William wanted to ask, but even around Frederick, gentle, patient Frederick, he’d
been afraid to ask questions because it seemed like the answer was always something he was
supposed to have known in the first place but, he usually rationalized, he’d been too busy just
surviving to learn. His confusion must have been scrawled on his face, because Mrs. Benson
whispered, in a pitying voice that said, as clearly as if the words had come out of that cavernous
mouth, “don’t tell me you didn’t know,” along with the words she actually spoke: “About his
illness.”
Oh, that. He had cancer, it wasn’t the other, William longed to say, looked over at the wing
chair, the most outspoken of the collection, and shook his head, silently apologizing.
“Is there something in particular you’re looking for, Mrs. Benson?” That’s what Frederick had
told him to say, wasn’t it, get the customer to commit to a quest, then put the Holy Grail in her
hands and you’ve made the sale. Assuming you had the Holy Grail in stock, of course, and hadn’t
offered the Golden Fleece instead. Just browsing, she said, so William took up his post behind the
cash register while Mrs. Benson pawed over Frederick’s Waterford goblets, and the silver cake
server that William really should have taken to a jeweler to appraise, but that seemed too crass
somehow, and an insult to Frederick. Mrs. Benson stumbled into a Victorian writing table, a one-of-
a-kind mahogany jewel on which Frederick had written daily his letters and lists, recorded every
household expenditure, graded remedial compositions, and she looked over at William with
stiletto eyes, so disturbing in a woman that large, as though he most certainly had put the table
in that spot for the sole purpose of injuring her. William shrugged, hoping it conveyed his
meaning, which was, I’m terribly sorry, but I hope you haven’t damaged Frederick’s desk, lady, or
there’ll be hell to pay.
Mrs. Benson browsed a while longer, and picked up and carried around with her like it was a
watermelon, or maybe a football, a pear-shaped coppery vase that Frederick had said was Ming
but to William just looked Chinese and William hadn’t even wanted to know what Frederick had
done to get. She sat for a minute in the wing chair that William could hear groaning under her
incredible bulk, ran her fingertips over the cracked leather, then struggled up and over to the
bookshelves, and lifted her glasses to read the titles. She even took one out to thumb the
pages. But her wandering eyes always came back to the offending table.
“How much is it?” Mrs. Benson’s voice had lost both its ingratiating melody and funereal
whisper, and she was now all business. “Your best price, of course.”
This was the moment Frederick had tried to prepare him for, the first negotiation with a
customer. There was so much to consider! He wanted to make his first sale, of course, because
he had to admit that things were not going well and he’d been so sure the money would just be
rolling in at this point, and there was always the apparition of the evil stepsister lurking in his
subconscious, so a sale would be a good thing, an omen of better things to come maybe. But he
couldn’t start out too low, could he, because the desk had some value, and not only the price
Frederick had paid for it or the services performed in Paris or New York or wherever, but it had
belonged to Frederick! Frederick used it! Frederick treasured it! On the other hand, there was the
rent, and if he didn’t sell this piece and several more by the end of the month, William would have
to dip into the cookie jar of cash Frederick had filled for him, and as Frederick had explained over
and over again, that was not—what was the word Frederick had used—sustainable.
But despite all the planning, Frederick hadn’t gotten around to telling William what the prices
should be for anything. What did William know? He’d never sold a thing, apart from his own
companionship, unless you could count that fiasco behind the men’s fragrance counter at Macy’s
one of his regulars had finagled for him and that William had walked away from during a coffee
break. Too stressful, too much to remember. Frederick had begun to talk about antique prices
once, but somehow the subject of his stepsister had intruded and he’d gotten so upset, so
overcome with what it would mean to William when she eventually showed up to claim the house
and whatever William hadn’t managed to sell by then, that he hadn’t been able to continue. He’d
gone downhill fast after that, barely able to speak, too weak to leave the house, too horrified by
his appearance to allow visitors. And now William was on his own.
He opened a notebook, a black three-ring binder, and looked for the writing table on the list.
Frederick had made the list years ago for insurance purposes, and when they were going through
his papers, near the end, he had discovered it and handed it to William. “Perfect,” he’d said, in a
breathless gasp. “An inventory. Just what you need, my boy.” And William had put the list in the
binder, a dusty torn thing he’d found in the attic, and had decided that the values assigned for
insurance purposes surely were the least he should try to get for each item. Hadn’t Frederick
called it perfect? He ran his finger down the page to the writing table, then across the row to the
value, and closed the book. But wait, he thought, that’s where I should end up, so I’ll add a little
for bargaining purposes, and then I’ll give her a discount and we’ll all be happy.
“Because you are such a delightful woman, I could let you have this darling table,” William
began, imitating as best he could the warble Frederick had demonstrated repeatedly, and
remembering what Frederick had said about flattering both the customer and the purchase, to
make them think they were made for each other, “for five thousand five hundred dollars.” The
woman’s jaw dropped. Comically, William thought. He wondered what he’d done wrong.
“You’re joking, of course,” she said, recovering, laughing even.
Was the price absurdly low? It seemed expensive to William, but then he’d never lived in the
world of objects until he’d met Frederick. For years, after running away from his mother and
stepfather’s home in New Jersey, his older brother already free, off in the Army, the only thing on
his mind had been food and shelter, and sometimes getting high, and after awhile even food and
shelter receded in importance. But then Frederick had rescued him and brought him home to the
country and the house filled with curio cabinets, lace tablecloths, real china plates, engraved
silverware. Frederick had tried to teach him, but there was only so much a boy could absorb. How
could he know the real value? Too low? Or was the price too high? That must be it, William
realized. Frederick wouldn’t have put a low value on the insurance forms, even William
understood that, when he stopped to think about it. He might have inflated the value a tiny bit,
right?
“I could consider a discount,” William said, reciting the dialogue he’d learned from his lover, his
mentor and savior. “One shouldn’t really bargain with the customer,” Frederick had insisted.
“Bargaining is so . . . tacky. But one may offer a discount. A special price. A once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity.”
“I bet you could,” said the leviathan, and ran her bloated finger over the table one more time.
“I’ll give you fifty bucks for it. And that’s because I hit the jackpot at bingo last night.” She pulled
a wad of bills from her purse and counted out two twenties and ten wrinkled ones. William
hesitated, felt Frederick pushing him to take it, heard the armoire whispering that rent day was
just around the corner, actually lifted his hand to touch the cash, when out of the corner of his
eye he saw the Buddha, shaking his head under the sarong. William put his hand in his pocket.
“No,” he said, taking a step back from the counter. “It’s worth much more than that.”
“I see,” said Mrs. Benson. “Bingo has its limits, I’m afraid.” She stuffed the bills back in her
purse and moved to the door, turned the knob, pulled it open, raised her foot to step out.
“Wait,” said William.
Mrs. Benson closed the door and grinned. Maliciously, William thought. She reached into her
purse and waved the cash at him.
He looked at the floor. “No,” he said. “I can’t.”
The following week, William’s expectations were lower. He’d put the Armanis away in Frederick’
s cedar closet, along with the checked suit, the cashmere sweater and all the rest of his clothes.
He’d have to give them away or, better yet, leave them for Cassie to deal with. William’s Dockers,
that Frederick had bought him when he couldn’t stand to see him in jeans any longer, and the
clogs—Frederick bought those, too, of course—would do just fine. It’s not like anyone would see
him anyway, tucked away in the dark basement. He arrived at the shop just at ten, a lunch
packed, nothing fancy, a bruised apple and expired yogurt, no reason to think that the situation
had changed, especially now that his one and only customer, the enormous Mrs. Benson, would
spread the word that his shop was too expensive and that he, skinny, pasty little William, would
never make it in the world without Frederick. On the way, he’d stopped at the Ace Hardware and
picked up some glue, the only kind he knew, the milky white stuff that smelled like pudding,
tasted a bit like it, too, if he remembered right, and set about fixing the little Toby jug. That done,
he pulled the book off the shelf and settled into the wing chair. If I’m going to be bored to death,
not to mention starving and poor, he thought, I might as well do what Frederick was after me all
the time to do. “Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long ago, having little or no
money in my purse—”
The shop door swung open and a gust turned the page. “Hellooo. Anybody home?” It was
that colossus again, this time with a woman who could have been her twin in tow, or rather her
shadow, William thought, since she looked to be just a deli slice compared to the big woman’s
beefy slab. And anyway, their resemblance might only have been an illusion, as William realized
he might have lived his whole life so far thinking that all old women looked exactly the same, only
in different dimensions, with the salon-curled, blue-gray helmet and the high-collared flowered
dress and gold broach.
“This is Lydia, and I told her all about how charming you were and how you had some
wonderful goodies in your shop and those candlesticks would look just fabulous on her mantel
and how much do you want for them?” Mrs. Benson tugged Lydia to the armoire, where the
candlesticks sat in semi-darkness. William had struggled out of the chair while she spoke and
now opened his binder with the insurance list. He ran his finger down the page, but didn’t see
the candlesticks anywhere, which was no surprise because at home he’d found them under the
sink in the powder room and knew they’d either been forgotten, or worthless. He picked one up
and then the other, pleased with their heft, and even the dripped wax cheered his fingers,
reminding him of his last Christmas with Frederick. He set them down gently on the counter and
looked again in the binder. He ran his finger down the page one more time and stopped when he
came to the armoire, value $15,000.
“I can let you have the pair for, let’s see,” William said, stalling, hoping they’d think he was
calculating a discount off the asking price, when in fact he had no idea what number would be
high enough to keep this gargantuan and her shadowy friend from buying the candlesticks, “I
think, maybe, I suppose, two hundred dollars.”
The wraith called Lydia opened her purse and pulled out a checkbook, but Mrs. Benson
laughed so loud the Buddha’s sarong fluttered and Frederick’s rocking horse launched into
motion. Mrs. Benson shook her head and laid a meaty hand on her friend’s arm. Lydia looked up
at her, obviously puzzled.
“You’re a silly boy, William. No doubt this appealed to dear, sweet Frederick.” She raised her
eyebrows, and William understood she wasn’t talking about Frederick’s weakness for antiques.
“But it’s no way to run a business.” With that, Mrs. Benson pulled Lydia, whose hand still clutched
her checkbook and a fountain pen, up the stairs. The window shuddered, William thought, when
the door slammed behind them.
“Now you’ve done it,” said the highboy. “You had the fish on the line and you let it get away.”
“But at least the store is still afloat,” said the wing chair. “For now.”
“Forget the list, mon cher,” said the armoire. “Go low.”
In the afternoon, a young couple came in, a sloppy bra-less teenager with a pierced eyebrow,
and a slim young man about William’s age in khakis and a polo shirt, a silver ring on his thumb.
William watched his careful steps, trailing the heedless girl. They looked at everything, laughing
and poking at each other, “you’re such a nerd,” said the girl, and “at least I don’t have a tattoo
on my butt,” said the young man. She called him Donnie, he called her Pammy, more like sister
and brother than a couple.
“Is there something I can help you with?” he asked them.
“We were just looking,” said the girl, pawing through a drawer full of costume jewelry that
Frederick—William didn’t really want to think about why Frederick had a drawer full of costume
jewelry.
“Yeah, just looking,” said the man, now keeping his eyes on William, straightening his collar.
He stuck his hand out, thin and pasty, a light grip, like William’s own. “I’m Donnie.” Now the
girl turned around to look, eyes wide.
“William,” said William.
The girl clucked, grabbed Donnie and pulled him out the door. Donnie waved.
At home that night, there was mail. Addressed to him. He never got mail, but enjoyed the
ritual of opening the box and going through the catalogs and junk mail and solicitations still being
delivered for Frederick. This was a pale-blue envelope, the kind you might expect to be scented,
with his name on it and a return address in California, and a regular first-class stamp, not one of
those telltale bulk postage stamps he’d noticed on all his other mail. Frederick’s mail. Who did he
know in California?
It was from Cassie. She’d just heard, was deeply saddened, sorry she and Frederick hadn’t
been closer, and by the way she’d be arriving next week to turn the house over to a Realtor she’
d hired and would William be so kind as to be gone by the time she got there? William sank to the
window seat, clutching the letter, pictured Frederick in his silk robe descending the stairs,
Frederick reading by the fire, Frederick beating eggs for a soufflé.
What to do?
The next morning was damp and drizzly and William was happy to open the shop, shake out
his umbrella, and ease into the wing chair to wait and think. There was still room in the shop, he
saw, especially if he started piling things up, so he could call those awful boys Frederick had hired
and ask them to bring another load over from the house. William didn’t have much of his own to
move, he could use one of Frederick’s suitcases and still have room for some more of Frederick’s
things, and until something turned up he could sleep on the divan, shower at the Y maybe, and
things would be fine. “You’ll see,” he said to the armoire. There was no answer.
He was still sitting there, gazing out the window, when he saw a pair of skinny legs in tight
black jeans go by. Then the same legs went by in the other direction, stopped and crouched
down, and that guy from the other day, Donnie, was looking in, upside down, grinning, William
thought, but it was hard to tell that way, with the chin at the top. Donnie waved, and then his
face popped out of sight and the legs skipped away. William felt a chill.
The titan came back, with Lydia in tow. “You silly boy,” Mrs. Benson said, opened her purse
and pulled out the bills she’d offered before. Lydia peeked around her megalithic friend and
flashed her checkbook at William, a narrow grin on her lips.
“Forget your pride, mon petite chou,” whispered the armoire. “Take the money,” said the wing
chair, “what choice do we have?” “Cassie is coming,” said the highboy. William backed into the
counter, rattling the Toby jugs on the glass shelves, and nodded as the whale closed in.
He slid out of her path, spun around to the cash register and pressed the buttons. Nothing
happened. He looked up at her and shrugged. Pressing harder on the numbers, he hit “enter”
with the heel of his hand, as if he just hadn’t been convincing enough the first time, as if the
machine would not allow him to surrender Frederick to this goliath. Out of the corner of his eye he
saw Donnie’s legs again, the black jeans, slowly now, stopping just at the steps. With a sheepish
grin toward Mrs. Benson, William felt around the back of the box and threw the switch, felt the
hum of power in his fingers, and rang up the sale, the insurance list forgotten. The drawer
popped open and William slipped the bills inside, while Lydia wrote out her check—twenty dollars,
Mrs. Benson had decreed—for the candlesticks.
“I’ll pull the Lincoln around in a few minutes,” said Mrs. Benson, and plowed up Central, with
Lydia in her wake. While the door was still open, Donnie stepped in.
William pretended to busy himself at the cash register, which for the first time actually
harbored cash, but watched Donnie move through the store, examining everything he and the girl
had seen already, making his way deeper inside, stopping again at the pile of costume jewelry.
He turned toward William with a tiara in his hand, slipped it into his wispy blonde hair and
blushed crimson, then set it down on the counter. “How much is it?”
“A dollar?” guessed William, suppressing a laugh. Donnie’s fingers brushed William’s palm
when he handed him the bill, and they both turned away. William felt himself blushing now, too.
He’d barely finished the small sale when the door whooshed open again. A young couple—
newlyweds, from Philadelphia, they announced right away, as if that somehow was going to
make a difference in any price he might quote them and, William had to admit, it did incline him
toward a bigger number than he would have otherwise—instantly moved in opposite directions,
the woman asking William about the highboy, then the armoire, while the husband shouted
questions from the back about a dusty school desk he’d noticed in the corner. “It’s from the
oldest school in the county, a real collector’s item,” William lied loudly to the husband, with a wink
to Donnie. “Previously owned by royalty,” he crowed to the wife, when the door opened again
and an elderly couple came in and started nosing around and they were all still in the store when
Randy, from Java Mountain, strolled in, waved at William, and began fingering the books. Donnie
leaned against the counter. William pretended not to notice.
As William was writing up the chair for the young couple, watching how the dark finger hair
curled over the man’s wedding ring while he steadied the checkbook, the older couple asked for
the price of the armoire and this time William halved the insurance estimate, told them there was
room for discussion and let them mull it over and in the meantime Randy had grabbed a couple of
books off the shelf and stood at the register with his wallet open. Donnie still leaned. Oh my,
thought William, this is just as I’d imagined it would be. The world isn’t going to come crashing
down after all! Let Cassie come!
Randy had gone with his books and the old couple was still examining the armoire and William
would be sorry to see it go, but selling the most expensive piece in the store would be a real
coup, even at the more realistic price, and he left them alone to talk themselves into it.
Mrs. Benson’s Lincoln pulled up out front, idled there, a little cotton candy cloud of exhaust out
the back, and he knew it was finally time. He leaned over the writing desk, tried to hold both
ends and lift, but the table dragged its feet. William laughed at himself. You are a silly boy, aren’t
you, he thought, the table doesn’t have feet. Well, it does, but . . . He leaned over again and it
still seemed like the table was reluctant, but William knew perfectly well what was happening. He
wasn’t a total dunce, despite what his stepfather might have thought. It wasn’t the furniture who
was foot-dragging. Donnie hopped around the counter, touched his hand to William’s shoulder
and grabbed the other side of the table.
although that had been over a month ago, early October, and no one from town had been there
except the lesbian couple who ran a candle and macramé shop out on Sparksburg Pike, and a
handful of Frederick’s former students. “He might not have known me, though,” she admitted. “My
boy Joshua was in his literature class for a while, but we put a stop to that when we heard.”
Heard what, William wanted to ask, but even around Frederick, gentle, patient Frederick, he’d
been afraid to ask questions because it seemed like the answer was always something he was
supposed to have known in the first place but, he usually rationalized, he’d been too busy just
surviving to learn. His confusion must have been scrawled on his face, because Mrs. Benson
whispered, in a pitying voice that said, as clearly as if the words had come out of that cavernous
mouth, “don’t tell me you didn’t know,” along with the words she actually spoke: “About his
illness.”
Oh, that. He had cancer, it wasn’t the other, William longed to say, looked over at the wing
chair, the most outspoken of the collection, and shook his head, silently apologizing.
“Is there something in particular you’re looking for, Mrs. Benson?” That’s what Frederick had
told him to say, wasn’t it, get the customer to commit to a quest, then put the Holy Grail in her
hands and you’ve made the sale. Assuming you had the Holy Grail in stock, of course, and hadn’t
offered the Golden Fleece instead. Just browsing, she said, so William took up his post behind the
cash register while Mrs. Benson pawed over Frederick’s Waterford goblets, and the silver cake
server that William really should have taken to a jeweler to appraise, but that seemed too crass
somehow, and an insult to Frederick. Mrs. Benson stumbled into a Victorian writing table, a one-of-
a-kind mahogany jewel on which Frederick had written daily his letters and lists, recorded every
household expenditure, graded remedial compositions, and she looked over at William with
stiletto eyes, so disturbing in a woman that large, as though he most certainly had put the table
in that spot for the sole purpose of injuring her. William shrugged, hoping it conveyed his
meaning, which was, I’m terribly sorry, but I hope you haven’t damaged Frederick’s desk, lady, or
there’ll be hell to pay.
Mrs. Benson browsed a while longer, and picked up and carried around with her like it was a
watermelon, or maybe a football, a pear-shaped coppery vase that Frederick had said was Ming
but to William just looked Chinese and William hadn’t even wanted to know what Frederick had
done to get. She sat for a minute in the wing chair that William could hear groaning under her
incredible bulk, ran her fingertips over the cracked leather, then struggled up and over to the
bookshelves, and lifted her glasses to read the titles. She even took one out to thumb the
pages. But her wandering eyes always came back to the offending table.
“How much is it?” Mrs. Benson’s voice had lost both its ingratiating melody and funereal
whisper, and she was now all business. “Your best price, of course.”
This was the moment Frederick had tried to prepare him for, the first negotiation with a
customer. There was so much to consider! He wanted to make his first sale, of course, because
he had to admit that things were not going well and he’d been so sure the money would just be
rolling in at this point, and there was always the apparition of the evil stepsister lurking in his
subconscious, so a sale would be a good thing, an omen of better things to come maybe. But he
couldn’t start out too low, could he, because the desk had some value, and not only the price
Frederick had paid for it or the services performed in Paris or New York or wherever, but it had
belonged to Frederick! Frederick used it! Frederick treasured it! On the other hand, there was the
rent, and if he didn’t sell this piece and several more by the end of the month, William would have
to dip into the cookie jar of cash Frederick had filled for him, and as Frederick had explained over
and over again, that was not—what was the word Frederick had used—sustainable.
But despite all the planning, Frederick hadn’t gotten around to telling William what the prices
should be for anything. What did William know? He’d never sold a thing, apart from his own
companionship, unless you could count that fiasco behind the men’s fragrance counter at Macy’s
one of his regulars had finagled for him and that William had walked away from during a coffee
break. Too stressful, too much to remember. Frederick had begun to talk about antique prices
once, but somehow the subject of his stepsister had intruded and he’d gotten so upset, so
overcome with what it would mean to William when she eventually showed up to claim the house
and whatever William hadn’t managed to sell by then, that he hadn’t been able to continue. He’d
gone downhill fast after that, barely able to speak, too weak to leave the house, too horrified by
his appearance to allow visitors. And now William was on his own.
He opened a notebook, a black three-ring binder, and looked for the writing table on the list.
Frederick had made the list years ago for insurance purposes, and when they were going through
his papers, near the end, he had discovered it and handed it to William. “Perfect,” he’d said, in a
breathless gasp. “An inventory. Just what you need, my boy.” And William had put the list in the
binder, a dusty torn thing he’d found in the attic, and had decided that the values assigned for
insurance purposes surely were the least he should try to get for each item. Hadn’t Frederick
called it perfect? He ran his finger down the page to the writing table, then across the row to the
value, and closed the book. But wait, he thought, that’s where I should end up, so I’ll add a little
for bargaining purposes, and then I’ll give her a discount and we’ll all be happy.
“Because you are such a delightful woman, I could let you have this darling table,” William
began, imitating as best he could the warble Frederick had demonstrated repeatedly, and
remembering what Frederick had said about flattering both the customer and the purchase, to
make them think they were made for each other, “for five thousand five hundred dollars.” The
woman’s jaw dropped. Comically, William thought. He wondered what he’d done wrong.
“You’re joking, of course,” she said, recovering, laughing even.
Was the price absurdly low? It seemed expensive to William, but then he’d never lived in the
world of objects until he’d met Frederick. For years, after running away from his mother and
stepfather’s home in New Jersey, his older brother already free, off in the Army, the only thing on
his mind had been food and shelter, and sometimes getting high, and after awhile even food and
shelter receded in importance. But then Frederick had rescued him and brought him home to the
country and the house filled with curio cabinets, lace tablecloths, real china plates, engraved
silverware. Frederick had tried to teach him, but there was only so much a boy could absorb. How
could he know the real value? Too low? Or was the price too high? That must be it, William
realized. Frederick wouldn’t have put a low value on the insurance forms, even William
understood that, when he stopped to think about it. He might have inflated the value a tiny bit,
right?
“I could consider a discount,” William said, reciting the dialogue he’d learned from his lover, his
mentor and savior. “One shouldn’t really bargain with the customer,” Frederick had insisted.
“Bargaining is so . . . tacky. But one may offer a discount. A special price. A once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity.”
“I bet you could,” said the leviathan, and ran her bloated finger over the table one more time.
“I’ll give you fifty bucks for it. And that’s because I hit the jackpot at bingo last night.” She pulled
a wad of bills from her purse and counted out two twenties and ten wrinkled ones. William
hesitated, felt Frederick pushing him to take it, heard the armoire whispering that rent day was
just around the corner, actually lifted his hand to touch the cash, when out of the corner of his
eye he saw the Buddha, shaking his head under the sarong. William put his hand in his pocket.
“No,” he said, taking a step back from the counter. “It’s worth much more than that.”
“I see,” said Mrs. Benson. “Bingo has its limits, I’m afraid.” She stuffed the bills back in her
purse and moved to the door, turned the knob, pulled it open, raised her foot to step out.
“Wait,” said William.
Mrs. Benson closed the door and grinned. Maliciously, William thought. She reached into her
purse and waved the cash at him.
He looked at the floor. “No,” he said. “I can’t.”
The following week, William’s expectations were lower. He’d put the Armanis away in Frederick’
s cedar closet, along with the checked suit, the cashmere sweater and all the rest of his clothes.
He’d have to give them away or, better yet, leave them for Cassie to deal with. William’s Dockers,
that Frederick had bought him when he couldn’t stand to see him in jeans any longer, and the
clogs—Frederick bought those, too, of course—would do just fine. It’s not like anyone would see
him anyway, tucked away in the dark basement. He arrived at the shop just at ten, a lunch
packed, nothing fancy, a bruised apple and expired yogurt, no reason to think that the situation
had changed, especially now that his one and only customer, the enormous Mrs. Benson, would
spread the word that his shop was too expensive and that he, skinny, pasty little William, would
never make it in the world without Frederick. On the way, he’d stopped at the Ace Hardware and
picked up some glue, the only kind he knew, the milky white stuff that smelled like pudding,
tasted a bit like it, too, if he remembered right, and set about fixing the little Toby jug. That done,
he pulled the book off the shelf and settled into the wing chair. If I’m going to be bored to death,
not to mention starving and poor, he thought, I might as well do what Frederick was after me all
the time to do. “Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long ago, having little or no
money in my purse—”
The shop door swung open and a gust turned the page. “Hellooo. Anybody home?” It was
that colossus again, this time with a woman who could have been her twin in tow, or rather her
shadow, William thought, since she looked to be just a deli slice compared to the big woman’s
beefy slab. And anyway, their resemblance might only have been an illusion, as William realized
he might have lived his whole life so far thinking that all old women looked exactly the same, only
in different dimensions, with the salon-curled, blue-gray helmet and the high-collared flowered
dress and gold broach.
“This is Lydia, and I told her all about how charming you were and how you had some
wonderful goodies in your shop and those candlesticks would look just fabulous on her mantel
and how much do you want for them?” Mrs. Benson tugged Lydia to the armoire, where the
candlesticks sat in semi-darkness. William had struggled out of the chair while she spoke and
now opened his binder with the insurance list. He ran his finger down the page, but didn’t see
the candlesticks anywhere, which was no surprise because at home he’d found them under the
sink in the powder room and knew they’d either been forgotten, or worthless. He picked one up
and then the other, pleased with their heft, and even the dripped wax cheered his fingers,
reminding him of his last Christmas with Frederick. He set them down gently on the counter and
looked again in the binder. He ran his finger down the page one more time and stopped when he
came to the armoire, value $15,000.
“I can let you have the pair for, let’s see,” William said, stalling, hoping they’d think he was
calculating a discount off the asking price, when in fact he had no idea what number would be
high enough to keep this gargantuan and her shadowy friend from buying the candlesticks, “I
think, maybe, I suppose, two hundred dollars.”
The wraith called Lydia opened her purse and pulled out a checkbook, but Mrs. Benson
laughed so loud the Buddha’s sarong fluttered and Frederick’s rocking horse launched into
motion. Mrs. Benson shook her head and laid a meaty hand on her friend’s arm. Lydia looked up
at her, obviously puzzled.
“You’re a silly boy, William. No doubt this appealed to dear, sweet Frederick.” She raised her
eyebrows, and William understood she wasn’t talking about Frederick’s weakness for antiques.
“But it’s no way to run a business.” With that, Mrs. Benson pulled Lydia, whose hand still clutched
her checkbook and a fountain pen, up the stairs. The window shuddered, William thought, when
the door slammed behind them.
“Now you’ve done it,” said the highboy. “You had the fish on the line and you let it get away.”
“But at least the store is still afloat,” said the wing chair. “For now.”
“Forget the list, mon cher,” said the armoire. “Go low.”
In the afternoon, a young couple came in, a sloppy bra-less teenager with a pierced eyebrow,
and a slim young man about William’s age in khakis and a polo shirt, a silver ring on his thumb.
William watched his careful steps, trailing the heedless girl. They looked at everything, laughing
and poking at each other, “you’re such a nerd,” said the girl, and “at least I don’t have a tattoo
on my butt,” said the young man. She called him Donnie, he called her Pammy, more like sister
and brother than a couple.
“Is there something I can help you with?” he asked them.
“We were just looking,” said the girl, pawing through a drawer full of costume jewelry that
Frederick—William didn’t really want to think about why Frederick had a drawer full of costume
jewelry.
“Yeah, just looking,” said the man, now keeping his eyes on William, straightening his collar.
He stuck his hand out, thin and pasty, a light grip, like William’s own. “I’m Donnie.” Now the
girl turned around to look, eyes wide.
“William,” said William.
The girl clucked, grabbed Donnie and pulled him out the door. Donnie waved.
At home that night, there was mail. Addressed to him. He never got mail, but enjoyed the
ritual of opening the box and going through the catalogs and junk mail and solicitations still being
delivered for Frederick. This was a pale-blue envelope, the kind you might expect to be scented,
with his name on it and a return address in California, and a regular first-class stamp, not one of
those telltale bulk postage stamps he’d noticed on all his other mail. Frederick’s mail. Who did he
know in California?
It was from Cassie. She’d just heard, was deeply saddened, sorry she and Frederick hadn’t
been closer, and by the way she’d be arriving next week to turn the house over to a Realtor she’
d hired and would William be so kind as to be gone by the time she got there? William sank to the
window seat, clutching the letter, pictured Frederick in his silk robe descending the stairs,
Frederick reading by the fire, Frederick beating eggs for a soufflé.
What to do?
The next morning was damp and drizzly and William was happy to open the shop, shake out
his umbrella, and ease into the wing chair to wait and think. There was still room in the shop, he
saw, especially if he started piling things up, so he could call those awful boys Frederick had hired
and ask them to bring another load over from the house. William didn’t have much of his own to
move, he could use one of Frederick’s suitcases and still have room for some more of Frederick’s
things, and until something turned up he could sleep on the divan, shower at the Y maybe, and
things would be fine. “You’ll see,” he said to the armoire. There was no answer.
He was still sitting there, gazing out the window, when he saw a pair of skinny legs in tight
black jeans go by. Then the same legs went by in the other direction, stopped and crouched
down, and that guy from the other day, Donnie, was looking in, upside down, grinning, William
thought, but it was hard to tell that way, with the chin at the top. Donnie waved, and then his
face popped out of sight and the legs skipped away. William felt a chill.
The titan came back, with Lydia in tow. “You silly boy,” Mrs. Benson said, opened her purse
and pulled out the bills she’d offered before. Lydia peeked around her megalithic friend and
flashed her checkbook at William, a narrow grin on her lips.
“Forget your pride, mon petite chou,” whispered the armoire. “Take the money,” said the wing
chair, “what choice do we have?” “Cassie is coming,” said the highboy. William backed into the
counter, rattling the Toby jugs on the glass shelves, and nodded as the whale closed in.
He slid out of her path, spun around to the cash register and pressed the buttons. Nothing
happened. He looked up at her and shrugged. Pressing harder on the numbers, he hit “enter”
with the heel of his hand, as if he just hadn’t been convincing enough the first time, as if the
machine would not allow him to surrender Frederick to this goliath. Out of the corner of his eye he
saw Donnie’s legs again, the black jeans, slowly now, stopping just at the steps. With a sheepish
grin toward Mrs. Benson, William felt around the back of the box and threw the switch, felt the
hum of power in his fingers, and rang up the sale, the insurance list forgotten. The drawer
popped open and William slipped the bills inside, while Lydia wrote out her check—twenty dollars,
Mrs. Benson had decreed—for the candlesticks.
“I’ll pull the Lincoln around in a few minutes,” said Mrs. Benson, and plowed up Central, with
Lydia in her wake. While the door was still open, Donnie stepped in.
William pretended to busy himself at the cash register, which for the first time actually
harbored cash, but watched Donnie move through the store, examining everything he and the girl
had seen already, making his way deeper inside, stopping again at the pile of costume jewelry.
He turned toward William with a tiara in his hand, slipped it into his wispy blonde hair and
blushed crimson, then set it down on the counter. “How much is it?”
“A dollar?” guessed William, suppressing a laugh. Donnie’s fingers brushed William’s palm
when he handed him the bill, and they both turned away. William felt himself blushing now, too.
He’d barely finished the small sale when the door whooshed open again. A young couple—
newlyweds, from Philadelphia, they announced right away, as if that somehow was going to
make a difference in any price he might quote them and, William had to admit, it did incline him
toward a bigger number than he would have otherwise—instantly moved in opposite directions,
the woman asking William about the highboy, then the armoire, while the husband shouted
questions from the back about a dusty school desk he’d noticed in the corner. “It’s from the
oldest school in the county, a real collector’s item,” William lied loudly to the husband, with a wink
to Donnie. “Previously owned by royalty,” he crowed to the wife, when the door opened again
and an elderly couple came in and started nosing around and they were all still in the store when
Randy, from Java Mountain, strolled in, waved at William, and began fingering the books. Donnie
leaned against the counter. William pretended not to notice.
As William was writing up the chair for the young couple, watching how the dark finger hair
curled over the man’s wedding ring while he steadied the checkbook, the older couple asked for
the price of the armoire and this time William halved the insurance estimate, told them there was
room for discussion and let them mull it over and in the meantime Randy had grabbed a couple of
books off the shelf and stood at the register with his wallet open. Donnie still leaned. Oh my,
thought William, this is just as I’d imagined it would be. The world isn’t going to come crashing
down after all! Let Cassie come!
Randy had gone with his books and the old couple was still examining the armoire and William
would be sorry to see it go, but selling the most expensive piece in the store would be a real
coup, even at the more realistic price, and he left them alone to talk themselves into it.
Mrs. Benson’s Lincoln pulled up out front, idled there, a little cotton candy cloud of exhaust out
the back, and he knew it was finally time. He leaned over the writing desk, tried to hold both
ends and lift, but the table dragged its feet. William laughed at himself. You are a silly boy, aren’t
you, he thought, the table doesn’t have feet. Well, it does, but . . . He leaned over again and it
still seemed like the table was reluctant, but William knew perfectly well what was happening. He
wasn’t a total dunce, despite what his stepfather might have thought. It wasn’t the furniture who
was foot-dragging. Donnie hopped around the counter, touched his hand to William’s shoulder
and grabbed the other side of the table.
r.kv.r.y. quarterly winter 08 fiction
leviathan by clifford garstang
leviathan by clifford garstang