by Luke Geddes
Patricia stuck it to her sweater. “Well, you have my vote. I’m Patty.”
Something in Margaret’s chest cracked like an egg. Gelatinous warmth spilled out and spread into her veins. She felt suddenly rested but not calm, a first-day-of-school nervousness kicking about inside her.
When Margaret didn’t say anything, Patricia stepped back and admired Margaret’s glass. “Wow, they’re so beautiful. This is really something, isn’t it?”
“You’re interested in glass?”
“I’m no expert.”
It was an understatement. As Margaret guided her around the booth, pointing out some of her notable pieces, it became clear that Patricia couldn’t tell a Tiffany from a Swanky Swig. Of her own merchandise Patricia also knew little. She’d been picking things up here and there at estate sales for years, whatever caught her eye or “had a niceness about it,” but she was rarely compelled to research an item or seek out companion pieces. To her own surprise, Margaret was impressed with Patricia’s casual attitude. It suited her earthy personality. She was the sincerest person Margaret had ever known.
It would be through her friendship with Patricia that Margaret would come to realize that she’d never actually had a real friend before, never in her life. She’d have felt foolish, infantile, if she wasn’t merely blessed to have found Patricia; others probably learned it as children, that friendship wasn’t a transaction, it wasn’t something offered and received. It had nothing to do with shared interests or even compatible personalities. It was an act of opening up—your mind, your heart, yourself, whatever one called it. The only way to know yourself was to allow another person to know you, too. With Patricia, Margaret had felt more herself than she’d ever been.
As she gazed now at what #1-146 had become, every trace of her old friend eliminated, Margaret felt utterly alone. She clutched the decapitated MC Hammer and pictured the smug looks on Seymour and Lee’s faces at the association meeting. They’d turned Patricia’s booth into a garbage heap of doodads and gewgaws and thingamajigs, and what’s more, couldn’t bother to follow Hall One’s most basic rule. And it wasn’t just them. Keith and Stacey had failed to follow proper protocol for the Dealer Association, to respond to legitimate complaints in a timely manner or any manner at all, not to mention their failure to adequately screen the mall’s dealer applications, which caused so many of these ethical oversights to begin with.
It was also against the rules to tamper with other dealers’ merchandise, but was it ethical to let a transgression stand without retribution? She picked up the obscene ashtray, holding it squeamishly by its edges, putting the headless doll in its place. Who would own such a thing? Who would make it? What kind of person would put it on display at a family establishment like Heart, where children could see? It was in blatant violation of policy, but nothing would be done about it. If the ashtray required excision, she would have to be the one to do it.
Margaret hesitated. Never in her life had it ever occurred to her to break the rules, even the ones that were obviously wrong. What she would do was put it at the bottom of the lost-and-found bin, under the scarves and hats and umbrellas. That certainly wasn’t quite in violation of policy. After all, the item could just as easily be lost as anything, and say Margaret absentmindedly picked the price tag off with her fingernail; in theory it would be lost, as no one could say for sure to whom it belonged. So in actuality, Margaret was doing the right thing in every way; she was removing an offensive item from Hall One and also placing a lost item where it should be. It was as simple as—
A chalk-dry hand touched Margaret on the neck. She screamed. The ashtray fell to the floor and shattered. The sound of it, like the delayed echo of what nearly happened to her vase, terrified her even more than the unexpected touch.
“Oh dear,” Ronald Marsh said. “That was an oopsie.”
“One does not sneak up on a woman and lay hands on her like that, Ronald. It’s inappropriate.”
“Gee, I’m sorry, Margaret. I heard you yell and I wanted to check—I’m just so happy to find you. You see, I was locked in. I’ve been here all night and I’ve got to get home right away.” He looked down at the broken pieces. “Too bad about that. I hope those boys won’t be too upset about—”
“They won’t be, because it wasn’t theirs. It was one of mine, so there’s no use telling them anything about it. Anyway, the emergency exits are there for a reason.”
Ronald blinked. He scratched his head. He opened his mouth and inhaled wheezily, the slow churn of thought taxing his stamina. Finally, he said, “Oh jeez. The emergency exits—I didn’t even think. I’ve gotta get home in a jiffy.” He began to shuffle away, obviously dazed.
“And Ronald?” Margaret said. “You owe me fifty dollars for the ashtray.”
11 RONALD
As Ronald rushed home from the Heart of America, he couldn’t help but notice the telephone poles and yard signs that bore her beaming face. The thought hit him then, as if jolting awake with terrible dread: he had left an eight-year-old girl locked alone in a kennel in his basement all night, and that was very, very bad. This pickle had turned into a pretzel, and it was so mixed up and tied up and twisted, he just couldn’t—for all his gift of gab—figure a way to explain it so that it didn’t come off as fishy somehow. Not that there was anything fishy about it, no sir!
So he made a pit stop at McDonald’s and Target to grab a few more things to make it up to Lindy for being away for so long, two Happy Meals and a bunch of toys including a Just Like Mom dress-up set, a Salon 4 Me home makeover kit, a My Secret Princess fairy princess wand, an entire box of Sparklevision trading cards, and the My Secret Princess My Secret Adventure home video. The Target employee was so helpful, pointing Ronald toward all the stuff kids today were into. He hoped Lindy wouldn’t be sore at him.
There was no time to waste as he parked in the driveway of his modest ranch-style home, leapt out of the car, and climbed the steps to the front door. With his arms full with Lindy’s food and presents, it took some maneuvering to get his house key from pocket to lock. When he finally did, the door opened barely a crack before Gable nosed his way out and into the yard.
“Dang you, Gable! You get back here this instant.”
Gable was a rat terrier Melinda had picked out from the local shelter. Ronald had never been much of an animal lover. He was a people person, he’d told Melinda, leave the animals to the animal kingdom. But Melinda insisted, and as always he relented. He and the dog had never quite gotten along. He was Melinda’s pet and never let Ronald forget it, showing his fangs when Ronald tried to get close to Melinda on the couch, accepting Ronald’s half-hearted pets with raised hackles but collapsing on the floor in ecstasy at Melinda’s slightest touch. He once bit Ronald on the nose, slinking up out of nowhere like a snake as he leaned to kiss Melinda good night. Worst of all, Gable couldn’t be left unsupervised for a minute without tipping over the trash can or tearing up the furniture or making accidents on the carpet. He needed to be locked up whenever Ronald left the house, but given that his kennel was currently occupied, Ronald had been forced to let him run free.
“Gable! Gable! Come here, you mangy mutt! Get inside now!” Ronald couldn’t call attention to himself having this mad dog on the loose. He tried to corner him by the bushes, but the dog was too quick and wily, slipped right between his legs and attacked a rubber ball one of the neighborhood kids had kicked into the yard.
The dog mystified Ronald—no, that wasn’t it; the dog’s relationship with Melinda mystified him. Gable was the one thing in their life that she hadn’t shared with him. Once that dog was around, Ronald become outnumbered, like he was competing with Gable for Melinda’s time and attention. When he’d griped about this, she’d simply stroked Gable’s head and said, “He’s my postcard collection.” Ronald took to calling him just that: “Feed your postcard collection. He’s clawing at his bowl again.” “Why don’t you take the old postcard collection out for a walk?” “Keep your postcard coll
ection out of my postcard room. I don’t need him pee-peeing on any of my rarities.” The joke didn’t last long, what with Melinda’s passing. Neither she nor he had any family left, and although he’d invited them all, no one from the Heart of America came to the funeral. Not that he begrudged them, oh no, for the ceremony had been scheduled on a Dealer Association meeting day, and he knew how important that was. (He was sorry to miss it himself.) It was a lonely reception, just the priest and Ronald and Gable, and Ronald understood just how small and self-contained his life with Melinda really was. He sometimes walked Gable to the cemetery, where he’d always, despite Ronald’s scolding, lift his leg and urinate on Melinda’s tombstone. But the look on Gable’s face was unlike other times he urinated, his mouth clamped shut in what seemed to Ronald a genuine frown. It was a gesture of mourning the way only a dog could express it, and it soon became a ritual, every walk reaching its climax with Gable’s stream splashing against the marble of the tombstone and dripping into the same dirt upon which Ronald’s teardrops fell.
“Oh my sweet goddamn,” came a voice from behind. Ronald had been so ensconced in his own mind he didn’t see Seymour, one of the new fellows, the blond one, wander up to the goofy little lawn ornament in the yard. It was a real kooky thing Melinda had purchased at the flea market, in the shape of a jockey riding a green Martian-looking giraffe. Seymour knelt and drew his hand along the seam in its neck. “Is it a Heatherstone? I’ve never seen any like it before.” In his free hand he held a staple gun and a bundle of Lindy MISSING posters.
“Oh hello.” Ronald racked his brain for a polite way to get Seymour out of his hair. He couldn’t risk the man inviting himself in or snooping around the yard and getting a glance through the storm windows.
“Well, is it? A Heatherstone? I know he experimented with some Lewis Carroll–inspired molds in the seventies.”
“A Heatherstone.” Ronald scratched his chin. He had no idea what the man was talking about and wished he would go on his way littering the neighborhood with his needless posters.
Seymour stood and crept closer to the house. Ronald had kept the basement lights on—he didn’t want to leave Lindy alone in the dark. From the right angle, if he knew what to look for, he might be able to see her in her cage, plain as day. “It’s got a lot of the typical features. The contours that the knockoffs could never match. The almost Warhol-esque paint job. And the extra-thick seam. It’s where the two halves of the mold met during production. A genius move, really: accentuate the artifice while the competitors fail at natur-o-realism.” But before Seymour could take another step, Gable—bless that pooch!—emerged from the bushes and began to attack his shoes. Seymour looked down and said, “Don’t do that. These are vintage Red Ball Jets. You have any idea how hard to find they are?”
The dog did not, but shamed, he slunk past Ronald up the porch steps and sat before the door waiting to be let in. Ronald had not seen him so obedient since Melinda.
The two men stood in silence. Ronald was afraid to speak lest he blurt something suspicious. Seymour checked his shoes for damage. What could Ronald say, how could he excuse himself without arousing suspicion?
Seymour looked up and blinked as if seeing Ronald for the first time. “You work at the Heart of America,” he said.
“Yes, indeed. Booth three-oh-four-seven. You and your fellow took one-one-four-six, Patricia Blatt’s old spot. Toys and knickknacks.”
“Knickknacks. We wouldn’t really use that word. What I would call them,” Seymour said, “is tragic treasures.” He eyed the McDonald’s boxes in Ronald’s hands. “Wouldn’t have pegged someone like you as a collector of premiums. You know, the market for Happy Meal prizes has gone to shit. Unless you’ve got, like, untouched display boxes from the nineties.”
Ronald’s arms were tired from holding the boxes and bags, and the Indian summer sun shone in his eyes with scorching intensity. Fall seemed to hit Wichita later and later each year, and it was not unusual for the temperature to hit highs in the eighties into October. He wiped the moisture off his brow and said, “For my appetite, the price of a Happy Meal is just right. I’ve grown out of the toys, heh heh, but the stomach’s never too old for a good old cheeseburger.”
“Well, in that case, would you mind? Like I said, they’re not worth anything, but if you don’t want them, why let that plastic go to waste?” Seymour made to open a Happy Meal box, but Ronald pulled it away.
“I like to donate them to charity. Toys for Tots, you understand.”
“How generous.”
Ronald backed away, heading for the porch steps, ready to collapse, whether from the heat or the tension he was not sure. One of the plastic bags slipped off his shaking finger and spilled the sparkling My Secret Princess package onto the driveway. He scrambled, to the extent that his tired old body would allow, to pick it up. “Also for charity. Christmas is a ways away, I know, but it’s never too early to start stocking up. I hate to be rude, good fellow, but I’ve got to be going. If you think that pooch is unruly now, just see how he is if I don’t give him his lunch tout suite.” All his pent-up nervous energy expelled him up the steps and to the front door. Suddenly exhausted, he had to steady himself against the wall to catch his breath.
“Hey! Wait a minute! You’re not getting away that easy.”
At this Gable’s ears perked up and Ronald froze. How had Seymour figured it out? Had My Secret Princess given him away? In a way it was a relief to have been caught. No longer would he be burdened with the secrets he’d been keeping. He turned to face his accuser.
“Where’d you say you got this giraffe, pops?”
It took a long moment to sink in. Woozy with relief, Ronald sighed. He was getting away with it—not that there was anything to get away with. It was a simple misunderstanding, was all. “It belonged to my wife.”
“So you don’t know.” Seymour combed his mustache with his fingers. “And I’m sure you wouldn’t know a Heatherstone from a Duchamp.”
“No sir, I sure wouldn’t.” Ronald gave Gable a little tap, sending him inside. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“Just one more thing.” Seymour met him by the porch steps and slipped a bunch of flyers into one of his bags. The cheap photocopied halftone image turned Lindy’s face cadaverous and ghostly. Veronica and her CHAANT crew didn’t know what they were talking about. Lindy was fine. Lindy was fine. “Used to be I was handing out flyers to kick-ass punk shows. Now look at me. You know what? Take ’em all.” He shoved the entire sheaf in. “I think I’ve done my duty for the day. If my man comes around looking for me, don’t tell him I’m at the bar.” He winked and waved goodbye, a little threateningly, with the staple gun still in hand. “Nice talking to you,” he said in such a way as to indicate it hadn’t been nice at all. But at least he finally left.
Ronald went inside and downstairs to the basement. His heart stopped when he saw the kennel door hanging open, blankets strewn across the floor, the room empty. “Oh dear. Oh gosh.” He dropped the Happy Meal boxes and Target bags on the floor and began to pace about, calling Lindy’s name. She was not under or behind the couch, in the storage closet, or the laundry room. Finally, he heard a shuffling from behind the curtains that led to his studio, and there he found her standing atop a stack of pillows on one of the guest chairs pushed up against the wall, reaching toward the window.
She screamed when Ronald grabbed her. “Now, now, my poor dear. There’s no need to be afraid. Old Ronald made an oopsie leaving you alone for so long, and he sure is sorry.”
Lindy tried to wiggle out of his grasp and speak through her tears. “Hungry” and “alone” were the only words he understood. He wiped her face with his sleeve. “Poor, poor dear. Don’t worry, Ronald is never going to leave you again.” At this she sobbed harder. He carried her through the curtains and placed her gingerly on the couch.
“I wanna go home,” Lindy howled.
“Now, now,” Ronald said, dabbing gently at her cheeks. “Everything’s fine.
You’re fine.”
Clearly Lindy was not fine, and it could possibly be misconstrued by an outside party that Ronald was—with no bad intentions or intentions at all—at fault for Lindy’s being not-fine. But she was just hungry, was all. His Melinda used to get in such moods when he kept her too long past lunchtime at the library as he pored over the collectors’ guides.
He went to retrieve the presents from Target—surely that would cheer her up. But he’d forgotten about the flyers Seymour had given him; they’d spilled out when he dropped the bag, twenty or so little Lindy zombie faces in goldenrod and salmon. Up until then he’d been able to keep it in check like a wild animal in a cage, but all at once the word sprang out of his subconscious and into his waking mind, unwelcome and, he swore in his heart, inaccurate: kidnapper.
12 ELLIE
Ellie sat at the sales computer scrolling through social media and dutifully clicking “like” on her friends’ posts exhibiting the joys and rites of college life: photos snapped at free concerts of up-and-coming indie chanteuses Ellie was not hip enough to have ever heard of, statuses bemoaning the stresses of midterms illustrated with sororal study group photos, typo-ridden drunk posts hailing the most recent kegger as the “bset night evar.” Ellie could relate to none of it. For her, college life consisted of splitting her time between till-running at the Heart of America, taking dumbass classes with the townies at the community college, and being semi-stalked by the Professor.