Previously Loved Treasures

by Bette Lee Crosby

  “No question the pies are tasty,” Suzanne replied, “but three dollars?”

  Ida then did something she’d never even imagined herself capable of. She told a barefaced lie. “The Muffin Tin didn’t think so. In fact they said—”

  In the space of that few minutes Suzanne had already dug into the peach pie and was busily chewing a sample. “Hold on a minute,” she garbled. “I’m willing to pay the three dollars, but I want an exclusive.”

  Ida tried to imagine herself as Big Jim. He was such an admirable businessman, so strong and staunch. She hesitated a moment, then spoke as she believed he would have. “An exclusive’s more.”

  “Three-twenty-five per pie,” Suzanne offered, “and I can take up to twenty a week.”

  Ida smiled. “You’ve got a deal.”

  As she drove home Ida began singing along with the radio. She was certain Big Jim was looking down and feeling mighty proud of her. As a matter of fact, she felt pretty proud of herself.

  Later that night Ida sat down at the table and tallied her income and expenses again. “Oh dear,” she said. Although the pie money helped, she was still way short of the amount needed. One day at a time. She would simply have to take it a single day at a time. That’s all she could do. Tomorrow she would post a notice on the supermarket bulletin board announcing that she was available for babysitting.

  ~ ~ ~

  Two days later when Ida was up to her elbows in flour and Crisco, the doorbell rang. She slid the fourth peach pie into the oven, swiped her hands across her apron, and hurried to the door.

  She’d expected it to be a neighbor or perhaps a harried mother responding to her babysitting services sign. But when she opened the door there stood Alfred Maxwell Sweetwater or Max as everyone had come to know him. A large brown suitcase stood alongside of him.

  “How’s my favorite sister-in-law?” Max pulled the bewildered Ida into a bear hug that left his brown shirt dotted with flour and bits of pastry dough.

  Ida wriggled loose, then backed up and looked him square in the eye. “What are you looking for, Max?”

  That may have seemed a harsh question, but in truth it was quite appropriate. Max was Big Jim’s younger brother, and they were as different as day is from night. Jim was hard working, generous, and faithful as a Baptist preacher. Max was none of those things. He’d go a mile out his way to avoid work, was selfish to the core, and a scoundrel with the ladies. Before he turned forty he’d been married to four different women, and after those marriages went south he took to living with first one woman and then another. There were no shades of grey where Max was concerned; he was the blackest of black sheep.

  “What makes you think I’m after something?” Max grinned. “I just got to worrying about my big brother’s wife being here all alone and thought I’d come and check on you.”

  “With a suitcase?”

  “I was figuring to maybe stay a while.”

  “Well, you can figure again. I’m too busy for your nonsense, and I’ve got no money to lend you.”

  Max saw a window of opportunity and jumped on it. “That’s exactly why I’m here. To help out financially.”

  “Help out financially?” Ida repeated dubiously. “How?”

  “Well, you’ve got this big house and all these empty rooms. I was thinking I could move into one of them, help keep an eye on things, and pay a bit of rent.”

  The thought caught hold in Ida’s head. “How much rent?”

  “Fifteen, maybe twenty dollars a week.”

  “Twenty-five, and you get the small guestroom at the end of the hallway.”

  “That include meals?”

  Ida eyed Max. He was small and skinny. How much could he possibly eat?

  “Okay,” she said. “Meals, but nothing fancy, just home cooking. And no ladies in the room.”

  “Why, Ida,” Max said, “I’m surprised you’d think such a thing of me.”

  Ida wanted to tell him she didn’t think it, she knew it, but by then he’d grabbed his suitcase and was halfway down the hall.

  ~ ~ ~

  The first three weeks of Sam Caldwell’s search uncovered very little other than the fact that James spent a considerable amount of time moving from place to place and apparently got tangled up with a singer named Joelle Williams in Nashville. But following such a haphazard trail of breadcrumbs involved a considerable amount of traveling from state to state and subsequently a larger-than-anticipated amount of expenses. In addition to the three-hundred-dollar fee for that week, Ida had to pay one hundred and seventy-three dollars in expenses.

  On top of that, not one person had called for babysitting services.

  ~ ~ ~

  At the end of his first week Max handed Ida twenty-five dollars, and that’s when she got the idea. If she could rent a room to Max, why not rent out two or three of the other rooms? That afternoon she typed up a new sign and took it down to the Piggly Wiggly.

  Ida removed the babysitting services sign and posted her new one.

  “Room for Rent” it read and stated that the price was $30 a week with meals included.

  Before nightfall she had received two calls.

  Ida Sweetwater

  I suppose you can tell I don’t have much use for Max, and given his history such a feeling is justifiable. Max and Jim had different daddies, and you knew it just by looking at them. Jim’s daddy was a carpenter, a man who got up every morning, went to work, and provided for his family, but the Lord called him home when Jim was only five years old.

  With Mama Sweetwater being a grieving widow I guess she was easily suckered in, because along came a slick-talking salesman and before she could reconsider what she was doing they were married. He moved in, parked himself in the front parlor, and started calling for her to bring him a cold beer. A year later the poor woman had Max and a husband who’d run off with a waitress from the diner.

  An experience like that most likely soured Missus Sweetwater on any further thoughts of marriage, because once Max’s daddy was gone she raised both boys by herself. I know that’s neither here nor there, but the problem is Max is just like his daddy. He’s a man who don’t know how to keep his pants zipped. When you meet a man like Max, you’ve got to keep a sharp eye on what he’s up to.

  I know you’re probably wondering why I’d let a scoundrel like that move in; I know if I was you I’d be wondering.

  I could say it’s because he’s Big Jim’s brother and let on like it’s a family responsibility, but that would be a flat-outt lie. The truth is having a bad egg is better than having no egg at all. Since Jim’s been gone, my ears ache from the sound of quiet. Max is company. He’s somebody who I’ve got to get up and make breakfast for, somebody who’s sitting across the table at dinnertime.

  I miss Big Jim more than I ever thought humanly possible. If I take a cup from the cupboard, I think about how he liked his coffee. If I put clothes in the washing machine, I start wishing I had one more pair of dirty overalls to wash. But most of all I miss the sound of him playing the television too loud, and I think back on how I used to holler for him to turn it down. If I had my Jim back I’d never again say a word about how loud that television was; in fact, I’d sit down alongside of him and watch those football games.

  You just never know how much you’re gonna miss someone until they’re gone. And then it’s too damn late to do a thing about it.

  The Rosewood Bed

  Nine days after Max arrived Ida Sweetwater took in her second boarder. She’d hoped it would be a gentleman, not a forty-six-year-old widow with hair the color of a chili pepper. But when Harriet Chowder came knocking at the door, her face was creased with misery and her eyes rimmed with a color close to that of her hair.

  “What am I to do?” Harriet sobbed. Then she told of a son-in-law who was dead set against relatives living in his house. “His house,” she reiterated. “It’s Sue Ellen’s house the same as it’s his, but did she say a word? No, not a word. The fact that I’m her mother didn�
�t make a bean of difference. Sue Ellen just stood there nodding while Walter, in that snooty way he has of talking to people, said I should find another place to live.”

  With Harriet teetering on the brink of tears, Ida simply didn’t have the heart to turn her away. She did, however, give her the upstairs bedroom, far away from where Max slept; hopefully the distance would be enough to discourage any funny business.

  ~ ~ ~

  Ida charged Harriet five dollars more than Max but felt justified in that Harriet’s room had a new bedspread and a writing desk. Besides, Harriet had not even questioned the amount. Moments after she’d seen the room, Harriet began hauling two large trunks up the stairs and down the long hallway. She made one last trip back to the car and carried in a little transistor radio. Before she’d unpacked her clothes Harriet found a music station that blasted out the golden oldies and started singing along. Every so often the announcer screamed out, “You’re at WXRM, all music, all day, every day, so stay tuned!”

  On the third day of listening to golden oldies, Ida was about to mention how for the past two nights the music had kept her awake long past her bedtime, but as soon as she said, “I heard the music last night…” Harriet grabbed the conversation and ran away with it.

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” she gushed. “Such a happy sound. I hear music like that, and I’ve just got to sing along.”

  “I’ve noticed,” Ida answered, then said nothing more. Listening to a bit of music seemed a small sacrifice in return for having a regular income.

  Other than the music, which was way louder than Big Jim’s television, the first few days went quite well. Harriet had nothing but glowing things to say about the room. Her view of the backyard was lovely, such attractive curtains, the meatloaf was one of the best she ever tasted. And, much to Ida’s delight, Max made no advances, even though Harriet was a reasonably attractive woman.

  Now that she was selling her homemade pies and collecting rent from two boarders, Ida thought she would have enough money to keep Sam Caldwell searching for James. That was, until she received the second bill for his expenses.

  “Three hundred and eighty-seven dollars!” Ida gasped. “Isn’t that a bit much?” What she meant was that it was exorbitantly high but she held back on saying it because such a statement could sound antagonistic. One thing Ida did not want to do was antagonize Sam Caldwell, especially when he was so close to finding James.

  After her conversation with Sam, Ida returned to the table and recalculated her cash flow. That’s when she realized she was nowhere near having the amount of money she needed. Since renting rooms was working out so well, the most obvious answer seemed to be to take in a few more boarders. If you had to cook dinner anyway, Ida reasoned, it simply meant you’d set out another plate or two.

  That week Ida began to ready the house. She cleaned and polished even the most forgotten corners of rooms that had long gone unused. She scoured yellow grime from the top of the refrigerator, swept away the dust balls at the far back of the closets, and dusted beneath bric-a-brac that hadn’t been disturbed in more than a decade.

  With the help of a young man who lived three doors down, she made room for a bed in the sitting room and set the burgundy velvet sofa out for the trash man. At one time that sofa was the most beautiful piece of furniture she’d ever seen, but that was forty years ago, before James left home and left a hole in her heart. As she returned to the house Ida glanced back for one last look at the sofa, and for the flicker of a second she saw James jumping up and down on it.

  During the night Ida heard the rumble of thunder, and then came the rain. It didn’t start as a drizzle but came rushing in like an angry river. Ida thought of the sofa. It was old, not worth much perhaps, but the thought of it sitting out there in the rain pained her heart. She climbed from the bed and stood alongside the window, watching. Remembering the good times. Regretting the bad ones.

  The next morning when she awoke, the sofa was gone. There was no trace of it ever having been there.

  ~ ~ ~

  That afternoon Ida went shopping for a bed. The downtown area of Rose Hill was hardly what one could consider a downtown. It was little more than a scattering of stores that stretched along the last four blocks of Hillmoor Street. For as long as she could remember, Ida had shopped up and down Hillmoor and she knew every store on the street.

  That’s why she came up short when she saw the carved headboard in the front window of a store that had sat empty for decades.

  Two days ago the store was nothing more than a black hole behind soot-covered glass. It had been that way for more than twenty years. Ages ago it housed a silver shop, an elegant place where a dark-eyed young woman sold silver tea sets and bracelets that jangled. It was rumored that the girl was a gypsy and the silver came from the graves of her ancestors, but such rumors are seldom more than old wives’ tales. That’s what the residents of Rose Hill told one another, until the morning they found the girl with a silver dagger stuck straight through her heart.

  After that no one dared rent the store, and it remained empty. Two years later Parker Henry, the thirty-two-year-old owner of the building, suffered a massive heart attack and died. That was enough to convince the residents of Rose Hill that the rumors were true. So the building sat there, an unclaimed eyesore, for decades.

  Ida squinted at the bright gold lettering stretched across the front of the store. “Previously Loved Treasures,” it read. In the bottom corner of the front window there was a row of tiny letters too small for her to read from where she stood. She crossed the street and walked up to the glass. It was not just clean, it was sparkling, and the words she’d been unable to read from a distance read “Peter P. Pennington, Proprietor.” Ida touched her finger to the glass and felt a pulse, a heartbeat almost.

  “Oh,” she said, and stepped back so quickly she almost stumbled.

  A hand reached out and steadied her.

  Ida thought she was alone; she’d not seen anyone coming. Yet there he was, standing in back of her lest she topple over. “Where on earth did you come from?” she asked.

  The man was small with the slight build of a boy and heavy wire-rimmed glasses. Despite the warmth of the Georgia sun he was wearing a black suit, white dress shirt, and red bow tie.

  “I pop up whenever I’m needed,” he said and gave a mischievous grin. He extended his hand. “Peter Pennington.”

  Ida laughed and returned his handshake. “So you’re the owner of this store?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He nodded proudly.

  Ida eyed the front window display. If you looked only at the beaded vest you might think it a clothing store, or the crystal perfume bottle might mean an apothecary, but then there were several other unrelated things and in the window was the carved rosewood headboard, none of it the sort of junk you’d find in a thrift shop.

  “What exactly are previously loved treasures?”

  Peter Pennington pushed the heavy glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. “They’re the things you need, things other people no longer needed.”

  “How would you know what I need?” Ida said doubtfully.

  “I read the need in people’s face,” he replied. “Right now I can see you’re in need of a bed, and you’re considering this rosewood beauty in the window.”

  Ida laughed. “Read the need, indeed. You saw me looking at that bed from across the street.”

  “That may be,” he said, “but you have to admit that I did have the bed here ready and waiting when you were in need of one.”

  “Oh, I get it.” Ida chuckled. “You tell me the bed was special ordered for me, then charge twice what it’s worth.”

  He shook his head side to side. “No, ma’am. That bed is fair-priced at five dollars.”

  Ida’s jaw dropped open. “Five dollars?”

  He pushed the glasses back onto his nose a second time and nodded.

  “Five dollars is not fair-priced,” she said indignantly. “I may not be wealthy, but I’m certa
inly not looking for charity!”

  “And I’m not giving any,” Peter replied. “You’ve got to understand, when people sell previously loved treasures it’s not about the money. It’s about finding the right home for something they’ve spent years loving.”

  The dubious look remained on Ida’s face. “Okay, so you charge me five dollars, and I give the bed a good home. Then what? You charge two hundred for delivery?”

  “Delivery’s free.”

  “Free?” Ida thought back on how Big Jim always said, You get what you pay for, and she searched her mind for what the catch might be but could not find one. Again she clarified the terms. “So this is a one-time payment of five dollars, and you deliver the bed free?”

  Peter nodded. “That’s the deal, Missus Sweetwater.”

  “How’d you know my name?”

  “I make it my business to know the names of people in town.”

  Ida could feel a ball of suspicion pushing against her chest, but she was torn between heeding such a warning and wanting the bed. After several more questions, she followed Peter Pennington inside the store, pulled five dollars from her purse, and paid cash for the bed. As she turned to leave, the funny-looking little man said, “I think you might also need a picture for that room.”

  “Picture?”

  “Yes.” He reached beneath the counter and pulled out a framed photograph of a young man. “This one.”

  “Ha. Seems your ‘read the need’ is no longer working. I have no need of a picture like that.”

  “Oh, but you do,” Pennington assured her. “You just don’t know it yet.”

  Ida laughed so hard her belly bounced. “Well, when I figure out what I need it for, I’ll be back,” she said and left the store still chuckling.

  On the way home Ida again found herself singing along with the radio. Peter P. Pennington was indeed a strange little man, but despite the suspicions picking at her she liked him. And the rosewood bed was every bit as beautiful as the burgundy sofa she had let go.