by Moody, Mary
There were three pieces of Rookwood and three pieces of Roseville, one of which was the top prize, a Normandy pedestal, just what I love. The sale included two McCoy flowerpots that I could have left behind. I didn’t really want them, but the dealer wanted to get rid of the whole group, almost as if it would sully his collection of primitive kitchen utensils.
It’s been said that you can get a bargain from a dealer who specializes in something other than the item you’re buying, implying that the dealer doesn’t recognize it or value it. But now there are books that help identify an unfamiliar object and give some idea of its current value.
If this guy did any price checking, he used information that’s long out-of-date, because this stuff was increasing in price even as we were completing our sale. If he’d waited until his field opened, he’d have been able to double his price within the first few minutes. There could easily have been a bidding war for that Normandy pedestal, even without the jardinière. Jardinières are easier to find than pedestals, and though Normandys are relatively rare, I knew that in time I’d come across one.
I walked along Route 20 and entered the flow of people heading toward the dim lights of the next field. The bare lightbulbs were slightly brighter than candles. No one at Brimfield has ever overspent money for lighting. It’s to no seller’s advantage to illuminate the chips and dents and cracks, nor to spotlight the outright fakes and forgeries.
Dark as it was, I nevertheless spotted Natalie Rosen ahead of me. Her athletic stride was easy to recognize, and her dark hair caught the scanty light. Natalie’s an old friend, and I hurried to catch up with her. Another of the pleasures of Brimfield is the renewal of old friendships.
Natalie and I met soon after we started our businesses in the same wretched building in Worcester fifteen years ago. The fact that we operated on shoestring budgets, had no idea what we were doing, and had opened businesses that were only slightly more advanced than lemonade stands might have been thread enough to weave us a friendship, but something else happened in that relationship.
We became learning systems and support systems and a mutual admiration society for each other. We were intricately linked providers of exactly what the other most needed, which was often just to be taken seriously.
“I hope you’ve had better luck than I,” she said when I caught up with her. “I’ve been here an hour and I haven’t found a thing.”
I immediately launched into a detailed description of my loot, but stopped. “Have you really not found anything?”
Natalie had turned to antiques far later than I, but she’s a much better shopper. She can see possibilities quickly, make decisions quickly, and strike deals quickly. I was surprised that she hadn’t found any treasures; there were lots of goodies around.
“Not a thing,” she said. “I wasted too much time trying to make a deal on a pickle castor, but the price was outrageous and I walked off in a huff. I can hardly keep my mind on what I’m doing. I’m going home.” She sounded angry. Her steps pounded along the gravel path. Her hair, a glossy mahogany helmet, shot forward at every step, then slipped back into its allotted place. Every hair on my head was jealous of its behavior.
“Don’t be silly, Natalie.” We pushed our carts along, Supercart rumbling a rich baritone, her smaller metal cart twittering timpani. “It will be daylight in a few minutes. You’ll get your bearings, and once you’ve bought that first trophy, you’ll feel better.”
“No,” she said, “I’m giving up and going home. The day’s hardly started but it already feels like a total loss.”
“Don’t go home, Natalie. If you’re down in the dumps, you’re better off here. You’ll see old friends, and you’ll get involved in this circus. It will be good for you.”
We didn’t see each other as often these days because our businesses are now at opposite ends of the state, but our friendship is still deeply felt. We missed the daily details of each other’s lives, but we picked up old conversations comfortably and somewhat regularly. I suspected her old scars were acting up. In the dim light her dark eyes glistened. I was afraid she might cry.
“I’m interviewing,” she said.
Well, I’ll be draped! This was Natalie’s code for saying she was dating.
When we met, Natalie, a fragile young widow with two small children, was still reeling from the loss of her husband. She had nevertheless created her odd little business. She plunged all of her energies into the business and the children, and they’d responded. Each had teetered precariously on occasion, but had adapted and developed. In the end, though the business and the children had changed, all thrived and grew.
Slowly but inevitably her healing took place. I like to believe I played a part in it. She mended and gathered strength, and her recovery progressed. I’m only half a dozen years older than Natalie, but I mothered her quite a lot. I sometimes sensed that her recovery was stalled, but I saw, too, that she was resilient and that she could work her way through the damage. It’s a fact of my life that the most interesting people have all had to work their way through the foulest damage.
She began to date. That was when I noticed that she had created her obscure code of euphemisms that I call Natalieze. I watched her “interviewing” with intense interest. I couldn’t wait to hear what she’d dream up to call a boyfriend once the interviews got serious. But I’d be waiting still, because things never got that far. Natalie dismissed all her suitors before they reached boyfriend status.
“Who’s the lucky fellow?” I gushed. “Do I know him?”
“Don’t get excited, Lucy. This may just be another bit of research.”
“I know, I know. So why don’t you stay here and shop around? You may find another pickle jar.”
“It’s a pickle castor, Lucy, sterling silver, with a mother-of-pearl insert. I’m sure it’s like the one I saw at the McGirr Museum a while back, so I don’t think there will be too many of them around.”
She was put out with me. I think she needed comforting, but I didn’t have time to comfort her just then. This early part of the hunt must be done quickly. The competition immediately following opening time is vigorous, and for good reason. The unusual stuff goes fast. You can wait years before seeing its likeness again. Could we meet later for coffee? She hesitated, then agreed. I thought I knew the cause of her jitters. I’d calm her later. She was just worked up about the d-a-t-e.
“Good,” I said. I was happy that she wouldn’t go home and fret, and only mildly guilty over my relief in not having to take the time to console her. “You’ll find something you like better, and you’ll make a killing on it.”
We hugged, said our good-byes, and I rushed off. More fields open on opening day than on all other days. Efforts to stagger the opening hours and monitor the selling hours are imperfect. Plenty of deals are made before the listed business hours, and I intended to make as many as I could.
I was flying. Supercart was holding up well. This was its sixteenth year of Brimfield. When filled, it has been the object of much eye rolling by onlookers. Made for me by my oldest son, Philip, when he was fifteen years old, it was built to be a repository in transit for my lovely treasures, and as I go along buying more and more goodies I can keep raising its sides and its supporting shelves higher, and wider, until it’s packed six feet high and about four feet wide.
I like Supercart so much because it makes me feel like Superman as I roll it around the fields. I used to be called petite, sometimes even tiny. That was okay. But over time I’ve acquired some age, and some mass, and now I’m more often called short. I don’t feel short, and I don’t like the term.
Each and every one of the twenty-seven definitions in my edition of Webster’s implies that “short” means not enough. I see Webster as a trifle dogmatic, but his work has caught on in our house, so it’s hard to argue with his decisions. With Supercart I feel that I’m showing the world that I’m more than enough. It’s perfectly balanced, has springs, and its nice fat wheels are nifty for kee
ping my stuff from getting jounced around on the rutted gravel paths and lumpy fields.
Its weathered wood has never been painted, if you don’t count the two blobs of bright red paint that I dabbed on one side when I was testing colors for my shutters at the Cape. Despite the fact that it looks, when full, as if I am wheeling a small storage shed around, it’s a dream to push. The pièce de résistance is the hinged counter that pulls down along one side, convenient for lunches, conferences, or writing checks or receipts.
Of all the conveyances, carts, and carriers you see at Brimfield, either handmade or commercially made— and there are plenty of both—Supercart permits the biggest loads to be carried with the least effort. The fact that people find it funny-looking when it’s full still bothers my son, Philip, but not me.
Philip takes everything seriously. He once told me that we live in a dysfunctional family. I think he meant crowded. He just married a woman he’s known for three weeks. Don’t get me started on the possibilities for dysfunction. They’re living with us.
The crowds, the disorder, and the confusion of Brimfield have never unnerved me. I find it more peaceful than the crowds, the disorder, and the confusion of home.
My next field keeps close tabs on its sellers. Now I wanted to shop in a place that hadn’t been cleaned out by someone like me. After all, I had just acquired the art pottery from a guy who was selling before his field opened.
A crowd had gathered at the gate, and though the formation of a line would have ensured them an evenhanded entrance, they jostled and jockeyed and formed an unruly mob instead. Through the judicious use of Supercart, I found myself at the front as the first scant rays of light touched the edge of the sky. It was five a.m. and dark turned to light. In less time than it took them to open the gate, it became daybreak. Brimfield had officially opened.
I abandoned Supercart as soon as I was inside the fence. I left it next to the gatekeeper, and I ran into the field, scanning each booth. I moved as fast as I was able, stopping only for the unique, the pristine, the exquisitely designed objects.
This early run is not when I look for special bargains, nor when I do heavy negotiating or dickering. That comes later, on the second run-through. Right now my purpose was to find, and buy, extraordinary antiques and premium collector’s items. If lucky, I might also find a museum-quality piece or two.
Each time my arms were full, I returned to Supercart and spent a minute packing the treasures I’d culled. I wasted no time; still, I couldn’t help but admire again a perfect Grueby paperweight, a Weller pitcher delicately painted with dew-drenched blackberries, and the signed Dresden lamp that had never been converted to electricity. These, and most of my harvest so far, are the quick turnover stuff in my shop. I arranged things and rolled on.
Some of my purchases had to be left behind. A China cabinet with a curved glass door and a chunky oak kitchen table were too large and too heavy for Supercart. If I continued accumulating treasures at this rate, I’d hire a mover to help me pack and move everything into my temporary storage nearby, in a friend’s barn.
I had no helper today. TJ, my latest and most unlikely Sherpa, was back at the Cape. He’d drive up to Brimfield twice this week, tomorrow and Friday. We’d load up a big rental truck, packing it tight for the trip back to the Cape. Then, on a quiet day next week, with Brimfield over, we’d return once again and empty the barn.
It wasn’t until I was once again gathering and safely repacking my booty in Supercart that I noticed the sound of sirens coming from the other side of Route 20. In fact, it dawned on me that the sirens had been there for some time, but I had been communing so perfectly with my greed that I had blocked nearly everything else out.
It was time to head for the van and unload. I wanted Supercart empty for the six o’clock opening. Three fields opened at six o’clock this morning, and I had found premium goods at each at one time or another.
But first I stopped at a truck that had been tantalizing me with its aromas. I decided to join the parking attendant for breakfast, and chose an exquisite pair of Italian sausage subs smothered with onions and peppers. An unusual offering for this hour of the morning, but the maître d’ had no trouble accommodating the crowd, many of whom had been working here since before midnight.
An animated crowd had gathered at the nearby coffee truck, and there was no mistaking its excited chatter for the usual buzz. Something big was happening. Since I suffer from terminal nosiness, I moved toward a fellow whose histrionics had attracted a crowd of listeners.
“The guy was murdered,” he said. “At the back of that field.” He was pointing in the direction of a field across Route 20, slightly south of us.
Several others joined the crowd, and he turned to face us. His gestures became even more exaggerated as he attempted to dramatize a struggle that included strangling himself until his eyes bulged. Then, in a hoarse whisper, he delivered his trump line. “He was strangled with a piece of lace.”
“Lace?”
I was dumbfounded. Few places felt safer than Brimfield. There have been some flare-ups through the years, but no real violence.
The leading man seemed to have exhausted himself and his information. A woman nearby pulled a mahogany Regency chair out of her cart. She offered it to him. He sat down, breathed deeply, and some color came back into his face.
Meanwhile, bits of information trickled through the gathering.
“He was found at daybreak,” someone put in.
And then I heard who it was. My God, Monty Rondo. I felt the breath get knocked right out of me, and I must have teetered, because the woman with the Regency chair said, “Do you need a chair, too? I only have the one, but I think this fellow has recovered.”
3
Monty Rondo. Dead. I stood, gaping. The two huge sausage and pepper sandwiches trembled in my hands. This can’t be. Monty murdered. The jolt was too terrible to absorb. What should I do?
What I did do is try to deal with the sandwiches. I made a nest for them in Supercart’s cache. My hands shook as I tucked paper around them, and I made a pretty good mess of the job. I pushed Supercart to the parking lot, and all of a sudden it weighed a thousand pounds.
I stopped and leaned against it.
“Was he a friend of yours?”
It was the parking attendant. Word of the murder had spread, and the kid seemed to realize that I was shaken.
Was Monty my friend? I hadn’t thought about it. He’d been part of my life for fifteen years. We’d done business together. We’d come to know each other, know about each other. I’d looked forward to his offbeat chatter, to the prizes he’d picked for me. He was more than just a business connection.
“Yes,” I said. I just hadn’t realized it before.
“So what happened?” he asked.
“Someone strangled him with lace.”
The kid looked at me, eyes wide, mouth a perfect circle. “Lace? You mean, like, a tablecloth?”
“More like a strip of lace. It could have come from a tablecloth, maybe the edge of an old tablecloth, I suppose.”
“But wouldn’t an old piece of lace fall apart when you pulled on it?”
“Old lace looks fragile, and with some kinds you can pull one thread and have it unravel, but a strip of lace itself is as sturdy as a rope, even after it’s been laundered and bleached for years.”
He assimilated that information, and I handed him both sandwiches, apologizing for forgetting the coffee, but he stopped me.
“I’ll help you load your stuff into the van, and you can tell me about it. I’ll get coffee later.”
I nodded. The kid—he called himself Coylie—moved my things out of Supercart, and I arranged them in the van. I told him about Monty.
The first thing you noticed about Monty was his voice. His thundering voice. “Even when you couldn’t see him, his booming voice announced his arrival,” I said. He talked nonstop, and at full volume. “He had stories for every situation.”
The kid no
dded; I think he listened the way my kids sometimes listen. Nodding and saying “uh-huh” occasionally. But I went on anyway. “He could be so irritating, you could strangle the guy sometimes.” I stopped, realizing what I had said. The kid looked up and smiled. Just as well if he wasn’t paying too much attention.
When Supercart was empty we closed the van. Coylie slid his cap off and fanned his face with it. He ran the other hand through a mass of orange ringlets that sprang to life and caught the sunlight. He motioned me toward the lawn chairs he had set up at the entrance of the parking lot. There, he picked up both sandwiches and held one out for me. I shook my head but sat down in the other lawn chair. While Coylie ate, I babbled on; I couldn’t help myself.
“He was very kind to me when I was starting out,” I said.
“So why’d someone want to kill the guy?” Coylie asked as he started on a sandwich.
“He could be a nuisance sometimes,” I said. “He never knew when to stop. He had no sense of what was playful teasing and what was a pain in the neck.”
“You think someone’d kill him for that?” Coylie asked.
“No, it was probably his cash. There’s a lot of cash around here today.”
“Not in my pocket,” he said. Then he nodded and started the second sandwich. He checked his watch and reminded me that I wanted to be at a six o’clock opening. I pulled myself to my feet and headed toward Route 20. It would be good to keep busy. I rolled my empty cart in that direction.
In spite of his colorful ways, or perhaps because of them, I had enjoyed Monty’s company. He had acquired a partner of sorts, called Silent Billy. The man was as quiet as Monty was noisy. Monty was highspirited, traveling in his own uproar. Silent Billy was devoted to him. I met Monty shortly after I opened my first little antiques shop in Worcester.