Killer WASPs

by Amy Korman

  Soon, the suburbs on either side of Route 76 blurred into just-­planted cornfields and hillsides laced with grazing sheep and horses. I looked over at Waffles, who was sitting bolt upright and staring bug-­eyed out the window in rapture at the fields and animals all around him. Waffles was given to me two years ago, by a longtime customer of The Striped Awning who raises basset hounds, when he was a nine-­pound, nine-­week-­old puppy. His ecstatic reaction to every person he meets is contagious—­Waffles is the most joyful creature on earth. So while he’d love to chase sheep around on a farm, his good looks and schmoozing ability are perfectly suited to retail. While he can’t describe the provenance of a table, he’s the ultimate sales associate (and the only one I can afford). I cranked down the windows and cranked up the Doobie Brothers, feeling upbeat, zooming past beautiful old white farmhouses and classic red barns, with colorful hex signs placed high over the barn doors to ward off any evildoers. “Sanderson could use one of those,” I told Waffles.

  Then, when we exited the highway, we did something not very Amish: We got gas at the Sunoco near Route 100, and pulled into the McDonald’s drive-­through, the last sign of civilization before everything goes totally Harrison Ford in Witness out here (if you can call McDonald’s a sign of civilization). Waffles loves Egg McMuffins, so we ordered two, and as we ate and drove, I daydreamed about Harrison in carpenter mode during the barn raising, and the scene when he almost has a romp in the hay with the gorgeous Amish Kelly McGillis. This propelled me toward thoughts of Mike Woodford, so I gunned the car to the flea market before I got too distracted by his stubble-­chinned charms.

  Just down Route 100 is Stoltzfus’s, one of the oldest markets in the area, owned by a collection of Pennsylvania Dutch farmers–turned–weekend antiques dealers. After passing a cow field (which, conjured up Mike Woodford again, darn), I pulled into the crowded gravel parking lot, snapped on Waffles’s leash, and checked my bra. All was good. Money in place, things looking a little more bodacious than usual, so we headed for the indoor-­outdoor market.

  Stoltzfus’s covers fifteen acres in all, and on sunny days like today, fifty-­plus vendors sell wares ranging from 1950s bedroom sets to dolls to Spode china from long wooden tables on a grass-­covered field just inside its gates. There’s an outdoor snack counter selling Amish foods like bratwurst (I’ve never tried it, but to be honest, it smells pretty good), and inside a massive old barn are the more established dealers who sell here all year round.

  Another awesome thing about Stoltzfus’s, and I really don’t have the words to describe how cool this is, is that there’s a beer stand in the middle of the barn that opens at 6 a.m. It comes from a fantastic micro-­brewery down the road, and they sell cold, frothy pilsner in the middle of the flea market. The Stoltzfus beer is exceptionally good, but it was only 10:30 a.m., so I decided to skip it and shop.

  Waffles gave me Sad Eyes as we got out of the truck, then made a crazed run for the bratwurst stand, so I took a left at the barn to divert him, and stopped at a stall where a rickety-­looking guy aged about ninety was selling a pair of very pretty crystal sconces that were perfect for an entrance hallway or dining room. They were just the kind of thing that I like for The Striped Awning, but the vendor wanted two hundred and fifty dollars, and though he looked like an ancient plucked chicken, he was a tough bird when it came to negotiating.

  “No fucking way,” he rasped, which I thought was a little rude, when I suggested seventy-­five bucks as a more reasonable price. He wouldn’t come down more than twenty, so I headed toward the middle of the field, passing tables of old books (not to be negative, but I’m not really sure I believed that copy of Gone with the Wind belonged to Vivien Leigh), and glassware (okay, old Coke bottles can be valuable, but these looked like they came out of the soda machine inside the barn earlier today), and a dealer who purported to be selling mirror-­topped café tables from the original incarnation of Studio 54. Waffles and I wandered around for another thirty minutes before heading to the back field, where my favorite dealers, Annie and Jenny, are usually stationed.

  Annie and Jenny are two Californians who travel to antiques shows and sales all over the country, and purvey silver and tabletop items that always include some serious deals. I’ve scored silver creamers (ten dollars!) and candlesticks (four dollars each!) from them before. Once, I got a beautiful footed tea tray (twenty dollars) that I sold for two hundred dollars in the shop, which sounds like highway robbery, but was so beautiful that it really merited the huge mark-­up. Today Annie and Jenny, draped in their usual flowing peasant dresses circa 1973, looked very mellow and relaxed behind a table full of pretty antique serving pieces.

  “Hey, Waffles,” said Annie, bending down and reaching her arms around his big belly to give him a hug as he thumped his tail happily.

  Annie and Jenny spend winters in a teepee outside San Francisco, and rent a tiny cottage near Stoltzfus’s in the summer, when they’re not making road trips. They’re incredibly sweet. They had the Grateful Dead wailing away on a boom box, and had thoughtfully provided a plate of snacks on their table for anyone passing by to enjoy. A small square of paper next to the plate announced that these were homemade carrot-­quinoa-­gingersnaps.

  “Cookie?” asked Jenny, gesturing toward the plate.

  Gosh. I didn’t want to be impolite, but the cookies looked terrible. They were dry, crunchy-­looking, brown disks with flecks of carrot poking out. “Cruelty-­Free!” read the little sign. “Made with Love, but Without Any Flour, Sugar, or Butter.”

  “Thanks, I just ate,” I told Jenny. “But I’m sure they’re delicious.”

  Annie handed one to Waffles, and he chowed down happily. They were so dry, though, he had trouble swallowing. He chewed and gulped for a few minutes, then finally got the lump of carrot and quinoa down his throat. He wagged, looking relieved.

  “Yum!” I said to the women, on Waffles’s behalf.

  While chatting with the vendors, I scooped up a dozen old silver serving spoons and forks with intricate, delicate patterns, and found another great old tray from the 1950s, all of which came to sixty dollars. Annie and Jenny had some furniture today, too, including a petite dark elm-­wood bench that had a curvy Art Deco shape, which I loved and was only seventy dollars, so I told them I’d take that, too.

  “Hey Kristin, you might like these bookends,” said Jenny, who was over by their van, holding up a silver object. Jenny’s hair—­which probably hadn’t been cut in twenty years—­flowed down her back, with some little braids in front keeping it off her face. She wore no makeup except for some glittery lip gloss and two silver stars painted on each cheek. She once told me she does this creative kind of face painting because the stars draw in mystical powers, send them straight through her chakras, then shoot them back out to the world. Anyway, Jenny was holding what looked like a large acorn-­shaped bookend, maybe eight inches high and five inches wide, with a lot of intricate detail and a light patina of age over its silver-­plated surface.

  “We’ve got three of these, which I know is kind of an odd number for bookends, but you know how it is in this business. Nothing ever makes sense,” Jenny said cheerfully, as if her chakra stars did make sense. “They were made for a school in Bryn Mawr. Isn’t that where your store is?”

  “Yes, that’s where I live, and where the store is! Really, they’re from Bryn Mawr?” I answered, surprised, as she handed me one of the bookends.

  The acorn-­shaped object was much heavier than I’d have thought at first glance—­it must have weighed nearly ten pounds—­and ornate, with the acorn figure set on a solid square base. The wide part of the acorn was designed in a crisscross pattern, with the narrow end coming to a pointed tip. The object was fantastic, I thought, solid enough to give off a masculine vibe and to sit in a library or office, but pretty enough to appeal to a female buyer. Given the weight of the acorn, I knew that underneath the silver plate, the piece was made of cast iron, according it a pleasing heft.

 
; “I love them! And I can sell them as a single item, so it’s fine that you don’t have two pairs,” I said, inspecting the base, thinking that someone would surely buy a single one to put on a mantel or desk. Or all three could be used on a shelf, with various books between them.

  The acorn’s base was marked underneath with the stamp of Farrow & Summers, longtime Philadelphia silversmiths. Inscribed above the insignia were the words, “From this acorn grows a mighty oak: Bryn Mawr Preparatory School,” in a bold, elegant typeface that matched the classic style of the bookend. This lettering was old and worn, but very legible.

  “This is such a coincidence, Jenny,” I exclaimed. “I went to Bryn Mawr Prep. My whole family went there, and so did my best friends Holly, Joe, and Bootsie.” It’s an extremely expensive, competitive school these days, but when I attended, it had been basically a collection of old buildings out in the countryside, where ancient teachers vainly tried to drill Latin into our heads, and boys played on the golf team instead of trying out for football. Nowadays, thanks to some mega-­donations over the past decade, the Prep has a new gym, a high-­tech science building, and a glossy Olympic-­size pool, and the teenage girls there are almost as chic as Holly. Even Holly hadn’t been as chic as Holly when she was in high school.

  I turned the bookend around in my hands, inspecting the marks on it more closely. I wondered if the bookends were sold or given to alumni as a keepsake. They definitely weren’t gifting them to graduates when Holly and I had finished school fifteen years ago.

  Whatever the case, they were perfect for The Striped Awning. I could see the Sophie Shieldses of the worlds loving these tangible pieces of old Main Line history. To top it off, Farrow & Summers had gone out of business in the late 1960s, so the acorns had an even rarer pedigree than I’d imagined at first glance.

  “I’d love to take them,” I mused aloud, squinting in the sunlight at the acorn. Annie brought out the other two bookends, which were carefully swaddled in newspaper, and unfurled the wrapping so I could see them. They were both a bit tarnished, but in nice condition, like the first one, and had the same inscription. “Where’d you find them?” I asked.

  “I can’t remember,” mused Jenny. “Could have been that market down on South Street in Philly?” I knew this antiques dumping ground, which was so dark and dank that even Waffles and I tend to avoid it. “Or was it a church sale somewhere around here, or the festival in Massachusetts back in April . . . I’m drawing a blank,” she admitted, eyes closed above her starry cheeks, lost in thought. “Then again, I’ve been smoking a lot of weed lately.”

  “You can have them for fifteen dollars each,” said Annie. “We got them for ten, so it’s not much of a markup, but you’re on the frequent-­customer discount.” She smiled at me, lighting an American Spirit cigarette and sipping what looked like a cup of wheatgrass juice. At least I think it was an American Spirit. “Great!” I said, starting to help rewrap the acorns gratefully.

  Just then, Waffles, seeing that I was distracted, sprang up on his back legs and tipped over the plate of cruelty-­free cookies, hoovering all of them up off the grass and into his mouth in one motion. It all happened in a brown-­and-­white blur of ears, paws, and freckled brown-­and-­white basset ass.

  “No!” I screamed at him. Annie and Jenny both thought it was funny, luckily. Waffles sat there, trying to look guilty and tilting up his head to give us Sad Eyes as he worked the giant mass of quinoa in his jaws. I could tell he didn’t give a crap, though. He was just happy he’d gotten the cookies, so they must have been good after all.

  “I didn’t know he was that hungry,” I said, apologizing, as we wrapped up my purchases, and Annie helped me carry the silver items and the bench over to my car, Waffles trotting along behind happily, still chewing. “He already had an Egg McMuffin. I guess I should’ve gotten him a bratwurst.”

  “He’s an animal!” agreed Annie equably. “Very in tune with his desires. Hey, that can be very Zen and honest.”

  Just as I popped open the trunk and stashed the bookends, a big white truck pulled up to a few spaces down from me. On its side was scrolled, elegant black lettering that read simply “Colkett.”

  “Bye, Annie!” I said hastily, eyeing the truck with naked curiosity as Annie ambled back to her table, waving farewell. What were the most upscale florists/landscape designers in Philadelphia doing schlepping it at Stoltzfus’s?

  Of course, that the Colketts might find things here that were useful in their floral business was possible. There were some pretty vases and planters at one stand, and great old wrought-­iron and wicker pieces at another that they could paint and restore, which might come in handy for clients, but frankly, the Colketts seemed too fancy for flea-­marketing. The one time I convinced Holly to come here with me, she took one look at an toothless dealer stationed near the parking lot, said she was “scared,” got back into the car, and refused to get out again until we were back in Bryn Mawr.

  I watched the two florists hop nimbly out of their truck and head inside the roomy barn, then trailed after them as inconspicuously as I could, given that I was accompanied by an oversize basset hound. I wasn’t sure Waffles was allowed in the indoor part of the flea market, but I decided to risk it. ­People in Lancaster County tend to be pretty dog-­friendly.

  Inside the barn, the Colketts stopped briefly at a vendor who had some lovely Limoges china, bought a teapot painted with delicate roses, and then went right to the beer stand. They each got a twenty-­ounce pilsner and went to one of the benches, carefully dusting off the seat with napkins before they sat down.

  Now, this was shocking. The Colketts drinking beer? I didn’t see that one coming.

  I wasn’t sure why, but I felt compelled to talk to them, like I was possessed by the inquisitive spirit of Bootsie. Since they were now working for Sophie Shields, I might learn something of interest about Sophie or her husband. So Waffles and I made our way to the bar, and after I ordered a small Summer Ale, I looked over and smiled.

  “Hi! Didn’t I meet you at Gianni’s opening the other night?” I asked them. “You did those beautiful topiaries and flowers.” I didn’t mention anything about having watched Gianni rip into them and assault them, as I didn’t think this was a good topic to stimulate sparkling conversation.

  “Oh, hi, doll,” said one of the Colketts, who was turned out in a handsome light yellow checked sport coat. He looked ready for the paddock at Ascot, but was a bit overdressed for Stoltzfus’s. He shook my hand politely, and introduced himself as Tom Colkett. “Cute dog,” he added as he noticed Waffles, though in truth he looked semi-­horrified at the chubby mutt before him. “This is Tim Colkett,” he added, gesturing to the man next to him, and I greeted the other Colkett, who was clearly the one Gianni had nailed with the pomegranate; his ear was still red and swollen, and there was a bandage just under his scalp. “We were just visiting our greenhouses out here, they’re a few miles down Route 100,” Tim explained.

  “You’re friends with Holly Jones, right?” he added. “We’ve done work for her and her ex! Remember the Yellow Non-­Valentine Valentine’s Day Party?”

  I did remember. It had been in Holly’s old penthouse downtown when Holly had decided that pink and red were “over” for Valentine’s Day, and had her entire apartment draped in pale yellow silk for a dinner party for seventy-­five ­people. Every table had had towering vases filled with lemons topped with towering lemon-­tree branches, and there had been something like four thousand votive candles on the terrace and no electric lights. It had been actually a very beautiful party.

  “That was fab!” I told them.

  “That was us!” said Tom proudly. “And let me tell you, trying to get four hundred live lemon branches to Philadelphia in February is no cakewalk!”

  “Isn’t this beer delicious?” said the other Colkett, as Waffles hovered near him, sniffing his handmade suede shoes. I realized I still had no idea what the relationship was between the men. They was a resemblance between
them, but were they brothers?

  “Sorry!” I said, yanking Waffles back over toward me and trying to surreptitiously remove some drool from his whiskers with a beer-­garden napkin. “The beer is great,” I agreed. We chatted about Holly’s new Divorce House for a few minutes—­the Colketts would be landscaping it to resemble the grounds of Holly’s favorite hotel in Italy. “We give divorce discounts!” said Tom Colkett. “And for Holly, we’d do anything. She’s so fabulously impractical.”

  The Colketts were clearly in a talkative mood, so I mustered my inner Bootsie and pressed on. I’m usually a failure at producing tasty morsels of gossip, which irks Bootsie. She’d grill me mercilessly once she heard I’d run into the Colketts, so I desperately threw out what I hoped was a conversation opener. “Did you ever work out your fee with the chef?” I asked. “He, er, seemed a little mercurial the night at his party,” I added lamely.

  “We’re dealing with Jessica, his girlfriend, on the flowers for the restaurant now,” explained Tom Colkett. “She’s a lot more reasonable than Gianni. Not that he’s unreasonable,” he added nervously, backtracking. “Just, um, temperamental. Talented beyond belief, though.”

  “A genius with pasta. And his veal chops are even better,” agreed Tim, rubbing his red ear agitatedly.

  “But his temper is kind of deranged, don’t you think?” I felt a little buzzed from the Summer Ale so early in the day, which made me blunter than I’d usually be. I didn’t want to annoy the Colketts, but maybe they knew more about Gianni and Barclay’s feud, having been around the restaurant a lot. In what I hoped was a casual tone, I added, “Did you ever hear about his disagreement with Barclay Shields? I mean, a lot of ­people hate Barclay Shields, but he and the chef really loathe each other.”

  Both Colketts looked alarmed, drained their beers, and got up, dusting off their jackets. They looked at each other, and finally Tim Colkett spoke.