Driving With the Top Down

by Beth Harbison

  “Yup, she’s a huge sports buff, apparently. Never know it looking at her, right?”

  No, never. Not the five-foot-eight waif with Gisele Bündchen legs and Kate Hudson hair. Or maybe that’s just how Colleen was remembering her. She was definitely pretty, though, and definitely didn’t look like she’d be into sports. Even though it was inaccurate, she would rather picture some hardened woman who looked like she could take a punch as being the “sports type.”

  “No,” she said, trying again to sound light and like this news didn’t change how she felt about the trip. “Yeah, she definitely doesn’t strike me as that. So what are you guys doing tonight?”

  “I think the kids are going to hang out in the rooms, and the rest of us are going to watch the game at the hotel bar. They’ve got Old Bay wings and Dogfish Head on tap here.”

  “Sixty Minute?”

  “Yup.”

  “Your favorite, that’s very cool.”

  So they’d all be getting drunk together. With Kelly. Probably a bunch of guys, and her as the only woman. They’d joke and tease her, and they’d all probably flirt with her and she’d play it up like she didn’t notice this crowd of husbands was ogling her.

  Not that Kevin was that guy.

  Ugh, that would probably make it even worse. He’d probably be the only one not after her, so by virtue of that, she’d probably like him the best.

  Colleen squeezed the bridge of her nose. She had to get out of her head. Stop thinking so much. She let her imagination run wild with this sort of thing. It probably didn’t help that she couldn’t remember the last time she and Kevin had just hung out. That was one of the problems with marriage.

  When you were dating, there was always that certain level of pretending to like the things your boyfriend did. Colleen could easily recall sitting at a bar and hanging out with him and drinking beer. Ordering the same beer as he did, even though she didn’t like it, just in an effort to seem easy-breezy. Watching football—God, those games lasted an age—which she understood but didn’t care about, and reacting when everyone else did while trying not to come off like the poseur she was.

  Then you got married or got comfortable, and you didn’t have to fake it on that stuff anymore. So your interests split off, and suddenly you weren’t spending that time together. Then some hot thang like Kelly came along and filled in that “fun girlfriend” role. And worse, she genuinely liked whatever it was.

  Colleen shook the thoughts from her head. “Well, that sounds like fun, babe! I’m really glad you guys are having a good time.”

  She wasn’t sure now what she envied more. That Kevin and Jay had this thing to bond over in a father–son way, or if she wished she were the one bonding with Kevin again.

  “It’s fun. Okay, sweetie, I gotta run—we’ve got a private tour of the Hall of Fame museum here.”

  “Okay, I’ll text you later.”

  “Okay. Love you.” It was a perfunctory statement. Made every time they hung up the phone. Did he mean it?

  “Love you too.”

  * * *

  THE AUCTION IN Glidmore, South Carolina, was—thankfully—better than Colleen had anticipated. Conscious of the possibility of coming back with virtually nothing if she didn’t focus and use her imagination and bargain-hunting skills, she decided again that it wasn’t her problem if Tamara and Bitty were bored; she was going to do what she’d come to do.

  The first thing she bought was a box of old rusted horseshoes for a dollar. She felt Tamara’s questioning eyes on her and added “judgment” to the mental list of things she was going to ignore. With a little paint, a little glitter, some glue, feathers, rhinestones, whatever she could think of, blinged-out horseshoes sold really well in the shop. She couldn’t even say she didn’t understand it, because a couple of them had turned out so well that she’d hung them up and not sold them. They were pretty. Unique. A rusted horseshoe over a door, well, that was commonplace. Everyone had seen that before. But a pale pastel horseshoe, that familiar shape, embellished with rhinestones, pretty paint, and—on one occasion you’d have to see to believe—feathers, it took the traditional and made it girlie, and people went nuts for that.

  Who didn’t want luck?

  And who wouldn’t prefer it pretty?

  Actually, that was the kind of thing maybe Tamara could do—the painting and decorating. Colleen caught herself at the thought. She only had Tamara for another week—she wasn’t going to be around to do art projects or shop things, she’d be going back home.

  Still, Colleen could tell her about it so maybe she’d take the initiative to come up with her own projects and do something productive instead of smoking those damn cigarettes she always reeked of.

  Colleen hadn’t said anything, she didn’t want to be the nasty old aunt wagging a finger and telling Tamara she was “bad”—but, jeez, the cigarette habit was not only nasty and led to wrinkles and yellow teeth, but how on earth could she afford it? Cigarettes cost a fortune these days!

  But after the auction, the opportunity came up.

  “What are you going to do with all those horseshoes?” Tamara asked. Skepticism clear in her voice.

  “Paint them. Make them glittery. BeDazzled. Basically turn them into art. Are you up to that?”

  “What, making horseshoes into art?”

  “Yup.”

  “Me?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not in this business, I don’t know how to do that. Like, at all.”

  “Did you ever paint pottery as a kid?” Colleen thought this was a given—didn’t every kid go to a pottery shop to make some ghastly MOM platter that their mother had to display from embarrassment right on through to extreme melancholy?

  “No? …” Tamara looked blank.

  “What about school art projects that you brought home?”

  “What, like those turkeys made out of our hand outlines?”

  Colleen hesitated. It was a pretty rudimentary definition of art, but it would do. “Sure.”

  “Once.”

  “Okay.” Irritation suddenly took over. “If you can get inspired and make those horseshoes into beautiful decorations, you’re hired. If you can’t, forget it, have another cigarette.”

  Tamara looked wounded for one fleeting moment. “I don’t smoke that much.”

  Colleen had no patience for it. “Any is too much. But I can’t stop you.” She shrugged. “Do what you want.”

  Uncertainty flitted through Tamara’s expression. “So, these horseshoes. You just want them decorated?”

  The triumph was so small that Colleen could barely claim it as hers, even to herself. “I want them beautiful. And I can do that, but it takes time. If you can do it, I’ll pay you. But not to just do a slipshod job, to do a really good job. Let me know if you’re interested.”

  “Okay,” Tamara agreed. “I’ll think about it.”

  And they left it at that, even though privately Colleen thought it was a really good offer for pay and to nurture her creativity.

  A few more lots came up, including an old box of Christmas music books, which Colleen got for three bucks. A little bit of glue and some German glass glitter, and those pages could become beautiful decorations that would go like mad during the holiday season.

  She was also psyched to notice there was a music box in the bottom of the crate. The label on the bottom said it would play a variety of songs from The Sound of Music, but when she cranked the key, it buzzed and rattled and played a few discordant notes of “My Favorite Things.” It was disappointing, but not a huge loss, since she’d gotten what she intended to get with the sheet music. The music box would just have been a nice bonus.

  But that, she had discovered a long time ago, was how life was: Sometimes a little glow in the road ahead gave you hope for a moment but turned out to be a mirage. And sometimes that mirage was pretty enough to keep you going just a little bit longer.

  * * *

  THE NEXT DAY, they hit another auctio
n, and this one was the shizzle. Truly. After she registered and started to look at the merchandise up for auction, Colleen couldn’t believe her luck.

  She was particularly gratified to look around at the unsophisticated-looking rubes who were there to bid against her. There was no telling—there was never any telling—but she had that feeling deep in her bones that today might be a very profitable day.

  They brought up a salvaged window eave, everything but the glass, that was said to be from a historic Charleston hotel that had been torn down a decade or so previously.

  “Oh my God, imagine that with a mirror where the window was,” Colleen said to Bitty.

  “The bidding is starting at four hundred dollars,” Bitty countered. “How much would you have to sell it for to make it worth it?”

  “Well, any profit is profit—”

  “Hauling it home, refurbishing it?”

  “I could make a decent profit if I sold it for six-fifty,” Colleen said, assessing the piece, which was easily five feet tall and almost that wide. “But I’d price it at eleven hundred initially, and odds are pretty good that I’d get it.”

  Bitty turned the corners of her mouth down and nodded. “Impressive for a single piece.”

  “That’s my aim.”

  Bitty smiled. “You always were an entrepreneur. I was only a shopper. Let’s hope this works.”

  Colleen felt a little irritation with the implied negativity. This was what she’d been doing for ten years now. More if you counted the time she had a stall at the local tag sale. She’d built her customer clientele, built her reputation, built everything to become a self-made, self-employed woman. She couldn’t afford to just “hope” things went well—even though that’s exactly what this whole trip had become, thanks to a bad couple of years—and she sure didn’t like others treating her business as if it were some hopeful whim.

  But what could she say? If she whipped Bitty down with all that, she’d just be the jerk who’d attacked an old friend. She’d never prove anything, because the proof was, as they say, in the pudding, and Bitty was probably never going to see the pudding. She was just along for the ride for a short time.

  “I do,” Colleen said, in simple answer. “I do hope it works.”

  And it did. The bidding on the window frame was unenthusiastic and she got it for two hundred dollars. She also got a dusty 1940s dresser mirror, a double bedframe that was more than one hundred years old, and a miscellaneous handful of tchotchkes she’d inspect later.

  “I know the saying about one man’s trash,” Bitty said, picking up a dingy brass powder compact, “but sometimes one man’s trash is another man’s trash, you know?”

  “I know my business, Bitty,” Colleen warned.

  “And I don’t, admittedly. So educate me.” Bitty held up the compact. “How would you sell this to me?”

  “Well—” Colleen took it from her gently and held it up. “—do you see the insignia on it?”

  “I see that there’s some lump of something there.”

  “Look more closely. Do you see what it is?”

  Bitty examined it dubiously. “Some sort of … I don’t know. An anchor or something?”

  “It’s the eagle, globe, and anchor for the U.S. Marine Corps. But the compact, as you can see”—she held it up again—“is shaped like a heart. So this World War Two item was used by”—she opened it up to show the half-used powder and puff still in place—“some girl probably waiting for her boyfriend or husband to come back from the front lines.”

  Bitty furrowed her brow. “Okay?”

  “The fact that it’s been used, obviously more than a few times, says that it meant something to someone, wouldn’t you say?” Colleen held it up a third time. “I mean, how often do you dig this deep into any of your makeup? We just buy new stuff all the time, right?”

  “That’s true.”

  “But this was special to someone. And then it went unused. At some point she used it for the last time and didn’t use it again. Why?”

  “I don’t know.” Bitty looked anxious. “We can’t know.”

  “Right,” Colleen agreed. “We’ll never know. Except that there is this irreplaceable trinket, which I will polish to new on the outside and leave exactly intact on the inside, because so many people prefer the original content. And somewhere out there is a woman, maybe a current marine girlfriend or wife or maybe a marine herself, for whom this will spark the imagination and inspiration, and she’ll want it and pick up on the history of some other woman from long ago.”

  Bitty had the dreamy look of one getting a massage.

  Colleen couldn’t tell her that so many of these romantic stories came to her because she’d never really had a romance of her own. She’d never admitted, even to Bitty, that she’d been Kevin’s second choice. That the unexpected shift in circumstances that had led to their marriage might be the only thing still holding them together in Kevin’s heart. She didn’t know. She was so afraid to ask. So she carried on like the dutiful wife, did her best, and every time she felt she failed, it was magnified ten times by the underlying idea that she was never really supposed to be there in the first place.

  But she wasn’t going to admit that to anyone.

  So instead she laughed. “See what every day is like for me? I opened the shop because I kept buying everything I saw that I could make up a story for. It was out of hand. Kevin finally suggested it might be better for me to make a profit than to crunch through all of our savings.”

  “He was always financially clever, that Kevin.”

  “Isn’t he, though?”

  “So do you make a good profit at the shop?”

  Colleen tipped her hand side to side. “It’s okay. Some years are better than others. I haven’t been very inspired this past year, so it’s been a loss. That’s what I’m hoping to rectify now. I need to find great stuff on this trip, or I’m afraid I might have to—” She gave an exaggerated shudder. “—get a real job.”

  “Well, now that I know what you’re looking for, I can help. For instance, I saw an old, beat-up clarinet over there.” She gestured toward some lots that were coming up next.

  “Beat up?”

  “Yeah, I mean, I’m sure it’s not playable, but, you know—” She shrugged. “—you could do something else with it.”

  Colleen considered, then raised an eyebrow at Bitty. “Like what?” She glanced at the auctioneer as a new box of stuff was brought up.

  “I don’t know, maybe … maybe wire it and make it into a mantel lamp or something?” Bitty suddenly looked uncertain. “Is that stupid?”

  “No! That is so cool! I love that idea! Which lot is it in?”

  “I’ll go look.” Bitty ran off, sneaking up to the upcoming lots with a look of secret delight on her face.

  Colleen could have waited for them to bring it up and describe it, of course, but with Bitty finally being positive about something, she wanted to keep the mood going.

  It wasn’t that she wanted to convert Tamara and Bitty into replicas of her, going gaga over antiques and painting and all that; it’s just that there was something for everyone in this world, and if getting them busy and out of their heads was going to help, then she was going to try to do it.

  “That one,” Bitty said, pointing to a red milk crate that was probably three lots down from the current one. There was one of those old push toys for toddlers that made a popping sound when pushed. That was probably worth something too, but Colleen wasn’t in the thrift store business. Usually she just took what she wanted from a lot and left the rest where anyone could help themselves. Plenty of people like her were here, eager to scarf up a deal.

  Colleen waited as the auctioneer went through the other things for a few minutes, and she could feel Bitty’s growing excitement. It was funny, really. Finally, the lot came up, and after several minutes of fierce bidding with a man who probably wanted the outdoor electrical extension cord, she won the lot for five dollars.

  Bitty was
delighted. “Score!” She put her hand up for a high five.

  Colleen hit it, then asked, “Where’s Tamara?”

  “Last I saw, she was going outside. I think she was probably having a cigarette.” Bitty shook her head ruefully.

  “I hate that.”

  “Me too.”

  “Glad I didn’t do it past seventeen.”

  “Me too.”

  Colleen went outside, and after a few minutes that stretched into a few panicked minutes—Had Tamara been abducted? Had she gotten so bored, she decided to hitchhike out of here? Was she passed out somewhere on some sort of drugs Colleen didn’t realize she was taking?—she saw Tamara in the shade of a tree, stubbing out a cigarette that was long since extinguished and looking as if she’d been crying.

  “Tam?”

  The girl looked up, startled. “Oh! Sorry! I was just … On a call. Or trying to make a call. No answer.” Quietly she added, “As usual.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Just trying to check in with my dad. It seemed—” She shrugged. “—like something I should do.”

  “He knows you’re safe with me. If he’s in a business meeting, maybe he can’t be interrupted.”

  “Yeah. I guess.” Tamara flicked the cigarette butt away.

  Colleen looked at the cigarette butt, then back at Tamara. “So I must say this in my duty as your aunt—you know that gives you wrinkles, brown teeth, and unwanted facial hair, don’t you?”

  “Unwanted facial hair?”

  Colleen crossed her heart. “True story.”

  “Okay, well, it’s out now.”

  “I wish you knew how important it is to stop now before it’s a lifelong habit.”

  “No offense, Aunt Colleen,” she hadn’t said “Aunt” in a couple of days, so this was the equivalent of a parent calling a child by first, middle, and last name, “but I’ve got enough shit going on that I don’t need more of it. I’m sorry, but—” She closed her eyes tight and shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

  Colleen knew when not to poke a bear, and this was definitely not a time to poke the bear. She didn’t like the smoking or the disrespect, but it was really clear this outburst was about something very different, and Tamara had no one to talk to. Maybe if Colleen could ride it out, Tamara would realize she could talk to her.