Objects of My Affection

by Jill Smolinski

  I manage to keep the phone to my ear. There’s more hushed talking … I can’t make out who is saying what, but then Ash says, “Talk to you later. Um …”—a long pause, throat clearing, then a reluctant, mumbled “See ya. Bye.”

  I missed it. Ash called me and I missed it. When the realization hits, I want to cry, but I’m already crying, so maybe I want to throw up.

  I’m dialing Dr. Paul back as I veer over two lanes so I can take the first exit ramp. There’s a chance it’s not too late. The call couldn’t have come that long ago.

  The receptionist transfers me to Dr. Paul’s office, where I get his voice mail. I hang up and try back. “Can you page him?” I plead. “He just called … well, I don’t know if just, but he tried to call me and—”

  “Hold on,” she says. Again the beep, beep, beep tone. By the time she comes back on the phone, I’m parked at a gas station, gnawing on my fingernails.

  “He’s in session. It looks like he’s booked up the rest of the day. You want his voice mail?”

  “Sure,” I say dully. “Thank you.” I blew it—I missed my son’s call. Crushed, I leave a message for Dr. Paul, telling him if Ash is willing to talk to me, he can call anytime. Day or night.

  I hang up, but I’m not ready to go anywhere yet. I head inside the store and buy an ICEE. Brain freeze sounds pretty tempting about now. Mascara streaks my face, my eyes are red-rimmed, but the cashier doesn’t appear to notice. This is a convenience store—I’m guessing he’s seen it all.

  When I get back to the car, I call my mom. She answers on the second ring.

  Sure, she picks up. That’s what mothers are supposed to do.

  “Mom … ?” My voice comes out as a whimper.

  “Oh, no, what’s wrong?”

  As soon as I hear the concern in her voice, the waterworks start again. “Ash finally called, only I missed it. I didn’t hear the phone ringing and I missed it.”

  “I’m sorry. But he’ll call back.”

  “I’m so mad I wasn’t there.”

  Halfway across the country, I can feel her helplessness. “Sweetie, I wish I knew what to say.”

  But she doesn’t have to say a word. It’s selfish of me, but I feel better that on her end of the phone, she’s aching because I’m aching. She’d probably been having a perfectly pleasant morning, and now she’s sucked down into the depths with me. I keep her on the line while I cry, and I’m not sorry about it. Sometimes a girl just needs to unload her stuff on someone.

  I manage to repair my makeup—again—but there’s no hiding that my tongue is stained blue from the ICEE (plus refill) I downed while sitting in the gas station, playing Ash’s message over and over.

  Will’s car is already in the driveway when I pull up. I feel a surge of panic, but I remind myself I’m not late—he’s early. No need to apologize. There’s an easy—I check my watch—three minutes before our scheduled meeting.

  He’s in the kitchen talking on his cell phone when I walk in. The housekeeper, Mei-Hua—who has not yet spoken one word to me—is attempting to scrub the kitchen sink, moving piles out of her way to do so. I give them a quick nod of greeting and then go directly to Marva’s office to start hiding evidence of her identity.

  “Don’t bother, I already did it.” Will followed me and is leaning against the doorframe, BlackBerry pasted to his ear, but it’s clear he’s talking to me, and not to whoever is on the other end. “It was my understanding you were going to—”

  “Family emergency,” I say. “I’ll look upstairs.”

  “Did it.”

  “Did you get the—”

  He shuts his phone off impatiently and pockets it. “It’s done. Look, I expected this to be handled. Jameson Smithson believes he’s scoping out the collection of a software millionaire, for whom I am a financial adviser. I intend to keep it that way.”

  “No problem.”

  “I don’t want a soul knowing how my mother lives.”

  “Well I know,” I say, figuring a bit of perspective might be in order. “And there’s Niko, and his crew, and Mei-Hua, and yet none of us would ever—”

  He waves off my words as if they’re gnats. “I’m talking about people who matter. People in art circles. And the media. It would destroy everything I’ve worked so hard to build.”

  The doorbell trills, which is lucky because I’m about ready to smack Will. People who matter. Please.

  We head through the living room and Will opens the door—which, I note with pride, used to be much harder to do because of all the stuff that was blocking it.

  A petite man in a sailor-inspired ensemble holding a clipboard in one hand extends the other to Will. “Jameson Smithson—but everybody calls me Smitty!”

  Will shakes his hand and then introduces me with a quick tip of his head and a “This is Lucy.” Will’s face has that pinched look it gets. This time I’m guessing he’s bracing himself. It has to be tough ushering people through your mother’s filth, even if you’re pretending it has nothing to do with you.

  “Splendid old house, this!” Smitty says as he enters. We’re forced to stand in a line since there’s no room to gather as a group. I’m picking up on Will’s stress and am peering around him to gauge Smitty’s reaction to the mess. It’s not easy to tell. While his voice is boisterous, he’s clearly no stranger to Botox—not a wrinkle or crease or sign of life on his face. I start to wonder where Will dug this guy up … literally. He’s practically embalmed.

  “And look around me here! It’s a veritable treasure hunt!”

  That’s one way to put it.

  “I’d like to just walk you through today,” Will says. “Get a feel from you how much of this you’ll be taking to auction or on consignment. Lucy here is in charge of selling anything else at an off-site yard sale.”

  “Tremendous!” Smitty says. “I’m eager to get a peek at the collection. You mentioned there’s quite a leaning toward neo-Expressionism?”

  “There are several pieces in that genre, yes.” Hearing a reference to his mother’s style of painting must be hitting too close to home—Will looks positively pained. I almost feel sorry for him.

  “Any Ensor? Munch?”

  “How about we get started and you can see for yourself,” Will says.

  He seems at a loss for a moment, so I say, “Let’s start upstairs. Then work our way back to the office.”

  “Yes, right,” he says. “Follow me.”

  As we make our way through the rooms, Smitty mostly mmm-hmms, taking notes on his clipboard. “Eclectic mix …,” he says, holding a vase upside down, I assume to look for a signature. “What did you say this fellow does?”

  “Software,” Will says.

  “Really?” Smitty looks skeptical—how many software tycoons collect women’s Easter bonnets?

  I pipe in, “I believe he inherited a bunch of stuff … from a relative.”

  “Nutty auntie, eh?” Smitty says.

  Will goes puce.

  I quickly change the topic. “How about those chairs over there?” I point to two white chairs that seem chichi in a retro sort of way.

  Smitty wrinkles his nose. “Yard sale.”

  “Oh, okay.” I thought they looked cool—must’ve hung around Daniel too long. He would probably have loved them.

  Will excuses himself to make phone calls, and I stay with Smitty. After about fifteen minutes he says, “Not as much of value here as I’d been led to believe.”

  “The higher-end merchandise is on the main floor. But you’ll be taking everything but yard-sale items, right? So antiques and collectibles and—”

  “Shall we see what’s downstairs then?”

  “I want to be clear. You do handle more than fine art, right?”

  “Hmm?” he says, already heading down the stairs.

  I follow him, annoyed that he’s ignoring my question. He’s trotting through the house as if he owns the place, giving a friendly wave to Will—still on his phone—as he passes him in the kitchen. />
  “Aaah,” Smitty says when we step into Marva’s office. “Here we go.” He’s scribbling furiously now—poking and turning and touching. “Quite a few Meier Rios’s here. I don’t suppose he has Woman, Freshly Tossed?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “That I’d be thrilled to handle. Is this the last room?”

  “One more.” I take him to the theater room. “Here you’ll see she … er … he has quite the collection of movie memorabilia.”

  Another nose wrinkle. “There’s not the market for this sort of thing as there used to be. You’re better off selling this at your yard sale.”

  I stare at him, incredulous. “Some of this is worth thousands! I’d never get anything close to that at a yard sale. People are so cheap at those things.”

  Not only that, but Marva would never allow that to happen. She’s not going to let go of, say, her genuine James Bond golden prop gun if she thinks some eight-year-old is going to pay $5 so he can play cops and robbers with it.

  Smitty crosses over to her shelf and picks up a drumstick signed by Ringo Starr in the manner one might a dead worm. “Why people feel the need to assign so much value to this sort of rubbish is beyond me. I enjoy the Rolling Stones as much as the next person, but do I need a stick with one of their signatures on it to remember their music?”

  “Beatles,” I mumble.

  “Pardon?”

  “Nothing. Will you excuse me for a second?”

  “Certainly—I’ll head back to that last room. I’d like to get a better look-see.”

  I scurry and find Will in the kitchen, texting. “Will, we have a problem,” I say in a low voice.

  He lifts his gaze from the phone to me.

  “Smitty doesn’t know who Ringo Starr is.”

  “Come now, that’s not such a problem.” Will opens his eyes wide in exaggeration. “As long as he’s familiar with that dreamy Paul McCartney, we’ll be fine.”

  “No, I mean, he has no clue about movies or pop culture or anything like that. He’s only a fine-arts guy. He’s not going to handle the collectibles. He insists there’s no money in them.”

  “He’d know.”

  “But they are worth money. I can organize these things, but I don’t claim to be an expert as far as pricing them.”

  Will goes back to texting. “So you figure it out. I’m not bringing anyone new on to this project. It’s already out of hand.”

  “Marva is never going to let go of things that are precious to her if they’re going to a yard sale.” I harken back to the conversation I had with her, about how Will would practically give away her valuables if it worked out in his favor. This is exactly what she feared most.

  “Then don’t tell her—let her believe it’s going up for auction. It’s not as if she’ll be stopping by the sale.”

  “You want me to lie to your mother?”

  “If that’s what it takes to get the job done, then yes.”

  My jaw drops open.

  Will squints at me in disgust. “What’s with your tongue?”

  By the time I get home, the book club is over and Heather and Hank are in the kitchen. She’s wiping the counters and he’s digging into leftover cake. “Sorry I missed it. Did you get my message? We ended up going to dinner,” I say, which is a test-run for the lying I’ll soon be doing. Actually, Smitty left soon after I talked to Will. I waited around for Nelson to bring Marva back from her doctor’s appointment, then I put in a couple hours of work. It was better than coming back here. After the day I had, I couldn’t face those women.

  “You didn’t miss anything,” Heather says. “We barely talked about the book. And Eleanor McCabe drank too much wine and tried to get a conversation going about if you had to sleep with someone’s husband in the book club, who would it be.”

  “Everyone chose me, naturally,” Hank says.

  “Naturally,” I say. “Who did you choose, Heather?”

  “I left to make a pot of coffee.”

  “Once you’ve had this sort of perfection,” Hank says, patting his chest and sucking in his stomach, “the idea of anything less is almost vulgar.”

  Heather tosses the cloth in the sink. “How did your meeting go?”

  “Fine, although it looks like I’m going to be in charge of more than I thought. The art expert was far too snooty to handle collectibles.”

  “Collectibles … like Beanie Babies?” Heather says.

  “More like pop art, and tons of movie memorabilia. And I haven’t the faintest idea what’s of value.”

  “You know who knows everything about movies and could—” Hank stops himself. “Never mind.”

  You can’t say Hank doesn’t learn.

  “You mean Daniel,” I say, mentioning the name he knew better than to bring up. “I’m not that desperate.”

  “Although he certainly owes you,” Heather says. “You should give him a call. He could go to that woman’s house and give you advice. It’s the least he could do.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll bet there’s all kinds of information online,” I say, not telling Heather how tempting her idea sounds.

  chapter seven

  As many as fifteen million people, or one in twenty, may be affected by hoarding.

  —Organize Me! website

  I’m deep into that dream I often have where my teeth fall out, so when I hear the noise, it confuses me.

  What is—my alarm clock? No, wait. My alarm is more of a bzzzz. This is … ugh … what is that wet—? Abigail. She’s climbed down onto the blow-up mattress with me and is drooling onto my clavicle. I ease her off and use the blanket to dry myself. The noise persists. Bow, bow, wow, chicka bow wow. It sounds like the music in bad eighties porn movies. It’s vaguely familiar—not that I’ve watched a lot of porn—yet I can’t quite … hmm …

  What time is it? Except for the glow of a night-light, it’s pitch-dark. And where—?

  Finally, my muddled brain wraps around that I’m hearing my ringtone. My phone is ringing. My phone—

  I jolt awake as if I’ve beer-bonged twenty cups of coffee.

  Ash! It must be him!

  By the time I scramble out of bed and reach my phone, which is charging on Abigail’s dresser, the ringing has stopped. MISSED CALL shows on my screen.

  When I flip the phone open to return the call, I see it’s a local number. One I don’t recognize.

  It wasn’t Ash—of course it isn’t him. Why would he call in the middle of the night? Probably a wrong number.

  As disappointed as I am, my body remains keyed up, as if it hasn’t gotten the message yet from my brain.

  The clock on my phone shows 2:24. The phone rings again in my hand.

  Not wanting to wake Abigail, I answer in a whisper, “Hello?”

  “What color is yard sale? I can’t seem to find those little tags. I believe you took them when you went off in that snit last week.”

  “Marva?”

  “I have a stack of quilts here I’m ready to designate for the yard sale, but I don’t want you people getting it wrong and throwing them away. And where are the trash bags?”

  “It’s two o’clock in the morning. And it was not a snit.”

  “Two o’clock already? Time certainly flies,” she says, ignoring the rest of what I’d said. “I’d like to start on my papers. Do you know how to work this shredder? I can’t seem to get it to turn on.”

  “I … uh … hold on.”

  I feel my way down the hall to the bathroom, where I close the door before turning on the light. “Marva, it’s the middle of the night.”

  “Yes,” she says agreeably. “I find that’s when I do my best work.”

  “I was sleeping.”

  “Then you’re missing out on a lovely evening. Did you see that moon? Huge!” I’m struggling to find the words to express to her how inappropriate it is to call me like this when she adds, “You’ll be pleased to learn that the duck statue is gone. I didn’t care for the way it was staring at me from the shado
ws.”

  Interesting. Middle-of-the-night Marva seems to be more willing to let go than daytime Marva. And friendlier, too. It occurs to me: Here I am, awake. Why not go take advantage of the situation?

  “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  When I get there, she’s in her office. She’s standing, hand on her chin, studying an Impressionist painting that is propped against a bookshelf. It feels strange—Marva and I are almost never entirely alone. Between Niko and his crew, the housekeeper, Nelson, and even Will’s occasional pop-ins, it always felt as if I were reporting in to a workplace. This has the hushed intimacy of intruding on someone’s home in the wee hours, which it basically is.

  “That’s pretty. Is it for the auction?” I say, pulling out the bag of supplies I took home the other day.

  “This painting? Lord, no. It’s atrocious. I don’t even want it in the yard sale. I’d be afraid someone might buy it and hang it in their home.”

  “If it’s so awful, why do you have it?”

  “The frame. It’s quite rare. I believe I paid ten thousand for it way back when.”

  See, this is why I could never do this job behind Marva’s back. I’d have kept the painting and tossed the frame. It’s a gold, ornate monstrosity that looks as if it belongs in a whorehouse.

  By the time Marva calls the next night, I’m not so jumpy. Dr. Paul and I have already spoken. Ash and I are scheduled for a phone call during his next session, which to my frustration is a week away. So when the phone rings, I don’t have any false hopes. I know exactly who it is.

  The next two middle-of-the-night summonses, however, start to take their toll.

  “Why don’t you say no? Or not pick up?” Niko asks. He stopped by the bungalow to say hello Saturday morning, only to find me half-asleep on the couch. When he teased me about being a slacker, I’d filled him in on my midnight trysts with Marva.

  “It’s hard to resist.” I’m sitting on the couch, curled up in one of the quilts Marva set aside for the yard sale. “She’s so much more cooperative at night. And nicer.”

  “That’s not saying much.”

  “I want to bring this job in on time. If that means that I lose beauty sleep, so be it.”