by Vicki Vass
“You are CC, right?” Tony asked again.
“Yes, yes. Hi, Tony,” CC stammered. She reached into her Trader Joe’s bag and pulled out the brass bell that sparkled in the midday sun.
Tony jumped off the boat and took the bell from her hands, looking it over, smiling. “Yes, it’s perfect. Great job, CC,” he said, holding onto the bell.
“Is this your boat?” she asked.
“No, I’m just restoring it,” he said. “The bell’s for my boat which is docked in New Buffalo. That’s where my marine shop is.”
New Buffalo; that’s what he was doing there, CC thought to herself, nodding.
Tony stopped and took a closer look at her. “Have we met before?”
“Not that I recall,” CC said.
“Do you want to see the boat?” he asked.
“Sure.” CC nodded.
“Careful; the planks are a little wobbly,” Tony said, putting his hands around her waist, lifting her up and twirling her onto the boat. She felt like Beryl Grey dancing Swan Lake at age 15. “I’ve been regrouting the deck. Mahogany breathes really well, but with all the shifting, the grout becomes loose. This has been a three-month project so far,” Tony said, showing her around the boat.
She recognized one of the tools she’d seen in the white pickup truck. “What’s that for?” she asked, pointing at one of the irons.
“That’s used to clear out the old grout between the mahogany planks.”
“You do everything by hand?”
“That’s really the best way to restore one of these old wooden boats. The craftsmanship is remarkable. All these planks were hand sawn and perfectly matched. You can see the slight bow which is normal in any plank. The bow is even throughout all the planks. Each piece was specially chosen so it would line up perfectly,” Tony explained, pointing at the deck of the boat.
“It’s beautiful work. I can see why it would take so long to regrout and refinish it,” CC said.
“Yes; you need to treat these yachts with respect. Each one has a personality. You can feel it in the wood when you touch it.”
CC smiled. She understood how Tony felt. She appreciated craftsmanship too. She’d spent her whole life admiring skilled steelworkers and metal cutters. She understood what it meant to build something with your hands. She could see the passion in his eyes when he spoke about the boat. The same passion she hoped she exuded when she spoke about steel.
“I’ve bored you. I’ve talked too long, haven’t I?” Tony asked.
“No, no; it’s quite interesting. Do you know how you can tell it’s African mahogany versus Honduran?” CC asked.
He shrugged.
“African mahogany tends to have more ribbon striping.”
“I never knew that.”
“Yes, that’s why it’s more expensive, because it’s more difficult to match,” CC explained.
“I really appreciate you finding the bell and bringing it down here. How can I thank you?” While he was speaking, his hands danced and the sun reflected off his wedding band.
“You can start by paying me,” CC said, her tone suddenly more businesslike than friendly.
“Of course.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a check. “Sure I can’t buy you lunch? You’re missing your lunch hour because of me.”
“No, that’s okay. I have a lot to do at the office. It was nice meeting you. Thanks for the tour.” She turned quickly and headed down the gangplank. When she got to the bottom, she promised herself that she wouldn’t turn around to see the man from the train again. This time she kept her promise.
She walked along the lakefront. It was a beautiful day. The seagulls danced overhead. The lake was very calm. The Chicago skyline was a glistening backdrop. She’d spent many nights dreaming about meeting the man on the train someday. About what that would be like. About what he would be like. And now she knew. She found herself walking out onto the horseshoe, as it was known. The horseshoe was a long cement pier curving partially back towards shore. It was lunchtime and fisherman were out trying their best to catch some lake perch. She strolled along, peeking in buckets to see who’d caught what. She walked to the end of the pier and sat on the edge, looking down at the 10-foot drop and the lake water crashing into the cement pillars. She stared across the lake and wondered if her double was sitting on another pier staring back at her. What was that CC like? Had she just met her man on the train? Was she turning 40 and alone? What would her life have been like if she hadn’t married the wrong man at the wrong time? What would her life have been like if she hadn’t thrown herself into her work and made it the most important thing in her life?
CC leaned back on her elbows and looked up at the powder blue sky. The air was sweet, fresh and cool. She could hear a radio turned to the Cubs’ game. There was something about listening to baseball on the radio. Much better than watching it on TV. The mind always paints better pictures than the eyes, she thought.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sassy was nipping at her heels; breakfast was late. Anne stumbled out of bed, fed her and then sank into her favorite chair. She switched on Meet the Press, her favorite show. She pulled the tarnished silver spoon out of her purse and held it in her hand. She got up, walked to the sink and pulled out a soft cloth. She might as well clean the spoon while catching up on her Sunday morning news shows.
She admired the ornate scrollwork on the spoon handle. It reflected a more elegant and genteel time. As she scrubbed, she noticed an interesting mark on the back of the spoon. She couldn’t quite make it out. This would require a trip to CC’s house, but first––the pants. She went into her closet where the pants were dangling from a silk hanger. Taking them off the hanger, she held them for a moment, admiring the craftsmanship. Then, she slid them on, reveling in the feel of the silky material against her legs.
She then went to grab her car keys. It seemed like her keys always had legs; they were never where they should be. She moved the stack of National Geographics from the 1950s, but they weren’t under them. She inspected the stack of silk scarves she kept in a woven Longaberger basket, but they weren’t there. After ten minutes of searching the usual hiding places, she opened the front door to go see if she’d left them in the car, and that’s when she found them dangling from the keyhole.
Driving as fast as she could, she raced to CC’s house in her Mercury Mystique.
Wearing a large straw gardening hat, CC was in her backyard, weeding her vegetable garden. Along with tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce, CC grew peppers––not just ordinary peppers––but jalapeno, ghost peppers and, her new favorite, Carolina Reaper peppers. Tasty but extremely hot. The hotter the better for CC. She took the hottest of the peppers along with assorted herbs and spices from her garden and made her own seasonings. CC looked up, startled when she heard a hello coming from over the large wooden fence. Bandit barked excitedly. “Quiet, down, Bandit; it’s just Anne. You know Annie.”
Bandit apologized by rubbing his head against Anne’s leg. Anne ran her hands through the dog’s soft fur.
“Hi, Anne, I wasn’t expecting you.” CC pulled off her gardening gloves and put her trowel on the patio table.
“I was so excited about what I found, I had to show you! I had to run over right away to use your computer,” Anne spat out breathlessly, flopping herself into one of CC’s lawn chairs.
“What did you find? I don’t recall you talking about shopping today.” CC looked her friend over. “I see you’re wearing the pants.”
Anne stood up and did a quick turn. “Pretty good fit, don’t you think?”
“Yes, they do fit,” CC said. She was not a fan of loud and bright colors, but such colors constituted Anne’s wardrobe.
“It’s like they were made for me. Anyway. . .” Anne pulled the spoon out of her large orange Prada bag. She had wrapped it very carefully in a white cotton handkerchief. She handed it to CC. “Look at the mark on the back. In all my years of collecting spoons, I’ve never seen a mark like tha
t before!”
“Interesting.” CC turned the spoon over in her hand. “Looks like the letter P.”
“Can we use your computer and look it up?”
“Sure.” They walked into the house and sat in front of CC’s 23-inch iMac. Opening the search engine, CC typed silver marks into the search field. Immediately, images of silver marks came up. Anne leaned closer over CC’s shoulder to see the results.
CC scrolled through the long list of images and compared them to the one on the back of the spoon, which she was still holding. “I’m not seeing it. Nothing looks like the mark on this spoon.”
“Me neither.” Anne released a large sigh. “I don’t even know where to start looking from here.”
“I don’t either,” said CC. “Maybe at the auction house when they have their free appraisals?”
“I don’t want to sell it!” Anne grabbed the spoon back from CC.
CC stood up from the computer. “I’ll make us some tea and we can figure out where to go from here.”
CC’s house was in direct contrast to Anne’s cluttered bungalow. It was neat, organized and efficient, as was CC–– thanks to her German upbringing. She came back to the living room with a Rogers’ silver service that she’d picked up at an estate sale, a bargain for only $25. Anne took a sugar cube from the bowl with the silver tongs, thought about it and then took two more. CC watched with a disapproving eye. She was not a fan of excess of any kind.
“So, we know what the spoon isn’t. Now we have to figure out what it is. That should narrow it down a little. The problem is getting a clearer view of the mark.”
“I wonder if I could use my microscope at work,” Anne said.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Usually Anne wasn’t very excited to go to work but on Monday she was early for the first time in many years. She couldn’t examine the spoon first thing because there was actual work to do. Throughout the day, she kept looking at her purse, the spoon calling out to her. She just had to make it to lunch and then she could start her investigation. When the clock ticked noon, she ran to her purse. The rest of the chemists and lab technicians were either at lunch or in the cafeteria. Anne stayed behind. Placing the spoon under the microscope she could zoom in on the mark. However, the mark was too worn to even make out under the microscope.
She sent CC a quick text to tell her she couldn’t make out the mark. CC was on deadline and probably wouldn’t be checking her phone regularly. Perhaps she could find the answer in a book. Anne stopped on her way home at her favorite used bookstore. She still liked the weight and feel of paper versus the cold click of a computer keyboard. For someone who’d worked in technology all day, she rarely used it after hours. She hated the inhumanity of it. Besides, she loved walking up and down the aisles.
By the time she got home, Sassy was furious. It was an hour and half past dinnertime. This was unacceptable. Sassy relayed her feelings to Anne by not doing her usual purr and wrap around her ankles. Sassy would teach her a lesson.
“Sorry, Sass, I know I’m running a little late.” Dropping her bagful of books, Anne bent down to pet the Persian who was oblivious until the can opener sounded. Then all that was wrong was right.
Anne made herself a turkey wrap and grabbed a diet ginger ale. Before settling into her favorite chair by the fireplace, she stopped to admire the stained glass fire screen she’d picked up on one of her excursions. It was difficult for her to hold her attention on the glass when so many things were calling to her from around the room. Strengthening her resolve, she opened one of her new old books. She had a lot of research to do. At 9:03 p.m., her phone rang. It was CC. She’d finally received Anne’s text and was anxious to hear more about the spoon.
“I stopped at Secondhand Books, and bought every book I could on silversmithing,” Anne said.
“Why didn’t you just go to the library?”
“I can’t use my library card. I owe them money.” Anne paused. “Oh, I forgot to tell you what happened when we were at the Highland Park sale.”
“Is it about the pants?” CC asked.
“No, though those pants are fantastic.” Anne paused again. “I overheard a conversation between Mr. Ripley and some man named Banning about Tim Whitmore’s nephew being upset about a spoon.”
“Do you think they’re talking about your spoon?”
“There were several silver settings for sale there––in much better condition than mine. I can’t imagine he would be upset about an old tarnished teaspoon that doesn’t even belong to a set.”
“Are you going to contact Mr. Ripley?”
“No, it’s mine now. I paid for it, and I’m keeping it.”
“If what you’re saying is true, the only one who seems to know anything about the spoon is Whitmore’s nephew,” CC said. “Don’t you think he has a right to know what happened to it?”
Anne struggled. It was a moral dilemma of biblical proportions. On one hand, she’d paid fair and square; on the other hand, she supposed he did have a right to know where it had ended up. Besides, he might have more of his uncle’s antiques which hadn’t been sold at the estate sale, and Anne was never opposed to taking a road trip for antiques. Dilemma solved. “Okay, CC.”
CC went to her iMac and Googled Tim Whitmore. It brought up his obituary. “It says here he was originally from Moreland, Illinois,” she read to Anne.
Anne interrupted, “Where’s Moreland?”
“Let me finish,” CC continued reading, “He is survived by his nephew Jared Whitmore. There’s no phone number or address for Jared. Let me look up Moreland.”
She Googled Moreland. “Anne, Moreland is off of Route 125 downstate. That’s where the Lincoln Yard Sale is Fourth of July weekend. We’ve talked for years about going to that sale.” CC Googled Lincoln Homestead Yard Sale and found a website that detailed the route of the weekend-long sale, which extended from various areas where Lincoln had settled before he became president. “We could wind up in Springfield for the fair.”
Road trip! Anne’s eyes lit up. Normally, Anne wasn’t a large fan of garage sales. She felt they were mostly used to offload baby toys and clothes that nobody would ever wear. But maybe this sale would be different.
They made arrangements to leave early in the morning. After hanging up from Anne, CC went to the Chicago Tribune website. There she saw her picture––front and center with Anne and the pants! CC skimmed the article and at the bottom saw the link to her blog, “Oh, good; they put our blog site on there.” She clicked over to her blog and saw there had now been over 12,000 views. New comments were noted at 2,200. She ran downstairs and grabbed the bottle of Asti she’d been saving. She skipped back into the living room with Bandit skipping around her. “Booboo Bear, this is good, very, very good!” She popped open the sparkling wine and drank it right from the bottle. Bandit took care of everything that spilled on the oak floor.
She sat down to scroll through the comments. Many were from readers sharing their own experiences with antiques, but the majority were from people looking for stuff. She grabbed her reporter’s notebook from her bag and added the new items to her list. She probably should start cataloging them by type such as household, tools, and games. Maybe she and Anne could find some things this weekend during their road trip.
Chapter Twenty-Five
They took the car less likely to break down––CC’s red Pontiac Grand Am. In the passenger seat, Anne played navigator and was guiding them according to the turn-by-turn directions on Google maps. She couldn’t stand the robotic voice so she preferred to read along as they drove. She leaned back for a long ride as the suburban landscape gave way to rows and rows of early summer corn. While the upper third of Illinois was urban, this part of central Illinois was all farmland and native prairie.
“Hey, CC,” Anne said as she looked through an Illinois guidebook of unusual sights. “It says here this guy in Gilman created a rock garden to memorialize his wife. We should stop. It says visitors are welcome. A rock garden
could be neat. . .”
CC interrupted her, “Anne, we’re barely going to get there as it is. Plus, I think Gilman is completely in the other direction.”
Anne sighed. She relished every chance to get out of her suburban comfort zone. She liked visiting far away places. She never knew what treasures awaited her there. “There’s an Amish enclave in Arthur,” she read.
“Anne,” CC said, frustrated. CC was more pragmatic and liked to focus on the task at hand.
They drove along. About 30 miles outside of Springfield, they started seeing signs for the “Lincoln Yard Sale,” the second longest yard sale in the Midwest. The thought of miles and miles of bargains was almost too much for Anne to stand. Fifteen miles outside of Springfield, traffic slowed down; five miles out of Springfield it was at a dead stop. They bypassed Springfield proper and headed down the back roads.
“I think the real finds are off the beaten path,” Anne said.
CC pulled her vintage Ray Ban Wayfarers down to the tip of her nose and looked over the top as the overhung oaks, elms and maples made a canopy of shade. There was something romantic about back roads. CC thought about Tony. She hadn’t allowed herself that pleasure since seeing his wedding ring the other day, but she thought how nice it would be to be traveling a back road like this one with him.
“Stop!” Anne screamed.
CC slammed on the brakes. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Look!” she said, pointing at the first house which popped up through the poplars. It was a well-worn farmhouse set back from the road; the yard was covered with long tables. From her perch on the passenger seat, Anne couldn’t see what was on the tables but she knew she had to look. CC pulled over halfway into the drainage ditch on the side of the road.
The girls exited the car, Anne moving quicker than CC.
There were hand-drawn colorful cardboard signs with Abraham Lincoln’s picture and Yard Sale written all over them. The first table was littered with piles and piles of clothes––ranging from children’s to adult sizes, many still bearing Wal-Mart tags. They nodded hello to the harried-looking woman sitting on a lawn chair wearing her Wal-Mart best. A battle was being waged between the woman and the chair. For now, she was winning, but the chair was crying uncle.