Saturday morning, Anna woke up nice and early; she never did sleep much. She roamed lazily around her apartment in her pajamas for a little while before deciding to fix herself a nice, hot cup of tea with lots of sugar in it – just the way she liked it. As she poured in the last spoonful, she took a sip and sighed contentedly. Perfect. She continued to drink her tea as she padded over to her front door. She had one of those mail slots, just like in those old black and white movies she loved to watch. It still made her smile to look at that. Her very own door slot – it made her feel like she was in one of those romantic films herself.
As she bent down and picked the mail up off of the plush, dark green carpet, Anna was reminded yet again of the two main disadvantages to having a slot in your door for the mail. First, she had to bend down and pick it up off of the floor. Second, since it all fell onto the carpet instead of being placed carefully into a nice, neat little box, it had a tendency to scatter all over the place. No matter. She quickly brushed these thoughts aside, as she did every day. She liked the romance of her mail slot and didn’t want to think about what a pain it could be.
She took the small pile with her back to the kitchen, leafing through it as she went. Bills, bills, bills. All bills – rent, electric, storage... Annoying, but Anna wasn’t actually disappointed; it’s what she’d been expecting, really. All she ever got were bills. She had only made friends recently, and she hadn’t told any of them her address. The only people who actually knew where she lived were the people who sent her bills.
Anna knew it had been nearing the end of the month, but she had been pushing the thought out of her mind. Now, she had the bills in her hand and no money in her bank account. At least, not much. Certainly not enough to cover what she owed. She sighed. Looks like she’d have to do what she always did – find something to sell. But it was such a hassle!
Anna ambled around her apartment, mug still firmly in hand, taking stock of what she owned. The apartment was a small, one-bedroom unit complete with living room and kitchen. The living room was the biggest part of the house, and the front door actually opened directly into it.
On the left was a short hallway, which dead-ended at a small linen closet. On each wall of this tiny hall was a door. The door on the left led to a small, almost hotel-sized bathroom. The other door led to Anna’s bedroom.
Anna walked into the bedroom, surveying the furniture she saw. Her bed was a beautiful Colonial-style four-poster made of wood so dark it was almost black, complete with a canopy. The two posts at the head of the bed framed a blue and green landscape painting, and all four posts had been carved into spirals. Both the headboard and the footboard were supported by small, beautifully ornate spindles. Anna smiled. She loved that bed; she’d had it since she was a child and selling it wasn’t an option. So she turned towards the two dressers sitting side-by-side on the wall opposite the closet.
The one on the left was made of a light wood and had been purchased by Anna in 1892. The other one had been purchased, oddly enough, almost exactly one hundred years later – 1989, Anna believed. The new dresser was the one Anna used to keep all of the clothes she still wore. The other one used its top four drawers to keep clothes that were at least eighty years old; the bottom drawer was where Anna kept all the papers and receipts for each piece of furniture she owned.
These three pieces of furniture, along with a small nightstand, made up all of the furniture in this room. Anna shook her head slightly to herself. Every piece in here was functional – she wouldn’t be able to sell any of these without causing herself some major inconveniences. She decided to look at the living room and dining room instead.
Unlike Anna’s bedroom, the small living room was crammed with furniture. She had a couple of antique wingback chairs on either side of a couch she’d bought in the mid-1970s. A coffee table sat in front of the couch, and on the other side of the room was a rather large chest with a television set on top of it. Crammed into the corner was a small table with two tea chairs. The room really was too crowded, and she made a note of this. Something in this room, at least, would have to go – probably the table and chairs. The chairs had thin, spindly legs that weren’t really good for sitting on, anyway.
On the right side of the living room was an archway leading into the kitchen and dining room area. Really, it was just a small kitchen with a counter running along two sides of the room, and just enough space at the near end for Anna to set up a table. It wasn’t really a dining room, but Anna liked to think of it as one. And since there was no one to argue with her, she did.
She had wandered slowly around the apartment, refreshing herself on what she had. Her furniture was a strange mix of the relatively new and the very old sitting side-by-side. Her closet was the same way; it was packed with clothing that ranged from things she had bought two weeks ago to things she had gotten almost two centuries ago.
Almost two hundred years ago, the money Anna had taken from her house as she fled her hometown that night had started to run out. She hadn’t had much, but she had been very careful with what she did have, knowing that it would have to last her for a long, long time. She had managed to stretch it out for almost seventy-five years this way. But, her family had not been all that wealthy, and she hadn’t gotten the lavish amount that an immortal would need to live on.
Fortunately for Anna, just as her funds were starting to run out, she’d hit upon a simple, yet brilliant idea: she would sell antiques. It was really a natural career choice for someone like her, once she’d thought about it. All she would have to do was buy furniture – or anything else she saw fit – keep it, and then sell it years later as she needed.
It turned out that this plan was a little more complicated than she’d originally anticipated. The most difficult part was picking out things, not by how popular they were at the time, but by how popular they were going to be in the future. Fortunately, Anna discovered she had a knack for this kind of thing, and she was almost never wrong. She’d also learned to keep any receipts and certificates of authenticity she may have had, just in case.
As Anna toured her own apartment, her kitchen table was the thing that really caught her eye. It was a deep, dark mahogany table with ornate designs carved beautifully on both the legs and the edges of the tabletop itself. Amazingly, the whole table seemed to be made out of a single piece of wood. Anna had never seen anything like it before, and she knew when she first laid eyes on it all those years ago that she just had to have it. She bought it in 1815, and it was the second-oldest piece of furniture in her apartment, after her bed. It had been an impulse buy that she’d only barely been able to afford, but she knew that one day it would make her a lot of money. And today, it seemed, was that day.
Anna finally set her mug down on the counter before walking back into her bedroom. She walked over to the antique dresser, and pulled open the bottom drawer. She leafed through stacks of papers for a few minutes, until she found what she was looking for: the manila folder with all of her documentation on the kitchen table, and the one containing the information on the table and chairs set. She laid the folders on the bed, and then started to look through the top drawers of the dresser.
The top drawers were where Anna kept all of her old clothes. Most of them were women’s clothes dating back almost one hundred and fifty years, but there were also men’s and children’s clothing there that she’d purchased from time to time. Carefully, she took out an armful of dresses along with two or three men’s shirts. She folded them gently into a large cardboard box, filling it to the top. After placing the folders she’d taken out on top of the clothes, Anna then carried the box back to the kitchen and set everything on the corner of the counter.
In a drawer in the kitchen was a Polaroid camera that Anna had bought about twenty years ago. She took several pictures of the table, highlighting the engraving done on it. Then, she walked back into the living room to take photographs of the chairs and table. Onc
e the pictures developed, she tucked each into their respective folders and set the folders back in the box.
One of the reasons Anna had picked this particular apartment was because it was only a few blocks away from a very reputable antiques shop. And since she’d never bothered to learn how to drive, it was important for her to be able to walk there. Anna checked her watch – 7:45. Perfect. By the time she got dressed and walked down there, the shop should be open. So, after a quick change of clothes, Anna grabbed the box and headed out the door.
You Were What You Eat Page 7