She pointed to the Waterford bowl that Sarah carried. “Tommy, I think you should take this one. How about fifty? Don’t be cheap now!” She waved her hammer back and forth between two bidders.
“Fifty, now fifty, now seventy-five, thank you, how about eighty, eighty? I sold it at seventy-five! Bidder number 43, you are a lucky man!”
Now that she had her sea legs, she blazed through the smalls and was on to the bigger items, her cheeks flushed, and her patter smoother and more rapid fire. A smoking stand was first, a pair of end tables, then the grandfather clock, which sold for a good price, a train set, and now the set of wooden golf clubs, which sparked a huge bidding war. Once the bids started going above three hundred dollars, I kicked Joe gently in the ankle, but it was like calling a dog that was chasing a cat and had lost the ability to hear its owner. Finally it got too rich even for his blood, and the set eventually sold for well over five hundred. If Betty was giving Patsy a percentage of the commission, she was in the money tonight.
Next up was a vintage Sew-O-Matic child’s toy sewing machine in the original box. I snapped to attention. You had to be on point to get what you wanted.
“Come on, folks, don’t pass it up, do I hear ten?”
I waved my card. There was a short skirmish between me and another woman at the end of the next row, until I bid twenty-five dollars and she backed out.
“Going to let it go for twenty-five,” Patsy called. “Here we go, sold to bidder 21!”
She grinned at me as she brought the hammer down with a satisfying crash.
Twenty-five dollars was a good deal. I’d ask at least seventy-five for it in the store. I gripped my bidder number. The thrill of a winning bid was a high like no other.
The items came faster and faster now, and my wins were piling up. A Hepplewhite blanket chest sponge-painted orange and red in a tulip design, a primitive spinning wheel, a Topsy Turvy Doll, and two vintage hatboxes.
Finally it was time for my beloved dollhouse. My pulse was racing hard and I fanned myself quickly with the bidder card. Once the bidding started, you had to be careful with any sudden movements.
Patsy wiggled her fingers in a “come to me”–type motion, and I started the bidding. The woman I had been butting heads with all night called out seventy-five; I took a deep breath and went to a hundred. She topped me at one hundred and twenty-five. My absolute limit was one-fifty, and that might be too much.
Damn it, I really wanted this dollhouse.
“Two hundred!” someone yelled from the back of the room, and I spun around in my seat to see Fiona Adams raise her bidder card.
I gritted my teeth. “Two-ten!”
“Two-twenty!” Fiona’s smile was triumphant.
I ignored Joe’s murmur to let it go.
“Two-thirty!” I yelled.
Patsy stood helplessly, her hammer hanging in her hand.
As Fiona opened her mouth to make another bid, Martha sailed down the aisle, carrying a drink pitcher. Suddenly she stumbled, her ankle twisting in her high-heeled sandal, and the plastic jug flew out of her hand, splashing red Kool-Aid all down Fiona’s expensive white suit.
Patsy grabbed the microphone, and spoke faster than she ever had in her life. “Two-thirty, any other bids, all done, all through, at two-thirty. Sold! To bidder number 21!”
The crash of the hammer snapped Fiona Adams out of her shock.
“Goddamn it, I wanted it, I wanted it, I wanted it!” She stamped her foot, screaming like a two-year-old having a meltdown. “You stupid, clumsy bitch!”
Martha backed away, making apologetic sounds to no avail.
“Look what you’ve done, you idiot!” she cried, gesturing to her ruined outfit, where the red drink stain was a bloody gash across the snowy white. She looked like something out of a 1980s horror movie. “Jesus Christ!”
There was a sudden hush over the crowd. There were plenty of good God-fearing people in attendance tonight—a lot of them Mennonites—and they were aghast at the Lord’s name being used in vain.
Or maybe they were wondering what their own native titan would do. But Martha was strangely silent, staring in fascination at this train wreck of a seemingly sophisticated woman.
I knew the suit was ruined beyond repair. Kool-Aid had a food dye in it, which meant the designer outfit was toast, but Fiona was beyond caring, lost in a world of her own as her fury exploded to a nuclear level. As I watched her snarling, almost unrecognizable face, ranting and raving, and using language fit for a sailors’ convention, I wondered if this was how Angus acted when he said he saw red.
Could this rabid woman have seen Jimmy stealing the pens that were rightfully hers, and killed him in her rage?
But still, how could a woman, however crazy, have the strength to swing a heavy barn beam?