Antiques Maul (6 page)

“Give me that thing,” I said to Jake.

“I won’t do that again. I won’t use it in the house, or shoot at any living thing and stuff.”

Through my teeth, I said, “Give it here.”

He swallowed and handed me the paint gun, but asked, “What about the paint grenade? Can I keep that?”

My eyebrows shot up.

“I
promise
to take it outside.”

“Three guesses and the first two don’t count.”

He sighed. “Oh-kaay…I’ll
get
it….”

When Jake came back from his bedroom, I stashed the realistic-looking grenade and the realistic-looking gun on the top shelf of the closet.

“For your penance, Jake,” I said, hand on hips, “you’ll give Sushi a bath—I assume that paint washes off….”

“Yeah. Sure it does. You don’t need turpentine or anything.”

“Good. Then I want you to help Grandma and me set up our booth this morning.” Might as well get everything I could out of this little episode.

“
What
booth?”

“
The
booth, our stall, at the antiques mall. We have a U-Haul to unload and lots of things to arrange.”

Jake groaned. “Come on, Mom. I’ll give Sushi a bath and stuff, but do I have to go down to that antique shop—”

“‘Antiques shop,” I corrected. “It’s not an
old
shop…it’s a shop with old things in it.”

He smirked. “Yeah, right. I bet it is
too
an old shop…an old shop with old boring things and dust in the air and stuff that’ll make me sneeze.”

I glared at him.

He glared at me.

I tried softening my voice. “I’m not punishing you. I’m asking you for help.”

“Well…”

“We could really use your muscles. Grandma shouldn’t lift anything heavy, and I can’t do it by myself.”

Jake shrugged with his eyes. “Well, okay…but it’ll cost ya.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, when I do chores for Dad, he gives me something.”

Awfully early for him to be playing the Dad card….

“Sure,” I said. “You can have a kiss on the cheek or a pat on the head. Your choice.”

“I was thinking more…a Game Boy game.”

“Whoa…don’t those cost thirty bucks?”

“One I want is forty.”

“I’m not made of money like your father.”

He shrugged. “Okay. I do know one I want that’s only thirty.”

Damn that husband of mine. Ex-husband.

I said, “There’s a pawnshop with a ton of games just up the street from the antiques mall. Current games and older ones, too.”

He was interested. “Old-school stuff? I like old-school stuff.”

“That’s where that vintage Super Nintendo I bought you for Christmas came from.”

His eyes lighted up. “Really? That was a cool gift, Mom.”

“You can have a fifteen-dollar game at the pawnshop,” I said, and extended my hand.

“Done,” he said, and shook it.

“The dog shampoo is under the kitchen sink,” I said. “And don’t make the water too hot.”

While Jake took Sushi into the kitchen—holding her out at arm’s length to keep from getting paint on himself—I went off to find Mother, finally locating her outside in the old garage.

The stand-alone structure hadn’t been destroyed with the original house, and was mostly used for storing unused items, which included Mother’s ancient pea-green Audi. Mother had lost her driver’s license for what she referred to as a “silly infraction,” which was driving the car through a cornfield on the way to a play one night, hitting a combine, but sparing the cows.

This was, as you may have guessed, shortly before her doctor “readjusted” her medication.

At the moment, Mother was struggling with a tarp at the back of the garage.

“What are you up to?” I asked, startling her and inducing a take worthy of W.C. Fields.

Mother recovered, then said, “I’m retrieving this wonderful antique….”

And she lifted the cover.

I stared at a five-foot-tall statue of an Indian chief in full regalia—feathered headdress, decorative vest, loincloth, and moccasins—with one hand raised in the air in a manner that was usually accompanied, in ancient cowboy movies and on
F Troop
, with “How?”

“What are you going to do with
that
?” I asked, hoping the cigar store Indian wasn’t taking up permanent residence on the front lawn as an unusual piece of yard art.

Speaking of which, is there a direct correlation between the age of home owners and the amount of tacky yard art (miniature windmills, fake deer, country geese, gnomes, etc.) found on their lawns?

“Why, dear girl,” Mother responded, “I’m going to
sell
the statue, of course…in our booth. Don’t you know a valuable artifact when you see one?”

Big sigh of relief. “I never saw that before. Where on earth did you get it?”

Mother shrugged. “From a former friend.”

“Former friend…you don’t mean Bernice?”

“I do indeed mean She Who Must Not Be Named. When She Who Must Not Be Named first moved here, She Who Must Not Be Named brought the Indian with her….”

“Look, She Who Must Be Maimed, call her Bernice or I will stick that Indian somewhere and I don’t mean in our booth!”

“No need for dramatics, dear. My former friend, her condo was too small to properly display it—a precious item like that needs just the right place, to show it off, you know—and, well, a while back when I commented on the exquisite craftsmanship, my former friend…who was my current friend at the time…said I could have it.”

Why do I ask? Why do I even ask?

Mother added quickly, “That was back when we were speaking, of course.”

I got a sudden snapshot mental picture of Mother and Bernice standing on either side of the Indian, grinning at the camera, with the caption below reading
IN HAPPIER TIMES
.

“What did Bernice charge you?” I asked.

Mother looked surprised. “Why, not a wooden nickel, dear…. In the Midwest, when we say you can have something, that means, take it away! At no cost!”

“That would explain a lot.” The garage was crammed with “you can have its,” as Mother is incapable of turning down anything free.

I asked, “Shouldn’t you offer the statue back to Bernice first, before we sell it? Might be a nice gesture. Smoke the peace pipe kinda deal?”

“I
did
offer it to her,” Mother said testily. “I made the magnanimous gesture this morning of calling her.”

“Good. Very grown-up of you, Mother. And?”

“And
she
said it just so happens she
did
want the Indian back, that by all rights it was hers and I had no business even considering selling it—not at all magnanimous on her part. So I informed her that she could pick it up at our booth.”

“Why not have her just pick it up here?”

“Because, dear, I informed her that the Indian would be available to her…for
sale
, in our booth!”

“Ah. And she took this, how?”

The cigar store Indian eyed me as if I might be making fun of him.

“Not at all graciously! She called me…I won’t tell you what she called me.”

I sighed. “An Indian giver?”

“Yes! Yes, can you imagine? What a terrible, horrible, repulsive thing to say.”

I had to agree; the phrase
was
offensive.

“After all,” Mother huffed, “it was
she
who gave it to
me
, so that would make
her
the Indian giver, wouldn’t it?”

My migraine was crawling out of its corner, a bear ready to trade hibernation for the nearest victim….

I rubbed my temples and said, “I’m against putting that distasteful thing in our booth.”

Mother looked puzzled. “Why ever not?”

“Why ever not? The unofficial historian of the Mascoutin Indians has to even ask me that? Because it’s
racist
, that’s why!”

Mother frowned, considering as she studied the Indian, who was keeping his opinion to himself. “Dear, may I ask you a question?”

“Why not? This can’t get worse, can it?”

“Did cigar stores exist in the olden days?”

“Yeaaaah,” I said slowly.

“And were there Indians?”

“Yeaaaaah.”

“
Well?
” Her eyes were huge behind the glasses.

“I, uh, don’t get your point.”

Mother gawked at my sheer stupidity. “
Must
the unofficial historian give her daughter a history lesson?”

“Apparently.”

She sighed in exasperation. “The reason the American Indian became associated with tobacco stores was because it was
they
who first introduced smoking the noxious weed to the early settlers. Consequently, a wooden Indian statue was placed outside a frontier establishment to inform a mostly illiterate public that tobacco was sold inside…much the way a red-and-white-striped pole denoted a barber shop.”

I ventured, “There’s a
difference
between using a striped pole and a Native American as an advertisement.”

Her eyes flared behind the magnifying lenses. “Brandy!
Yesterday
can
not
be changed just to suit today. This statue is a wonderful, valuable example of American folk art and should be—”

But before I admitted she had a point, I interrupted, “How much is valuable?”

Mother appraised the statue. “Well, taking into consideration that it has been repainted, and the cigar that should be in the hand is missing…I’d estimate, oh, four to five hundred dollars.”

New tires for the car.

My political correctness vanished in a puff of smoke signal. “Okay, then. I’ll load ol’ Chief Big Wampum up….”

Under Mother’s watchful eye, I hauled the unprotesting Indian to my car and leaned him into the backseat so that there would be room for Jake.

Then Mother and I returned to the house where Jake was finishing up with Sushi’s bath, gently drying her with a towel, her fur restored to its natural white and brown.

Soosh gave Jake a lick on his face, and he kissed her back. Dogs are forgiving (unlike cats, who will
pretend
to forgive you, then later spray your favorite Jimmy Choos with urine).

We were all gathered in the entryway, getting ready to leave for the antiques mall, when Sushi started in with a hissy fit.

“Mom,” Jake said, “she wants to go along.”

“Well, she can’t. We’ll be busy, and she’ll be in the way. Not to mention being blind in unfamiliar territory.”

“Mom,” Jake said again, but with conviction, “Sushi thinks she
deserves
to come with us after what happened….”

I looked down at the yapping, jumping dog whose just-washed hair had tripled in volume, making her look like a bouncing beach ball. Had my son just managed to make me feel guilty for what he had done to her? Is every son the hood in motherhood?

“I’ll wear Sushi,” Mother announced, as if Soosh were a scarf or a hat. “I’m mostly supervising, after all.”

Caving in, I retrieved the baby harness from the front closet and, after letting the straps out as far as they’d go, secured it across Mother’s ample bosom. Then I put in Sushi, whose tiny smile seemed to say, “I
knew
I’d win.”

We had just piled into my car when a powder-blue Cadillac pulled up in front of the house and an older woman climbed out in an array of endless limbs.

Tall, slender, with striking, shoulder-length, gunmetal gray hair (fixed in a forties Joan Crawford pageboy), she wore black tailored slacks and a tan cardigan over a crisp white blouse. It took me a moment to separate this Bernice from the little stooped-shouldered old lady murderess she had played opposite Mother this past summer.

Mother, seated next to me, became immediately agitated and got out of the car. Sensing disaster, I did likewise.

Bernice strode purposefully toward us. Her expression seemed pleasant enough, although it was hard to tell because of the troweled-on makeup (a hazzard of show business, I suppose).

“Thank goodness I caught you before you left,” Bernice said, smiling at Mother. “I want to apologize, Vivian, for my absolute
rudeness
on the phone…I’m afraid I was having a personal problem at the moment, and I took it out on you, my darling, which was an inexcusable thing to do to a dear, close friend…. You
will
forgive me, won’t you?”

I was ready to forgive her, just in hopes she’d stop making speeches.