Shadows at the Spring Show

by Lea Wait

  Carole nodded in agreement. “I’ll check with a few of my contacts to see if we can find a counselor.”

  “Thank you.” Holly turned toward where her husband was talking with their committee and then looked back and touched Maggie’s arm. “Maggie, you’ve chosen a great agency to work with, and Carole is one of the reasons. Postadoption support services are limited at lots of agencies.” Holly walked back into the room.

  “Don’t let it scare you, Maggie. But some of our families need help for years,” Carole said with a smile. “And we try to provide it. Adoption is a lifelong journey. Parents and children need to know they’re not alone, even years after an adoption is finalized.”

  “That’s one of the reasons I contacted OWOC,” said Maggie. “I’ve read a lot about adoption of older children. I know if I decide to adopt, I’ll need all the help I can get.” And the more she learned, the more she wondered if she was ready to adopt.

  “I think you’d make a great parent, Maggie. Just let me know when you’re ready to start your home study and we’ll do everything we can to help you.” Carole headed Maggie into the hall, out of hearing distance of anyone else. “In the meantime we have an immediate issue. I didn’t want to say anything in front of Holly, but that meeting with security you’re having Tuesday might be more important than we’d thought. We got an anonymous hate letter yesterday. Someone is threatening to sabotage the show.”

  Chapter 2

  Own Is Best. 1894 chromolithograph by Elizabeth S. Tucker of two elegantly dressed little girls comparing their equally elegantly dressed dolls. Only one doll can be the best. 7.75 x 9.5 inches. Price: $60.

  “Sabotage the show?” said Maggie. “Why?”

  Carole shook her head. “Whoever wrote the note didn’t say. It could be someone whose application to adopt was turned down.” Carole hesitated. “Some people are still opposed to agencies placing children with parents of different races or religions or cultures. It might even be that. At this point I have no idea what the problem is.”

  Many of the families Maggie had met at OWOC included children who did not “match” their parents. Some families, like Holly and Rob Sloane’s, included children of several different races. Some children’s biological parents had been of two different races, neither of which was the race of their adoptive parents.

  Those children probably wouldn’t have parents if they hadn’t been adopted transracially. And OWOC had an extensive education program to prepare families who were considering adopting a child of another background, to discuss possible extended-family and community issues, and to emphasize the need for interracial families to live in interracial communities and provide their children with adult role models of various cultures. To raise their children to be proud of both their racial and adoptive heritages.

  “It doesn’t make sense to me,” said Maggie.

  “Some people believe that only parents of the same heritage as a child can give that child a sense of history and community. That, for instance, we’re destroying the heritage of a Korean child when we place him or her with a Caucasian family.”

  Maggie remembered the pictures in Carole’s office. Carole’s parents—her adoptive parents—were white. She had been born in Seoul, Korea.

  “How serious is the letter?”

  “It’s clearly a threat.” Carole hesitated. “Not the first contact from this person, either.”

  “Not the first? How many have there been? Why didn’t you tell me?” Maggie felt betrayed. If there was a problem with the show, she should have been told.

  “The notes we got in March and April just ranted about the agency. All organizations get strange mail sometimes. This is the first letter that specifically mentions the antiques show.”

  “What do the police say?”

  “To make sure our offices are secure and call again if anyone actually does something. I’ve contacted them before when we’ve gotten crank letters. But until someone is actually hurt, our offices are broken into, or our property is defaced, there’s not a lot the police can do.”

  “No one has ever followed up one of these letters with actions?”

  “Not so far, thank goodness.”

  “So it’s likely that the author of today’s letter will just fade away. There’s no reason to think it’s a real threat.” Maggie breathed more easily. If this wasn’t a unique situation, then it was a concern, of course, but not a major concern.

  “That’s possible. But this note specifically mentions the dates May fourteenth and fifteenth. To be safe, we have to make sure security for the antiques show is more than cursory.”

  Maggie thought of the thirty-six dealers who’d be bringing their inventories to the show. Of the customers and the college and agency personnel and volunteers who would be at the college that weekend. Not to mention all the adoptive parents and their children. “Have you talked to the police specifically about this letter?”

  “I’m meeting with them later today,” Carole said. “But based on their reactions in the past, I’m not anticipating they’ll be able to do anything.”

  “I’ll talk to the college’s ‘rent-a-cops.’ But they’re not law enforcement people. If there were a serious problem, the best they could do would be to call 911.” Maggie hoped the campus security force wouldn’t panic at the possibility of real trouble. They were more geared up to cope with students who’d had too much to drink, or who’d fallen asleep in the library and been locked in, than with any serious crime or violence.

  “People who can keep an eye on things and call 911 would be a plus. I’m going to ask the police to patrol the gym area from the time the dealers start arriving until everyone has gone home.”

  Maggie nodded. “They should be willing to do that. Have you any idea what kind of trouble is being threatened?”

  “The note said ‘close down’ the show. I have no idea how.” Carole seemed calm, but her fists were clenched. “I’ve already arranged to get extra security for the agency offices themselves that weekend. Just in case. Most of the OWOC staff will be at the college, and there are papers at our offices that can’t be duplicated. Especially documentation from abroad. Any files destroyed might mean children who couldn’t come home. Or whose adoptions couldn’t be finalized.”

  Maggie quickly reviewed all the possibilities. None of them made sense. This was a New Jersey suburb. A quiet community college hosting an antiques show to benefit an adoption agency. Who would want to disrupt it? “I’d guess some crazy person is just hoping to make us nervous.”

  “Believe me, I hope that’s all it is.”

  But why? The question hung in the air, and Maggie couldn’t make it go away.

  Chapter 3

  Oliver’s First Meeting with the Artful Dodger. Illustration by Jessie Willcox Smith (1863–1935), originally done for Scribner’s Magazine, December 1911. From Oliver Twist, chapter VIII: “‘Hello, my covey! What’s the row?’ said this strange young gentleman to Oliver.” Smith studied with Thomas Eakins and Howard Pyle and was the best-known American woman illustrator in the early twentieth century. Although she never married or was a mother, she is remembered for her paintings and prints of children. 7.25 x 5.25 inches including printed border. Price: $40.

  Maggie was glad Carole had told her about the threat. But that didn’t mean she was happy to know someone intended to disrupt the show in any way. Getting it organized had been enough of a problem.

  She’d started by calling every promoter she knew for advice; then she’d contacted all the dealers she knew to ask them to add a show to their spring schedule. It hadn’t been easy. Most dealers knew six months to a year or more in advance which shows they would be doing. Many wouldn’t risk the time and money to do a new show. They’d rather take a chance on a show that had been around for a while; that had an established base of customers. A new show could have a great location, wonderful dealers with exciting stock and strong advertising and still not pull in customers. Reputation and word of mouth sometimes took
years to develop.

  Maggie had tapped a lot of friendships and heartstrings. (“The show is to help children waiting for families!”) If the show wasn’t a success, facing those dealers wouldn’t be easy. And if the show was disrupted in any way . . . She didn’t even want to think about it.

  There were exams and papers to grade at home. But how could she give students’ work the attention it deserved when her mind was on the show?

  What would happen if someone was thinking of property damage? Some dealers would have their entire inventories in that show. Never mind the college’s reaction if its new Whitcomb Gymnasium was damaged in any way. Any kind of destructive act could not only mean antiques dealers losing their stock; it could mean Maggie losing her teaching job.

  Maggie paused at the wheel of her faded blue van, unable to head home. She’d have to grade papers late into the night, but right now she needed to take her mind off whatever might or might not happen at the antiques show next week. There was nothing she could do about it now.

  She wanted—no, she needed—to do something positive for herself.

  A movie? A museum? A manicure? A long walk? A massage would be nice . . . but getting a last-minute appointment on a Saturday afternoon wouldn’t be easy. She tried to remember what she’d seen in the entertainment section of the paper the night before.

  Yes! She turned the car southwest, toward Lambertville, a small New Jersey town across the Delaware River from New Hope, Pennsylvania. Lambertville was a center for antiques shops and malls, but Maggie headed for an elementary school that was hosting a small paper show. Last night she’d ruled out going; it would take too much time, and she’d seen most of the paper dealers in the Northeast at the two days of shows in Allentown in April. But now she needed to take her mind off the antiques show she was running. Even if she didn’t find anything at the paper show, the distraction of checking out the booths there would help keep her calm.

  Red and purple azaleas were blooming, and the last of the daffodils and the beginnings of iris and tulip blossoms brightened yards along the way. She passed farms where colts capered near their mothers and calves followed cows across meadows.

  Perhaps three dozen vans or station wagons (no doubt dealers’ vehicles) were parked in a lot to the left of the school, and about twenty other cars were in the parking lot next to the entrance. Maggie paid her $3.50 to enter the cafeteria, now filled with rows of tables covered with all sorts of old paper and ephemera.

  Paper shows were a world of their own. Antiquarian-book shows tended to be very serious, with high-priced merchandise. Antiques shows, although they might attract a few print or book dealers, featured furniture, glass, crystal, and all manner of household goods, often including vintage fashions and jewelry. Most print dealers did antiques shows; only a few did paper shows. Paper shows were buying grounds for print dealers.

  Maggie walked slowly up the first aisle. The majority of paper dealers were men, and they made few attempts to dress up their booths in any way. Magazines, postcards, advertisements, books, instruction brochures, fruit-crate labels were all displayed (or piled) on cafeteria tables. Some dealers had brought wire “walls” on which to hang their merchandise, or folding bookcases to display books, but few had bothered with the niceties required at antiques shows—such as covering the tables with floor-length drapes. A paper show looked to the uninitiated like a flea market. To the collectors and dealers who shopped there, it was an adventure. You never knew what you might find on those cluttered tables.

  Maggie passed five postcard dealers displaying their wares in long, low, marked boxes (“New Jersey Towns A–M,” “Halloween,” “Santa Claus,” “Automobiles”). Postcards weren’t of interest to her, but several people seated in front of the tables of postcards were intensely going through those boxes. They might be looking for cards picturing specific places, or printed by specific manufacturers, or on specific subjects. Postcards were collectibles many people could afford, and they offered an almost unending selection of variables to specialize in.

  The next booth belonged to antiquarian-book dealer Joe Cousins. “Joe! How are you?” Maggie said. “What are you doing here? I hadn’t seen you in a year, and then I saw you at Allentown, and here you are again! I’m looking forward to seeing you at the OWOC show next week.”

  “Hi, Maggie.” Joe grinned as he pushed a shock of thick brown hair back from his forehead. A year ago he’d inherited a more diverse art and antiques business, but after a few forays into the world of Art Deco and furniture he’d sold off the new business and was back to concentrating on the books he loved. Although now he could choose between staying at his home in Connecticut or his loft in New York City, his increased financial assets hadn’t changed his appearance. Today he was wearing his usual slightly baggy corduroy pants and a shirt that could have used ironing. “Don’t think I have anything you’d be interested in. You cleaned me out in Allentown.”

  “It’s good to see you anyway.”

  “This is a new show, so I thought I’d give it a try. Two new shows in New Jersey in two weeks is a little difficult. But”—Joe’s voice lowered—“I have a new friend, who lives out here. And he gets tired of driving to Connecticut or New York to see me.”

  “Congratulations,” said Maggie. “And I’m really glad you’re doing the OWOC show. You’ll be the only antiquarian-book dealer there. Although I can’t promise dealers won’t bring books to decorate their booths.” Joe was one of the few book dealers who occasionally did antiques shows. He had a great inventory of both nineteenth-century leather-bound sets and twentieth-century first editions.

  “That’s never a problem,” said Joe as he stepped aside to let a young man in jeans enter his booth. “By the way, I’m cleaning out an estate library Monday and Tuesday. If I see anything you might be interested in, I’ll bring it to the OWOC show.”

  “Wonderful,” said Maggie. “See you on Friday for setup!”

  Joe knew exactly what sort of eighteenth- or early-nineteenth-century natural history books Maggie was looking for: breakers, whose bindings were broken, which decreased or eliminated their value to a book dealer or collector, but which contained hand-colored natural history prints. Since the books were already imperfect, removing the plates could be done without guilt.

  Maggie browsed through two other booths of books, but both collections were too modern for her business. She was looking for seventeenth-, eighteenth-, or nineteenth-century engravings or lithographs. Definitely not the photographs or pictures in mid-twentieth-century books.

  “Have you any automobile repair guides from the 1930s?” she heard a young woman ask. Someone else was looking for Pennsylvania road maps from the early twentieth century. There were people who collected high school yearbooks or Playboy magazines or the cards that were packaged with single packs of cigarettes in the early twentieth century. Maggie paused at a booth piled high with comic books. She remembered reading Archie at a friend’s house the summer after sixth grade.

  She was halfway through the small show. It had been fun to see Joe, but so far she hadn’t found anything for Shadows, her antique-print business. Shadows because old prints were shadows of the past that let us see the shape of the world as it once was.

  Another postcard dealer. A poster dealer. Maggie paused again. She liked some posters, especially World War I recruitment posters, and the travel posters used by transatlantic steamship lines in the 1930s. But posters were very different from prints, and she didn’t know enough to invest in them. Just enough to know their prices were high, and they took up so much space in her booth that they crowded out the prints she did know well, and that her customers looked for.

  If she didn’t find anything today to add to her inventory, that was all right. It happened. But if you didn’t look, you wouldn’t know.

  The next booth was full of children’s books, from early-nineteenth-century primers with woodblock engravings to Golden Books and twentieth-century first editions of children’s classics l
ike Charlotte’s Web and The Dark Is Rising. There were even copies of the UK editions of the Harry Potter books, with the different covers for adult and child readers. Paper shows specialized in “old paper,” but the definition of old was increasingly flexible, and first-edition Harry Potter books were certainly collectible.

  There was only one more booth, in the corner, filled with twentieth-century magazines. Cartons of Life and Saturday Evening Post issues and stacks of National Geographic, Time, Good Housekeeping, Redbook, and Sports Illustrated.

  There were a few magazines she looked for. December National Geographics in the 1940s had ads for Coca-Cola on the back covers that featured the classic Santa Claus that the Coca-Cola Company now reproduced as cards, toys, and prints. Maggie included a few in her portfolio of Christmas prints.

  Twentieth-century ads weren’t exactly in the same category as eighteenth-century engravings. But they were collectibles for some people. Ads featuring dogs and cats, from White-Cat cigar labels (1890–1910) to the dog on a Ken-L Ration lithographed tin door push (1932), were hot sellers.

  She sorted through the Good Housekeepings from the 1920s and found two that interested her. Both had covers of children by illustrator Jessie Willcox Smith. The address label on one cover had torn the picture slightly, but the other was in excellent condition. “How much to a dealer?” Maggie asked.

  “Twelve . . . oh, you can have it for ten dollars,” said the dealer, an elderly man whose clothes were immaculate despite the dust on some of his inventory.

  “Okay,” said Maggie, handing him a $10 bill. Not exactly a treasure, but she could mat the cover, complete with the Good Housekeeping logo, and price it at $40. Although she preferred earlier prints, people loved Jessie Willcox Smith illustrations, and some collected her Good Housekeeping covers. They weren’t seventeenth-century astronomy engravings, but they might sell faster.