Sold As Is

by Holley Trent

  “Um … ” She put down the sunglasses case she was holding and looked up to meet the woman’s gaze. How’d she know her name? Oh yes. Press conference. Her picture had been printed in the N&O with the caption Miranda McCarthy of Cars to Work discusses hiring push at yesterday’s press conference. “I’ve already seen all these prints. I guess I was looking for something I may have overlooked before.”

  The woman tucked a swath of her thick blonde hair behind an ear and let her reading glasses fall down to hang from the chain around her neck. Her smile was warm, welcoming. “Are you a collector? Not too many people know the insider details about when we’re open to the public.”

  “Oh! I forgot about this.” Mandy ferreted the open invitation Toby had given her out of her pocket and showed her. “Sorry.”

  “Ah. Not too many of those floating around. Haven’t seen one in about a year.”

  Mandy studied the card’s bent corners from having been stuffed into Toby’s pocket for so long. “I used to manage Ermine’s before it got bought out by the conglomerate. I got first dibs on a lot of things since I was co-manager. I bought a little bag a few months ago before I left. I gave it to a friend last week and I’d really like to replace it. It was limited edition, so I guess the chances of that are slim to none.”

  “Approximately. But, just for giggles, which bag was it?”

  “Muscadine.”

  The clerk covered her mouth and had a good laugh. After about fifteen seconds she held up a finger in a wait gesture, walked past all the nearly empty shelves and bins, and disappeared behind a curtained door.

  Mandy kept browsing while she waited. She picked up a catalog detailing the entire collection since 1987 and coveted some of the quirky vintage designs. The woman came back with a white cloth sack, pushing her glasses back up on her nose.

  “Oh yes,” she said, looking down at the open catalog. “I wish I had kept a few of those.”

  “You’ve been working here that long?”

  She smiled and turned to the front of the catalog. There was a picture of one Mary Louise “M.L.” Owen, circa 1986, sitting at a drafting table. Mary Louise Owen. The governor’s wife. Aaron’s mother.

  Mandy looked from the catalog, to the clerk, to the catalog once again. “I feel like an idiot. I never made that connection. Sweet Louisa? Louise.” She thunked her head with the palm of her hand.

  “Most people don’t. It’s not widely publicized and I stay out of the spotlight. I’m not here much nowadays. I let my little elves run the business.” M.L. crossed her arms over her chest and sighed wistfully.

  “I guess I know a little something about being an elf. Aaron didn’t tell me you worked in fashion.”

  “Aaron doesn’t know.”

  “How is that possible?”

  M.L. shrugged and turned to the next page of the catalogue. “I never lied, it was just sort of a purposeful omission. He probably assumes I spend my days ladling soup at the homeless shelters. I never started this business for the notoriety. The little purses were something I did for fun when Aaron was very young and Charles was working long hours. I grew up around fabric and started with that, then moved on to leather later on. I didn’t expect them to become so popular.”

  “So, you hide what you do from the public? On purpose?” She wrung her hands. If M.L. was in hiding, what hope did she have? None. Best to stick to the dumping plan.

  “I guess I do. I didn’t want anyone to patronize or not patronize my business because of my husband’s politics. I wanted people to find and buy Sweet Louisa products because they just like them.”

  “I’ve loved them since I was fifteen. My grandmother ordered my first one for me.” Mandy tapped her chin, wondering what had happened to that little big.

  “I’m so glad. Here. Take this with my regards.” M.L. extended the cloth-covered clutch to Mandy and Mandy unwrapped it in a hurry.

  “It’s Muscadine! How do you still have that?”

  “I really hate muscadines. Made me hate that bag, too. I signed off on them and then regretted it.”

  “Are you bullshitting me? If I weren’t so sure I needed it, I might have given up one of my kidneys to replace the bag I gave away. I felt like a kid who’d lost her blankie.”

  M.L. blushed and gave Mandy a light swat on her arm before walking away. “Miss McCarthy, you’re so darn cute. I think I love you.”

  Well, that made one Owen. At that moment, Mandy liked the one with the pretty purses a little more than the one whose bed she’d been sharing for the past few weeks, anyway.

  CHAPTER 15

  Aaron’s jean-clad legs were all Mandy could see from her position near Cars to Work’s back door. Still, she kept her distance should anyone be watching from the back offices. They’d been very careful about not being found in the same room together alone, and she was about to nip the affair in the bud. No point making it public now. She kept her voice low, knowing sound traveled well from the parking lot.

  “Aaron?”

  He stopped tinkering and his foot ceased tapping out a beat only known to him. “Miranda? That you, sweetheart?”

  “Yes. Mike is finishing up his packing back in Edenton. He called earlier. He asked me if he could crash at my place for a while until he could figure out where he wants to live permanently.”

  Aaron grunted and slid himself out from under the car on his creeper. He had soot all over his cheeks, his hair was mussed, and brow was furrowed. To her, he looked wonderful. She suddenly felt very depressed.

  “What’d you tell him?”

  “I made up some bullshit lie about the apartment complex needing to move me to another unit because of a flooding issue.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her as he wiped his hands clean on a rag and sat up. “Did he believe it?”

  “I don’t know, but either way he’s prepared to make other arrangements. I feel like an absolute bitch for not being able to help him out. We’ve always helped each other.”

  Aaron shrugged.

  “Great.” She turned on the heel of her ballet flat and huffed. She had her hand on the door handle and was rearing back to pull the door open when he called her back. His voice was surprisingly gentle.

  “Sweetheart, wait. What do you want me to do? Tell me what you want me to do.”

  It was her turn to shrug. Too little, too late.

  “I don’t know. Act like you care, I guess? That’d be a good start.”

  “I do care — don’t think for a minute I don’t. I’m just not sure how to go about this sort of thing. Secret love affairs aren’t described in political handbooks or anything and, if they are, I’m sure they explicitly advise against them. I’m doing the best I can, Miranda.”

  “So am I. Starting from right now, anyway.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I think I need to find my own apartment.”

  Aaron put his hands on the ground to brace himself to stand and opened his mouth as if to object, but Mandy held up her hand to halt his words.

  “Save it. Please, just — just don’t.”

  “No!” He was on his feet and pulled her into the shielded entryway out of view of the windows. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and held her against his chest. “No. I’ll figure something out. You don’t have to leave. If you want me to put Michael up somewhere I’ll — ”

  She shook her head slowly and gave his chest a little push. “No. Right now I … I need some space. My own space. I’ve gone too long without it and I’m a woman who likes having her own things. I appreciate you taking care of me. I really do, and I know you liked doing it but I just … I don’t … ” She shrugged.

  His expression darkened and he took a step back from her. “Is it that guy that called you a couple nights ago? That Bo? Or the one whose card I found in the
bathroom trashcan?”

  She quirked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes at him. She hadn’t thought about Bo for more than five minutes since his call. She’d thought a lot about his mother’s spanikopita, but not Bo specifically. Besides, Bo was a nice guy, but compared to Aaron’s molten aura, he was a cold fish.

  “No, Aaron. I tend to only allow one man at a time to frustrate me. Right now, you’re it.” She yanked the door open and stomped down the hall, forcing back tears.

  After gathering her computer and CTW cell phone, she struck out for that apartment complex she’d seen advertising free cable and half-off security deposits.

  • • •

  “How are you doing, kiddo?” Aaron idly flipped through television channels while slouching low on his sofa. The living room was dim, blinds drawn as he sat alone in the quiet with his phone.

  “Super. Sick as a dog, but happy. Carter is supposed to be here to get me tomorrow. He’s flying in with his family’s plane.”

  “That’s great.” He turned the television off and tossed the remote. There wasn’t anything on worth watching, not that he was able to concentrate, anyway.

  “Great? Who am I talking to, here? Is this my big brother or is this a Rick Bane hoax of some sort?”

  “It’s me, why?”

  “Because your usual response would be something along the lines of me wasting my potential and blah, blah, blah, and such and such.”

  “Oh.” The truth was, he hadn’t even heard her. He’d turned out after noticing Mandy had left her glasses case on his coffee table. He picked it up and rubbed it between his palms.

  “I’m sorry, I was a bit distracted. I wasn’t listening.”

  Elly groaned. “Then why’d you call me?”

  He shrugged then realized Elly couldn’t see it. “I don’t know. It was an automatic reflex or something.”

  “Okay. What’d Mandy do to you?”

  “Huh?” Aaron sat up.

  “Don’t play dumb. I know you. I may be ditzy, but I’m not blind.”

  “What?”

  “It took me a while to realize it because I’m not so great at putting two and two together when the math is right in front of my face, but give me a night to sleep on it and the answer will come to me in my dreams.”

  “Elly, does Carter have you hooked on opium or something?”

  “Ha. Funny. Look, it wasn’t hard to figure out. I realized you like Mandy. A lot, probably.”

  He struggled to swallow the lump in his throat and when he managed to speak again his voice was hoarse. “Oh yeah? What makes you think that?”

  “Dunno. Maybe it wasn’t just one thing, but several, but what really tipped me off is that you let her give me advice.”

  “So?”

  “And you don’t do that. I don’t know if you’re aware of it. You’ve always gotten defensive when people have tried to tell me what to do, or when they’ve criticized me. You didn’t this time. You even left me alone with her, which tells me you not only like her, but you trust her. How many women do you trust that way beyond Mom?”

  “I leave you alone with Tina all the time.”

  “That’s different and you know it. Tina’s like a nanny or something to me. She’s hardass, takes no guff, but she doesn’t try to give me life lessons ’cause she doesn’t really like me that much.”

  He raked his free hand through his hair and paced beside his kitchen island, still clutching Mandy’s glasses case. He’d seen one like it before, but couldn’t put a finger on where.

  The spot where Mandy had used to set up her laptop to do reports was still as empty as the day she’d moved out to her own place and looking at it made his stomach drop again. He missed his girl. He missed her clutter and her just taking up space in his life. She’d bundled up her few things a week before and left while he was at CTW fiddling under the hood of some economy class car like an idiot. Mandy had been working at home ever since, avoiding him, though he wasn’t sure he could blame her. She had said she became easily attached. He couldn’t help but to wonder if she was feeling his absence the same way he was feeling hers.

  “You still there, Aaron?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m right, aren’t I? I’m right about something for once?”

  “Yeah. I guess you are.”

  “Hot damn.” Elly cackled. “So, what’s the problem?”

  “The same one as always, Elly. I don’t want to have my private life put under a microscope. I want my relationships to work or not work because of my own actions, and not from outside pressures. Neither of us asked to be dragged into the limelight with Dad, but I can prevent making anyone else suffer along with me.”

  Elly sighed all the way from Southport. “God, Aaron. You’re the smartest guy I know. Figure something out and stop torturing that woman. I think mom would like her. She’s got class and stuff. I gotta barf, bye.” She clicked off and he leaned against the island a while longer with the quiet phone still pressed to his ear.

  Class, Elly had said. He stared at the programmed numbers in his phone for a minute, carefully choosing his words, and then dialed his mother’s cell phone number.

  “Yes?” she answered.

  “Are you alone?”

  Silence. He heard footsteps then a door being shut.

  “I am now.”

  “I have a problem.”

  “Legal or business?”

  “Neither. Romantic.”

  Mom sucked in a breath. “Are the marriage rumors true?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. Anyone I know?”

  “No.”

  “Someone at work?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, someone I know. Is it Miss McCarthy?”

  “How do you know Miranda?”

  “Serendipity is how. I raised you to like women with good taste. Apparently that led her right to me. Do you have a pen?”

  He rustled through the mess on top of his desk and found the silver pen he normally kept in his pocket. “Yeah.”

  “Meet me at this address in … oh, twenty minutes? It’s near the outlet mall. Try not to get followed. I don’t feel like arguing with your father tonight. The only wine left at the mansion is that muscadine swill I have to sample before that festival.”

  • • •

  “Everything, everything, everything must go! We’re expanding our lot and getting ready for the biggest influx of used car inventory Eastern North Carolina has ever seen. We’re slashing prices and — ”

  Mike turned off the television and flicked the remote onto the floor. He put his right arm around Mandy’s shoulders and pointed to the screen. “At first I thought Don was kidding me about Dad shooting a commercial, but after having seen it aired seventy-five times in the past four days I’m inclined to believe him.”

  She crossed her legs at the ankles atop her new coffee table and took a sip of her coffee. She made a gakking noise after realizing once again Michael hadn’t put sugar in it. He drank his black and thought she should consider doing the same. She wasn’t a connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination. She just poured it down her throat by the decanter-full and hoped she’d live to see 9 P.M.

  “What exactly is he playing at? Edenton can’t support a used car dealership that size. Most people shop for cars in Hampton Roads or Elizabeth City.”

  “Yeah, they do, but he’s going to be doing something a little shadier.”

  “You mean shadier than he already does?”

  “Well, yeah. He doesn’t make much money on the mid-range cars, so he’s converting his business model to economy and older model vehicles he can make more profit on.”

  “How? The profit margin is about the same. Used is used.”

  Mike shook his
head. “Not exactly. Where he’s going to make his money is on the financing. He’s going to price the cars really low and then screw people on the interest rate. Folks’ll end up paying twice what the cars are worth if they don’t get repossessed first. Nobody ever reads all the numbers on the financing paperwork. They just read the number telling them what their monthly payment will be and hold out their hands for the keys.”

  “And he’s banking on the fact that people will come from all over to get what they perceive to be a cheap car.”

  “Yeah. He’s kind of subverting the Cars to Work program and other charities like it. People get frustrated by waiting lists, so instead they queue up to have themselves screwed without lube.”

  “As Abi says: common sense is not common.”

  “Your nana is smart.”

  “Yes, she is.”

  Mandy had actually talked to her grandmother the night before. She’d bitched about her mother’s coolness, Ermine’s metamorphosis, having her stepbrother as a roommate, and of course about Aaron. Abi had been silent and understanding right up until the last part. When she sighed, Mandy knew she had a lecture on the way. Abi didn’t disappoint.

  “Listen, mi abejorro. People very rarely take the advice of old women on matters of love, but hear this. There was once a woman, not much older than yourself, madly in love with the nephew of the king. It wasn’t a one-sided infatuation. He loved her right back. The problem was she was low-born and there was already a bride chosen for him. Some ugly French woman with a face like a goat. So, he married the French woman.”

  “Abi!” Mandy had balked. “That’s an awful story!”

  “Shush! Let me finish. So, they were split up, yes? But that didn’t mean he stopped loving her. Mistresses weren’t an uncommon thing back then, especially in arranged marriages.”

  “And she was fine with playing second banana? Is that the moral of the story? I don’t want to be anyone’s tramp.”

  “No. The moral is she took what she could get within the constraints handed to her because she loved him that much. Was it ideal? No. But look how much came to bear from that union. You’re here, right?”