Pearl of Great Price

by Myra Johnson

  “Don’t mind if I do.” He’d ambled over to another vendor’s consignment booth and bent to paw through a box of greasy, grimy tools. His knobby spine poked through his shirt like a row of nickel-plated pinballs. “Say, this looks handy.”

  “Whatcha got there, Lester?”

  He pulled out a big orange C-clamp. Or at least it used to be orange. Now it was mostly an icky shade of rust. “Side mirror on my truck’s loose. This’d just about do the trick, I’m thinkin’.” He turned it every which way and twisted the screw thingy a few times. “How much, Julie?”

  “Make me an offer.”

  “A buck-fifty?”

  “Sold.” I keyed in the consignment code for Tom’s Tools & More and rang up the sale. I wrapped the clamp in a plastic bag and slid the fishing lure catalogue in beside it, then handed Lester our outgoing mail.

  He tucked the envelopes into one of his mailbag pockets. “Oops, almost forgot your newspaper.”

  “Thanks, Lester. The whole world would go to pot if I missed the latest edition of the Caddo Pines Recorder.” Usually four thin pages—eight at the most—the weekly publication promised everything you ever wanted to know, plus a lot you probably wished you didn’t, about the goings-on around our homey little town.

  Lester headed on his way, and a few minutes later the rear door banged shut, followed by rustling sounds in the storeroom. Grandpa appeared with a broom and dustpan and joined me behind the counter. “Estate sale was a bust—already picked over. Anything important in the mail?”

  “Nothing worth keeping. Mostly ads and catalogues.” I opened the Recorder and smoothed out the creases. “And the paper.”

  “What’s newsworthy in Caddo Pines this week?” Grandpa’s voice had a funny edge to it, like his mind was a million miles away.

  “Let’s see, Lacy Jones won the Memorial Day chili cook-off, a deer wandered into the feed store and polished off half a bag of corn . . .” A headline at the lower right snagged my attention: 25th anniversary: Lake Hamilton regulars recall tragic drowning. Gut clenching, I pushed the paper away. “How awful. Why would they rerun a story about a little girl who died?”

  “Sells papers, I guess.” Grandpa snatched up the Recorder and tossed it into the recycling bin beneath the counter, then swung his broom like he was beating out fires. “Time’s a-wastin’, Julie Pearl. Hadn’t you oughta get some work done around here?”

  Now I knew for certain something was up with Grandpa. He never got this riled up without good reason. I snagged his arm and made him look at me. “You haven’t been yourself all weekend. Want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “Must be the heat. Don’t bother your head about it.” Heaving a shrug, he shuffled back to the workroom to do who-knew-what.

  My gaze darted toward the recycle bin, and I shuddered. Just as well Grandpa had tossed the Recorder, because the way I felt about water, I sure didn’t care to read an article about a drowning victim. Instead, I got busy with the bookkeeping, then polished real and imaginary fingerprints off the display cases, inventoried cups and napkins in the snack bar, and refilled the Coke machine.

  By mid-afternoon I’d grown so antsy and out of sorts that I took to rearranging coins in the cash register by the year of their mint. As I paused to admire my neat little stacks, the brass bells on the front door announced another visitor. I jumped about three feet off my barstool and sent a pile of pennies clattering across the counter. While my heartbeat backed off from hyper-drive, I swept up the pennies with my forearm and beamed a nervous smile toward a woman I’d never seen before. “Come on in, ma’am. Welcome to the Swap & Shop.”

  The chic Jackie Onassis look-alike cast a bland smile my way and stepped inside. Maybe I was the only under-50 person on the planet who’d notice the resemblance, but just yesterday I’d sold a shrink-wrapped 1968 Time Magazine with Jackie and Ari on the cover. Slender, thirty-something, and wearing a pale-yellow sundress, our new customer looked as rich as the late Jackie-O and just as mysterious behind wide tortoise-shell sunglasses.

  I scooped up the pennies I’d been counting and dropped them into the cash drawer. “Looking for anything in particular, ma’am?” A breathy weariness stole the sincerity from my tone. Hopefully the woman wouldn’t notice.

  “Just browsing.” She folded her sunglasses and dropped them into a butterfly-appliquéd tote draped across a bronzed forearm. Hmmm, tennis player? Or just hours beside her backyard pool paging through the latest issue of Vogue? Although, considering all the hype about skin cancer these days, a tan like that probably came straight from a spray-on tanning salon. With a hefty price tag to boot.

  Considering how my day had gone so far, I didn’t mind at all the distraction our new customer provided. I set my mind to pondering what exactly would prompt a snooty rich lady to bother stopping at our humble establishment. Probably just an interesting off-road diversion, which was how most of our non-local customers found us. It didn’t take much imagination to picture the lady arriving at her Little Rock mansion later and telling her husband, “Oh, dahling, I came upon the quaintest resale shop on my way home from high tea with the racing commissioners at Oaklawn.”

  Sneezy, our shop cat, wandered over from wherever he’d been snoozing all day and wound himself around the legs of my barstool. With a plaintive meow, he hopped on the counter and snuggled up to the cash register. I scratched him behind one notched ear. “Oh, well, she isn’t the first rich lady to cross our threshold just browsing, and she won’t be the last.”

  I decided to let her wander on her own—that’s often the best approach for those aloof types. She certainly was attractive, trendy, obviously loaded. And tall. Which made me wonder if she might be the niece Mrs. Nelson told me about. Not much resemblance otherwise, but just like sweet Mrs. Nelson, this lady carried herself with the kind of poise and confidence I only dreamed about. I imagined men tripping over themselves to get a nod or smile from beneath her magnificent mane of thick, mahogany-colored hair. She didn’t look the type to be very free with her smiles, though.

  And she definitely didn’t look like she belonged in a flea market.

  Giving Sneezy a tickle behind his ears, I glanced down the aisle to see what Ms. Moneybags was up to. She looked away almost too quickly—had she been sizing me up, too?

  More likely just making sure the mop-haired, hick-town flea market clerk wasn’t stalking her, ready to lay on a cheesy sales pitch if she so much as looked sideways at an item.

  Grandpa came up beside me, broom and dustpan in hand. The worry lines around his eyes had eased some. I hoped it was a good sign. “New customer, eh? You keeping an eye on her?”

  Kind of a mutual admiration society, I didn’t say. “Said she’s just browsing.”

  “Why don’t you show her the silver coffee service LeRoy just got in? First customer I’ve seen in a while who looks like she could afford it.” He nudged me off my barstool and moved it so he could sweep around me.

  “You just swept here before lunch, Grandpa. I’m not that messy,” I said, then cringed when he swept up a couple of stray Lincolns having a tête-à-tête under the counter.

  He slapped the pennies into my palm. “What else is an old man supposed to do when business is slow?”

  In other words, Julie Pearl, quit ruminating and get to work.

  “So you think Ms. Moneybags is the silver tea service type? Shoot, I’d be happy to sell her an heirloom china teacup to match her set of genuine Haviland from France.”

  “Now, Julie—”

  “Although she’d do a far sight better down the road at Maudine’s Antiques. Or the Park Plaza Mall in Little Rock.” I was on a roll and couldn’t stop myself. “Actually, she just oughta hop on her Lear jet and zip across the state line to Dallas. I hear they’ve got some fancy-schmancy stores at the Galleria.”

  “That’s quite enough, young lady.” Grandpa leveled his index finger at my nose. “Remember what James has to say about the tongue. It’s ‘a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
’ If you can’t say anything nice—”

  “Don’t say anything at all. Sorry. Guess you and I are both a bit touchy today.”

  “Then best we both work on our attitudes and go about our business.” Grandpa gave me a five-second massage between my shoulder blades before continuing his sweeping, and I loved him even more.

  With a rasping sigh, I tracked down our customer as she exited LeRoy Tuttle’s booth carrying a pink “Cabbage Rose” Depression glass plate. “Need any help, ma’am?”

  “No, thank you.” She gave me the once-over before swiveling in the opposite direction.

  “Fine,” I mumbled, and strode to the front counter. So Grandpa wouldn’t pester me anymore, I got out the calculator and tried to look busy double-checking the weekend sales entries.

  I caught another glimpse of yellow, this time at the far end of the building. Now the lady carried one of Hazel Diffenbacher’s hand-crocheted tablecloths, but apparently she’d decided against the plate. Oh well, if she bought one of Hazel’s creations, at least we could almost declare it a profitable day.

  By now she’d worked her way down to Katy Harcourt’s Classic Shoes and Bags, where Grandpa plied his broom around a pile of dusty old cowboy boots. Grandpa gave me a pointed glare before smiling at the lady. “Anything we can help you with, you just holler, okay?”

  She lifted her nose in the air. “Really, I’m just browsing.” She’d probably take one look at Katy’s knockoff Louis Vuitton handbags, snort in disgust, and hightail it out of here. No sale.

  Sneezy sauntered over and draped himself across my ledger page as if to say, Get over it, Julie Pearl Stiles.

  “You’re right, Sneezy. I’m being ridiculous.” I stroked his broad head and gazed into eyes the same shade of lima-bean green as my own. “I’ve got a wonderful grandpa, good friends, a job I love, and a roof over my head.” Sneezy mewed and raised a whiskered brow. “And you, of course. What more could a girl want?”

  With a pleading glance heavenward, I tried once again to shake off my restlessness and stop stewing over things I couldn’t do anything about anyway.

  While Sneezy camped out across the ledger, I reached for the dog-eared 1982 copy of Good Housekeeping I’d been paging through yesterday between customers. And just when I’d come across a great “new” way to fix ground beef and macaroni, Ms. Moneybags laid the crocheted tablecloth on the counter.

  “Exquisite work,” she remarked. “Do you take checks?”

  “Sure do.” I pushed Sneezy, the ledger, and Good Housekeeping to the far end of the counter—didn’t think she’d appreciate complimentary yellow cat fur with her purchase. I copied the inventory number off Hazel’s tag into the register and totaled the sale.

  “Eighty-seven fourteen, including tax,” I quoted, and attempted a mental tally of our commission. Move the decimal over one, add half of that . . . Community college degree notwithstanding, math was not one of my better subjects. I came up with a ballpark figure of fourteen dollars. “Just curious, ma’am, what brought you to the Swap & Shop today?”

  Well, I had to ask, didn’t I?

  “I was supposed to meet my aunt here, but she got confused about the time.” The lady pulled a turquoise leather wallet from the depths of her tote and wrote out a check.

  “I wondered if you might be Mrs. Nelson’s niece.” Although she sure didn’t inherit her aunt’s pleasant nature.

  “Aunt Geneva was simply adamant that I drop in, and since I had business in Hot Springs this afternoon anyway . . .” She handed me her check along with her driver’s license for an ID.

  Dutifully I compared the name, address, and signature. “Renata Pearl Channing,” I read aloud. “We have the same middle name.”

  “Pearl is actually my maiden name.” She lifted her gaze to meet mine and spoke slowly, as if it were a test or something. “What is your name, dear?”

  “Julie Pearl Stiles.” A tingle crept up the back of my neck. I felt proud and perplexed and under a microscope all at the same time.

  “Julie Pearl Stiles,” she repeated, her voice barely a whisper. I could have sworn she stifled a gasp.

  I cocked my head. “Do . . . do I know you?”

  “No,” she murmured, scrunching her eyebrows together. “No, I—it’s just too—” She dropped her wallet into her tote, scooped up the tablecloth in the white plastic bag I’d wrapped it in, and pivoted toward the exit.

  “Your receipt, ma’am.”

  Ignoring me, she marched out the door while thumbing in a number on her cell phone. Her silver Mercedes kicked up gravel as she sped out of the parking lot.

  “Left in a hurry, huh?” Grandpa joined me behind the counter.

  “Weird.” I showed him the check. “Any idea who she is?”

  He adjusted his bifocals and squinted at the tiny print on the upper left corner. His lips mashed together. “Channing? Never heard of her.”

  “Wait, aren’t the Channings the folks behind GigantaMart?” The name had been bantered about on the evening news often enough the past several years.

  “Oh. Right. I’m sure that’s it.” He reached around me and snatched the feather duster from under the counter. “Just look at all this dust. Cleanliness is next to godliness, you know.”

  That clinched it. Something was definitely up with Grandpa. I suddenly didn’t believe him about not recognizing Mrs. Channing’s name.

  And now I wasn’t so sure the lady had been completely honest about not knowing me.

  CHAPTER 2

  What should have been another uneventful Monday had turned into one crazy day. I knew exactly what had birthed my own lousy mood, but pile on a grouchy grandpa and a mysterious rich lady with an attitude? Please! Perched on my barstool behind the counter, I drummed my stubby nails on the laminate surface. Busy. Keep busy, girl.

  Across the way, my gaze alighted on that mishmash of cowboy boots Grandpa had been sweeping around earlier. Poor Katy’s sciatica was acting up, so helping her tidy up the mess seemed the least I could do. Besides, that pile of ugly old boots had been bugging me for a couple of weeks already. With a groan, I knelt on the cool concrete floor and set to work.

  “Boo!”

  At the sharp jab to my ribs, my head snapped up so fast I cracked it on the metal edge of Katy’s display table. I stood with a huff and tugged at the hem of my dress. “Clifton Carter Doakes! How many times have I told you not to sneak up on me?”

  “Yikes. Sorry, Julie, that looked like it hurt. ”

  “Where’d you come from, anyway? I never heard the bells.”

  “Came in the back. Wanted to surprise you.”

  “Well, you succeeded.” I rubbed my throbbing head and gave perverse note to the fact that Clifton could always finagle a way to catch me unawares in the most embarrassing positions. Like just now, with my backside pointed toward the ceiling. Even worse, he seemed to enjoy it way too much.

  Clifton stifled his chortling laughter and thumbed tears off his sunburned cheeks. “So whatcha doin’ down there anyway?”

  “Doing a favor for Katy. What’s it look like?”

  He brushed a cobweb off my shoulder—another occupational hazard of working in a flea market. “Julie Pearl, you are so cute when you’re mad.”

  “It’s been one of those days.” I hid the remnants of my irritation behind a cockeyed grin. “And you’d better watch it, buster, or I’ll tell Sandy you were flirting with me.”

  Something between worry and embarrassment flickered in Clifton’s eyes. He and Sandy Monroe and I had been best friends since kindergarten, but along about tenth grade I realized Sandy and Clifton had become slightly more than friends. I also knew their relationship had experienced a few ups and downs lately.

  I nudged one of the cowboy boots with the toe of my genuine Mexican huarache. “You two need to talk out whatever’s going on between you.”

  “We will. Eventually.” Clifton checked his reflection in the polished glass of one of LeRoy Tuttle’s breakfront curio cabinets. He ra
n an admiring hand across bleached-blond hair all spiky and shiny like he’d just worked a quart of styling gel into it. “Doing anything after work today? When Sandy gets back from her job interview, I was thinkin’ we could all meet at the trailer park for a swim.”

  The Caddo Pines RV & Mobile Home Park had the only decent-sized pool in town, and for a dollar fifty a day they let anybody swim there. Only Clifton knew better than anyone that I didn’t swim. “Not today, Clifton. My hair will just frizz even worse.” It was a lame excuse, one I’d used way too often, and I knew he wouldn’t buy it.

  “Aw, come on, Julie. I’ve been practicing my high dive. You gotta see it.” He dropped to one knee like he was going to propose. “Pleeeeeeze.”

  “Oh, okay. I’ll come by for a bit. Just to watch.” I waved him to his feet. “Now get on out of here so I can finish up.”

  By ten of five I was more than ready to call it a day. When a local cabinet builder shuffled out with a new pair of vise grips from Tom’s Tools & More, I followed close on his sawdust-covered heels with the keys to lock up. The commotion woke Sneezy. He leapt off the counter with a yowl, nearly tripping me on my way back to the register.

  “Poor kitty, did I disturb your beauty sleep? Hey, come back and I’ll get you one of your fishy treats.”

  Honestly, that cat had the vocabulary of a precocious three-year-old. Soon as he heard the word treats, Sneezy did a quick U-turn and pranced to the counter. I reached for the foil pouch of cat treats on a lower shelf and shook out four of the tuna-smelling morsels. While he munched to the accompaniment of his own deep-throated purring, I tallied the day’s receipts and wrote out a deposit slip. Grandpa wouldn’t mind my closing up a little early. He’d already gone upstairs for his afternoon nap.

  Since Grandpa’s bypass surgery, it didn’t take much to wear him out. Somehow you take it for granted that the people who matter most in your life are always going to be around, always be there when you need them. Grandpa had sure been there for me, and even though I knew someday I’d have to say my final good-byes, the thought of it collided against my insides like an iceberg hitting the Titanic.