Garage Sale Find

“Oh, look!”

Mother twisted in her seat, fingertips pressed against the passenger side window like a child ogling the passing primary colors of an amusement park roller coaster.  All I could see was the short graying hair stylishly teased on the back of her head.

“Mom, I’m exhausted.  Let’s just go and eat.”

“Oh, come on Katie, just one more. That looked like a good street. Come on now, turn around.”

I sighed and gave in, pulling into some poor soul’s conveniently located driveway, wincing my apology at the house’s lifeless windows, and headed back the other way.  Back towards the tiny side street sporting a handmade “Garage Sale” sign stuck on a wooden spike that had been thrust into a clump of thick summer grass.

Mother clapped gleefully as we crawled into the cul-de-sac and parked.

“Look at all that.” If the act of salivation were audible I would have reached out to turn down her volume. “It must be a moving sale. I see Christmas decorations too.”

“It’s August. And you don’t need more Christmas decorations, the attic’s already overflowing.”

“You can never have enough Christmas decorations. Besides, you’ll need your own collection soon.”

“You’re picking again, Mom. I told you. I’m never getting married. I refuse to give any man that kind of control over my life.”

“Don’t spout feminist propaganda to me chickie. I was burning my bras before you were even a gleam in your father’s horny eye.”

“Too much information, Mom. Highly inappropriate.”

“Oh lighten up.”

The house was set close to the road, one of a series of identical boxes distinguishable only by variation of colored brick and landscaping.  The subdivision was fairly new, planted over what was probably used a few years prior as a cattle grazing field.  Last night’s rain had coaxed a few brave, pale pink primroses to bloom; they drooped over the curb, eying us as we strolled up the driveway and into the maze of makeshift tables covered in, well, everything imaginable.

“Well, hey there!”

A bouncy blond skipped out of the shade of the open garage to greet us.  She looked like she was nearing 30, but she dressed more like a college student, with short denim cut-offs, a hot-pink Dallas Cowboys t-shirt and a pair of bedazzeled flip flops.

“Take a look around,” she encouraged.  “Everything’s gotta go!  I’m leavin’ town in the morning and I can’t take all this crap with me.”
Mother gave her a distracted wave and dove on in.

“I’m Tracy,” the woman called after her.  “Let me know if you have any questions!”

“Don’t mind her,” I explained. “She’s a garage sale addict.  She’s lost in the rush, but she’ll surface eventually, after she finds her quota of treasures.”

“What? In all that trash?” Tracy giggled.  “But whatever, right?  It’s all gotta go, I need the cash!”

“Whew, its hot out today,” she fanned her face with one acrylic nail tipped hand.  Little beads of sweat glistened on her forehead.  She wiggled inside her tiny t-shirt and shifted her weight from hip to hip, looking for a non-existent breeze.

“So you’re moving?” I asked.

“That’s right.  To Florida.  I’m driving first thing in the morning.  I recently reconnected with my first love on Facebook.  Can you believe that?  The internet is an amazing thing, don’t you think? We decided to get back together and so I’m moving to be with him. Romantic, right?”

She beamed and fanned herself some more, frantically trying to force air across the exposed expanse of flesh along her neckline. “Good Lord, its hot out. I’m gonna go grab a beer.”  She bounced off, a child housed in the shell of a womanly body.

Truthfully, I was a little jealous.  Girls like this Tracy had always made me feel inferior and dull in comparison.  I spent my high school and college years glaring at them disdainfully from behind my hardback copy of Jane Eyre and thick lensed glasses.  It wasn’t that I wanted to be exactly like them, I’d rather die than be forced to go through life with a personality as deep as a watermark, but I couldn’t help but be envious of the comfort Tracy seemed to have with herself, with her body.  She flaunted her skin proudly and shamelessly, while I kept my starched white polo buttoned up to the top.  I was proud of the woman I’d become, successful and independent with an MBA from SMU, and now the youngest female vice president for a large international airline.  But despite all of that, I still felt out of place in my own skin, compelled to cover up, to be safe beneath the armor of my clothing. 

As she disappeared inside the house, I reached up and popped open the top two buttons of my shirt, baring a hint of cleavage to the summer sun.  What the hell, maybe I needed to learn something from Tracy and, as Mom said, “lighten up.”  Besides, it was August after all.  And August in Texas is, frankly, hell.

My mother was elbow deep in what looked like mismatched china tea cups.  I wandered, perusing the things a person collects over the years, collects then discards when new and better things come along.  Paperback romance novels, hair clips, stacks of DVDs and CDs, bottles of half used perfume and cologne, a table saw and ratchet set. On a table set off to one side, Tracy had set out a collection of dollhouses and miniature pieces of perfect furniture.  I picked up a carefully carved wooden spindle chair.  It was handmade, lovingly sanded and stained by some unknown craftsman.  It was a shame she was selling it.  Wasn’t this the kind of thing people kept?

A sharp clucking sound came from across the table.  I glanced up to meet the bitter scowl of an elderly woman, a neighbor, who stood with her arms crossed like an angry sergeant as she eyed the open garage.

“That girl is something else,” she hissed.  “Selling all this stuff like that.  It’s shameful!”

“What?”

“That Tracy is selling all this so she can run off and leave her husband.  Why he’s letting her get away with it is beyond me.  If it was me, I’d just tell her to go on and go, but she’d not get one nickel, not one stick of furniture from me.”

“Huh?”

“Look there, you see him standing there in the garage?  Poor man.  Poor Jason.  It’s shameful. So shameful.”

I turned to look.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, but eventually I made of the dim outline of a figure leaning against the garage wall.  A sturdy figure dressed in loose khaki shorts and a navy City Fire Department t-shirt.  He held a beer bottle in one hand, bringing it up periodically to his lips as he stared out across driveway, watching it all with a sad stillness.

“Poor man.  So shameful,” the neighbor repeated before turning and making her way back into her house.

Tracy came bouncing back outside.  A minivan had pulled up, and an eager looking family poured out.  She hurried to great them.

I’m not sure why I approached.  It definitely wasn’t in my nature to be noisy.  But something about that figure compelled me and I moved forward, stepping across the line of harsh summer light and into the shadowy cavern of that garage.

“Hello,” I said to him.

He nodded but didn’t look at me.

“The dollhouse and the furniture.  Did you make that?”  I’m not sure why I asked this, it just came out.

“Yeah.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Thanks.”

“I don’t understand.  It must have taken you hours and hours to make all that.  Why are you selling it?”

“She’s selling it all.  Everything. It’s all gone.  Nothing left.”  He said it as if puzzled by the words, unable to make sense of what was happening.

I stood and waited.  I had a feeling, a feeling that this was something I was supposed to do.

“She told me last night,” he finally spoke.  His voice was a low rumble, a roll of distant thunder.  “She told me she was leaving me to go back to that guy.  Her high school gym coach.  They had an affair when she was sixteen.  He was married.  Now he’s divorced and wants to be with her.  She says she still loves him and wants to be with him too.”

I watched him raise the beer bottle to his lips and drink.  It was the only part of him that moved, but my eyes had adjusted to the dimness and I could make him out more clearly now.  His ashy blond hair was clipped short, military style, and his grey-blue eyes were framed by dark circles, like he hadn’t slept the night before.  He wasn’t exactly tall, but his shoulder was exactly the same height as my cheek.  His waist, the perfect width for wrapping my arms around …

I gave Tracy $500 for the dollhouse and furniture.  She was ecstatic. 

“Are you sure you won’t regret it?” I asked her.

She laughed. I buttoned up my top.

.  .  .  .  .  .

Two days later I went back with a pan of homemade lasagna and a plate of cookies.  Tracy was long gone.

Jason was still drinking, alone in the empty house.  He was drunk enough to let it happen, and for the first time in my life, wide-eyed and shockingly sober, I started things, peeled off his cloths like I was unwrapping the most important gift I’d ever received, and loved him.

Our first child was born the following summer.  And, thanks to my Mother, my precious budding family has its very own collection of Christmas decorations.