Page 18 of Lance

No one raised their hand, which meant that it was probably going to be something that dragged on. She didn’t want any of that furniture. It was worn out and very dirty. It also looked like a couple hundred dogs had been let on it, and she didn’t want that in any house she was working with. The entire set, chair, couch, loveseat, and four end tables went for seven dollars. To her, it seemed about eight dollars too much. She giggled at her own joke.

“Now, this here dining set is a big piece. There are fourteen chairs plus two with arms. Pretty set, but there is also a credenza, a China cabinet as well as two corner cabinets. The chairs are in good shape for being as old as they are, but you decided if you want me to sell it off in bits and pieces or a lot. Raise your hand—”

“I want them chairs and nothing else. Start on those.” The man was a rude man who had been bullying others since he got there. “I’ll give you a buck a piece for them, and you can move on.”

Others protested about how they wanted to bid on the set, and the man was outvoted. Georgie kept an eye on the man, and when he started to bully the other people who wanted it sold as a set, she made her way to stand closer to the auctioneer. She didn’t want any trouble from the man.

“All right then, we’ll go for the entire set.” The man cut the auctioneer off again and said he’d give two dollars for the chairs, and he was politely asked to keep quiet. He was trying his best to run a business here. “Now, who will start me out at five grand.”

Of course, the man continued to complain about how it was his right to be able to pick what he wanted, but for the most part, he was ignored. As soon as the bidding got down to five dollars, she raised her card up. The burly man made his way to her to do what she didn’t know. But she was prepared for him.

“Now see here. You can buy the rest of the set, but I’m going to make you a deal on the chairs. Whatever you pay for the rest of the set, I’ll give it back to you for the chairs.” She told him no, that she wanted the set. No one backed away, and neither did she. “If you want the chairs, then bid. Otherwise, leave me alone so that I can bid. Please.”

The auctioneer winked at her, and she smiled. When the other people who were bidding on the furniture started to drop out, she was only up to sixty dollars. Shawnie told her to go as much as she needed and that she wanted that set in her dining room. So when the auctioneer asked if there was anyone else bidding, the man said that he was going to pay two bucks a chair, and that was his final offer.

“Well, I got myself more than that right now, so I’m going to have to decline. You want to go as far as everyone else is, then bid. Otherwise, just get out of the way.” Georgie could see that Lance and his brothers were all standing close by, but none of them came to stand with her. She loved those men more than she could have said in words right now. “Are you going to bid, or are you going to walk away.”

The man pulled out his wallet, and Georgie could see that he had a wad of cash, but it all seemed to be ones. He looked at the auctioneer, then at her, and told him that he’d give her five dollars for all the chairs. She was declared the winner and walked away from him.

Georgie managed to get the entire dining wear set for sixty-five dollars, and she danced a little gig when she hid behind the tree. Next was the bedroom sets. She was excited about the four-poster bed set that Shawnie said she wanted, too, and that was where she was headed. The burly man started after her when the men who came with the auctioneer cut him off. He was asked to leave, or the police would be called.

No one bid against her on the bed sets. All of them would have to have special mattresses made as they were handmade and would need to be reinforced as well. For the four bedroom sets, she paid a total of twenty bucks. A deal that she didn’t expect.

After all the furniture was gone, she caught up with Lance in the boxes. There were tables of glasses, too, most of them blue and greenware that she loved. When the bidding started out at a buck for everything at the end of the table, Lance hesitated for just a moment longer than she would, and the auctioneer told Lance that he could have it all if he took it all. Not leaving behind what he didn’t want. They agreed, and Lance ended up with three long tables of glassware as well as several boxes under the tables that no one had seen. When asked, he was told it was all his, and they both seemed excited about the purchase.

Between the two of them, they ended up with eighteen boxes of odds and ends. A couple of them had things that she wanted, but for the rest, she was going to use them to put around their own home. Things she thought were coming along nicely, and she was ever so excited about how happy Shawnie seemed to be with the prices that she was able to get for the furniture that she wanted.

Getting it home was a good deal easier than she’d thought. The box lots fit nicely in Lance’s truck, and Shawnie had had a large cargo van set up at the auction to be packed with the furniture. There were even a few people with it to help with loading things up. They were breaking down the beds when she was approached by the auctioneer.

“I found something that you might be interested in.” She followed him to the house with Lance, and he said it was in the big office. The two of them followed him inside only to find that the place hadn’t been emptied. “When the auction began, they didn’t want to sell anything out of this room. I was just approached by the family to see if you’d like to have a go at getting it in your truck. They think that they made out better than they thought they would and wanted you to have the first pick of this room. No charge, they told me. They decided after all is said and done that they’re going to go ahead and sell the house to the farmer not far from here so that he can knock it down and use it for farming.”

“We’ll take it.” She told Lance that she’d have to ask Shawnie. “Nope, this is my office. When I was wandering around in here before, I fell in love with this place, and now that I can have it, I’m excited. But I will pay them for it.”

“If you try that, they’re going to have to have bidding on it. Gifting it to you, like they want, will make them happy. They said that if you take it all, they’d feel like their parents dying was worth something to someone.” Lance shook hands with the man, and she and he danced around the room. “Thank you kindly and enjoy.”

It took a good deal longer to break down the office than it did all the other furniture. But they were given an extra day to get it out. The rest of the Tucker family showed up with a moving van, and they got it all taken down and loaded in less than two hours. Plenty of time for her to look around at the other box lots that hadn’t been sold yet.

Chapter 8

Lance thought that it was a good idea that Georgie had to ask someone to have a look at some of the glassware that he’d gotten. A lot of it was something called hobnob, and he didn’t like it. It would work in projects, but he doubted very much that anyone would want to use it for every day. It was heavy, and there were knobs, thus the name he figured all over it. But it was white, and once he crushed it down, he could see how it would look in the pieces that he wanted to work with. The man who had come to look at it was wandering around the two tables like he’d never seen glass before, but he let him be. This was Georgie’s idea, not his.

“The hobnob is worth a little. I’d say that you could get about two grand for all the pieces that you have now. The blueware, very nice pieces, but they’re worthless unless you find someone like you that wants to use it in other things.” The man shuddered again, upset still about the fact that Lance told him that he was going to crush it for his work. “All right, these pieces here that I’ve set aside are McCoy pieces. They’re worth a great deal of money again for the right buyer. The umbrella stand there is worth about five thousand, again, with the right buyer. The clear glass, most of it is just that, clear glass. However, you do have a lot of burgundy ware, too. If you hold it up to the light, you can see the flecks of gold in them, and that’s what makes them collectible.”

“What you’re saying is that there is not much in the way of value unless I can find the right person for it. That sounds like a great deal of work, doesn’t it? I mean, after I take pictures like you said, and put it on a site, I’m going to have to wrap it up and send it off to them, hoping that it doesn’t get broken on the way there.” The man smiled, he thought his name was Alfred something and that was it precisely. “No thanks. I’d rather just use it for what I bought it for, except maybe for the few McCoy pieces you mentioned, and I’d make a great deal more by using it in my work. No offense.”

“Well, it’s your money.” He turned back to the table and then looked at him. “I’ll purchase the McCoy pieces from you now so I don’t have to think about them being crushed up to make a piece of glass that you make prettied up.”

“Nah. I have some nieces and nephews that will enjoy having tea parties with them, so they’ll get some use out of them.” Alfred was still sputtering when Lance helped him none too gently out of the building. “Christ, that was too easy.”

The rest of the afternoon he separated out the glass into colors. It was fun; he thought that he was going to have so many other colors, ones that he didn’t have to mix to get right in his work, which he’d not thought of. Most of the pieces were going to be broken down to use in his window mural. However, for the most part, he was going to crush it to use like someone would glitter and have fun with it.

By the time he got them separated into different colors, he was ready to call it a day. Picking up the tea and hair brush set, he took them into the house. He thought that if Georgie didn’t want to use them as décor on one of her jobs, then he would sell them. Lance was just having fun with Alfred and wouldn’t break up valuable pieces like he’d said he would.

Georgie had been in her office when he left this morning. Since she was still there, he figured that she’d missed not just breakfast but lunch as well. Asking her if she was at a place she could stop, the two of them made plans to go out for dinner as it was their cook’s night off. He wanted to get out of the house as much as she seemed to when he asked her.

As they were driving to Columbus, she wanted to do a little shopping for their own home, and she told him how she’d found this antique dealer that dipped furniture. It would likely cost more than doing it herself, but she didn’t want to do it. He thought that was an excellent idea as any and asked her if Shawnie was paying for it.

“Yes. And so, you know, she’s a good deal smarter than I’d thought. She’s very savvy with her money and knows just what she wants and gets it. I met her son, I told you that before, he’s really nice. I think that he’s odd, though.” Lance asked her what she meant. “I don’t know. It’s not like he’s evil or anything, but I don’t like being around him. He’s never done anything to me or even said anything that would make me feel that way, but I do. I guess I’m too used to hanging around you guys all the time and find normal people to be odd. You guys are the greatest there is.”

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