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Ava tapped her temple with a finger, which was either meant to say she’s smart or she’s nuts. Probably a little of both, because the crowd laughed.
The bidding began. The starting bid was two thousand, as I’d expected, but it progressed very quickly.
“Three thou– Five thousand! Seven thousand!”
But I barely heard it. I searched the crowd again until I found him. He was in the third row now, staring at me and trying to get a look at the bidders. At first, bids were coming from all over the place, forcing Ava to move around.
“Ten thousand! I hear twelve thousand!”
But as it went on, there were just five distinct bidders left, then four, and then three.
Finally Owen entered the bidding.
“Twenty thousand!”
But a few other men wouldn’t let it go.
“Twenty-five! Twenty-six!”
The bidders were going back and forth, and the crowd was turning their heads left and right, as if they were watching a tennis match.
“Twenty-eight!”
My heart was racing. I found him and stared at him, but he was only smiling. Owen waited for the right time to make a move, I could see it. It wasn’t an evil smile, but rather a cocky one. I couldn’t blame him. There was that playfulness between us again. He was teasing me.
Bastard.
Two bidders got a little too into the farce, upping each other by $500, just to see the crowd react. It was becoming less and less funny.
“Thirty-two thousand five hundred!”
Owen raised his hand again, calmly like this was all an easy game to win.
“Fifty thousand.”
And older man kept his paddle in the air. “I’ll match whatever you say.”
I was beginning to sweat under the lights. The fun game had turned into torture. What if that old geezer won me? Owen must have seen my distress, because the next time our eyes met, he gave me a nod.
Even Ava couldn’t take it anymore. “Gentlemen, perhaps you should stop bidding and go home together?”
The crowd cheered, but not for long. I saw Owen make his way to the stage.
“Sir, would you like to say something?”
He reached out his hand, and Ava obediently handed him the microphone. He cleared my throat and said, “Two hundred and fifty thousand! Match that.”
Everyone in the room, including myself, inhaled in a collective breath. The silence hung for what felt like several minutes, with people exchanging both puzzled and amazed looks. For a minute I thought that I had misheard him.
When he returned the microphone, Ava said, “Sir, could you confirm the number for me, please? Was it two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?”
He gave her a confident nod, and looked at me with a cocky smirk on his face.
It took a moment for me to get back in touch with reality, and when I did, I found myself next to Ava, still alone on the stage.
“Sir, would you like to counter?”
The older man dropped his paddle and shook his head.
