The Auctioneer

“This is not for me, you know,” Perly said, the strong beat of his voice held down to a murmur. “It’s for the town. For all the things I know you want as much as I do.”

The blood rose to Mim’s face. “I don’t want you to have it,” she said. “It’s special to me.”

He leaned closer to her and spread his broad palm to touch her face, then arrested it an inch away, as if to catch her warmth.

“You know, I’m really sorry Hildie didn’t come to Sunday School again. Now is the time for teaching her right and wrong. You know right well—a woman like you—the day comes when the blood gets high and you can hardly help yourself.” Perly’s eyes gleamed like polished mahogany, and Mim couldn’t stop searching for her reflection in them.

“You frightened her,” she said unsteadily.

“I never frightened anyone,” Perly said, as if reciting something from the very center of his stillness.

“And what about Caleb Tuttle?” Mim whispered.

“Tuttle?” Perly said, without letting her eyes go. He sat down on the bed and made room for her beside him.

Mim didn’t move.

“Was he a friend of yours?” he asked. “Are you grieving for him? I’m so sorry.” He reached out and gripped Mim’s waist in his big hand. “Why do you say this to me? Is there something you want me to do for you?”

Mim whirled and ran down the stairs, practically stumbling over Gore, who was still lumbering down the last few steps, carrying the cumbersome dressing table ahead of him.

As Perly helped Gore lift the dressing table into the van, Mim walked back through the house and stood watching from the kitchen door. Then, while Gore padded the table with the old quilts and tied it securely, Perly walked back up the stone path toward Mim. He opened the screen door and walked in, forcing Mim to retreat. He looked around the kitchen. “I thought Id say hello to Mrs. Moore,” he announced. “She’s something of a favorite of mine.”

“She’s not up to company,” Mim said loudly.

“Mim,” he said. She stood with her back to the wall, and he planted himself before her, leaning slightly so that she could feel his coiled tension like the heat waves rising from the pasture in summer. “Does it mean so much to you? I know the pleasuies of a dressing table to a good-looking woman. But there are other things-better schools for Hildie, year-round church, more ready cash, more comforts... I know what I want.

Mim could not move without flailing out at the man and making him back off, and she trembled from the effort of suppressing her need to do so.

“Comfort,” he said almost fiercely. “You’ve never known much comfort, have you, Mim?”

Mim raised her eyes to Perly’s, blue and defiant.

Perly dropped his gaze to Mim’s hands, pressed flat and angry against the wall behind her. Slowly he raised his eyes to Mim’s again, his face curling into lines of pleasure, perhaps of triumph. “You and I will have to get together someday, Mim,” he said. “I admire a woman with grit.” Then, with his own glittering stillness, he held Mim motionless against the wall while the clock in the kitchen chimed over and over again. When she dropped her eyes, he moved quietly away.

After the truck began to move, Mim slammed the kitchen door and leaned against it, the chipped enamel on the panels cool against her face.

Gradually, she began to hear Ma’s calls, and realized that they had started even before Perly left.

She came to life abruptly and lunged into the living room. “Where’s John?” she shouted at Ma. “Where is he?”

Ma was standing up halfway across the room. She had abandoned the chattering television set and begun the journey toward the kitchen. “What right had you, you fresh miss?” she hissed. What right had you? This is my house and I had things to say to that man.”

“What can you want to say to him?” Mim asked. “What can a body say? He don’t care—”

“No. That’s what,” Ma said. “No. No. No. Not the pair of you together can muster an ounce of gumption. Give the man a chance. You never said a word to hint you wasn’t just as happy to give away your dressin’ table. You never-”

“It’s not the dressin’ table, Ma,” Mim screamed. “I don’t give a hoot about the dressin’ table.” She turned abruptly and sat down on the piano bench with her back to Ma, staring at the dusty keys that no one knew how to play any more.

Ma sighed. “Miriam dear,” she said. She turned and hobbled back to her couch. She settled herself with a cushion against the small of her back and her bad leg up on the stool. Then she said, “Was a weddin’ present from your mother, if I remember right.

Mim nodded.

“Such a pretty thing you was,” Ma said. “A dressin’ table she gave you. This was a mean place for the likes of you.

“It was not,” Mim said crossly, standing up and walking to the window so that she looked out over the green lawn, the stretch of garden yellow with the first marigolds and zinnias, the ribbon of field where they used to pasture the work horses, and then the pond, blue beneath the summer sky. “My mother never had a scrap of sense.”