Antiques Knock-Off Read Online Free Page B

dignity.
    “Whew!” Timmons said, with a roll of his eyes. “That’s one customer I don’t mind losing.”
    “What was that about you cheating her?” I asked.
    He shrugged. “The contentious Mrs. Grimes claims I overcharged her for a repair. I didn’t. Some people think they deserve special rates.”
    “She deserves
something,”
I said. I was shaken up, but hadn’t realized it till it was over.
    Mother said, “Thank you, Ben, for what you did….”
    I voiced my appreciation, too. Mother could have landed in the county jail for that; in truth, she
had
attacked the woman. God bless her.
    “Don’t mention it,” Timmons said with a smile. “Now. Why don’t two you go on home, and I’ll call you later with an estimate on your clock.”
    As Mother and I walked down the long hallway, I asked, “What happened to using the tactics of our president—
talk
to the enemy and so on?”
    “Well, dear,” Mother replied, “I decided to take the advice of a
different
president.”
    “Which one?”
    “T.R., dear. T.R.”
    “Oh?”
    “Walk softly,” she said with a chuckle, “but carry a big stick.”
    But I wasn’t laughing. Connie Grimes would most certainly ramp up her attack on us.
    I muttered, “She’s lucky somebody doesn’t kill her.”
    “Look on the bright side, dear,” Mother said cheerfully. “Maybe someone will.”
    A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Tip
    With modern technology, fake antiques can be found among furniture, pottery, glassware, photographs, metal-works, and every other area of collecting. Even a skilled collector can sometimes be fooled. To protect yourself, become knowledgeable in your field of interest. For example, I know everything there is to know about smiley-face clocks.

Chapter Two
Knocked-off
    P eggy Sue lived in an expensive home in a new subdivision on the outskirts of Serenity, along with husband Bob, and Ashley, her only child (not counting me).
    Bob, who ran his own accounting firm, was a workaholic—not by choice but necessity, thanks to Sis’s extravagant tastes. Ashley, a sophomore in college, attended an exclusive private school in the East and, even though spoiled rotten, she had Borne spunk in her DNA, which kept me from resenting her utterly for getting the soft, cushy life that might have been mine.
    After the incident between Mother and Connie Grimes at the clock repair shop, I had called Peggy Sue to say I needed to see her, but didn’t want to go into details over the phone. We set up a time in the early evening, when Mother would be gone, rehearsing at the Playhouse for her upcoming community production, in which she would don dual hats as director and lead actress in
Opal Is a Diamond.
    (Note one:
Referring to her role as the eccentric, garbage-collecting Opal, Mother had commented, “I’ll have to stretch my veteran acting chops to pull
this
part off.”)
    (Note two:
When I went to the first rehearsal, I found director-Mother yelling at actress-Mother, “You’re playing that too
broadly,
Vivian,” and actress-Mother yelling at director-Mother, “You don’t know
what
you’re talking about, Vivian!” I vowed to stay away until opening night.)
    Around seven P.M. , I pulled my battered Buick up the long wide concrete driveway to the triple garage of Peggy Sue’s monstrous three-story brick mansion. All inhabitants were home, apparently—the garage door was open, showing off Bob’s flashy silver BMW sports car, Sis’s blue Cadillac Escalade, and Ashley’s red Mustang convertible.
    When I turned off my car, the engine knocked, and the tailpipe backfired a big ol’ car fart, giving me a perverse pleasure because the ruckus drew disapproving stares from a few snooty neighbors out in their picture-perfect yards. (Phew! I think that’s the longest sentence I ever wrote.)
    Then up the yellow brick road to Emerald City skipped little me, to ring the bell. To my surprise, Ashley opened the door.
    “I thought you were off at college,” I said.
    Ashley was a