The Gallery of Lost Species Read Online Free Page B

fancy custom-made “glitz dresses” didn’t fit, and a flustered Constance had to get down on her knees and pull crazy glue, safety pins, and duct tape from her fanny pack. More than once I observed Viv lowering her gaze at our mother with an enigmatic smile, as Constance sweated and struggled to tighten seams so Viv wouldn’t be docked marks for loose attire.
    Often the duct tape stuck to Viv’s lily-white skin. At home, Con forced her into the painting shed, where she poured turpentine onto a rag, scrubbing Viv’s back to remove the adhesive as my sister’s body flared up in rashes.
    Constance spent Henry’s nest egg on pageantry. Dance and stage-coaching classes alone cost a thousand dollars a month. The money to fix the rickety fence and the money to renovate the bathroom went to travel and entry fees. The money for new windows and the money to build a deck went to apparel and aesthetics. So long as it made her happy, Henry didn’t object.
    Meanwhile, my father’s zeal switched from books to coins. I was overjoyed. My collection began with a jar of pennies that he had me sort by year and country of origin—Britain, Canada, Australia, America, Ireland. Then we organized them by age and wear.
    When Viv and Constance were off pageanting one Sunday, he took me to Ye Olde Coin Shoppe, a used and rare coins store that belonged to a gypsy named Serena. Tucked between the neighbourhood pawn dealer and Payday Loans, Ye Olde Coin Shoppe resembled the witch’s house from Hansel and Gretel with its steep, gabled roof and brown exterior decorated with triangle pennants and the sign COINS GOLD SILVER BUY SELL . Even with its barred windows it stood out gaily, contrasting with the street’s otherwise down-and-out storefronts.
    We entered through a cloud of burning incense. A woman with unruly red hair and an angular, masculine face emerged from behind the counter. She was smoking a long thin cigar and she wore a glass circle over one eye, attached to her waist with a chain. Approaching us in her layers of shawls and skirts, her arms adorned with bracelets, she could have been thirty or fifty, it was impossible to tell.
    She made us tart hibiscus tea that she poured into glasses rather than cups. She offered us figs from a tin with dragonflies on it, which she kept on a shelf above the till.
    My father let me pick an item from Serena’s grubby cabinets for myself. But as I was deciding what to choose, I was thrown off by the strange sounds coming from the upstairs living quarters, noises that neither my father nor Serena reacted to.
    â€œWhat’s happening up there?” I asked.
    â€œMy son,” Serena said without looking up from the album she was making. “Don’t hold this upside down.” She slid a coin into a plastic casing and gave it to me. “A sterling obol to start you off.”
    My father shook Serena’s hand in appreciation as I priced out my new acquisition. On one side of the coin there was a double axe and a cluster of grapes. I flipped the transparent page over. The other side had a double head stamped on it, with a bearded face looking left and a clean-shaven face looking right, sharing the same skull.
    â€œAre these Siamese twins?”
    â€œIt’s a janiform head,” she explained, “named after the Roman god Janus.”
    â€œI know a Janice at school.”
    â€œHold it around the edge. Don’t put your fingers on the faces.” Serena told me I was touching a 2,500-year-old coin. The lump of metal was rough and tarnished.
    â€œWhat’s it worth?” I asked her.
    â€œNothing. Twenty dollars at most.”
    â€œBut it’s so old.”
    â€œSome objects are like women.” Serena removed her eyepiece before giving my father a beguiling smile. “They lose their value with age.”
    *   *   *
    A FTER WE LEFT the Coin Shoppe, we wound through the streets of Mechanicsville