Page 119 of Them Bones

She pulled out her polaroid camera and began photographing it from multiple angles, her heart pounding. This was going to set the art world on fire…

“Mr. Bard will be…very pleased…”she breathed.

“Yes, about that,” Jerry said clearing his throat. “This piece isn’t part of a school project.”

Mildra stilled, narrowing her eyes at him. “What do you mean?” she asked, looking warily at Nancy whose hands were clasped with satisfaction as she stared up at the dragons.

Jerry cleared his throat. “I’ve, ah, set up a corporation for the kid. A trust, if you will.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well, he’s twelve, see, so he can’t be makin’ no real money. But his corporation can.”

Mildra glared at Nancy, but she was still just staring dreamily up at the piece.

“So what exactly are you proposing?” Mildra asked, shifting her attention to Jerry.

Jerry cleared his throat again. “Well… it’s my understanding from Nancy here that ah… Mr. Bard is a collector. A buyer.”

“Indeed,” she said, her voice clipped.

“We’d like for him to make an offer,” Jerry said.

Mildra glared at him, but he stared her down casually like she were a housecat on a garden wall.

“We’ll see what we can do,” she said, her voice dripping with distaste. Jerry’s mouth twitched but he didn’t smile.

She already knew Mr. Bard would buy this. And she already knew it was going to be for astupidamount of money.

Congratulations, kid,she thought.You just made your career.

DUSTIN

“I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” Shane said, his eyes wide, his mouth fully open.

“I said that Mr. Bard there offered Dusty two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the dragons,” Jerry said, thumping a bottle of whiskey down on the table.

“Holyfuck,”Shane said. “HOLY FUCK, Dustin…”

Laney was uncharacteristically quiet, tears welling in her eyes, as she squeezed Dustin's hand.

“So… how does this work?” Shane asked, rubbing the back of his head with both hands. “Like, do they just show up with a briefcase of cash and drive the building away?”

Jerry chuckled. “It’s up to Dustin, how we do this,” Jerry said. “They offered to pay by wire, and then have a crew come and disassemble it for him. But they also offered…”

“Offered what?” Laney asked.

“They offered Dusty a job,” Jerry said. “Said that he could use his own crew, his own crate system, be in charge of transport… They’d pay him for that, too. They don’ want the pieces to get damaged, see, an’ apparently Mildra isn’t a totally useless cunt because she told Mr. Bard that their transport system from the exhibit at the A.G.O. was – and I quote –‘shockingly brilliant, considering it was designed by a bunch of nobodies’.”

“God she’s a piece of work, that woman,” Shane scowled.

“What do you think, Dustin?” Laney asked softly.

He stared at the edge of the table. “I never really planned to sell them. I just wanted tomakethem.”

He looked up at Laney, Shane, and Jerry, all patiently waiting for him to think things through, and felt almost suffocated with love. Dustin didn’t know a lot, but he knew that wasbigmoney. Life-changing money. Maybe the kind of money that meant they didn’t have to see Cary ever, ever again. But he also knew that if he told them all he didn’t want to sell his dragons, they’d support him and never bring it up again. His throat constricted, and he very much wanted to be somewhere else, somewhere private, where he could get some space from the crushing love, no matter how grateful he was for it.

“It’s up to you, man,” Shane said, his voice warm and full of pride.

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