Page 7 of Coach
He smirked. “You spent three grand on a flat screen and still prop it up on a moving box. Trust me—you’ll be fine.”
That was fair.
Brutal.
Butfair.
I sighed, wiping powdered sugar off my face, not realizing I’d just left a streak of white across my cheek. “Fine. Lead the way, Mr. Antiques Roadshow.”
The antique section stretched like a treasure hunt designed by someone with a hoarding problem and a very loose grip on reality. I felt like we were walking into an IKEA, and the little old man or woman who handed out the maps at the entrance had taken the day off.
Mike and I weaved through the narrow aisles, dodging old spinning wheels, tarnished lamps, and enough old furniture to furnish a haunted house.
What I hadn’t realized when we’d entered the section was that the antique section might’ve been the most popular—and largest—of all the areas of the fair. The ancient pieces weren’t simply housed beneath one large tent, but a series of large tents, each with their own particular theme.
The first tent housed a mountain of chairs, none of which matched each other, or basic human dignity. The second was filled with pottery, including one table where a man in a glued-on Dudley Do-Right mustache sold “authentic Civil War-era pottery” that looked like it had been microwaved yesterday. The presence of his Tupperware-contained lunch made our peevish jokes flow.
Mike pointed at a cracked wooden stool with a sticker on it reading, “MAY HAVE BEEN USED BY LINCOLN HIMSELF!”
“Think I could flip it on eBay?” he whispered, dead serious.
“Only if you throw in a lock of your hair and a certificate of delusion,” I muttered.
We shuffled onward, our arms still sticky from funnel cake sugar and powdered with what I was starting to suspect was actual dust from the Great Depression.
“What’s that?” Mike asked, stopping at a table displaying what looked like a cross between a butter churn and an alien torture device.
I squinted. “Conversation starter?”
He flipped the tag. It read, “Nineteenth-century dental equipment.”
We both recoiled as if it had bitten us. Mike yanked his hand back so fast the seller chuckled, his ancient eyes glinting in the dying daylight.
“Nope,” I said, moving on. “Not going in my house. No, sir.”
We passed dressers with missing drawers, tables with legs that looked one stiff breeze away from collapse, and a robust collection of ceramic frogs. I was oddly drawn to the little green things, but Mike threatened to “take away my gay card” if I so muchas touched one.
Somewhere to our left, a vendor with a white mustache the size of a small cat was holding court over a battered oak armoire. “Thomas Jefferson himself owned this piece!” he bellowed to a wide-eyed older couple.
Mike leaned close and stage-whispered, “Fun fact: Thomas Jefferson also owned my grandma’s Tupperware set.”
I snorted, covering my mouth lest lemon vodka try to make a run for it.
Finally, we wandered into a section tucked toward the back of the tent—more serious-looking stuff. It was filled with real wood, heavy pieces. There were no googly-eyed ceramic frogs in sight.
Cabinets. Sideboards. Low dressers. Solid, practical furniture.
I slowed without meaning to.
Mike noticed, grinning around a mouthful of what was left of his third corn dog.
“Ooooh,” he said in a low voice. “Do my eyes deceive me, or is Coach Cardboard looking at a real piece of furniture?”
I shoved him with my elbow. “I’m just looking.”
“You’re lingering,” he singsonged. “That’s step one of falling in love. First lingering. Then commitment.”
I ignored him and drifted closer to a walnut sideboard with clean lines, heavy legs, and a wide, flat surface that looked perfect for a TV. It was beat up, sure, needed some love, but it was real wood—not likely to collapse under the weight of a mild breeze—or a seventy-inch TV and my poor life choices.
