Her requirements for purchasing the doll were not the same hands-on connection that some collectors demanded. The doll was superfluous to her. The seller was her target.
Four hours and twenty minutes left in the auction, and twenty-seven bids registered. Caroline watched her e-mail in-box intently for new bids, the auction house alerting her each time another buyer outbid her. She rapidly and expertly moved between screens, from e-mail to auction.
Two thirty in the morning, and Caroline felt her resolve slipping as her need for sleep increased. Anxious worldwide buyers were bidding on the same doll. What time was it in London? In Rome? She cursed the seller for accepting international bids but recognized it as a brilliant maneuver to remove the doll from the United States. Crucial for the seller, but she refused to allow it to happen.
Caroline decided to check the auction bid one last time, then break for a few hours’ rest. She needed sleep desperately, her thoughts too loosely connected and ineffective without it. She watched as the auction screen lit up, and her eyes grew wide with urgency. The Buy It Now icon flashed across her screen, the signal that the seller was ready to end the bidding at a certain set price. Usually this option wasn’t available after the bidding began, and Caroline hadn’t expected it.
The price shown under the listing for the Jumeau Bébé caused Caroline to pause momentarily. Twenty-two thousand dollars, a princely amount.
Her fingers flew on the keyboard, intent on beating another bidder to the treasure, hoping they had been caught off-guard also. All she needed was a lead of a few seconds. Faster fingers.
She hit Enter and sat back.
Something must have frightened the seller, too much attention on the site perhaps, or an unforeseen problem in waiting out the remaining four hours. She sensed a change in plans, a quiet desperation.
She punched in her e-mail address and smiled weakly.
“Congratulations!” appeared on the screen.
23
Doll clothing is big business. With a sewing machine and expert sewing skills, a doll repairer can mend cloth bodies and reattach arms. She also can make reproductions of original costumes, remembering the ethical value of honesty when representing such work. Knowledge of period costumes is invaluable in determining originality, which gains importance with the age of the doll. Collectors remember clothing. Who can resist a perfectly fashioned two-piece satin jacket dress, a vintage white organdy, a pink cotton dress with pleated bottom, or a boy doll with red cummerbund and brass studs? The clothing, some say, makes the doll.
– From World of Dolls by Caroline Birch
Gretchen rolled out of bed early Wednesday morning after a restless night’s sleep and painfully pulled on a pair of socks over her burnt feet and tied up the laces on her hiking boots. Glancing in the mirror, she noticed that her facial coloring remained a crispy, flaky red, and she dabbed on more healing lotion.
Nimrod, ready for high-energy puppy action, bolted his breakfast, while Wobbles savored his meal one morsel at a time. After eating, Wobbles nimbly sprang to the floor, and Nimrod proceeded to run in circles around him in a vain attempt to entice him into a game of chase. Wobbles looked on with disdain, his eyelids hooded and watchful. Eventually, he sauntered over to the protective height of the washing machine.
Gretchen drank coffee and ate what remained of last night’s Chinese meal, wistfully remembering the enormous all-American breakfasts of her past. As she approached thirty, she’d been forced to change her eating habits to reflect her slower metabolism and the accompanying ease with which she gained unwanted weight. No more breakfasts of eggs, bacon, toast, and fried potatoes for her. Ruby red grapefruits and plain yogurt from now on.
She had jealously observed that Arizona women were fit, trim, and golden tan, and she hoped to model her unemployed self after them rather than eat her way through mounds of seven-layer self-pity.
She also noticed that she had more commitment to self-control and strength in the mornings than later in the day, when most of her determination faded.
A hardy hike up the mountain before the sun began to scorch the earth would solve the metabolism problem, at least temporarily. Last night’s storm had moved toward the coast, and the arid desert heat had already begun to absorb the large quantities of fallen rain. In the next short, sunny hours, all evidence of flooding would evaporate, and the land would appear parched again.
On the day Gretchen arrived in Phoenix, the local news had recounted the rescue of a dehydrated, heat-stricken hiker. Gretchen planned a cautious, safe climb to protect herself from embarrassing media coverage. Water bottle, hat, and an early ascent were essential.
As an afterthought, she grabbed a pair of binoculars in case she spotted a new bird to add to her growing life list of bird sightings.
Taking the footpath to the trailhead, she veered to the left onto Summit Trail and began the rugged one-point-two-mile uphill climb, periodically stopping to rest and to glance at the summit, almost three thousand feet above sea level, according to a sign below. A Harris antelope squirrel darted along the rocks, tail curled across his back, and disappeared into a tangle of mesquite.
Halfway up, Gretchen paused at the hand railing and listened to the high-pitched trill of a rock wren. She felt rejuvenated by the fresh air and the open expanse of the desert mountain. She saw nesting holes bored into a saguaro cactus by a gila woodpecker and daydreamed about life as a bird. Free and mobile. It seemed a peaceful existence compared to the complexities of human relationships.
She looked back down the steep trail toward the trailhead, now a tiny spot in the distance, and out over the city. She saw someone moving up the path toward her with a familiar gait. She held the binoculars to her eyes and watched Matt Albright making the steep climb. He wasn’t doing too badly, considering how unprepared he was for the hike. He didn’t wear a hat, which is the very first hiking rule, and didn’t carry water, as far as Gretchen could see. Obviously, a beginner. Or perhaps he hadn’t anticipated climbing a mountain today. Had he been watching her all along? Following her from home?
Matt looked up in her direction, and she reluctantly waved, wishing instead to slide down and flatten into the rocks. He hadn’t exactly been the bearer of good news lately. Matt lifted a hand as a shield from the sun and waved in return. She watched him pick his way through the rocks.
“You obviously never joined the Boy Scouts,” she said, when he stopped before her, breathing hard. Lines of perspiration ran down both sides of his face, but he managed one of his dazzling smiles. He could make a living as a tooth model.
“Their motto is Be prepared,” she continued, handing him her water bottle. “You’re a classic dehydration victim and potential buzzard food.” She watched him tip the bottle back and take a long drink.
“The fire department needs the extra business,” he managed to say. “They’d be happy to come up and get me.” He sat down on a boulder. “I should have trained for this assignment. Keeping up with you isn’t easy. A triathlon would be less work.”
“I see you’re a walking advertisement for social issues,” she said, pointing at his T-shirt, reading the inscription Follow Your Own Path-Leave Only Footprints. She remembered the Indian Youth Fund T-shirt he wore a few days ago. “A cop with a social conscience.”
“You make it sound like we aren’t human. Maybe I can prove you wrong.”
“My cousin, Blaze, is a sheriff in a little town in the Michigan Upper Peninsula. He kind of gives the profession a bad name, He’s Neanderthalish and loudly self-righteous. I’m going to the top. If you want to make sure I don’t commit a crime against Phoenix, like littering on one of your premier tourist attractions, you’d better go up with me.”