"Looks like a big crowd," she said, as they got out.
"There are two kinds of people here," Cheryl explained. "Dealers like you-this is their business, after all-and people who just get a kick out of attending auctions."
Karen felt a small thrill at the matter-of-fact tone in which Cheryl had said "dealers like you." It was, however, partly a shudder of trepidation. "I don't know what I'm doing," she groaned.
"Well, you have some idea of what things are worth," Cheryl said. "What prices you can ask, I mean. You just figure out how much you can afford to spend and don't go over that amount when you bid."
"It can't be as simple as that."
"Just about." Cheryl gave a wriggle of pleasure. "This is such fun. I'm one of the second group. If I didn't have other things to do, I'd be at an auction or flea market or yard sale every darned day."
Innocently delighted at being able to display her knowledge, Cheryl explained the arrangements. The auction building, open on one side, contained the choicer items that were to be sold. The auctioneer's podium, at the front, was flanked by long tables piled with small items-glasses and china, clocks and lamps, linens and ornaments. Furniture was stacked around the perimeter, leaving the center open for the bidders. This space was already half-filled with portable chairs, some occupied, some empty.
They set up their own chairs in a strategic spot and then Cheryl led Karen outside. Here the less valuable merchandise was arranged in parallel lines. It was a motley, shabby collection-chairs with no seats, tables with no finish, chests of drawers with half the drawers missing, rusty tools and pieces of machinery, and dozens upon dozens of cardboard cartons filled with everything from books to empty jelly jars.
"This is just junk," Karen exclaimed.
"Junk to you, treasure trove to people who are willing to do some painting and repairing. Come on, he'll be starting soon, probably with these box lots. I want to have a look at the linens. You never know…"
That phrase, Karen soon realized, was the bidder's creed. You never knew what might have been overlooked by a busy auctioneer or an ignorant seller. Among the dime-store ornaments might be a Sevres saucer; a hand-knit cotton-warp bedspread could be hidden under piles of moth-eaten blankets. Watching Cheryl as she squatted and rummaged, her skirts trailing in the dust, Karen began to get the urge too.
When the auctioneer's voice rose over the hubbub, announcing the sale was about to begin, Cheryl rose to her feet and dusted off her hands. "We'd better get our numbers. There's nothing here you want, is there?"
Karen agreed that there was not. The most exciting thing Cheryl had turned up was a set of kitchen towels embroidered with puppies in strident shades of green and red.
They stood in line to register. After displaying her driver's license and giving her telephone number, Karen was issued a piece of cardboard with a number scrawled on it. The process struck her as extremely casual, but when she said as much to Cheryl, the latter shrugged.
"I guess the big expensive places ask for bank references and like that, but there isn't a lot of money involved in these small auctions. If you pass a bad check, the word gets around and then you can't play anymore. They don't usually take out-of-state checks, though, so it's lucky you have a local driver's license. The District is considered local, here and in Virginia. What you really ought to get is a dealer's number, then you wouldn't have to pay state sales tax."
Karen rolled her eyes and threw up her hands at the reminder of another chore to be done, and Cheryl laughed self-consciously. "There I go again. Why don't you just tell me to shut up when I butt into your business?"
They returned to the scene of the action, which had warmed up considerably in both senses of the word. A crowd surrounded the auctioneer; they attached themselves to the fringes.
At first Karen found the proceedings confusing. Microphone in hand, the auctioneer, a tall, rawboned man wearing a Western-style straw hat moved slowly down the line of merchandise. Sometimes one of his assistants held up the item being auctioned, but Karen was not always sure precisely what was about to be sold, and the bidding went with terrifying speed-or so it seemed to her. She had never attended an auction before. It was a popular avocation with some faculty wives, but she had never had time for such things. There was always a paper to be typed or a set of references to check, and besides, Jack despised secondhand merchandise. He didn't even like antiques, only neat, clean reproductions.
"Here's a nice lot, folks," the auctioneer drawled as his assistant lifted a cardboard carton. "Sheets, towels, hardly used. Who'll start it off with ten bucks? Seven-fifty, then. Five…"
The bidding started at two dollars and went up by fifty-cent increments. "That was a good buy," Cheryl said, as the box was finally knocked down for eight dollars. "But it's early yet, the crowd is just getting started."
"Good buy? Who wants sheets other people have used?"
"You sleep on 'em all the time in hotels," Cheryl said practically. "Do you know how much new sheets cost, even on sale? How're you doing-getting the hang of it?"
"I need to scratch my chin," Karen said nervously. "But I'm afraid to move. Some of these people seem to bid by raising an eyebrow, or wriggling their ears."
Cheryl grinned. "No problem. Fred's a good auctioneer; he knows a serious bidder from a nervous twitcher. Just hold up your card when you want to bid. But watch out for auction fever."
"What's that?"
"Bidding on things you don't want and don't need."
"Why would anybody do that?"
"It's like a disease," Cheryl said seriously. "It still happens to me sometimes; comes on without warning. You find yourself going higher and higher and you can't seem to stop. If you see me doing it, just take my card away from me and don't let me have it back, even if I beg."
Karen laughed, thinking she was joking. Nothing like that would ever affect her! She decided, though, that she would rather accept some unwanted article than admit she had made a gesture in error; many of the bidders were known to the auctioneer, and he interspersed his droning spiel with jokes and friendly insults. "Sam, if you don't want the stuff, stop waving your hat; I don't care if the flies are driving you crazy. Lady, you're raising your own bid; it's okay by me, but try to keep track, will you?"
Cheryl bought a box of bedding for six dollars, and Karen regretted her earlier snobbish comment. The sheets weren't for Mark's expensive town house; they were for the home Cheryl hoped to establish for herself and her little boy.
The sun rose higher and the complexions of the bidders turned pink and shiny with sweat. A few people left, having attained their hearts' desires or lost them to higher bidders, but the crowd increased as late-comers arrived. The auctioneer turned his mike over to a colleague and retired into the shade.
Karen was about to suggest that they emulate him when the attack Cheryl had warned her of occurred. It came on her with the suddenness of a sharp pang of indigestion, when a box of odds and ends was about to be knocked down for two dollars. Before she knew what she was doing, she was waving her cardboard ticket high above her head.
"Two-fifty," the auctioneer droned. "Do I hear three bucks?"
He didn't hear three bucks, for the excellent reason that there was nothing in the box except two rusty license plates and a red plaster dog with a chipped ear. The auctioneer's assistant deposited the box at Karen's feet, and Cheryl giggled. "What did you do that for?"
"I don't know," Karen admitted.
She and Cheryl contemplated the red plaster dog. "A rare example of antique folk art," said Cheryl.