Note: Tuesday Night’s prompt at Write On was to tell a story
of finding a surprise in the teapot picture above. I admit that I spent a lot
of time setting up and to get to a conclusion, I rushed a bit. I still like this
as a decent idea.
The house was tucked into the back of a corner lot behind a
line of evergreens and unkempt shrubbery at the intersection of Dent Street and
Avenue D. Cars lined the ‘T’, parked for the estate sale of the late Ms. Bloom,
a lifetime single resident of Jordan and a well-known buyer of everything
antique. For years, she’d crept through garage sales or auctions in her
floor-length denim dresses, her hair pressed straight to her bony skull, and
her glasses slid just so on the edge of her nose. She’d stowaway with rare glassware,
cradle animal figurines, lug books, grab small furniture, and even dirty her
hands by grabbing rusty tools – a hammer here, a wrench there, maybe a jigsaw,
and so on. You name it, Ms. Bloom was interested.
Then she died, and every collector, every hoarder, every
curious cat in the town wanted a rare glimpse of her life’s work. Her
collection. For no one could ever remember being in her house. She didn’t have
friends to speak of, just folks she nodded at during sales, her only comment
usually being “There’s weather today.” No one was exactly sure what she meant
by that, but it wasn’t a lie. There was weather every day.
Jordan Estate Sales had first crack at the house and the treasures
inside, spending two months sifting through countless boxes of heirlooms,
emptying drawers, clearing off shelves, and looking under beds and couches to
find every last bit. Pricing was another thing. Some of the stuff was junk, but
most of it was valuable. The odd thing was that there wasn’t two of anything.
She didn’t have sixteen dog figurines. She had one. And one cat. One goat. One
zebra. One of pretty much every animal that stumbled onto the ark all those
centuries ago. The same could be said for every other kind of item. One rare
glass. A German-made cuckoo clock. A flashy motor oil sign. The list was
endless, but each item unique.
Helen got wind of this sale from Patty, her only friend at
the downtown bank office where both worked as tellers. Patty knew the folks
with Jordan Estate Sales and said this was one sale not to be missed. Everyone
needed to get something from Ms. Bloom’s unique collection. Helen decided, she
might need more than one, and so she recruited her husband, Eddie, to go with
her. They arrived ten minutes before the start of the sale, and already the
line at the front door was down the small path that led between the evergreens
to the sidewalk along the intersection. They waited patiently as a dozen folks
were admitted at a time.
“I can’t believe you dragged me out of bed on a Saturday for
this,” Eddie complained, his hands buried in his blue jean pockets, his ball
cap turned backward.
“It’s 9 AM, you have no business still being in bed,” Helen
said. They had been married for two years of bliss and three more years since
then. Neither were unhappy with the marriage, but that was the best that could
be said about it.
When they finally made the front door, they could see that
tables had been setup through the house’s tiny rooms, each filled items, and
the space left to walk was miniscule. It was a display of human bumper cars as
people clawed through items, and pushed to get to the next room.
Helen and Eddie split up once inside, Eddie gravitating
toward a table of tools while Helen floated from one room to another, filled
with the bliss of discovery. Not one thing caught her attention at first,
instead she was overwhelmed by the enormity of the collection.
Finally, in a back bedroom, hidden among a collection of
glassware that included pig salt and pepper shakers, a huge platter with a
cornucopia printed on top, and numerous other objects, she found the teapot. It
was white with blue flowers and a black metal handle. It didn’t seem rare, or
particularly unique, but something about it spoke to her. The tag said two
dollars, and she snatched it into her hands. On the bottom was a pink Post-It note and scribbled in blue
cursive was the words “The Secret Teapot.”
***
Eddie ended up buying more than Helen, she only had the
teapot. He had a socket set, a wrench, a pair of jumper cables, and an old
transistor radio. He piled it in the backseat of their Jeep. Helen held on to
the pot, not wanting it to break.
As they drove, she held it with care, loving the feel of it
in her hands.
“Did you open it?” Eddie asked.
“Open it?”
“Yeah, sometimes there are treasures inside.”
“Hmm.” She lifted the lid. Another pink Post-It was inside
with the same blue ink. She read it once with unbelieving eyes.
“What does it say?”
“It says,” she began. “It says, ‘Eddie is sleeping with
Patty instead of going bowling on Thursday nights.’”
Eddie slammed the brakes.
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