Martin’s House of Miniatures
Moonshine Review, Spring/Summer 2021 (Volume 17, Issue 1)
Blood & Bourbon #12: Companionship
The short, dreary-looking man walked up to the counter, introduced himself as Seth, removed a square of green velvet from a plastic shopping bag, and began unfolding and unfolding, eventually revealing a tiny group of books.
Ray, the third-generation owner of Martin’s House of Miniatures, noticed Seth’s thin hands shaking slightly.
“It’s a pristine set of Shakespeare’s sonnets, in miniature. At least one hundred years old.” Seth said, adding that they were left to him by his aunts, who owned a bookshop. He stopped talking, stared at Ray.
Ray reached for and put on his special magnifying glasses, taking the books in hand, examining each. “I have some of these, but not a whole, complete set—and not pristine, of course,” he said.
“My aunts were pristine people,” Seth said.
Ray looked around at his messy shop and snorted, not knowing what to say to that. He didn’t normally receive “donations”—as Seth called the books—so he offered fifty bucks or a percentage of whatever he got for them if they sold.
“No,” Seth responded, “I know my aunts would appreciate the idea of supporting a local, an independent business.”
“I’m independent, if that’s what you want to call it.” Ray smiled. “Sold—or not!” Feeling embarrassed by his own joke, he quickly rewrapped the books. “Well, Seth,” Ray summoned his most professional speech, “it certainly has been a pleasure.”
“Oh, one more thing,” Seth said.
“What?”
“Maybe you could try to sell them to someone nice, someone who’ll take care of them.”
“I’ll do my best.” Ray said, adding a quick “sir,” thinking that ended things well.
Yeah, the highest bidder.
The bell on the door jangled as Seth exited, leaving Ray standing at the counter, the soft sound of the oldies station playing Tears of a Clown filling the silence.
Ray wondered why. Why did he carry on this business, started by his grandfather, collecting and selling things just because they were tiny? Tiny china sets, tiny pieces of food, tiny furniture, tiny paintings, tiny animals. Ridiculous.
Little things for a guy with a big mess of a life: three ex-wives, no kids, a store full of junk.
Late August—the dog days—the window air conditioner choked with exertion, something else Ray could not afford to replace. But the donation from Seth made him feel a little less glum, a bit lighter, even a tad celebratory. He turned the OPEN sign to CLOSED, went to the bathroom, snapped on the light, and splashed water on his face. Staring at his blood-shot eyes, missing front tooth, and five o’clock shadow, he shook his head. I am one full-sized, non-miniature, awful-looking bastard. He applied his shaving cream liberally.
His skin felt cool and tight as he walked back into the store, passing cluttered shelves of tiny trains, cars, planes, dollhouse furnishings. Surveying all the mess, he shuddered. The shop’s musty smell crawled deep under his skin, conflicting with his fresh shave.
Ray couldn’t fathom how it’d happened, how everyone had died before him.
Go figure. Family dies, wives leave, work sucks you dry.
A feeling of lethargy in his brain and body once again took over.
So much for celebration.
He’d seen photos of the shop in its heyday. Immaculate. Pristine. Ray wished he had the energy, the stamina to clean it all up, make sense, order, maybe put his stuff on the internet and sell it.
I don’t even have a computer, for god’s sake.
Restless, Ray knew he couldn’t stay at the shop, needed to go for a swim. That’s what he did on days like this. He had to store up energy for Bouckville on Saturday. So, leaving the tiny Shakespeares on the counter, covered in their green velvet, he turned off the lights and went out the door.
***
Bouckville—known as “the biggest antiques and collectibles market in the northeast, maybe the world”—dominated Ray’s entire year. Martin’s Miniatures endured as the only miniature dealer at the huge antiques market held annually in a large field about twenty miles outside of town. Ray believed the extent and history of his family’s collections ruled over Bouckville, but this had never been proven. His display drew a fair bit of attention, especially from children, even if it didn’t draw a fair bit of revenue. He needed to pick his best sampling for the show and try to display it in a neat and attractive way. His second wife, Sandy, had excelled at this particular chore. Recalling this, Ray had a stab of regret. Then he remembered her bad breath and awful sister.
Ray loaded the truck the morning before Bouckville, recollecting the many trips to the market in his youth, when his Dad and brother, Guy, had packed the truck carefully. Each box number corresponded to its placement on the display tables. Ray had no such organization.
The antique fair jumbled the rare, the beautiful, and the downright pathetic and awful. Some merchants displayed the worst junk—tangles of plastic, wood, jewelry, hair clips, stray marbles, forgotten political campaign buttons. All marked for the low, low price of sixty bucks per item, since the market persisted in notorious overpricing. These messes spilled across miles of folding tables, hovered over by quirky dealers wearing large sunglasses and even larger sunhats. Collectors, dressed basically the same, pushed grocery carts between the tables, making comments without hesitation or care of who might hear. “What a bunch of junk!” Ray often heard collectors shout as they passed the different displays. People could be so insensitive.
Ray attended Bouckville not so much for the antiques as the food. He spent the few dollars he made on Sid’s fried chicken or the Taco Taco truck’s enchiladas, and always on Lila’s pies. Once, on a buying trip in Philadelphia, Ray and his dad had a huge piece of apple pie as big as Lila’s, but not nearly as good.
Lila, a strange sort of woman, was not just overweight, as one might expect a baker to be, Lila was big in all ways—six feet tall, huge brown eyes, giant hands, feet, everything. And she favored large, psychedelic, floral prints, so much so Ray knew the other vendors cruelly referred to her as “the couch.”
Ray tried to talk to her each year, but she had little to say beyond “thank you.” Still, she always shared a reserved smile, lips painted ruby red curling in the corners, when he paid his ten dollars for a giant piece of pie and lemonade. Ray loved her lips. He sometimes thought of them smiling just for him.
***
With his display set up, Ray made his way quickly to Lila’s truck—huge in itself to accommodate its owner and her product. Lila always opened before the market to give dealers a chance to savor her sweet and savory pastries before the onslaught of customers.
Not an ordinary food truck, Lila provided an outdoor restaurant with folding tables and chairs, floral print table cloths, silverware, cloth napkins, and even servers. Antique people love anything old-fashioned, so Bouckville customers loved sitting down properly under Lila’s awning, enjoying a satisfying piece of pie, and drinking lemonade with frozen strawberries floating on top from Lila’s long, pink, Depression-era glasses. Ray heard the muttered comments about the giant woman who made it all happen.
How does she fit in the kitchen?
Does she eat all this pie herself?
Ray assumed Lila remembered him, since he came year after year. He fantasized about striking up a conversation, but just couldn’t find the guts. He wanted to tell her that he recognized her true talent and entrepreneurial spirit. Ray cowered beside Lila’s greatness, identifying himself as a grandson, a son—someone left things, someone left behind. And there was the problem of his looks. He was aware he was not easy on the eyes, while Lila shimmered. Thinking of Lila felt like remembering a really good dream, the kind that evades memory, the kind that needs to be snatched as each fleeting bit blows quickly away.
Graceful in her large body, Lila moved between her tables with deft precision. Ray had no idea what it would be like to be that busy, no idea how she did it all—baking, serving, cleaning, receiving payments, giving change. Of course, she had a few kids that served and helped clean up.
Ray noticed Lila smiled at everyone the way she smiled at him but didn’t talk much to anyone. She didn’t have time to blather on like Ray did to his passersby—he hesitated to say customers—or gossip with neighboring dealers like old Ed the Mattel toy guy. What a bore.
This year, Ray promised himself he would make friends with Lila. He would try. He would write her a note, had even stopped at Target on his way to Bouckville, buying cards he thought she would like. On one, a retro cherries print, he wrote an effusive thank you, a rambling appreciation of her pies. Not exactly an ‘A’ student in English, Ray had a penchant for run-on sentences. He told her how he came every year, gladly waiting in line for her pie. He told her about a book he remembered his mother reading to him called The Blueberry Pie Elf, about an elf who struggles to tell his human family of his obsession with blueberry pie. He asked if she knew the book, hopefully inspiring a response. He had wanted to write more about his mother, how she died too early, how much he missed her, how she understood him, but stopped himself. Too much.
He left the note on his dirtied table that first day, hoping she would find it and write back.
Returning to Lila’s the next day, Ray waited in line, watching for her anxiously. When she finally approached, she remained terse. She said nothing about the note, offering only her, “One for pie? This way, sir.” He smiled like a goon, following her silently.
***
On the third day of the market, a cooler day than usual, Ray decided to veer from his normal order—blueberry, like the elf in the book—and get a savory ham and cheese pie. As Lila took his order, his heart beat wildly in his chest. She looked him right in the eye, an extra bit of attention signaling his change in habit. He smiled weakly and shifted in his seat but felt something loosen, come apart, sway. Before he could stop it or put down his lemonade, his seat collapsed beneath him, taking the table cloth, the table, and all the china down with him. The Depression-era glass shattered on the cement. Ray lay there, the pathetic sight he always believed himself to be. Lila, silent, walked away and returned with her dustpan and brush.
The line grew as Ray stood and brushed his pants off. She looked tense, hot, maybe even angry.
“I’m so sorry, Li—mam,” Ray stammered.
She simply nodded and continued working.
He lifted the mangled chair, which a neighboring customer took from his flaccid arms. Reaching into his pocket, Ray pulled out the twenty he put aside that morning for pie and placed it on the table. As he left, he overheard a server say, “Those glasses were her mother’s!” He returned to Martin’s Miniatures display with an empty, sick belly, accepting a packet of peanut butter crackers from the kid he’d hired to cover.
***
That night, tangled in sweaty sheets, Ray’s mind lit up like an inextinguishable torch. An idea shone so brightly once it arrived that he jumped out of bed and rushed to the shop counter. He would give Lila a gift, and not just any gift but Seth’s miniature Shakespeares, wrapped in the green velvet they came in.
On the final day of the market, Ray sweated as he waited in line. When Lila saw him, her face softened a bit,
“One for pie?”
“No pie today,” Ray said. “These.”
Those behind him in line huffed in annoyance as Lila took the time, right there, to unwrap the velvet, unraveling the package delicately until the small stack of gilded treasure sat upright in her expansive palm. She held the first book up to her large brown eyes and examined it, pulling her red cat-glass readers up from their chain.
“How sweet,” she whispered. “What a sweet, tiny thing. Poetry?”
Ray nodded, smiled his toothless grin, and returned to Martin’s House of Miniatures—feeling, for once, like a success.
