"I like it very much," Craphound said, and I felt my cheeks flush.
"You're going to have some competition tonight, I think," I said, and nodded at Scott/Billy. "I think he's Billy; the one whose mother sold us — you — the cowboy trunk."
"Really?" Craphound said, and it felt like we were partners again, scoping out the competition. Suddenly I felt a knife of shame, like I was betraying Scott/Billy somehow. I took a step back.
"Jerry, I am very sorry that we argued."
I sighed out a breath I hadn't known I was holding in. "Me, too."
"They're starting the bidding. May I sit with you?"
And so the three of us sat together, and Craphound shook Scott/Billy's hand and the auctioneer started into his harangue.
It was a night for unusual occurrences. I bid on a piece, something I told myself I'd never do. It was a set of four matched Li'l Orphan Annie Ovaltine glasses, like Grandma's had been, and seeing them in the auctioneer's hand took me right back to her kitchen, and endless afternoons passed with my colouring books and weird old-lady hard candies and Liberace albums playing in the living room.
"Ten," I said, opening the bidding.
"I got ten, ten,ten, I got ten, who'll say twenty, who'll say twenty, twenty for the four."