Penny

Monday morning, and there’s a crispness in the air. I roll out of the garage and get a third of the way down the driveway before I slam on the brakes. I can see Wanda’s wide, excited smile in my rearview mirror.

“Hey! Why don’t you watch where you are going!?” she hollers out the window, waving her arm.

Clearly, she’s not letting me out of the driveway, so I pull back into the garage and get out, trying to arrange my face into a believable scowl. The passenger door swings open on her Suburban.

“You’re not even going to let me drive myself?” I mumble, irritated and pleased at the same time.

“You drive like a little old lady,” she quips. “What if we are late? What if you miss it?”

“Well, then, step on it!”

“You got it, sister!”

She actually does floor it, and the Suburban’s engine roars as we hurtle down the farm roads. If I weren’t so nervous, I would be enjoying this.

The woman at the auction barely glances at me when she gives me my bidding slip and takes my check for the deposit. I want to talk to her for some stupid reason. I want to talk to everybody, to share this excited feeling. But nobody really cares, I guess. It’s just another day at the office for them. They aren’t rehabilitating their entire lives, I guess, the way I am.

“Okay, so what do we do?” Wanda whispers conspiratorially. “Do we need to be in front? I can get you to the front or something. I bet you all the old guys would fall over all at once if I just push one of them.”

“Jeez, it doesn’t have to be like that,” I chuckle, though I am happy for the distraction. “I just need to be somewhere in that little group. There’s only like fifteen of us, so I think the auction guy can see me okay.”

“And, what? You raise your paddle like on TV shows?”

“Just watch,” I whisper, shouldering past one of the older fellas. “You’ll figure it out. Our development will be last.”

Just like last time, the auctioneer starts with single-family houses and duplexes that were repossessed by the county for various infractions, usually tax liens. The men around me buy them up one by one with a sort of bored attitude, not even a real sense of competition.

There is just a single moment of excitement over a four-bedroom home in a nicer area that starts an enthusiastic bidding war. It finishes just under current market value, with the winner sucking his teeth in disappointment that he didn’t get a better deal.

“I hope he knows what he’s doing,” she mutters, a little too loudly for my taste. “That guy just paid market value.”

He glances over at us, clearly annoyed and with very good hearing. Wanda just shrugs defiantly. I like it that she is not the kind of woman to turn away and pretend she didn’t say anything.

“Our next and final item is the Feather Rock subdivision,” the auctioneer starts in, and my heart gives a stubborn leap in my chest.

“That’s us!” Wanda announces, ignoring the glare that I give her.

Despite myself, I glance around at the other faces. I’ve been so nervous this whole time, with my skin crawling as though I expect Ron to walk up right behind me and probably fire me on the spot. I’m afraid to turn around and see Ron hauling ass up the courthouse steps.

But Wanda isn’t afraid. Her head swivels around as she squints across the parking lot, keeping vigilant watch for me.

“Oh, shit,” she mutters.

“What?” I gasp, so startled that I don’t hear what the auctioneer says right away.

“Be right back! Do your thing!” she says quickly as she nudges me toward the auctioneer and disappears behind me.

My breath turns to concrete in my lungs as I try to focus all my attention on the auctioneer. He makes an opening bid and I raise my hand. He nods at me, then moves on immediately, asking if anybody else would like to bid. His eyes scan the small crowd, focusing briefly over my head and I wonder if Ron is coming up the stairs right now. If he’s running. If he’s got his hand raised like he’s bidding.

“Going once!”

I think I’m holding my breath. I can barely hear anything around me.

“Going twice!”

“Wait!” I hear a howl behind me, but I refuse to turn around.

With my jaw clenched, I watch the auctioneer’s lips. My knees are shaking.

“WAIT!” I hear, so much closer.

“Sold!” the auctioneer announces, and it might be my imagination but I think he shoots a look of disdain at Ron as he barrels forward, practically crashing through the crowd.

“No! Wait! I’m here!”

“That concludes today’s auctions,” the auctioneer sniffs, barely registering Ron’s mini tantrum. “Please proceed to the registrar to complete your transactions.”

Shaking his head in disbelief, Ron shuffles toward me with his hands out. He is wearing a maroon tracksuit with the zipper only halfway up so that his pelt of chest hair is exposed.

“What did you do? How could you do this?”

I just shake my head. “I won the auction, I guess?”

Turning around to make my way to the registrar, I feel him coming up close beside me and resist the urge to cringe away. After all, he’s not a stranger. I’ve known him for almost twenty years. He’s just Ron, even if his head does look like it’s going to explode.

“Just give me the papers, sweetie,” the registrar simpers, holding out a hand. From the look that she shoots at Ron, I can see that this is giving her at least a small amount of pleasure.

“Okay, a joke’s a joke,” he continues. “But you can’t do this, Penny. It’s going to take, what, a million dollars to finish? You don’t have that kind of cash.”

“She doesn’t need that kind of cash,” Wanda interrupts, shouldering between us defiantly. “You don’t build every development with your own personal money, do you, Ron?”

He grimaces in frustration. “You guys… did you do this? Did you do this on purpose? Screw me like this?”

“You’re not being screwed, Ron,” I sigh, but I still can’t look right at him. “It’s just business. Right? Just regular old business.”

The registrar fills out a form and then turns it to face me, circling the number on the very bottom with a ballpoint pen. My stomach drops. Wanda looks at me in alarm.

“What’s wrong?” she whispers so nobody else can hear.

“The buyer’s premium…” I whisper back. “It’s… It’s more than I’ve got. I can’t pay it. Oh my God, Wanda, what did I do?”

“I got you,” she shrugs.

“See, I knew it!” Ron huffs. “You should have just left this to me, Penny. You’re just making it difficult.”

The registrar pushes the paper to me and scowls at Ron briefly. “You know what? I’ll just give you a minute. I’ll be right back, okay?”

She pushes herself up from the folding table and discreetly shuffles away. While I appreciate her discretion, I don’t see how that’s going to help me.

Wanda takes me by the shoulders and forces me to look right at her, and only her.

“Wanda? I think it’s over. I think… I have to let him have it.”

“Penelope Gable. Has it ever occurred to you that you are stubborn to the point of being stupid?”

If she weren’t holding me so tightly by the shoulders I could probably kick her or something.

“Seriously, I’m asking,” she continues. “How is that all working out for you? All that stubbornness? Hmm? Is it satisfying in any way? What does Clay say?”

I totally ignore the Clay part of this conversation and focus instead on the auction.

“The buyer’s premium is 20 percent,” I explain calmly. “I guess I knew that, but in all the excitement, it slipped my mind. So I am short. By a lot.”

“No, you’re not,” Wanda growls at me. “You and I are going to be partners, and you are going to take my money.”

“You can’t bully me into being partners with you,” I insist, trying to shrug away from her viselike grip and getting nowhere. “Didn’t you learn about bullying in school? Hello?”

“Ladies? Why don’t you just let me take care of this?” Ron says reasonably, his chest all puffed out. “If it’s too much, that’s okay. You’ll get the next one.”

“Don’t look at him!” Wanda exclaims. “Look at me! Your partner!”

My thoughts swirl around as I force myself to stare into her deep brown eyes.

“Please, sweetie,” she says in a much more gentle voice. “You can do this! We can do this together. Come on. You have to trust somebody sometime.”

The registrar returns, deliberately turning her back to Ron and pushing the paper toward me again gently with her manicured nails.

“Let’s just sign these papers, okay?” she suggests.

Wanda nods emphatically. “Yes, okay? Let’s?”

With a heavy sigh, I turn toward the registrar and hold out my hand for a pen, which she places in my palm with a subtle smirk toward Ron.

“You did this,” I hear him say as I sign the papers, then write out a check and slide it with Wanda’s matching check to the smiling woman. “You did this… with Clay. Oh, I knew he didn’t need me at Crosswind! That was a fucking wild goose chase. You guys all did this to me. I can’t fucking believe it.”

“Okay! You’re all set!” The woman beams at us. “Good luck with your new business!”

“So I guess you realize that you’re fired. Both of you,” Ron huffs.

But I am barely listening to him. Instead I’m just smiling at Wanda, trying to slog through the emotions that are flooding me at hip height. Relief, fear, joy, excitement, all of it. She feels it too, I can tell.

“It’s going to be great,” she whispers excitedly. “Just as soon as we change the name, okay? Feather Rock is a stupid name, right?”

“You’re fired! You heard me, right?”

I turn toward Ron and hold out my hand to shake his hand. He just stares at it.

“Ron, it is just business,” I shrug. “You can’t win them all. It’s been really great working for you. Thank you.”

“And Clay, too!” he continues, beet red. “I can’t believe you guys!”

“Oh, come on. You don’t have to do that. Everything is gonna be okay. It’s just one small thing.”

As we turn around and walk down the steps, Wanda slides her arm through mine so we can walk arm-in-arm like the opening credits of a TV show.

“Seriously, this is going to be so great!” she says again. “You will see, Penny. This is the right thing to do.”

“I think you’re right,” I agree, half-holding my breath with excitement. “And yeah, we have to change the name. Feather Rock really is pretty dumb.”