Stone Mattress: Nine Tales by Margaret Atwood

Author:Margaret Atwood [Atwood, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Tags: kickass.to, ScreamQueen
ISBN: 9780385539128
Amazon: 0385539126
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Published: 2014-09-16T05:00:00+00:00

She touches his arm. “Excuse me,” she says. “Did you just buy the contents of this unit? At the auction?”

He smiles at her, opens wide his big blue eyes. Drops his gaze to her mouth, flicks it up again. She’s about his height. Strong enough to have lugged the groom into the unit by herself, even if he wasn’t yet dried out. “That’s me,” he says. “I plead guilty.”

“But you haven’t unlocked it yet?”

Here’s the moment of decision. He could hand her the key, say, I’ve seen the mess you made, clean it up yourself. He could say, Yes I have, and I’m calling the cops. He could say, I took a quick look, it seems to be a wedding. Yours?

“No,” he says. “Not yet. I bought a couple of other units too. I was just about to open up this one.”

“Whatever you paid, I’ll double it,” she says. “I didn’t want it sold, but there was a mistake, the cheque got lost in the mail, and I was away on business, I didn’t get the notification soon enough, and then I took the first plane I could, but then I was stuck in Chicago for six hours because of the storm. It was so snowed in! And then the traffic from the airport, it was terrible!” She ends with a nervous giggle. She must have rehearsed this: it comes out of her on one long phrase, like ticker tape.

“I heard about the storm,” he says. “In Chicago. That’s too bad. I’m sorry to hear you were delayed.” He doesn’t respond to her financial offer. It hangs in the air between them, like their two breaths.

“That storm’s heading here next,” she says. “It’s a serious blizzard. They always travel east. If you don’t want to get stuck here, you should hit the road. I’ll speed this up for us – I’ll pay cash.”

“Thanks,” he says. “I’m considering. What’s in there, anyway? It must be something valuable, to be so important to you.” He’s curious to see what she’ll say.

“Just family things,” she says. “Things I inherited. You know, crystal, china, from my grandmother. A few pieces of costume jewellery. Sentimental value. You couldn’t sell them for much.”

“Family things?” he says. “Any furniture?”

“Only a little furniture,” she says. “Not good quality. Old furniture. Not anything anyone would want.”

“But that’s what I deal in,” he says. “Old furniture. I run an antiques store. Often people don’t know the value of what they have. Before accepting your offer, I’d like to take a look.” He glances down at her mouth again.

“I’ll triple it,” she says. Now she’s shivering. “It’s too cold for you to be going through that unit right now! Why don’t we get out of here before the storm hits? We could have a drink, and, I don’t know, dinner or something? We can talk it over.” She smiles at him, an insinuating smile. A strand of her hair has come down, it’s blowing across her mouth; she tucks it in behind her ear, slowly, then drops her eyes, gazing down in the direction of his belt.

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