“Me neither.” I’m the one who closes the space between us, lifting my face to touch my lips to his cheek. “But it will be better for us both, when you’re sure.”
CHAPTER 16
Verschlimmbesserung
German
“something that is meant to be an improvement, but actually makes things worse”
Between the noise from the rooftop bar and the persistent regret, I spend the better part of the night tossing and turning in my bed. More than once I talk myself out of crossing the hall, knocking on Mason’s door, and telling him I’ve changed my mind. Instead I take care of my own needs and fall asleep when the bar finally closes.
A few hours later my alarm jolts me upright. I rush through my morning ritual, twist my damp hair into a bun, and put on a casual black dress with a denim jacket.
Mason is waiting for me in the lobby, looking as tired and sheepish as I feel. He hands me a to-go cup of coffee.
“Thanks,” I say lightly. “Good morning.”
He harrumphs. “Debatable.”
Not sure how to take this, I don’t respond. I follow him out of the hotel and down the block to where the truck is parked. We stow our bags in the back.
On the drive to Huron, we don’t listen to podcasts or talk about anything, and I don’t know what to say that will erase the awkwardness between us. The only consolation is that the elephant in the room is a lot smaller than it would have been if we’d slept together. Then again, maybe there’d be no elephant. Maybe we’d be happy.
The auction site is a warehouse at an industrial park, rather than at the resort. Even though we arrive fifteen minutes early, there are already a couple dozen cars in the parking lot.
“Have you ever been to an auction?” I ask Mason as we join a line of people waiting to get into the building.
“No,” he says. “You?”
“This is my first time too.”
“Hopefully, it’s not like in movies where someone inadvertently scratches their nose and ends up accidentally buying a million-dollar diamond bracelet.”
“Pretty sure that doesn’t actually happen in real life,” I say. “But don’t wave your paddle around unless you plan to use it.”
“My dad told me the same thing when I was eleven and we had the sex talk,” he says, and I bark out a loud laugh, making the people in line ahead of us turn around. Mason innocently sips his coffee, leaving me to catch their early-morning disdain. I elbow him in the side and when he grins, I feel the lift in my chest.
The doors open promptly at 8:00 A.M. and the line surges forward. At the door, a gray-haired man tells us the auction will begin at 9:00 A.M., and offers us paddles. Mason accepts one and waggles it at me, making me choke on my coffee.
Inside, the merchandise is divided into two rooms. The first is filled with folding tables, each one laden with textiles, small electronics, lamps, mirrors, artwork, artificial plants, metal luggage racks, and boxes of bulk hotel toiletries. All these items are marked for sale, and there is a line of red metal loading carts along the wall. The second room is arranged with folding chairs and an auctioneer’s podium. This room holds the more valuable pieces, including all sorts of furniture, larger paintings, animal skins, tapestries, several chandeliers made from antlers, and a pair of enormous wooden doors, intricately carved with woodland scenes.
“How do you want to do this?” Mason asks, grabbing the handle of a loading cart. “Stick together or split up and regroup? Some of these people have a real Black Friday look about them.”
“Let’s do this together,” I say. “If someone wants something that badly, they can have it.”
“Fair enough.”
We start in the sale hall, wandering the rows.
“A lot of these luggage racks are in great condition,” I say. “Should we—”
“No,” Mason says before I can finish the question. “I appreciate that you’re trying to cut costs, but we don’t need to do this when we can afford to buy brand-new for our guests. Let’s focus on why we’re here.”
But the deeper we get into the resort’s castoffs, the more I realize none of it works. Some of the artwork is too Western, while other pieces feel like they’re appropriating indigenous culture. There are a lot of paintings of fish, and the bears are far too serious.
“Do your parents have any old photos of the winery when it was intact?” I ask, an idea forming. “Or maybe some pictures of the Brown ancestors who lived on the island?”
Mason picks up a wood carving of a black bear as if he’s considering it. “Probably. Why?”
“I’m thinking some framed black-and-white photos might be kind of cool in the taproom,” I say. “None of this feels right.”
He puts down the bear. “I can ask my mom.”
We manage to find a couple of Craftsman-style table lamps with blue stained-glass shades that will look great in the lounge area of the taproom, but the rest of the sale hall is a bust. Mason pays for the lamps and we stow them in the truck before returning to the auction room.
As soon as we’re through the doors, Mason stops in his tracks.
“I want that,” he says, pointing to the biggest of the antler chandeliers. It’s about six feet across at its widest point with glass bulbs mounted among the branches of the antlers. It’s more rustic than I would choose, but the ceiling of the brewhouse is extremely high and the chandelier would make a statement. “I’m winning it.”
Many of the seats are already occupied, but we find two chairs together near the back. We sit through auctions for several animal skins that had been hung on the walls of the resort’s main lobby, a series of woodland paintings, and a set of pendant globe lamps ringed with metal pine trees. Then the big chandelier comes up for bidding.
“All of the chandeliers were handmade by local craftsman Al Parkinson, using authentic elk horns sourced from Wyoming and Montana,” the auctioneer says. “This largest chandelier features thirty-six bulbs and measures seventy-one inches in diameter by sixty inches high. Valued at ten thousand dollars, we’ll start the bidding at five hundred dollars. Who’ll bid five hundred?”
Several paddles—including Mason’s—go up as the auctioneer launches into rapid-fire mode. Five hundred doesn’t seem unreasonable, but less than a minute later the bidding has cleared a thousand dollars and Mason keeps raising his paddle. The field of buyers begins to thin at two grand. There are even fewer when the bidding reaches a ridiculous three thousand dollars. But Mason doesn’t stop. He’s one of the last two people vying for the chandelier when the high bid hits four thousand dollars. And less than five minutes from the opening bid, the auctioneer bangs his gavel and declares Mason the winner.
After years working at Aquamarine, I shouldn’t be fazed by someone dropping an obscene amount of money on something so impractical, but Mason Brown being that someone is a shock to my system.
“Are you seriously going to spend that much money on a light fixture made from discarded animal parts?” I ask, incredulous, as we go to the cashier’s table.
“Listen, I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a privileged asshole, but the amount of money Matt and I made when we sold Fish Brothers was—”