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The lamp had been a special order and Aunt Phonecia had a set speech about how the store manager had not wanted to take the order and had actually implied that he didn’t want to because he thought he wouldn’t get paid. “Can you imagine!” she would say. Flo could.
The whole thing took forty-five minutes to dust. (Flo had timed it.) And if you looked at it too long during the evening, you’d have nightmares for sure.
Flo always suspected that Aunt Phoenicia had aimed for the most intimidating lamp anywhere between Green Bay and Chicago. Or maybe Toronto and New Orleans. She also suspected that insisting on having it put in the front living room window was pure malice. Aunt Phoenicia had always liked Flo about as much as she liked that case of shingles she claimed Flo had given her at Flo and Tony’s engagement party and that Tony had told her himself was the result of her going to visit people who had chicken pox.
About the chicken pox, Aunt Phonecia said that no quarantine sign was going to make her risk being
knocked off every guest list in town once the spots faded and people were back in action. And she had been careful to take along gift jars of the Dalmatian-strength spot concealer she had made to order.
This all came up again at every family dinner that Flo couldn’t avoid giving and Flo just had to keep smiling even though she was dying to say how even under a pound of that concealer Aunt Phonecia would always look like Steve Bannon in drag. All the time Aunt Phonecia was talking, she would be looking at the lamp and Flo would be betting with herself how many minutes it would take this time for her to say how glad she was to see how much Flo and Tony were enjoying it even though it was such a contrast with their other furniture. Flo agreed with that last part.
When Aunt Phonecia finally moved her three vans full of heirlooms to that enclave in Florida with the gates and the private security guards and the concealed cameras (no dogs allowed) Flo and Tony decided that the lamp deserved a comfortable retirement too. It was as heavy as a sofa but by mid-morning on Monday Flo had dragged it half way to the curb. Then Fran across the street spotted her and came over.
“So you’re finally getting rid of that thing!” Fran said. “How many times have I told you you should?”
“About once for every time you’ve seen it,” Flo said. “Which is every day seeing as how it’s been in the front window.”
“It doesn’t look wrecked,” Fran said.
“I don’t think you could wreck it if you drove over it with the SUV it probably cost the same as,” Flo said. Aunt Phonecia’s rule had always been Buy the Best and You Never Have to Replace It. Flo was afraid her own descendants down to the fourth generation wouldn’t have to either. She’d already spotted a lamp at Macy’s that didn’t cost like an SUV and also didn’t have turrets or flags or anything but a base shaped like a ginger jar. She’d recently had a very nice dream about that lamp.
“I could take it to the rummage sale at my church,” Fran said. “If we can just get it into my house for now.”
“I don’t know about that,” Flo said. “Maybe Tony can move it with the hand truck after work.” Tony could, and he did (with quite a grin on his face), and that evening the living room window was adorably empty.
On Thursday morning there was a furniture van parked in front of Fran’s house. Because of the van,
Flo couldn’t see what was happening, but she thought it was pretty clear Fran and Vince were getting something new. Ooh, Flo thought, I hope she’ll show it to me. She waited a discreet ten minutes after the van left and then went over. She had to ring the bell twice because Fran was taking an unusually long time getting to the door.
When Fran finally did open the door, she looked a little hurried. “Oh!” she said, “come and see our new cabinet! It’s in the living room.”
Flo couldn’t help noticing the door into the downstairs bedroom that Fran and Vince used as a den. It was closed, and Flo knew it was never closed. Not only that, but there were sounds coming from behind the door that sounded like some kind of wood working. Fran saw Flo looking at the door.
“Oh,” she said, “Vince must be watching some do-it-yourself program. Like the cabinet?”
Flo thought the cabinet was very attractive. But something else was different about the living room. “Where is Sumo?” she said. Fran stared for a moment. Then she said, “Oh, he’s in the den.”
“You mean Vince is alone with him?” Flo said.
“He isn’t dangerous,” Fran said. “He’s just big.”
Well, Flo had known he was big. Flo had met quite a few cats in her life and she’d never before seen one as big as Fran’s cat. Fran’s cat was somewhere between Maine Coon and lynx. Closer to lynx. He also had the biggest claws Flo had ever seen. Fran always said they weren’t so very big, they were just numerous, because Sumo was polydactyl, which meant he had six claws on each front paw. Flo understood about the polydactyl part, but she still thought Sumo’s claws looked like thumbnails with
hooks on the ends.
“Well, I’ll be going,” Flo said. “I just wanted to congratulate you on the new furniture.”
“Oh, stay for coffee,” said Fran. “We can have it in the kitchen. Then we won’t be able to hear the—ah--TV.”
Fran seemed just like her regular self during the coffee break so Flo didn’t think any more about it. But she did tell Tony about the closed den door.
“Ha!” Tony said. “There’s other stuff in there she doesn’t want anybody to see. Something really expensive probably.”
“Hmm,” Flo said.” I don’t think Fran would be sneaky.”
The next day, Cora said, “You know, it’s funny. Fran likes to get as much light into the house as she can but now the curtains on her den window are closed all the time.” Cora lived next door on that side, so she could tell. Flo said she thought that was funny too.
“And there’s a funny sound coming from that room, too,” Cora said. “Like something tearing.”
“Oh,” Flo said, “Fran told me that’s some program Vince watches.”
“He must have it on a DVD and play it over and over,” Cora said. “Privately. Fran never leaves the den door open any more. I’ve been in their house a bunch of times and she always keeps me in the kitchen.”
About two a.m. on Saturday something woke Flo up and she looked out the bedroom window.” Good grief, Tony,” she said, “there’s a police car in front of Fran and Vince’s house!”
“Don’t go over there,” Tony said. But when the police car left, Flo was on her way. Cora was there too.
“I called them,” Cora said. “I heard a noise and looked out and I saw a couple of guys taking something with a tarp over it out through the den window and there was a big bag under the
window so I called 911. Then another guy came out and grabbed the bag and they all ran off. They were gone when the police got here.”
“Oh, my gosh!” Flo said. “Fran, did they get anything valuable?”
“Um, not really,” Fran said. “They got one thing that was really important just to us.”
The next Saturday Fran’s cousin spotted some of Fran’s knick-knacks at a garage sale a few blocks away and told the police. Fran had to go over and identify the stuff, but, as she told Flo later, the one important thing wasn’t there. The police said they’d let her know if it turned up but Fran thought they weren’t exactly searching for it. “They did arrest somebody,” Fran said. “There were fingerprints on the knick-knacks.”
“Good,” said Flo. She really wanted to ask what that important thing was, but she thought she’d better not. Fran was still a bit shaky from the break-in.
Fran and Vince got their window fixed and put a lock on it and Cora told Flo that now the den curtains were open. Then one day there was a police car in front of their house again. The officer didn’t go in, but Vince came out to the porch and talked to him. The officer was pointing off north and gesturing as if he was giving Vince some directions. Then he left and Vince came over and asked Tony to lend him the hand truck. Tony said, “Sure.”
“It’s just for maybe an hour,” Vince said. He put the hand truck into his car and then he and Fran got in the car and drove away. In less than an hour they were back and the two of them were wrestling something big with a tarp over it onto the hand truck and then into the house. Wow, Flo thought. They must have gotten the important thing back. She gave it a minute or two and then went over.
“Yeah, we got it back,” Fran said. The officer said it was in an alley about a mile from here. He said the burglars probably just dumped it.
“Well, I’m glad for you,” Flo said. She thought it was funny Fran didn’t ask her in. Later, Cora said the den curtains were closed again and Vince seemed to have his DVD on again too. Flo and Cora just looked at each other. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Cora said. Flo said, “I’m thinking that if I don’t find something out soon I’m going to die.”
“No sugar!” Cora said. “Me too.”
For the next two weeks Flo kept calling at Fran’s house and Fran was always friendly but she also always stood in the doorway and never asked Flo in. When Flo asked her over for coffee, she said, “yes,” but she said it slowly. One day there was a van from Fran’s church parked outside the house and the driver went in but Flo couldn’t help noticing that when he came out again he was only carrying a clothes bag. The next day Flo decided it was time for banana bread. She baked two loaves and carried one across the street. Fran came to the door but Flo was pretty sure she’d peeked out first.
“How did the rummage sale go?” Flo said.
“Oh,” Fran said. “Actually I didn’t go to it. I didn’t have much to give them for it.”
“What about the lamp?” Flo said, thinking probably the church had decided that trying to sell it wasn’t exactly God’s will. Fran started to cry.
“You’d better come in,” she said. “I just can’t keep this to myself any longer.”
Flo handed over the banana bread and went in. Fran set the package on a table and opened the door to the den. Vince wasn’t there but Sumo was and so was something he was sharpening his claws on. That something was topped by a bundle of fine-shredded rags and surrounded by a scattering of chunky things that looked like scarred-up wooden tubes. Right at the moment, Sumo was working his way around the something, clawing chunks out of the edges of it as he went.
Fran sniffled.” I didn’t want it for myself,” she said. “It was for Sumo.”
“Huh?” Flo said. She took a closer look. Allowing for the deep parallel gouges running the length of
the stand, it did look a lot like Aunt Phonecia’s lamp. Then she stepped on a flag and she was sure of it.
Fran started to cry harder. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “But we had to do something. We already had to replace the cabinet. And an end table. And two doors. And Vince said the walls were probably next. And you didn’t like the lamp. And….”
“It’s OK,” said Flo. “Really.” She patted Fran’s shoulder. “I do like it now.”