Collectors. Paul Griner

from the office might see her, though she’d rehearsed her story in case it should be Bonnie. She’d mixed up her weekends, that was all—it was during the one to come that she was supposed to sail.

      Far out in the harbor, sailboats were passing beyond the breakwater. They looked insubstantial, pieces of Styrofoam flung on the surface of a lake. She picked one boat to follow and watched it glide out to sea until it dropped below the horizon, and just as it disappeared a fat white cloud drifted in front of the sun and the light changed, the green water turned black, and the smell of the sea grew suddenly stronger. She was glad Steven hadn’t called. What on earth had made her think she’d like to go out on the water? Above her, the loose fabric of the umbrella snapped in the rising wind.

      The sun came out again and she checked her watch—it was nearly noon and shadows were disappearing. Houses had west windows open, the fair should have been filling up, but the crowd was actually thinning. A desultory pace lent the day the feel of a holiday weekend in the city, when the only people left in the emptied streets reminded her of the old pieces of furniture abandoned by people when they move. Jean, wondering if perhaps the east wind had driven everyone inland, was glad not to have to fight crowds, but the lack of people also presented a danger: she would not be able to wait as long as she wanted since the vendors might close up early. She returned to the stall that displayed the pens.

      Lifting things, she said, “How much is this? And this? And this?” but did not listen to the vendor’s replies. Canary-yellow Fiesta ware, a German beer stein, a glass cutter that felt heavy and surprisingly imbalanced in her palm. The pens were the fourth thing she handled. Some days she made the item she wanted the third thing, some days the fifth, and some days she wouldn’t even ask, leaving whatever she wanted for another trip. On those occasions, when she returned, she’d offer half the asking price. As she spoke, the woman with the melted-sugar dogs glared at her.

      “And this pen?” She held up a cloisonné pen, a good one, even the pocket clip had been enameled. It was smooth and clean-lined, balanced and thin and well made, and it had a G stamped on the flat end of the cap.

      “Ten dollar,” he said. His English was not very strong, Italian, she guessed. His skin was tanned, lined, his fingers were broad and stained, the thick nails opaque. He might have been a farmer.

      She put the pen back and held up an inferior one, a Parker, some of the cloisonné was missing, and raised her eyebrows.

      “Fifteen.”

      “Why the difference?”

      “Works,” he said. Taking the pen from her, he uncapped it, then spit in his palm and dragged the nib through the spittle to show her. A spidery trail of blue ink began to cross his callused skin.

      So he did not know the relative value of his pens, a good thing.

      He wiped his palm and the nib on his jeans and held out both ends of the pen to her. “You want? You try?”

      She shook her head and fingered through the other pens, then picked up the stein again and read the name stamped on the bottom: Schnitzengruber. “Where’s this from?”

      He shrugged. “Wife’s. We no use.” He put the pen back and flipped the box lid closed, which meant he was smarter than she’d allowed for; she would have to declare her interest now by reopening it. She thought of simply walking away, but the pens appeared in her mind’s eye, the gold Cross, the black enamel Mont Blanc, the two sapphire Watermans. Most of the others were worthless, cheaper Kronos or Parkers, which had never worked well when they’d been new and which now would bleed and gum. The first cloisonné she’d held was probably a Grieshaber. Though she’d read about them she’d never seen one, and she’d reached for it instinctively, which she thought might work in her favor—one never touched first what one really desired, so her undisciplined impulsiveness might serve to mislead him.

      Her sense that here at last was that rare something worthy of her interest, which therefore she had to have, was, she realized, what she’d been feeling about Steven at her cousin’s wedding, the feeling she’d been unable to recall. But he hadn’t felt the same way, obviously; he hadn’t phoned, he hadn’t written, he hadn’t appeared magically on her doorstep.

      She forced herself to put him from her mind and reopened the box and picked up the gold Cross. Its nib was wide, a full stub, and she’d have to replace it if she was going to use the pen; she tended to make her letters sharper than that nib would allow. For a matching gold nib, that meant another seventy-five dollars at the start.

      “And this?”

      He waited for her to look up and she was sure she knew why. Years before, she’d read that Arab traders, bargaining, watched your eyes, and once your pupils narrowed they were certain you had reached the price you were willing to pay and they would refuse to go any lower. Vendors throughout the various fairs seemed aware of that folklore; they were always watching her eyes.

      “One hundred dollar,” he said.

      She didn’t blink. “That’s absurd.”

      She tried the two Watermans without listening to his prices. He picked up the Cross again.

      “Real gold. Is worth monies.” “Fifty,” she said, letting him see her eyes. It was probably one of the 1920s series, with a vacuum filling system and twin ink reservoirs, for which she’d been prepared to go up to two hundred dollars, but he wouldn’t be able to detect that. For a few days after she’d heard about the Arabs’ methods, every time she passed a mirror she had stopped to stare at her reflection and begun to lie, telling a whole string of them, rapidly. I like my job, Winter is my favorite season, I want to die old and decrepit. Then she would slip in one statement that was true—My aunt’s house burned down, or, Red is a color, or, My uncle was badly burned—and then she would lie again, as many lies as she could think of, quickly, and it was true: the truth narrowed her eyes. With practice, however, over many months, she found that she could hide the truth, give nothing away. The trick was a second voice in her head, midway in register between her own voice and Claudia’s, background to her other thoughts, repeating the same three words, over and over. It’s a lie, it’s a lie, it’s a lie. The chant soothed her, put her in a kind of trance, and she heard it now running in the back of her mind.

      At sixty dollars his eyes narrowed and he crossed his arms.

      “Throw in this one,” she said, holding up the Grieshaber, “and you have a deal.”

      He stuck at sixty-five. For another ten she bought a Waterman, and for twenty more she got the Mont Blanc.

      After she paid, he swept his cupped hand over the entire display, palm up.

      “Other than pen, five dollar for anything on table.”

      He wanted to make it an even hundred, but she would not oblige him. “No. Just the pens today. And I’ve already bought too much.” She held up the pens as proof before tucking them into her bag. It would be months before she could check his stock again, which she felt sure he would replenish; if she bought even one more now, he’d probably do some research and never again get taken.

      She snapped her purse shut and turned away, and heard the lady with the sugar dogs muttering, “What, you can display pens but not my dogs?”

      Jean ignored her. Did the woman not know that this was how the market worked? Every vendor had a perfect buyer, someone out there waiting to find her. Today had been someone else’s day. Her day would come, someone would seek her out and surprise her with the strength of his interest, but if she did not wait for it, she would not do well.

      When she got home there was a single message on her answering machine, a woman’s voice, older and halting.

      “This is Celia Barnes,” she said. “I was at Miss May’s funeral today.”

      Then