Fixture

“Remember one man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” Daddy said when they got to the garage sale.

Mia waited for him to pull a dollar bill out of his greasy pocket, the pocket with his name stitched on it in blue. She hated the way the crumpled up dollar always smelled, but she loved the way it made her feel. She loved what it meant—time with Daddy and time to look for treasures hiding behind toaster ovens.

Hoping that he would remember about holding her hand, she waited next to the garage sale sign, but he didn’t remember. Still, she liked following him as he wandered through the piles, boxes, and tables of baby clothes with burp stains and green glass vases. Card tables lined the edges of the driveway in front of a solid red brick house. The lady in charge watched with sharp eyes as Daddy and the other early bird bargain hunters searched. The lady was almost the same color as her house and reminded Mia of a brick. It was a picture that made Mia want to giggle.

Beyond the driveway, marched a ragtag parade of banged up kitchen chairs, an ottoman, and a flowered couch that sagged in the middle. A man and a woman picked through baby toys piled on the couch. Someone, probably the brick lady, had thrown old sheets across the freshly mowed grass near the couch, where she’d piled books, next to records, next to games, next to lawn tools. Everything looked abandoned and smelled like fresh cutgrass.
 
Tugging at the leg of Daddy’s coveralls, Mia pointed at the sheets. A breeze tangled her ponytail and tickled at the frayed edges of the linen.

“Daddy, doesn’t it make you think of the beach?”

His crooked smile made her think of a question mark. “You’re a funny girl, Mia,” he said, patting her on the head.

She wanted him to understand. She tried again.

“You know . . . that raggedy line of seaweed after the water goes out?  That’s all mixed up with broken shells but if you walk slow and look hard you can find a whole sand dollar that’s not all broken to bits—sometimes. It’s like that to me here. Like finding a perfect sand dollar.”

“Or like finding a great deal on a slightly used torque wrench, right?”  He pointed to a table full of tools near the carport.

“Like sea treasures,” she said, “you know, from the sea?”

An old lady smiled at Daddy. Mia thought the old lady’s skin looked like crumpled up tissue paper. She was holding a ceramic figure of a poodle with a bone in its mouth.

“Your daughter is so charming,” the old lady said. “So charming to see a young person looking for bargains,” she said, holding the poodle out for them to see. “Only fifty-cents.”

It made Mia feel itchy when grownups said things like that about her, wondering if it was a good thing to be a funny girl or a charming girl who saw seaweed in the flutter of sheets on the grass at a yard sale.

Daddy looked like he was itchy too, but he nodded. The old lady seemed pleased enough with his nod and without another word left to go pay the brick lady fifty-cents for the poodle.

When Daddy left her in front of a pile of books and puzzles and games, her favorite stuff, Mia knew he’d only go as far as the nearest pile of tools, his favorite stuff. Besides, he had special eyes in the back of his head to watch her with; that’s what he liked to say. Sometimes Mia wondered if Daddy’s regular eyes worked when he looked at her like she was something he had found on the beach, like a sand dollar he didn’t know what to do with now that he’d found it.

Mia picked up a book, disappointed to see that she’d read it, but that was okay. She was sure to find something exciting if she kept looking. Picking up a puzzle she was trying to decide if it was too easy when the glitter of sun caught her eye. The light had winked at her from a pile of kitchen stuff on a blanket in front of her.

Maybe the light had come from something glass, or maybe crystal or even diamonds she thought.

Mia walked to the edge of the paisley blanket covered with jars, dishes, mismatched pots and pans, knowing that somewhere in that jumble was something that flashed promises and dreams. Hope made her chest feel tight. She inched along the edge of the blanket, eyes straining.  She found it, half hidden and tipped on its side against a chipped mixing bowl. It was like a scoop of moon stuffed with glittering light, poured into a ball, filled with magic. She knew what it was instantly.

It was a crystal ball—a real one. Mia could hear it whispering secrets.

She froze when the sun hit the honeycombed surface of the magic glass and broke apart into a hundred bits of glitter and fire.

The sign on the blanket read - Everything One Dollar.

She could hardly breathe. Looking for Daddy, Mia waved at him, trying to get his attention without giving anything away. Tempted to yell at him to hurry, she waved again. Hurry! Daddy, hurry! She thought. It made her a little bit desperate, thinking that someone else might find the crystal ball and scoop it up. She waved harder, but he didn’t notice. He was talking to the brick lady about the table full of tools.

Taking a chance, she took off, dodging past a mom with her arms full of dusty fake flowers and around a man trying to make a clock radio work. She grabbed Daddy’s hand and pulled. Murmured, “Excuse me” and “I’ll be right back,” he let her lead him away from the tools and the brick lady and the grownup talk. 

“You have to come and see,” Mia said, dragging him by the arm to the edge of the paisley blanket.

“Do you see it? I can't point; someone else might see.” Instead, Mia dipped her head towards the blanket, keeping her voice to a whisper.
“There! Right there, look! Next to that broken bowl. Can you believe it? A dollar. It’s so wonderful, and it’s only one dollar.” Mia watched his face as he looked at the stacked dishes and cookie sheets.

“What do you want me to see?” he squinted.

“There, Daddy.”

He shrugged. She bent down and picked up the crystal ball, so that she could hold it in front of her like a chalice, so that he could see it for himself. He looked at crystal ball, and then looked at Mia.

He pulled the ball of magic out of her hands.

“But what do you think it is?”
         
“Shhh, Daddy, someone will hear you.”

It was a marvel and a wonder. How could he not know what it was, she thought?

“Oh Daddy, it’s a crystal ball—of course.”

“Honey,” he said, stretching the word out, the way he did when he thought she’d said something extra silly.

The way he turned the thick glass over in his hands made her heart drop out of her chest into her stomach. He rubbed at the inside of the crystal ball with calloused fingers, and then he shook it.  Tipping it back over, Mia watched as a shower of dead mosquitoes and moths fell out of its hollow center, the dry, brittle bodies tumbling to the blanket in a ragged line, drifting back and forth with the breeze, like seaweed on a beach, like trash hiding a sand dollar.
       
“But Mia,” he said, smiling his crooked, question mark smile, “we have one just like it in the bathroom at home. See?” He held it up. “It’s the glass part that goes over the light fixture.”

Then she saw it too, cheap, cut glass to cover a light bulb, a trap for mosquitoes and moths and treasure hunters.

“No,” she said, her voice fading. “But I thought . . .”

She had to cover her mouth with her hand to hide the way she needed to bite her lip. Her hand smelled like the dollar bill he had given her; it smelled like sweaty skin and fingernail dirt and the grease on the pocket of her father’s work clothes.

She watched him drop the plain old light cover onto the blanket. Reaching over, he pulled her hand away from her mouth and held it while they walked back to the table full of tools. He showed her a torque wrench that he called perfect and a bargain and a deal.

When he asked if she liked it, she said, “Yes, Dad.”

“Dad?” he repeated, sounding surprise. He looked at her, frowning. “I know you didn’t find anything special this time, but next time, funny Mia. Next time, I bet there’ll be treasure.”

Mia tried hard to believe him.