Hearse and Gardens Read Online Free PDF Page B

Aqua Net hairspray?
    Today’s fifty-degree weather set the stage for a perfect day of garage and yard saling. I’d programmed each estatesale into my cell phone’s map app. Three sales were in Bridgehampton, two in East Hampton, and four in Amagansett. Elle was covering Sag Harbor, Wainscott, and Water Mill.
    Before leaving, I separated my singles, fives, and tens from my large bills. In my shoulder bag I had my trusty loupe, a keychain tape measure, baby wipes, and a penlight for dark corners. In the back of the Jeep were four huge zippered plastic bags like you could find in dollar stores. I’d learned the hard way it was important to zipper the bag shut as you collected your loot so no sticky fingers could make off with your booty.
    The most important thing before you headed to a sale: a stomach empty of liquids, not even a sip of coffee. Homeowners weren’t too keen on sharing their bathrooms with strangers, and once you hit the vintage trail, you didn’t want to traipse back to town for a restroom. I’d seen people waiting in line drop like flies because they needed the loo. Not me. I was a camel.
    I pulled onto Route 27. There was more traffic than usual. The Hamptons International Film Festival started on Friday. Soon, every hotel in a twenty-mile radius would have NO VACANCY signs.
    The first sale was disappointing. I came away with only a Japanese doll with a damaged face, stuck to a wood base under a glass dome. The doll would go straight into the trash, but once I removed the glue from the base, I’d have a vintage cloche to play and display with.
    Another disappointment, at the first sale, was seeing none other than Tara Gayle, my professional and personal archnemesis. Our history wasn’t good. She was mycompetition at estate and garage sales, and we’d both dated the same guy. I smiled at the memory of this past June when I saw her walking along Montauk Highway with a big stick, stabbing litter, dressed in a reflective orange community service vest, penance for stealing from a nearby estate. The jumpsuit was a step down from her usual designer wardrobe.
    The next sale in East Hampton kept me busy for hours. It was the thing dreams are made of. Even the trash on the curb netted a few projects I knew had rosy futures. When I saw what the third-floor attic hid, it set me back a minute, reminding me of my barricaded cottage with its attic of treasures. Treasures I hadn’t been able to get my mitts on because of Gordon Miles. But my personal credo was: live in the moment. After seven trips up and down the stairs with goodies, my angst disappeared. The bags I’d brought were full, so I made do with empty laundry baskets I found in the basement.
    Weary, but satiated, I drove to Sag Harbor. I passed slowly through historic Main Street, then turned right on Sage Street. I parked in the back of Mabel and Elle’s Curiosities. The shop took up the bottom level of an early-nineteenth-century captain’s house. It was painted sand beige with white gingerbread trim and black shutters and even had its original fish-scale shingles. At the top of the house was a widow’s walk with a full view of the harbor.
    The wraparound porch had two high-back rocking chairs, a porch swing, wrought iron tables, and plant stands. The flower shop, Sag Harbor Horticulture, supplied the porch’s flora and fauna, in this case: mums, pumpkins, and ornamental cabbage, along with cornstalks and balesof hay, all for the measly price of Elle displaying their business cards in her shop. That was how small business worked in small towns—even the Hamptons.
    Mabel and Elle’s Curiosities had been in business for fifty-five years and was a favorite stop for many a Sag Harbor tourist and local alike. Three years ago, after the death of Aunt Mabel, Elle took over ownership, adding her name to the letterhead. Elle kept the front of the shop as it was back in her great-aunt’s