PW02 - Bidding on Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

lit a small fire in the wood stove in my office. Once one of the dual parlors in this old farmhouse, it had windows on three walls, a built-in desk and work surface which housed my addictive computer , and bookcases everywhere else. It also had a wood stove, and a beat up old recliner, too disreputable for the more public areas of the house, and a sofa whose disgraceful condition was gently masked by an abundance of afghans. Polly, the multi-hued mixed breed love sponge, was sprawled on the sofa with her feet in the air.
    Me? I was in the recliner, with pages of manual on a clipboard and Tough Stuff on my lap. The venerable M ac avity had departed (for the Rainbow Bridge, my vet assured me) over a year ago. He’d been a seasoned lap cat, but Tough Stuff needed practice. Only two years old, he fancied himself a jungle beast, a mighty hunter, and hadn’t yet achieved the boneless sprawl of lazy abandon. But he was working on it.
    By early afternoon, though, I was reaching the MEGO stage. (MEGO – My Eyes Glaze Over). You’ve got to be careful proofing your own writing; often the same mental tic that caused a typo can cause you to miss it in the proof. The coffee had stopped working.
    So when the phone rang, I didn’t let the machine answer. Instead I did the twist and reach from the recliner to pick up the phone. A seasoned lap cat would have ridden it out, but Tough Stuff vanished, to rematerialize on a high shelf, leaving a drop of blood on my thigh as a memento.
    Torn between answering “Rayburn residence” and “Passatonnack Winery”, I settled on, “Hello?”
    “Hey, Cissy, what are you doing?”
    It was Julia.
    “Proof-reading,” I said, unenthusiastically.
    “Are you up for an eBuy tutorial?” she asked. “Amy’s over here and I’ve just registered. They  have a McCoy clown in the barrel cookie jar listed! I bid, but it will probably go way over what I want to pay.”
    One of the great things about teleworking is that you can set your own hours. Telling myself that I needed a break to prevent careless error, I put the clipboard aside. “Sounds great. Want me to come over now?”
    “How about we come over there? Amy wants to see your tablecloths.”
    I ran a skeptical eye over the state of the office and tried to remember what the kitchen looked like. Oh well, Julia’s seen it worse, and if Amy is joining the crowd, the sooner she’s disillusioned about my housekeeping skills the better. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll put on a fresh pot.”
    The coffee was brewing and I’d stashed away a few items of clutter by the time George S., I mean Julia, drove into the back yard. Julia and Amy came into the kitchen bringing with them an air of Girls Outing that was downright invigorating.
    Polly, whose motto is ‘a stranger is a friend I haven’t met yet’, came in from the hall, eyed the scene and bunched herself for a launch on Amy. I snapped, “Polly, down!” and she dropped to the floor in sphinx position.
    “Nice!” Julia said approvingly.
    “We’ve been working on it,” I admitted. I turned back to Polly, who was eying me for further instructions. “Okay,” I told her and she sat up, watching my raised finger that meant Pay Attention To Momma. “Nicely!” I told her.
    You won’t find the ‘nicely’ command in any book on dog obedience, but I’ve found it quite useful and clever Polly knows exactly what it means. She approached Amy like a good civilized dog, all four feet on the floor, and presented herself for pats.
    “Good dog!” Amy said, ruffling Polly’s ears. “I’ve never been much of a pet person,” she told the humans in the room. “ But Beau is making me rethink, and now this good girl.”
    “Hear that, Pol?” I told the dog. “You’re a credit to your breed – whatever that might be.”
    “Okay,” said Amy, clapping her hands in a businesslike manner. “Let’s see these tablecloths.”
    We stopped by the linen closet, where I pulled out the box of tablecloths.