The Lowest Maintenance Sugar Baby novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: Opal Goes to the Flea Market
The flea market was the same one, on the same gravel lot, under the same sun.
This time there were four of us walking the rows, and one of us was seventy-nine.
Opal wore her cardigan and a straw hat she'd bought at a drugstore for three dollars.
Harold walked next to her in his golf shirt, with his hands behind his back.
"I'd like to buy you something," he said.
"You may not."
"A small thing."
"Mr. Rainsford, I run nine hundred and twelve stores. I've been buying small things since 1971." She stopped at a table of lamps. "But you may hold the bag."
He held the bag.
I watched the two of them out of the corner of my eye, with an egg-salad sandwich in my hand.
Carlton stood beside me with his own sandwich and a blue bicycle.
He had gone to the shop on Sunset on Tuesday morning, at nine, in his father's old coat, and he'd haggled for twenty-two minutes.
He'd gotten it down eleven dollars.
He kept telling everyone.
"Eleven dollars," he said now, patting the seat.
"What's his name?"
"Gary Two."
"That's not how names work."
"It's how bikes work."
"It's a good seat."
"I flinched at the start. Quietly."
"I'm proud of you."
Ahead of us, Opal held a brass lamp up to the light.
"Eighteen dollars," said the woman behind the table.
"Six."
"Ma'am, it's solid brass."
"It's brass-colored," said Opal. "And the shade's cracked. Six."
"Twelve."
"Eight, and my friend carries it."
Harold looked at the lamp, and at Opal, and at the woman.
"Eight," he said.
The woman wrapped it in newspaper.
"She's good," I told Carlton.
"She learned from the best."
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