"I'm sorry, I didn't even offer you a cup of coffee," Karen said.

"No time; we'd better get going if we want to be there before the auction starts. Do you have a couple of lightweight stools or lawn chairs? This place doesn't have seating, and it could be a long day."

Carrying the chairs, they walked to the garage where Pat kept his car, several blocks from the house.

"Wow," Cheryl said admiringly. "What a car! It's a Porsche, isn't it?"

"Yes. The MacDougals have a weakness for fancy automobiles. Frankly, I hate sports cars, I always feel as if I'm sitting right smack on the pavement, and trucks look like cliffs. Can you squeeze in, or shall I back out?"

"No problem. There's not much trunk space, is there? I hope we don't fall in love with anything bigger than a breadbox today. I suppose you'll be getting a station wagon, or a van?"

"Oh, Lord, that's another problem I hadn't considered." Karen eased the car carefully out of the garage. "I don't know what made me think I could go into business for myself, I'm so damned disorganized…"

"Nobody who was disorganized could do those things you did for your husband-taking notes and reading all those books."

"I didn't do anything a halfway competent secretary couldn't do. And according to Jack, I didn't do it very well. Do I turn right or left at M Street?"

Cheryl gave her a peculiar look but said only, "Right. Then straight on."

Traffic patterns had changed in the past ten years and Karen was a little nervous about Pat's valuable car. Not until she had left the Washington Beltway and was heading north on 270 did she really relax.

"The worst is over," Cheryl said encouragingly. "You're a good driver."

"That kid in the pickup didn't think so. What was it he said?"

"Don't ask. He was drunk anyhow."

"This car is Pat's baby," Karen explained. "He'd kill me if anything happened to it. And I haven't done much city driving lately. Jack always…"

She fell silent; she had determined she wasn't going to say anything that could be interpreted as a complaint or a demand for sympathy. After a moment Cheryl said, "I had the same problem."

"You did?"

"Sure. The trouble with being married is that you let the other guy do so many things. You share. Then, when you're alone… I suppose it's just as hard for men. They feel as helpless about cooking and cleaning as we do when we have to fix a leaky faucet or put oil in the car."

"Help," Karen said. "Don't remind me of all the things I can't do! I don't think I've ever put oil in the car."

"I'll show you, it's easy. The only thing to remember," Cheryl said solemnly, "is that the oil doesn't go in the same little hole the dipstick is in."

"Dipstick?"

"I'll show you that too." Cheryl grinned, then sobered again. "There were times when I thought it wouldn't be the big tragedy that defeated me, but the constant little aggravations, day after day. At least you can learn to handle the little things. You can't fix a broken heart or a broken spirit so easy… The next exit is ours."

Though they were in good time, with a quarter of an hour to go before the auction was to begin, there were already cars parked on both sides of the narrow road leading to a graveled lot next to a low, sprawling building. A man directed them into a field, and Karen guided the car over bumps and humps to the end of a row of other vehicles. She gritted her teeth and prayed for Pat's muffler; the field had been roughly mowed, but not leveled.

"Looks like a big crowd," she said, as they got out.

"There are two kinds of people here," Cheryl explained. "Dealers like you-this is their business, after all-and people who just get a kick out of attending auctions."

Karen felt a small thrill at the matter-of-fact tone in which Cheryl had said "dealers like you." It was, however, partly a shudder of trepidation. "I don't know what I'm doing," she groaned.

"Well, you have some idea of what things are worth," Cheryl said. "What prices you can ask, I mean. You just figure out how much you can afford to spend and don't go over that amount when you bid."

"It can't be as simple as that."

"Just about." Cheryl gave a wriggle of pleasure. "This is such fun. I'm one of the second group. If I didn't have other things to do, I'd be at an auction or flea market or yard sale every darned day."

Innocently delighted at being able to display her knowledge, Cheryl explained the arrangements. The auction building, open on one side, contained the choicer items that were to be sold. The auctioneer's podium, at the front, was flanked by long tables piled with small items-glasses and china, clocks and lamps, linens and ornaments. Furniture was stacked around the perimeter, leaving the center open for the bidders. This space was already half-filled with portable chairs, some occupied, some empty.

They set up their own chairs in a strategic spot and then Cheryl led Karen outside. Here the less valuable merchandise was arranged in parallel lines. It was a motley, shabby collection-chairs with no seats, tables with no finish, chests of drawers with half the drawers missing, rusty tools and pieces of machinery, and dozens upon dozens of cardboard cartons filled with everything from books to empty jelly jars.

"This is just junk," Karen exclaimed.

"Junk to you, treasure trove to people who are willing to do some painting and repairing. Come on, he'll be starting soon, probably with these box lots. I want to have a look at the linens. You never know…"

That phrase, Karen soon realized, was the bidder's creed. You never knew what might have been overlooked by a busy auctioneer or an ignorant seller. Among the dime-store ornaments might be a Sevres saucer; a hand-knit cotton-warp bedspread could be hidden under piles of moth-eaten blankets. Watching Cheryl as she squatted and rummaged, her skirts trailing in the dust, Karen began to get the urge too.

When the auctioneer's voice rose over the hubbub, announcing the sale was about to begin, Cheryl rose to her feet and dusted off her hands. "We'd better get our numbers. There's nothing here you want, is there?"

Karen agreed that there was not. The most exciting thing Cheryl had turned up was a set of kitchen towels embroidered with puppies in strident shades of green and red.

They stood in line to register. After displaying her driver's license and giving her telephone number, Karen was issued a piece of cardboard with a number scrawled on it. The process struck her as extremely casual, but when she said as much to Cheryl, the latter shrugged.

"I guess the big expensive places ask for bank references and like that, but there isn't a lot of money involved in these small auctions. If you pass a bad check, the word gets around and then you can't play anymore. They don't usually take out-of-state checks, though, so it's lucky you have a local driver's license. The District is considered local, here and in Virginia. What you really ought to get is a dealer's number, then you wouldn't have to pay state sales tax."

Karen rolled her eyes and threw up her hands at the reminder of another chore to be done, and Cheryl laughed self-consciously. "There I go again. Why don't you just tell me to shut up when I butt into your business?"

They returned to the scene of the action, which had warmed up considerably in both senses of the word. A crowd surrounded the auctioneer; they attached themselves to the fringes.

At first Karen found the proceedings confusing. Microphone in hand, the auctioneer, a tall, rawboned man wearing a Western-style straw hat moved slowly down the line of merchandise. Sometimes one of his assistants held up the item being auctioned, but Karen was not always sure precisely what was about to be sold, and the bidding went with terrifying speed-or so it seemed to her. She had never attended an auction before. It was a popular avocation with some faculty wives, but she had never had time for such things. There was always a paper to be typed or a set of references to check, and besides, Jack despised secondhand merchandise. He didn't even like antiques, only neat, clean reproductions.