AUTHOR'S NOTE: Last chapter I got a note from someone more in the know than I was. I do appreciate these sorts of notes, but if you could PM them to me in the future I would prefer to receive criticisms like that there than in the comments.
Going forward, I will be making use of the note that was left for me. I am always open to correction when I am wrong.
Thank you all for reading!
Also, artistic liberty was taken in the description of objects later in this chapter.
Wendy and I went to the cafeteria in our PJs again. It was becoming our thing, especially in the evening. Well, not our meaning Wendy and I but our as in all of the dorms around this particular cafeteria. In one week we had gone from a group of random individuals to a sort of collective.
A lot of the girls purchased sleepwear similar to Wendy’s and mine. I’m not sure where the trend came from, but I have to personally believe it was Wendy. She is just one of those girls that fill up a room with her personality no matter how big or packed the room is.
“Hey, Wendy,” Jon said slipping in next to her.
“Hey Jon, Hey Tim,” she said with her megawatt smile.
They were both wearing the boy ‘uniform’ of flannel pants and tank tops. Tim had his normal smile for me, and I did my best to return one to him.
“Hey, guys,” I said.
“What’s up, Jackie. Sounds like you just lost your best friend or something.”
“I broke up with my boyfriend today,” I said matter-of-factly.
“Really!” Tim said, his entire face lighting up with the smile that suddenly appeared there.
“Down boy,” Wendy said.
“Sorry, I couldn’t help it. I mean, Jackie here is the most beautiful girl in the freshman class. Everyone knows it. You define fashion.”
“What are you talking about?” I said a little confused.
“Look around you, girl,” Wendy said, “People follow your lead.”
“No, that’s you, Wendy. You are so alive…”
“If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t even be wearing this,” she said pulling the top away from her chest by pinching the material with a couple of fingers from each hand.
“But other people…”
“You are a queen, and you hold court in here every day,” Wendy replied.
“I’m not popular,” I began to say when a girl walked by our table.
“Hey, Jackie.”
“Hey, Amy, how’s your mom doing?”
“Better. Thanks.”
“Great. I’m happy to hear it. See you later?”
“Sure,” she said giving me a little finger wave, “Bye, Wendy,” she said as she walked away. Tim, Jon and Wendy began to laugh.
“What?” I said in confusion.
“You don’t even know, do you,” Tim said in a little wonder.
“Know what?” None of this really seemed to make sense.
“Jackie, you care about people,” Wendy said to me with a smile.
“Everybody cares about the people around them.”
Tim snorted at this in derision, “Jackie, no offense, but people care about their family and friends. They worry about the people directly around them.”
“He’s right, Jackie,” Jon said with a smile, “most people just don’t have the time for everyone around them. They limit who they care about so that they can more efficiently spread their limited energies around.”
“But, the only limit we truly have it time,” I say, still confused.
Wendy gave me a hug, “and that’s why people love you, hon.”
“I just don’t understand,” I said. Tim and Jon were just smiling at me and Wendy shook her head slightly.
“That is just a good part of your charm,” Wendy said.
I just shook my head and smiled at the trio. They laughed and I excused myself. On my way out of the hall I greeted four or five other people I knew. After that I began laughing at myself. I hadn’t greeted everyone in that room that I knew. Taking a last look as I left the room, I realized that I knew probably half of the people there. Well, let me rephrase that. I knew half of their first names. The rest I knew a smattering of where they lived, last names, or their roommates names.
I knew them. It wasn’t Wendy who knew them.
Maybe she had a point. I took myself to bed and tucked myself in. That was likely the best I could expect for the next little, or long, while.
The Skype ringtone woke me at four in the morning.
“Hello?” I said blearily.
“Jackie, where are you?”
“Morning, Stan. I’m at home in bed.”
“Well, you should be at Arcadia Premier Storage,” he said.
“Arcadia doesn’t do auctions.”
That was an understatement. Arcadia was one of those mythical places for people like Stan and me. In August I never would have believed that I would have known anything about storage facilities.
Now…
Arcadia was one of those places that does things its own way. They charged their customers a ‘moving deposit’ when they signed up for service. This deposit was used to move the stored material to the address that they listed when they signed up for service.
“So, why wasn’t the stuff moved?”
“That is the million dollar question.”
“Which is why I asked.”
“No, I meant that literally. The locker was insured for a million dollars. There was some mess with the probate of somebody’s will. It’s actually the court that is requiring the auction.”
“Wait...you mean..?”
“Yes, the proceeds of the auction are to be split by the various named individuals in the will.”
“You mean the previous owner of the locker wanted it auctioned?”
“He did.”
“But, this could be a trick of some sort. Some elaborate hoax on the part of an eccentric.”
“You want to take that chance?”
I leaped out of bed and threw my clothing on even as I continued to talk to Stan. “How long do I have?”
“About an hour.”
“I’ll be there.”
I threw a brush through my hair as I walked out the door to meet the Taxi that I called as soon as I got off the line with Stan. While I sat in the back of the car, I did something that I never did. I logged into my bank and checked my balance.
It had to be wrong, so I called the bank. They confirmed what I was seeing. My next call was for Edgar.
“This can’t be right. Your quote…”
“Was an estimate. I had an appraisal of the value of the sets. Not only were these sets of furniture they were actual sets of furniture. The same craftsman actually made all of the furniture in that locker.”
“You mean..?”
“I mean, Jackie, that it wasn’t a few sets of furniture, but one set.”
“But, if it was sold as one set…”
“I only took my cut once. That is yours. I made a deal with you. I thought of taking a bigger cut, but then it wouldn’t have been fair to you. You negotiated that deal with me in good faith.”
“But, Edgar…”
“No whining, Jackie. Take your money and get back to me later with more of it.”
“Fine, I’m going to pay you back, though. I’m not sure how, but I will.”
“Later, Jackie,” he said with a laugh.
I walked into the storage center and followed the sound of voices. My breath sounded loud in my own ears. Stan waved to me, but his smile told me all I needed to know. He thought he had this all wrapped up. My poker face was good enough that I didn’t even smirk back at him.
“It’s now 5:20 AM on October 26th, two thousand twelve. We will open the bidding on space number 2121 at one thousand dollars. Who will bid one thousand dollars?”
I think we were all shocked at how low the price was. Could it be that we were all wrong? It had, after all, been insured for a million. I expected it to open at at least a hundred thousand.
The thought that I was thinking it as ‘only’ at the time made me laugh out loud, “We had a bid for one thousand from the woman in the red jacket.”
It got serious after that. The auctioneer was slow and deliberate, making offers that we matched or not.
“Fifty,” called out one of the old hands from the back of the area.
“Who will make it thirty-five?” said the Auctioneer.
I held up five fingers as I raised my hand.
“Forty?” he said and I nodded.
“Forty from the woman in red.”
And on it went, this back and forth. By ones and fives it raised up slowly. I had the bid at ninety when Stan raised two hands the fingers out.
“The gentleman in the bowler for one hundred thousand dollars. And from here we shall begin in increments of ten thousand. Objections?”
There were none, and we began again. It raised not much faster as now we were afraid to raise more than a finger. The auction was increasing each time for amounts greater than most auctions even went for.
When we reached two hundred thousand I could feel my heart begin to pound. Was this simply gambling and the rush that I was staying in for now, or was this something else. I hadn’t even taken time to consider whether I actually wanted this one.
Stan went to two ten and suddenly it hit me. The manner in which it was being auctioned. The short notice. There was something here. Something special.
Whether or not it was two hundred thousand special, I didn’t know.
Well, as long as I kept the fifty-five that I started with, then I would be fine. I could always start over again.
I raised a hand, with five fingers outstretched.
“Two sixty…”
I raised a single finger and pushed it up.
“Two hundred seventy thousand dollars to the woman in red.”
Three more of the men threw their hands up and walked out. Stan looked at me with one eyebrow raised and I shrugged at him. Then I grinned.
He raised a hand with five fingers raised.
“Three hundred twenty thousand.”
I raised both of my hands, fingers splayed, closed them, and then opened them again.
The auctioneer just looked at me. I smiled and nodded, again twice.
“This is a bit, unprecedented today. We have an offer for five hundred twenty thousand dollars.”
I smiled at him, the warm feeling I had begun to feel suffusing my entire body. Stan looked at me like I was insane. He looked up at the ceiling. I nodded. He looked up again. I nodded again.
He shook his head and walked out.
“Do I hear five-hundred thirty thousand dollars?”
If it went no higher, I still had enough left over for school and food left in my account. I still had some leeway if it went higher, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t.
One by one all of the other bidders left. When they did, Stan walked back to stand beside me.
“I wanted to be here for the reveal.”
“I probably owe half of whatever this is to you.”
“Nah, you are a shrewd bidder. This is yours. You deserve it.”
“Sold to the woman in red for five-hundred twenty thousand dollars. My card, miss. Please have cash or bond made available to me within the next twenty-four hours.”
I took the card and glanced at it before putting it into my bag.
“If I may do the honors,” the man said, and turned the key in the lock.
“You know what it is?”
“I don’t,” the man said. “I know little more than you do. I know the piece was insured using redacted documents. Apparently the man didn’t want anyone to know what it was, and so he picked auctions of similar pieces of jewelry to give an approximate value.”
“You think it’s jewelry?”
“Well, a piece including gemstones of some sort.”
“Stay with us. You can see what it is when we do.”
He smiled at me and stepped back from the lock after opening the door. I stepped in and my breath caught in my throat. There was a single object in the room.
That isn’t exactly true. There was a museum quality display case in the room. It was made out of polished cherry wood with three miniature spot lights focused to a single point on the black velvet cushion.
The sides were glass that even I could tell from here were at least an inch thick.
What caught the attention, however, was the object lying there, half opened. There was an enamel heart suspended in the middle of it. There seemed to be seams on the enamel heart, but what exactly they were for, I couldn’t tell.
The outside of it was studded in diamonds surrounding pearls and the panels were a red and white diamond pattern. It was the most beautiful egg shaped object I had ever seen...and it was mine.
“Do you know what that is?” The auctioneer said from beside me.
“An egg?”
He walked forward and examined the base of the object, then he took out his phone and began a quick search.
“No, this can’t be.” the auctioneer said, almost in agony.
“What?” Stan said.
“That is a Faberge egg.”
I looked a bit confused at him.
“Basically it’s a really expensive Easter egg,” Stan said as if that explained everything.
“It is a work of art is what it is, a piece of the heritage of Russia...and this one, if I don’t mistake my guess is one of the lost ones.”
“Lost,” I said even more confused.
“Off all of the eggs made under the Faberge auspices, eight of those made have been lost to history. Some may have been destroyed. This one...is likely the Mauve egg. there aren’t even any pictures of this one.”
“How would we know it is actually the Mauve egg?”
“May I?” he said gesturing toward the case.
I nodded, a little mystified. He walked over and opened the case. Using a handkerchief he took from his pocket he carefully opened up the heart into what looked like a three leaf clover. There were three hand painted pictures in the three leaves.
“Unless this is simply a cunning reproduction, and even then it could be worth millions, this is...priceless.”
Stan began to quietly chuckle. “Well, isn’t this a fine monkey’s paw.”
“No, it’s beautiful,” I said. Never would I have purchased something like this if I’d been able to see into this room beforehand. I had purchased it, however. Sure it would clean me out, but I owned this. This was something that was mine and mine alone, a truly unique piece of history and art.
“You two can’t tell anyone about this,” I said quietly.
The auctioneer looked at me appraisingly, “I just want to be able to look at it occasionally.”
“Just you?”
“Just me.”
“This is the best story I’ll never be able to tell. Imagine, finding this thing in a storage locker. And I thought the chandelier was a good one.”
“Stan…”
“No worries, Jackie. No one would believe me without proof, and why would I provide the proof.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, then something occurred to me.
“How am I going to move it?”
“Oh, that’s easy. This space is paid up for the next three years. You were buying the previous owners contract as much as you were buying the contents.”
We left that smallish room and I locked the steel door behind us. It seemed so flimsy a barrier to contain what it did.
I pulled out the business card and looked at the man’s name.
“Mr. Greer, could you come down to my bank with me? I’d feel more comfortable not carrying that much money around with me through the city.”
“And here I was hoping you would have to default. Then I would be able to sell it at a real auction. You realize what sort of commission I lost out on with this one? I get one percent of every sale. The last Faberge egg to go up at auction brought in almost fourteen and a half million dollars.”
I tried to wrap my head around the fact that I likely owned something worth even a fraction of that amount. The one percent that Mr. Greer was talking about was over a hundred thousand dollars.
We got the money out of my bank when it opened at nine. I was still reeling at the thought that even the huge sum I was handy over was paltry compared to that object.
The rest of the day went by in a daze. I got nothing out of any of my classes and a number of my teachers just gave up on calling on me to answer questions.
When it was done, I lay down on my bed and just stared up at the ceiling. That is until I felt Wendy shaking me and sounding worried.
“Jackie?”
“It’s alright, Wendy. I’m fine. I’m just a bit in shock.”
“In shock?”
“I spent over five hundred thousand dollars on a storage locker and got something I can’t sell.”
“You lost five hundred thousand dollars today?”
“No, I think I have an asset worth more than that now.”
“you think.”
“Say you got a famous painting, you know like a Van Gogh. You know it’s worth something, but you can’t bear to actually sell it.”
“You bought a Van Gogh?”
“Something like it, in a storage auction.”
“Wow, and you don’t want to tell me what it actually is?”
“I’m afraid that if I talk about it I’ll realize how crazy it sounds and I’ll lose it.”
“And if it’s really worth all that much, you probably don’t have the security necessary to keep it safe. It’s not like you are a museum,” she said.
Her statements sparked something in me, something that would change how I thought about this, but at that moment I caught sight of the time.
“Crap. I have a date in a little over an hour and I have absolutely nothing to wear.”
Wendy began laughing at me and then helped me to get ready. I was just putting the finishing touches on my makeup when there was a knock on my door.
Wendy opened it. “Wow, you get all the good looking guys. What’s your secret?” Landon laughed at this.
“Simple, I’m myself and I don’t even try.”
“Lucky,” she muttered with a smile.
“Wendy, could you stay here for a moment,” I said to stop her from leaving.
She looked questioningly at me.
“I have something to say and want some backup just in case.”
“Are you sure about this,” she said with a questioning look.
“Yes,” I replied.
“This sounds serious,” Landon said with a smile.
“It is my life. It is, and isn’t, serious.”
The smile went away and I began to talk. It was awkward and halting, but it was the truth. I told him who I was now, and who I had been born. I told him what little I knew of the medical truth of things, and my plans for the future.
I talked, all told, for about thirty minutes without him saying a word. When I got to the end, I stopped talking and Wendy came over and sat next to me.
He sat there quietly, and I let him.
“Why did you tell me this?”
“Because right now I am in a controlled environment. Right now nothing has happened other than you styling my hair and asking me on a date. You haven’t invested anything in me. You can cut ties without feeling like a fool.”
“Are you gay?”
“No, I like boys just like any other heterosexual girl.”
He colored slightly but then laughed.
“You know, looking at you there, I see a girl, well two girls if I’m honest.”
“Thank you,” Wendy said with a grin.
Landon laughed at that. “Well, Jackie, I promised to take you out on the town tonight, and I never go back on my promises.”
“You’re not upset?” I asked a little concerned.
“Upset? No. shocked and amazed? Yes, certainly. I’m not personally sure, now, if I’m ready for a relationship with you, but I’d like to find out. So that puts us in the same boat?”
“How’s that,” I asked.
“Well, neither of us is currently ready for a relationship.”
I laughed and stood up from my bed. I grabbed my purse and Landon put his hand at the small of my back to guide me from the room. I didn’t feel it was pushy, or possessive or anything like that. I just felt as though he wanted to make sure I was there, and that we were going in the same direction.
I smiled up at him and he gave me an enigmatic smile.
“What?” I said, a little concerned.
“You realize I’d likely never have known you weren’t born female if you hadn’t told me?”
“Possibly, but what if you’d found out later, like after we kissed or...had sex…” I colored when I said this last part.
“Then I’d have felt betrayed,” he said matter-of-factly.
“With good reason. I would have been lying to you about something fundamental. Like my being married or something like that.”
Landon snorted at that.
We got in his car and drove over to the same restaurant that Sam took me to those weeks ago. Don’t get me wrong, it was a nice place to eat, but I was hoping, a little, to try somewhere new. Maybe next time.
The conversation was pleasant and easy as we drove. There were no expectations on either my part or Landon’s. We were like two old friends catching up on a lifetime of moments.
It was the most relaxed I’d ever been on a date. I had dated as Jake, pretending to be a boy. Most of the dates ended poorly. Not for anything I did or didn’t do, or at least that’s what I tell myself, but more for who and what I was.
There were some dates that went well, one with a girl that later revealed to the whole student body that she was a lesbian, but it takes all sorts.
Mostly it was because I just never felt attracted to the girls I was dating. Sure, I thought that most of them were beautiful, but I never felt anything like what Brad awoke with me the times we’d kissed.
I’d been going through the motions of what was expected at me. Never once did I actually examine my own feelings. Now, however, my feelings were letting me know loud and clear who I was.
I was a girl and damn proud of it.
Landon parked the car and went round to my side to let me out. Not only did he open the door, but he offered me a hand up.
As soon as I was standing his hand went to the small of my back again and I glowed under his attention.
Here he was, still not sure whether he could have a relationship with me and yet he was treating me every inch as the woman I appeared, and presented myself, to be.
“Thank you,” I said quietly as we waited for our turn at the podium.
“for what?”
“For treating me like a woman.”
“As far as I’m concerned you are a woman,” he said warmly.
“But, you said earlier…”
“No, I’m not ready yet. I need to decide whether or not I can deal with what it would mean to be your boyfriend.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Logically, I know you’re a woman. A relationship isn’t only logic. There is a lot of emotion tied up in any relationship, and I want to make sure that mine is in the right place. I’d never want to unintentionally hurt you, let alone intentionally.”
I just smiled at him. He was such a sweet guy and he was trying so hard to understand something that I was trying to just believe I didn’t need to worry about.
We were seated and made more small talk. You know, just talking about anything that came to mind when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Julie said she doesn’t know you.”
“That’s not what she said and you know it, Matt,” I said smiling up at him.
“Landon, this is Matt from back home. Matt this is Landon, a friend of mine.”
“Does he know…” Landon began.
“Who I am? No, and it’s driving him nuts, I can tell.”
“Should I be worried,” Landon said.
“No. Matt had a tendency to stick up for those people who were bullied. He was one of my heroes and I can admit now to having a bit of a crush on him.”
“You had a crush on me? Why didn’t you say something?”
“Because you were Julie’s and besides, it never felt right to me. I just thought it was how you related to someone you looked up to. I never realized it was something more.”
“What girl doesn’t know what a crush is like?” he said with a truly confused look on his face.
“You really can’t guess?” I said. “Nothing about me is familiar in the least?”
“Should you really be taunting him like this, Jackie?” Landon said.
Matt’s eyes grew wide and he did a double take. He just kept looking me up and down, not in a creepy sort of way like some of the male students will, you know, like a piece of meat. No, he was looking at me like I were a work of art that he just couldn’t quite understand.
“Jack...ie? Wow...Julie said you were in town and I immediately put that out of my mind. You look good.”
“Thank you,” I said blushing.
“Well, I’ll let you get back to your date. Landon, nice to meet you. Take care of my girl here. She’s a special one.”
“Oh, don’t I know it.”
Matt walked away and I lifted a questioning eyebrow to Landon.
“What? You are. You are one of the most caring individuals I’ve met.”
“How can you know that. All you have is what I’ve told you. I could be a complete bitch.”
“Unlikely. It’s the way you talk about people. It matters to you whether they’re happy with their lives. You really don’t care how they feel about you as long as they’re happy.”
“How do you know?”
“You told me about yourself before we went on our date.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“Jackie, it means everything. You didn’t do it to protect yourself. It might have caused all sorts of problems for you. You could have gone out with me for a while and we could have just had a relationship. You could have waited to tell me until you knew it was getting serious.”
“No, I couldn’t. You’d have been in a relationship with a lie.”
“No, you couldn’t, and that is what’s special about you. No matter how much it might hurt you personally, you think about other people and how to help them.”
Dinner was good, and not just because of of the company, but because of the way he made me feel. I still didn’t think that he was right about me not being ready for another relationship, but for different reasons than yesterday. Today, well, it was more a matter of the fact that I just wasn’t the same girl.
Life had changed. No longer was I losing myself in the womanhood that had sprung itself fully formed on me when I came to college. More, I think, it was the fact that I was accepting who I was, and more than being someone’s...anything I was a woman first and foremost.
Finding that treasure, that lost object of art, had changed me. Landon’s acceptance had completed that transformation.
When he dropped me off that evening, he walked me to the door.
“Thank you, Jackie. That was a wonderful evening.”
“You made it so,” I said demurely.
“No, Jackie, it was you. You are special.”
He kissed me gently and walked away as I stood there, shocked, in front of my door. Eventually I sighed and went in to bed.
Comments
This is not the end...
...but it is the end of the beginning.
The next chapter will begin part two of the story. When I began this two years ago my intent was to write the beginning of the story under the title of 'What was lost...'
At the beginning I knew all of two things about the story. The first was that the character went to MIT. The second was that she would be transitioning because of something that she found while working a part time job purchasing storage spaces at auction.
The who role play group sort of came from the sub text I included as part of the story. A Beholder is a monster from the game D&D and has featured on the AD&D 2nd edition Monstrous Manual cover art.
So, I took from the Dresden Files Role Playing Game both for world and play style and created a little side interest and a number of new characters.
It was never my intent to make Brad a scumbag two timing...well you read chapter 9.
Jasmine I pretty much hated from the beginning.
So, the next portion of the story will be entitled ...Now is found.
There are more things to resolve, more treasures to find, and a Halloween scavenger hunt that could leave a character scarred for life...
He entered the hall to get warm. She left it two hundred years later.
Faeriemage
"You are special.â€
wow.
I wish everyone here could have a person who says that to them.
Finding One of the Lost Seven
Spoiler Alert Wow, how many hunters dream of finding one of those eggs? I've seen a couple at Hillwood in DC. I would love to find anything Faberger. I do find some nice Russian flatware now and then. The enameled and niello 19th century pieces are particularly nice. I have five Russian pieces for sale in my antique booth right now.
I'm so glad this story is back. I missed it, and was very pleased to pick it up again.
Portia
Now that is a good date and a good find
and I'm not just talking about the egg either! Landon is an extremely good find and of course the egg is also lol.
"You are special" Trillion dollar words? Naw, those words are priceless things to hear! Much more rare than that egg!
This is not the end... Can't wait for the next chapter as this is an excellent story!!! :}
Vivien
What was Found!
Quite a find there, But in certain ways her early find was more significant.
At least in a personal way, but this will also change her life.
Wow
Just discovered the story and I must say that I love it! Please post more soon (and maybe some more "Snow" while you're at it!)
JAGR (Just another greedy reader),
Larimus
So ...
You just ended this story here! I was hooked, set to go - all - the - way, forsaking football, and whatever else for the evening. But there is no next chapter. ... no more, no more cried, ... well just the forewarding pointer lists another tale. I'll miss this story.