The Ming and I Read Free Page A

shining glory on a small table against the wall behind the counter that I use as a desk. Then I stepped around the counter to admire the Ming for a few precious seconds before flinging my door open to the public.
    In retrospect, I will acknowledge that displaying the Ming, no matter how briefly, was not one of my brightest moves. While it is true that my taste budsprefer chardonnay, on occasion I still think with a Boones Farm brain.
     
    I had just finished ringing up the sale of an Art Deco mirrored console when the phone rang.
    “Den of Antiquity,” I said cheerily. The console had sold for full price.
    “Is this the owner?” someone of indeterminate sex asked in a muffled voice.
    “Yes. How may I help you?”
    “This is Lock, Stock, and Barrel Security Services,” the androgynous voice said. “We’re offering a special this week—”
    “Thanks, but no thanks,” I said politely.
    “You’ll want to hear this special.”
    “I bet I won’t.”
    There followed a long and delightful silence. “Hey lady, I’m just trying to make a living,” the caller said at last.
    “Tell you what. I’m with a customer right now, but give me your number and I’ll call you right back.”
    I felt for the tablet of notepaper I keep by the phone. Unfortunately it was missing. Not that I would have called right back, mind you, but I would have called. I know, it is absolutely puerile of me—perhaps even unchristian—but I enjoy calling phone solicitors at home in the middle of the night. I don’t set my alarm especially for that, mind you. I just do it whenever I wake up to use the bathroom.
    “It’s against company regulations to give out our phone number,” the caller said.
    “Well, it’s against my regulations to talk to companies that won’t.” I hung up.
    Immediately the phone rang again. I let it ring five times before answering. When you are in a retail business, you shouldn’t rely on an answering machine during business hours. There are still folks out there who hang up on canned voices.
    “Hello?”
    “You shouldn’t be so rude,” my previous caller said.
    “Excuse me?”
    “I have to make a living, too, you know.”
    “I know. So give me your home phone number and I’ll call you this evening,” I said. That almost always works like a charm.
    The caller paused only a microsecond, if at all. “I can’t. My roommate works night shift. But this will only take a moment, I promise.”
    “No—”
    “Please. Just one minute. Then I get credit for the call.”
    “One minute,” I said crisply. It would be my one good deed of the day.
    The salesperson took a deep breath. “We at Lock, Stock, and Barrel Security Services guarantee that we can upgrade your existing security system, and offer you continued protection at half the cost of your current system, or you get a check from us for five hundred dollars for your trouble. Whose system are you currently using?”
    “I’m not using any,” I said triumphantly. “Will you be sending my check by registered mail?”
    This time the party on the other end hung up.

3
    “W hat do you mean Greg couldn’t come?” Mama demanded, wiping her hands on a starched white apron dotted with eyelets.
    To my knowledge Mama has never even flirted with Greg, but I would bet the Ming—if it were mine—that she has a crush on him. But an innocent crush, I’m sure, like the one I had on Ricky Nelson in the fifth grade. My mama would never step out of line, even in the privacy of her own mind.
    “Greg called just before he was due to pick me up at six. There’s been a double homicide in Myers Park. Apparently some banker went berserk.”
    “I thought that was the post office’s job,” Mama said, and held the door open for me. I was, after all, bearing gifts—a bottle of chardonnay and a pecan pie, both of which I had picked up at the new Hannaford’s on Ebeneezer Road in Rock Hill.
    I was born and raised in Rock Hill, South Carolina, which is just a stone’s