I quickly squeeze his hand reassuringly and bump my shoulder against his.
“It does make me happy. I just didn’t want to think about it because the idea of walking around here alone, when I don’t have a store anymore and I don’t have an antique collection to add to anymore, kind of depressed me,” I explain. “The last time I was here, I was shopping for the store, and, yeah, it’s kind of sad that I don’t get to do that anymore, but I miss talking about antiques. I hate that I’ve been pretending like this wasn’t a huge part of my life just because blocking it out made it hurt less. It’s always going to suck that I lost something really important to me. But I’m glad you brought me here. I’m glad I get to do this with you.”
Fuck. Someone take away my strong, independent female card. I just became an open, oversharing woman.
“This is going to sound cheesy as fuck, so please don’t point and laugh at me. But I’m glad you get to do this with me too. I want to know what’s important to you. I want to be part of your world,” Eric tells me.
“Are you gonna break out into song?”
“It’s possible. I might even have a choreographed dance ready to go if need be.”
I laugh and shake my head at him, tightening my grip on his hand and pulling him towards the first aisle.
“So, how do we do this? Just go up and down the aisles until something catches our eye?” he asks as I take a map of the flea market from the table right by the first tent.
“Jesus God, no,” I tell him, studying the piece of paper with the name and booth number of every tent, as well as a two-sentence summary of what items they are selling. “There’s a strategy to this. Usually, I make sure I’m one of the first people to get here when they open up at the ass crack of dawn; that’s when all the antique dealers show up. Actually, a lot of business happens out in the parking lot before the flea market even opens, it just depends what kind of treasure you’re looking for and if it’s a hot item other dealers are looking for.”
Seeing that booth number one hundred and twenty-five has vinyl records and vintage record players, I decide to head in that direction first, since I feel like those wouldn’t bore Eric to death—unlike the booth I see that has a wide selection of lace tablecloths. Something tells me his balls would shrivel up and die if I made him stand there staring at lace tablecloths.
“How do you even know something is worth money? Not to sound like a complete dick or anything, but it kind of all looks like junk to me. I mean, not crappy junk. Just . . . junk. Stuff people found in their grandmother’s attic after she died that they don’t want to deal with,” he says as we stop by the record booth.
I hand him the map to hold on to and reach into my purse, pulling out a cloth bag that I carry with me everywhere.
“Tools of the trade,” I tell him, holding up the bag, pulling out each item for him to see. “A loupe for antique jewelry. When you’re dealing with silver, you want to see a tiny little imprint of the word sterling on it, or the number 925, which indicates the silver content. It’s also useful for looking for maker’s marks, signatures, and wear patterns.”
He takes the small, black, circular magnifying glass out of my hand and holds it up to his eye before handing it back.
“Next, we have a pen flashlight,” I tell him, clicking the light off and on. “Pretty self-explanatory. It helps you see distinguishing marks, especially when you’re at an indoor flea market and the lighting is poor. We won’t need this today.”
I shove it back inside the cloth bag and pull out a rectangular black magnet.
“This is actually pretty cool. A magnet helps you detect real silver. It won’t cling to the magnet like steel and iron do. And, the best tool out of everything here . . .”
I reach into my purse and hold up the item.
“A cell phone?” he laughs.
“Duh. Google is the shit. Also, I had an appraiser for the store. If I found something and I couldn’t find any information about it on Google, I’d snap a picture with my phone and send it to her, and she’d get back to me on whether or not it was a good find.”
I stuff the bag back into my purse and Eric grabs my hand again as we flip through the carton of vinyl records. He even asks a few questions about a vintage Victrola record player that has one of those cool trumpets as a speaker.