* *
*
Rated: EVERYONE
Sure, I told her.
Amanda, the teddy bear lady then reached under the table to pull out this enormous book. There were Teddy Bears on the cover and likely this was an appraisal and ordering book.
I leaned over the table for a better look as she turned the book around to face me.
The first few pages were indeed Steiff as she spoke of earlier. There were bears in yellow rain-gear complete with umbrellas, bears cuddling one another with a plastic heart between them, bears dressed for the military holding rifles and dressed with grenades and ammo.
Bears dressed like they were little girls going to an Easter parade, bears dressed like they were policemen, and bears that looked like grandfathers and they came with rocking chairs.
It was certainly enough to make my head spin.
I pointed to one bear and then the other. Amanda wrote down some values on paper. Then turned the page. They had bears dressed like they were from the 60s with bell-bottom pants and "The Beehive" hairstyles.
Bears plain just by themselves with no clothes but interesting looking faces, shapes, and sizes. I pointed to a few more and she penned more information down.
Finally we completed the book. She closed it and told me of those I picked, 2 need to be specially ordered from Germany and would be expedited to order in the next few days, the rest she had on ready stock, and the bill for it ?
Was a little over $100,000 dollars !
I blanched at the amount but Tricia who was nearby said, "That would be fine ! Do you take checks ?"
She nodded, Tricia then wrote out the amount desired. I got my bears all bundled up in special display cardboard boxes, glass cases, and plastic displays, and we headed out, back to the house.
I was quiet for so long. Finally I spoke, "Thank you, Tricia."
She smiled to look at me and put her hand in my lap. "Just my way of easing the tension I know you must be feeling with everything that has happened so far.
I got home back to my room and moved aside some of the simpler $1 bears to make room for the exorbitant valued ones. One even looked like he was working on the computer. I set him on top of my computer monitor sideways so you could indeed see it looked like he was working on important machine code.
And then dinnertime arrived. Tricia did not chime me to go for her "all natural" supper again, instead it remained silent.
I finally padded in her ID #, and called her up.
"Yes, David ?" she asked.
"Aren't we having a dinner tonight ?"
There was a moment of silence before she replied, "David, I'm having to work a little later tonight than usual. If you want to, call up Trudy and I'm sure you two can go out to eat or something."
With that she clicked off. I had written down the codes earlier, so I then tapped in Trudy's ID and phoned her on the intercom.
She replied. "Hello ?"
"Trudy," I began, "Tricia said she is staying and working late. Would you - like to go out and eat or something ?"
She huffed into the phone then asked, "David ? Are you asking me on a date ?"
I replied immediately, "Nono ... no, umm - no. I am married and all now I guess. No, I was just thinking we could go out to eat somewhere."
There was a moment of decision and finally she spoke back, "I'll be there in 10-minutes."
I clicked off the intercom and looked to the new collection of bears I purchased today. They really were something. I didn't dare even take them out of their display cases and they looked that much more valuable inside than outside.
After some more rearranging, trudy knocked on my door. "Enter." I said.
She came in, certainly dressed for a night on the town, and before she could say anything else, she immediately noticed the new Teddy Bears I purchased.
"Oh wow ! These are wonderful ! You - I know you didn't have these in your collection earlier. Where did they come from ?"
"Tricia took me shopping. We stopped by this antique store, I think that's what it was, and there was a woman named Amanda, she showed me a book of Teddy Bears and I pointed to each one I wanted."
"I think I picked out 14 in all, and - well - here they are."
"I like this one most of all." she said, and pointed to the one that looked like a little girl in an Easter Bonnet.
* * *
"Yep, she's a cutie. Anyways, where did you want to go and eat ?"
"Crystal's Pizza would be fine with me. They show some great B&W movies and cartoons there."
I smiled, "You like cartoons ?"
"Oh don't you ? Now I KNOW I have you pegged on a lot of things. You do like cartoons too, don't you ?"
"Yes I do." I nodded. I went to get a jacket from the closet as when Tricia and me came in earlier, it was already getting a little chilly outside.
"Then let's go !" She went to my intercom and entered Smither's ID code.
"Yus ?" he spoke.
"Smithers, Dave and me are going to Crystal's Pizza. Do you know how to get there ?"
"Yus mom. It is not verrah fahr from here. I'll bring the limousine out front."
"Great ! We'll see you in 5-minutes."
With that she was already heading out the door and it was all I could to follow her. We got to the elevator again and she looked at me. I looked at her.
"Dave, tomorrow, you and I are going to investigate the mysterious green glow of being between floors. Something is definitely up with that."
I shook my head, "I asked Tricia about that, she said that it is a maintenance floor and that I could be hurt, seriously, if I investigated it."
"And what if she's lying to you, David ?"
"Lying ?"
"Yes, lying. It's when someone says a different truth to protect themselves from a real truth."
"She wouldn't lie to me - would she ?"
"Stranger things have happened. But - let's not worry about it now. Smithers is waiting and I'm getting hungry."
I nodded my head. Yes, tomorrow we would investigate the secret floor then.
Smithers as Trudy said, was indeed waiting for us on the surface. We both got in and it was indeed a short drive to Crystal's Pizza. [Image]
While we piled out, Smithers took one look at the place, it's glitzy light-up sign and they way it sparkled and animated it's lights.
He shook his head and said, "Fun zone. No thank you. I have a BLT with egg sandwich roight here and a book I'm rayding. I'll be he-ye when you're ready to go."
The place itself was great, they had this huge ice-cream bar where you could make your own custom sundaes. They had seats with televisions playing beside them. High bar stools in one corner, and VIDEOGAMES ! Wall to wall videogames everywhere !
I had a few dollars in my wallet and quickly converted them to quarters as Trudy ordered a pizza for us. I played one game of Sun Dance and StarHawk when our pizza was ready, and they gave us even more game tokens then.
We sat down at one of the cocktail table videogames, Space Invaders, and took turns eating pizza and playing as the screen flipped vertical sides.
We were quiet for a moment, then suddenly Trudy just burst out laughing and a little bit of pizza hit the screen which she quickly wiped away.
"What's so funny ?" I asked.
She was still laughing, "This. This whole thing ! You. I mean, look at how messed up the world is. You get your head banged in the girl's restroom door by a bunch of women working there who hate guys and you manage to get away to the tune of 1.2 million dollars. It's hilarious !"
I nodded but didn't say anything. It became her turn to fight the invaders and she set down her pizza to concentrate on the game.
"I guess," I started to say, "I guess what I really want to see is my Dad. He must be worried and all. I want to let him know what's happening. I get married, by a silly piece of paper, and Tricia, well she's just - something's not right here - with all of it."
"You got that straight." Trudy said still concentrating on shooting down the invaders as they dropped down a level.
Finally a sneaky shot went down and pegged her tank. GAME OVER.
She looked at me straight, "David, there are a lot more things happening in BBI than just doling out money for foreign aid to countries. A lot more."
My game was already over so we had a moment's pause to concentrate on our conversation.
"Like what ?" I asked her.
END
OF CHAPTER 18
prev chapter
Share This
Email
Facebook
Twitter
Read Request
My Library
Subscribe
Flag Writing
