Lot 47

The auction was supposed to start at ten. Ashley got there at nine thirty because she did not trust people, especially not this town, especially not when a loaf of bread was on the line.

She was twenty-eight, dispatcher for the school buses, and she had taken the morning off work for this. Her sister thought that was ridiculous. Her sister had never eaten her grandmother's bread, so her opinion didn't count.

The ride-share lot on the edge of town had been transformed, if you could call six folding tables under a blue tarp a transformation. Chain-link fence on three sides. Rows of idling sedans parked along the far edge, drivers waiting for fares and pretending not to watch the auction. Somebody had taped cardboard signs to the tables. Lot 1 through Lot 52. Boxes of unclaimed stuff from cars and vans and one bus nobody ever claimed.

And there it was. Box 47. She could see the shape of it through the flap. Lumpy. Wrapped in wax paper like always.

"You're not serious," she said.

Because of course there was a hand already resting on the table next to Lot 47. And of course the hand was attached to Christian Hurst.

He was twenty nine, drove long-haul for a living, and had lived next door to her for two years of pure nonsense. The feud started over the fence line. Then it was parking. Then it was her tomato plants. Then it escalated to community events, where he showed up specifically to bid against her on things like a pie at the fall bake sale. He had once paid forty dollars for a candle she wanted just to hand it to somebody else.

"Serious about what?" He was wearing a flannel shirt and a smirk. The smirk was standard issue.

"Whatever you're doing here. You don't need anything from a lost-and-found auction."

"I need lots of things, Ashley. A sense of peace. A smaller neighbor. Actually, you know what, forget the second one."

"You're here for Lot 47." She pointed at the box. "I can see it in your face. You don't even know what's in it and you're here for it."

He looked at the box. Then at her. Then back at the box.

"What is in it?"

"None of your business."

"So it's something good." He pulled a chair out from the table and sat down like he owned the place. The auctioneer, old Nelson Munn from the legion, was still setting up a cash box on the next table over, dropping it twice. "You want it. That's the only thing that matters."

"You have got to be kidding me." Ashley dropped into the chair across from him. Under the tarp the morning sun came through all soft and blue, which felt insulting given her mood. "This is a bread thing, Christian. This is not a feud thing. This is an actual important thing."

"Bread?"

"My grandmother's bread."

He blinked. "Your grandmother made bread? And it's in a box in a parking lot?"

"It's a long story."

"I've got," he checked a phone that clearly had no time on it, "nothing but time. Nelson hasn't even found the cash box he's holding."

Ashley looked at the box again. Wax paper. The shape underneath it, lopsided and dense, one end higher than the other. She had known it would be here, in a way. She had reported it lost to the carpool coordinator twice and gotten nothing, and then last month a notice went up at the community board. Unclaimed items auction. October. Lot 47.

"Two years ago," she said, "my grandma baked a batch for the church supper. She was eighty three and her hands were going and the loaves came out wrong. Lumpy. Crooked. She was embarrassed about it and wouldn't send the good ones without the bad one, so she wrapped the bad one up separate and sent it with me to deal with."

"And you left it in a van."

"I left it in a carpool van, yes, thank you."

"Classic Ashley."

"Do you want the story or not?"

He made a little go-ahead gesture with both hands. Behind him, Nelson found the cash box inside the cash box, somehow, and laughed at himself way too loud.

"The thing is, it was the last loaf she ever baked. She died that winter. And the whole family ate the good loaves at the supper and there's none left of any of it, and this one, this ugly one, is the last bread she made that exists anywhere on earth. And it's mine, because I was supposed to deal with it, and I lost it like an idiot in a van that got cleaned out and dumped in a lot."

Christian was quiet for a second. That was rare enough that she noted the date and time.

"Okay, that's," he said. "That's actually kind of a real reason."

"It's the only reason anybody's ever at one of these things."

"So you want to buy your dead grandma's bread back from a parking lot company."

"Yes!"

"How much is it worth to you?"

"None of your business, and also you're not bidding on it."

"See, that's where you're wrong." He leaned back and the chair creaked. "Because now I know it's worth a lot to you, and knowing that, how do I not bid?"

"Because you're a human being?"

"Truck driver, actually. Different thing entirely."

"Clearly."

He was already pulling out his wallet. He had a fold of bills in there like some kind of old man. Ashley stared at it with pure hatred.

"Christian. I am asking you. As a person. Not as your neighbor, not as the woman whose parking spot you block every second Tuesday. As a person. Don't do this."

"Wow, you called me a person. My day is made."

"I will withhold your mail again."

"That was you? I thought it was the postal service being incompetent."

"It was me, I stood at your mailbox, I put your magazine in my recycling bin."

"That was a good magazine," he said, and it held something almost like hurt, which she filed away for later.

Nelson rapped a little gavel on the next table, a tin one, so it sounded like a spoon on a pot. "Alright folks, we're getting going! Lost-and-found auction, cash only, everything as is, no refunds, no crying!" A handful of people drifted over. A woman in a quilted jacket. Two guys who probably drove the vans. A young guy, early twenties maybe, filming nothing in particular. Ashley counted heads. Nobody else was coming within a mile of Lot 47. It was going to be her and him.

"So here's my offer," Christian said. "I'll be reasonable."

"There is no version of you that's reasonable."

"I'll be reasonable-ish. I'll bid it up, and when you quit, I quit. Winner takes it."

"Why would you even want a loaf of bread?"

"I don't. I want the win. It's not about the bread, Ashley, it's about the principle."

"What principle?"

"That I can."

She laughed, actually laughed, and hated herself for it. "You're unbelievable."

"And you're easy to read, you've been staring at that box since you sat down, you keep looking at it like it's gonna run away." He stood, stretched, and rolled his shoulders like he was warming up for a sport. "Besides, maybe I'll eat it."

"You will not eat my grandmother's bread."

"Then outbid me."

Nelson came over to their table with the clipboard, flipping pages. "Alright, which one are you two circling, I can tell already, you've got the look. Whole town's got the look when you two are at an event. Last year with the quilt, good lord, that was a school board fundraiser and you two went to three hundred dollars on a quilt."

"It was a nice quilt," Ashley said.

"It was ugly," Christian said.

"It was a hand-stitched heritage quilt."

"It was brown, Ashley."

Nelson held up a hand. "I don't care. Lot 47, we doing this?"

Christian put a ten dollar bill on the table and smoothed it flat with one finger. Ashley put down her own ten, the one she'd brought in an envelope in her inside pocket because she'd planned this like a heist and he'd walked into it like he owned the bank.

"Opening bid," Nelson said. "Ten dollars. Do I hear ten?"

"I hear ten," Christian said, tapping his bill. "I hear it loud."

Ashley looked at the box. Lumpy. Misshapen. Her grandmother's hands, going, at eighty three, still baking for everybody. The last one.

"Nelson," she said, "we're gonna be here a while."

Nelson slapped the clipboard down. "Ten dollars, once. Twice. Anyone else? No? Then we're moving at ten, let's see if it sticks."

"Fifteen," Christian said.

"Twenty," Ashley said, before the fifteen was even finished coming out of his mouth.

The woman in the quilted jacket made a small noise and drifted a step closer. One of the van guys said something to the other and they both grinned. The kid with the phone turned his camera around, which Ashley did not appreciate.

"Twenty-five," Christian said.

"Thirty."

"Thirty-five."

"Forty."

Nelson wiped his forehead with a bandana he produced from somewhere. "Lord have mercy, it's a loaf of bread, people."

"It's not about the bread, Nelson," Christian said, and Ashley could have thrown the tin gavel at him.

"Forty-five," she said.

"Like I said," Christian went on, "it's about the principle. Forty."

"You just said forty-five."

"I said forty-five, you said forty, I'm unwinding it. Forty-five."

"You can't unwind a bid. Nelson, can he unwind a bid?"

"He cannot," Nelson said. "Forty-five stands. Forty-five going once."

"Fifty," Christian said.

"Fifty-five."

"Sixty."

Ashley's envelope had eighty dollars in it. She'd budgeted. She'd budgeted because she was a dispatcher and dispatchers budgeted, and now this man in a flannel shirt was going to make her spend her grocery money on her own grandmother's bread, which by any legal or moral framework already belonged to her.

"Sixty-five," she said, and her voice cracked a little on it, which made her want to die.

Christian noticed. Of course he noticed. His eyes lit up like somebody had plugged him in. "Seventy."

"Christian."

"Seventy-five."

"I have a budget. I have an envelope. You knew that, you saw me put down exact tens."

"Eighty."

That was her whole envelope. She stared at him. He stared back, and he was smiling, but it was a different smile than usual. Usually he smirked like he'd won something small. This one had more teeth in it. Like he was actually curious what she'd do.

"Folks," Nelson said. "Folks. Eighty dollars on Lot 47. Once."

"Don't say twice, Nelson, hold on," Ashley said.

"Eighty going once, and I'm going slow out of respect."

Ashley did math. She could go home, get more money, come back. But the auction ended at noon and the lot closed at two and Christian would absolutely sit on Lot 47 like a dragon until then. She could concede. She would rather be set on fire.

"Okay," Christian said, leaning back. "Last call, Ashley. Eighty bucks or the bread."

"Or what," she said. "Or what, Christian, you eat it? You don't even want it. You said it yourself, you want the win. You don't care about the object. You never care about the object. You bought a forty dollar candle at a bake sale that you have never once lit."

"It's a nice candle."

"It's in your junk drawer, I've seen it through your window when I watered my tomatoes."

"That's stalking, that's actually stalking, I should report that."

"Nelson," Ashley said. "Nelson, I want to make a motion. A procedural motion. Whatever this man wants, it is not the bread. I want the bread. There must be a mechanism for this."

Nelson looked at her over his glasses. Then he looked at Christian. Then he looked at the small crowd, who were all watching now, even the quilted woman, even the van guys, even the kid, who had zoomed in.

"Well," Nelson said. "There's no mechanism in the rules. But there's also hardly any rules. What'd you have in mind?"

"You two settle it private," the quilted woman said. "Between yourselves. Winner takes the lot."

"I didn't ask for your input, Sharon," Ashley said.

"You never ask for my input, that's the problem with you young people."

Christian put his elbows on the table. Ashley noticed, in a way she resented, that he had forearms. She'd never thought about his forearms in two years of feuding and now she was thinking about them, and she filed that under things to be furious about later.

"Alright," he said. "Here's my deal. Winner takes the bread."

"Fine."

"And the loser doesn't sulk about it. Those are the only stakes. Nothing else rides on this, no favors, no debts, nobody owes anybody anything."

"Nelson," Ashley said. "Is this legal?"

"Is what legal?" Nelson said. "You're two grown adults agreeing to a private contest over a loaf of bread at a cash auction under a tarp. Nothing about that is any of my business or anyone else's."

"Sharon?"

"Oh, take the deal, honey, this is the most fun I've had since the raffle."

Ashley looked at the bread. Lumpy, one end higher, wrapped in wax paper that had gone cloudy with two years in a box. Her grandmother had been eighty-three and her hands had shaken and she'd still baked for the church supper, and nobody at the supper had even wanted the ugly loaf, and now it was the last one on earth.

And underneath all that fury there was something else, something hot and stupid, which was how badly she wanted to watch Christian Hurst lose to her in front of Sharon and the van guys and a kid with a phone.

"Fine," she said. "Deal. But I pick the contest."

"Nope," Christian said. "Whoever wins the coin flip Nelson's about to do picks the contest."

"That's not what a coin flip is for."

"That's what this coin flip is for. Nelson, flip."

Nelson produced a loonie. "Heads or tails."

"Tails," said Ashley.

It came up tails, and Christian looked genuinely wounded, which was the best moment of Ashley's week.

"Alright," Christian said, sighing. "Contest's mine then. I pick trivia. Head to head. Nelson asks, best of five, general knowledge, no appeals."

"Trivia," Ashley repeated. "You want to settle this with trivia."

"You work at a school, you should like trivia."

"I dispatch buses, Christian, I don't teach the curriculum."

"Close enough. Nelson, ask us stuff."

Nelson flipped through his clipboard like it might contain trivia, which it did not. "Alright, uh. Question one. What year did the town hall get its new roof?"

"That's not trivia, that's municipal history," Ashley said.

"It's what I've got," Nelson said. "Anyone?"

"Nineteen ninety-eight?" Christian said.

"Correct, actually."

"You're kidding," Ashley said. "Ninety-eight? It leaked until like 2011."

"Leaking is different from roofing. Question two. How many rows of sedans are in this lot?"

They both turned and looked. Ashley counted. "Fourteen."

"Sixteen," Christian said.

"Fourteen," Ashley said. "Look at them. Count them."

"I counted the two rows behind the fence line on the east side."

"You can't see rows behind a fence."

"Seventeen," Nelson said, squinting. "There's seventeen rows, one's just the dealer overflow, nobody ever