Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
Since time immemorial, the St. Saviour’s winter jumble sale has taken place the first Saturday in December, and no attempted sabotage is going to change that.
Even though Clemence rises from bed that morning stiff and sore from carrying all those heavy tables for set-up the previous evening.
She rubs frost from her windowpane to reveal a fresh dusting of snow, putting her firmly in the mood for festive things.
After months of planning, the jumble sale is here, and Clemence feels proud of what she’s accomplished, helping to build something real and tangible that will make a difference in people’s lives.
Examining herself in the mirror as she fastens a butterfly brooch to her sweater, she wonders: Is this, after all this time, what a person of substance might look like?
She steps back to admire how the amethysts gleam.
The jumble sale had been overrun with brooch donations, and Mrs. Yeung encouraged her to help herself.
These items which were decorative instead of valuable, and also weighty, passed down through families until there was no one left who wanted them, but Clemence does.
Imagining the stories attached to the butterfly brooch, all the places it had been, an anchor and a connection to the past, and to so many women who’d come before her.
As the person charged with promotions, most of Clemence’s job is finished by the day of the sale, and so she’s an ancillary worker, directed by others, doing whatever needs doing.
Plugging in coffee urns, arranging jumble in an organized and attractive formation.
When the artisans arrive, and Clemence helps them to their tables, everyone apologizing about all the trouble with Mary-Ann Arbuckle, but no one says too much, because who knows where loyalties lie and, also, walls have ears.
By the time their city councillor arrives for the ribbon-cutting, the room is crowded, already uncomfortably hot.
Clemence has spied her entire family across the room, and she’s conscious of their attention as she takes her place in the ceremony, tasked with the official role of holding one of the ribbon’s ends—Mrs. Yeung is holding the other.
With her free hand, Clemence tries to subtly fan her face as the city councillor steps forth and does what she does, cutting the ceremonial ribbon with the ceremonial scissors that she must bring with her everywhere.
Declaring the jumble sale officially open.
And then Clemence takes her place at the cash box, where she’s signed up for the first shift, and it’s a flurry of activity, professional collectors having shown up early, first in line, so they can get their hands on the vinyl records, comic books, and china figurines whose extraordinary value the sale committee has not picked up on and will be resold online for huge profits.
And after things have settled down a bit, Roger and Bonnie roll up with Charles Yeung’s juicer, marvelling at the price.
“You’ve done a great job here, honey,” Roger says.
Bonnie admits, “This actually isn’t weird at all.
” They’ve met Reverend Michelle, and they adore her, naturally, and Bonnie seems no longer worried about her daughter having joined a cult.
Clemence knows her family has only shown up in order to check in on her, out of concern as much as support.
Over the general din, she can hear Prudence shrieking, “Don’t touch that!
” as one child or another has discovered something sharp or heavy or fragile.
Clemence’s parents move away to let the other buyers cash out their bundles of baby clothes or towers of vintage bakeware.
One guy arrives and purchases an entire box of CDs.
Across the room, Clemence can see that the artisans are also doing a decent business, and Min Jee, who directs the small church choir, has set up in the corner with her acoustic guitar and started to sing “In the Bleak Midwinter,” but there is nothing at all bleak about this scene.
Naomi and Jillian arrive, and Bonnie is delighted to see them. Clemence has finished her shift at the cash by now, and so she joins them as they figure out that the last time they’d all been together had been … at Clemence’s wedding.
“Well, the wedding was good for something, then,” says Clemence, shattering the awkwardness of the moment, and then she goes with her dad to get everybody a cup of coffee.
Returning with her hands full, and her mother has made an acquaintance with Mrs. Yeung.
They are trying to get to the bottom of what is wrong with Clemence: her insistence on being so strange.
“I thought she was a man,” Mrs. Yeung recalls. “The only reason I let her have the place. I had no idea with a name like that.”
“Well, that part is probably my fault,” admits Bonnie. “With a name like mine, I wanted my daughters to walk around in the world with a little more heft. My parents named me after Scarlett O’Hara’s daughter who fell off a horse.”
“I wanted to name my son after Ashley Wilkes,” says Mrs. Yeung, avidly. “But my husband wouldn’t let me. Because it’s a girl’s name.”
“Probably worked out for the best,” says Clemence, as she inserts herself into the fold, fanning her face again; it’s so uncomfortable.
“Is Charles coming?” She tries to sound easygoing about him.
She tries to feel easygoing about him, because she has Toby now.
If she saw Charles, it might not be awkward, and perhaps they could be friends.
“He said he’ll definitely try,” says Mrs. Yeung. “Which means no.” She turns to Clemence’s mother. “My son is a very busy person. Very involved in his community.”
“Like you?” Bonnie offers, and Mrs. Yeung concedes that this is true.
“And what about the Italian?” Mrs. Yeung asks. “Where’s he?” Confusing Bonnie, because she thinks Mrs. Yeung is talking about Sandro, and what’s he done now?
But Clemence tells her, “Toby’s actually not Italian. Strictly Northern European peasant stock.” She explains to her mother, “The guy I told you about. The one I’m seeing. Kind of.”
“But not polyamory.”
“No.” Poor Bonnie Lathbury, trying to find her bearings in this brave new world.
And all this is going over Mrs. Yeung’s head, thankfully. She tells Bonnie, “He’s sort of a strange kind of person. He doesn’t even look Italian.”
“Because he isn’t Italian,” says Clemence, for the thousandth time, still trying to hold it all together.
Except for the bond between these two women, which she is desperate to pull apart.
Why had she worn this sweater? The temperature in the church basement is boiling.
She says, “Anyway, I don’t think Toby’s coming today. Jumble sales aren’t really his thing.”
“I wouldn’t have thought they were my thing, either,” says Bonnie, “but look!” She unfurls the chenille bedspread folded over her arm. “My mother had one just like this.” She sticks her face in the bundle and inhales. “It even smells the same.”
Clemence cringes. “Make sure you wash that.”
Min Jee begins to play “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” and Naomi and Jillian rejoin the little circle of people who love—and are intent on torturing—Clemence. The nieces and nephews are happy because they’ve been allowed to pick out any toys they want, and it might as well be Christmas.
When was the last time they’d all gathered in a church? Had they ever? Certainly not at Clemence’s wedding, which took place in a barn at a winery.
And then Toby is there, waiting in the doorway, looking pained as he takes in the crowd.
“It’s Harold and Maude,” whispers Jillian, because indeed Toby is standing there with Crampton, who gives off a Ruth Gordon vibe, and who has somehow decided to set foot in St. Saviour’s after her decades-long grudge. What’s going on here?
Clemence tells Jillian, “No, it’s Toby.”
“That’s Toby?” says Naomi. “The Toby? Your unsuitable attachment?”
“He looks like an undertaker,” whispers Grace. “Or a corpse.”
“Well,” says Bonnie Lathbury, with a strange smile upon her face. “Let’s meet him.”
Clemence says, “Now?” Crampton and Toby are already approaching the group. “Are you sure?” But it doesn’t matter, because here they are, Toby is here. Why is he here?
“We have come to support your endeavour,” Crampton announces in an artificial tone, as though she’s reading from a script, or maybe she’s only reading Clemence’s mind. “Hung Back in thirty minutes signs up in the windows, and here we are. You’ve got quite the turnout.”
The room is even more crowded now, and maybe they were going to unload all the jumble after all. Clemence introduces Crampton her family, to her friends, Toby hanging back from the group. If Bonnie Lathbury tries to speak to him, the universe could possibly implode. But it doesn’t.
“So, you’re Toby!” Bonnie exclaims. “We’ve heard almost absolutely nothing about you. Beyond church and jumble sales, Clemence is not really forthcoming. You work in the bookshop, but that’s all I know. I’m Bonnie, Clemence’s mom.”
And Toby just waits, with everybody’s eyes upon him.
Like he’s frozen, until Crampton punches him hard in the arm, and he shouts in pain.
“Why did you do that?” he asks, but Crampton shakes her head, gesturing to the people gathered around them, and he comes to his meagre senses: “Um, hi,” he says, waving the hand attached to the arm that he’s clutching.
“These are my people,” Clemence tells them.
Her mother, her father, her sisters and their kids, her friends.
Jillian is holding an antique mirror, and Naomi is holding nothing, because she’s sensible enough not to be swayed by a sweet deal and doesn’t need anything more in her rich and fulfilling life.
“And this is Toby.” What to say about that?
“Toby is my people, too.” Does he need a sling?
“I think she really hurt him,” Clemence hears Sandro whispering to Prudence behind her.