Chapter 11 #5
Dosia collapsed back into her seat. Despite the coolness of the fall day, she felt hot and flustered. Her heart was racing a mile a minute, and she was either hungry or nauseous.
She caught Frankie’s eye and the two of them burst out laughing. Dosia hastily tried to wipe the sudden tears from her eyes. “That was terrifying!”
“Hey, you won!” Frankie nudged her shoulder. “You get to go on a date with your man.”
Dosia nodded, relief washing over her. Turning, she saw Calliope was sitting on the grass behind her with JJ on her lap.
She was wearing a black witch’s outfit with a wide-rimmed pointed hat.
JJ was very animatedly telling her great-aunt about her new hairy daddy while petting Oolong on Calliope’s shoulder.
Calliope looked up at her, and the two women stared at each other for a long second. Then Dosia smiled. Calliope met her smile, and Dosia knew the two of them would be okay.
“We need to talk,” Calliope said quietly over JJ’s story.
Dosia’s eyebrows drew down. “Everything okay?”
Calliope nodded, her eyes reassuring. Dosia let out a sigh of relief. That was good at least. Whatever it was could wait, though, until JJ was done speaking.
It took some time to get through the rest of the auction bachelors.
It wasn’t just the club members who were being bid on either, but police officers, teachers, and even the captain of the fire department.
The entire town had a blast with it, and not just because they got a bit of a strip tease from Captain Hunter.
Only two club members were left when the lady next to Dosia got up, freeing a seat at the table.
Calliope snatched it before anyone else could.
Dosia moved JJ’s coloring pages in front of her aunt so her daughter could continue now that Calliope was filled in on every detail about Pumpkin JJ could think of.
“You look good,” Calliope said with a smile .
Dosia smiled back. “I feel good.”
“Really? After spending a thousand dollars on a date, I’d be,” she covered JJ’s ears, “shitting my pants,” she said in a mock whisper.
Dosia chuckled. Sitting back, she introduced Calliope and Frankie.
“Ah, so you’re the infamous, younger aunt,” Frankie said while shaking Calliope’s hand. “JJ’s told me a lot about you.”
“Has she now?” Calliope tickled JJ’s sides to her great-niece’s delight.
“Are you here to bid?” Frankie asked as a young man stepped on stage. He was wearing glasses and looked far younger than the others wearing a cut.
“No!” Calliope exclaimed with a nervous laugh. “Just here for the view.”
“Who’s that?” Dosia asked Frankie. Based on the looks of the women in the crowd, they were not overly excited for this man’s bid as they had been for the other men.
“Keys,” Frankie answered, a bit distracted. It looked like she was noticing the crowd’s disinterest in this man too as Louisa introduced him. According to the card she was reading off of, Keys was a computer expert and the club’s Tech.
“We’ll open the bidding at fifty dollars,” Louisa announced.
Crickets fell as no one bid for several heartbeats. Dosia looked around. The man, Keys, was young, sure, but he was cute in a nerdy kind of way. There had to be someone in the crowd that would want to bid on him.
Louisa said a bit nervously into the mic, “Come on, ladies. I’m sure one of you needs a tune-up on your computer or to have a website built.”
Still, there was nothing.
Frankie was half out of her chair when nearly every device on and off stage suddenly beeped with a message.
Like everyone else in the audience, Dosia looked down at her phone.
Unknown: $50,00 0
“Holy shit,” she breathed out. “Is that for real?”
Frankie shrugged, retaking her seat. Louisa was showing Keys her phone and asking him the same question that Dosia had asked Frankie.
Keys did something on the phone and then nodded.
“It looks like we have a new high bid!” Louisa announced to the crowd. “Fifty thousand! Going once, going twice, sold! ” she shouted without waiting a heartbeat like she normally did.
Keys practically ran off the stage.
“Who could have sent that?” Dosia asked Frankie.
“Knowing Keys, it could be anyone. He has cyber contacts everywhere,” Frankie answered, an odd note in her voice. “But there’s also the possibility Keys bid on himself just to get out of the embarrassment of that.”
Calliope shook her head as she stared up at the afternoon sky like she could still see the stars. “No,” she said with a small smile on her lips. “It was real. ‘A rose does not answer its enemies with words, but with beauty’,” she quoted.
The last man took the stage, but there was a very different reaction to the crowd this time.
There were even some catcalls from a group of young women, followed by incessant giggling.
Dosia had to hand it to them, the guy was fucking hot.
Tall with muscles and tattoos. He even played up Louisa’s announcement of him by flashing the women his abs.
Even from the distance Dosia’s table was, she could see their definition.
Frankie, though, rolled her eyes. “Starbucks. Never saw a vagina he didn’t want.”
Dosia snorted into her hot chocolate and shot a glance at JJ, who thankfully didn’t seem to have heard or understood Frankie’s comment. Calliope, though, stiffened.
“Opening bid—” Louisa started, but one of the women from that group called out, “Two hundred!”
“Two-twenty!” a blonde next to her offered.
As younger women, likely college age, they didn’t have the money to bid in higher increments .
“Two-fifty!”
“Two-fifty-one!”
“Ladies,” Louisa scolded. “Serious bids only please. And you know the rules, bids are supposed to be made in increments of fifty dollars. So we’re back to two-fifty being the highest bid,” Louisa said, pointing to the woman who offered that.
“Three hundred,” the first woman shouted with a flirty wave towards Starbucks. He winked back at her and the woman practically fell over swooning.
Dosia was losing interest in the bidding war of immature women when Calliope suddenly gasped, her eyes going wide. Dosia didn’t get a chance to ask what had happened before Calliope grabbed for her wrist, gripping it hard. “Calliope, what?—”
“I need to borrow five hundred dollars,” she said in a rushed hiss.
“What? Why?”
“Dosia, please .” Her voice was frantic, her eyes continuing to glance between the man on stage and the woman in the crowd.
“Yes, yes, of course.” It was how much she’d brought to bid on Pumpkin.
Calliope stood, nearly knocking JJ off of the table. “Five hundred!”
Louisa looked towards the back at where Calliope was.
“I’m calling it,” she announced. “Sorry, ladies,” she added with no real apology in her voice to the crowd of young women before the stage, who all were now scowling at her.
“Five hundred to the witch in the back! Sold!” As the crowd clapped, Louisa continued, “This concludes our bachelor auction. Thank you to everyone who bid. We will tally up the total and make an announcement in just a few minutes. If you won, please report to Harper in the back to pay. We take cash or checks, and apparently electronic payments…”
Calliope sat down with a heavy sigh as Louisa continued on.
Dosia, though, wasn’t paying attention anymore. “What was that?” she asked her aunt.
“What was what?” Calliope asked back, but Dosia wasn’t fooled in the slightest.
“You said you weren’t bidding. ”
Calliope shrugged. “Things change. I’ll pay you back, don’t worry.”
“I’m not,” Dosia said a bit dryly. “I just don’t understand why?—”
“It’s fine, really,” Calliope said hurriedly. “Just… Just don’t tell Mom, okay?”
Dosia’s eyebrows drew down. “Okay…?” It came out more like a question.
“Can Frankie watch the kids a minute? I still need to talk to you.” Calliope pointed over her shoulder.
Dosia looked to Frankie, who nodded. “Sure.” They stood up and headed away from the table. “Is this about what just happened with the auction?”
“No,” Calliope shook her head. “I really didn’t come here for that. I came for you. First, I want to apologize for everything?—”
“Water under the bridge,” Dosia waved off. “Really. I shouldn’t have gotten as angry as I did. I’m sorry for yelling at you and calling you a manipulator.”
“I was,” Calliope admitted. “But with good intentions.”
“I never doubted that,” Dosia stated. “So what is it you wanted to talk to me about?”
“I had a vision this morning while meditating.” Outside Solstice and Marmot’s house was a permanent structure that looked like a domed tepee, but was in truth, a private sweat lodge.
Dosia had only been in the place a few times in her life, and it had been an experience each time.
Sweat lodges were used for spiritual and purification purposes.
Calliope went there often, especially if she was having trouble understanding or deciphering a vision.
Dosia wondered if Calliope was hesitating because of their argument. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, you can tell me.” She paused, “It is about me, right?”
Calliope nodded. “You and Pumpkin, but I’m not sure how you’re going to take the news…”