Free The Virtues of Oxygen by Susan Schoenberger

on opening day,” he said. “How may we help you?”
    The woman opened the clasp on her purse and took out a plastic sandwich bag with some tangled jewelry in it. “I thought I’d come in and see what this is worth,” she said with a self-conscious smile. “I never wear it anymore.”
    “Right this way,” Racine said, leading her to a chair at one of th e cubbies.
    The store was small enough that Holly couldn’t help but witness the transaction. The visored man sitting on the opposite side of the table took the baggy and emptied it into a tray lined with bla ck velvet.
    “Thanks for coming in today,” he said, looking at the jewelry and not at the woman in front of him. He sorted it quickly, viewing some of the items through an eyepiece. He examined a small pocket watch several times, turning it over and opening its engraved cover. He weighed each broken hoop and each bracelet fragment, adding numbers on a calculator. The appraiser looked up briefly, and Holly turned away so that she wouldn’t appear to be eavesdropping, though she could hear everything he said.
    “These two aren’t real gold,” he said, handing the woman a thin bracelet and one of the earrings. “And the pocket watch is an amalgam, so we can’t take that, except for resale. The clasp is broken, so that would be fifteen dollars.”
    The woman shook her head slowly and took back the pocket watch. The appraiser piled the small handful of jewelry left onto a tiny scale and wrote down a number on a small white pad, which he then turned toward the woman, who nodded meekly. The appraiser swept the tokens of her past into a plastic bowl and counted out the cash. He placed the money in a white paper envelope, and the woman took it without changing her expression. She walked slowly past the glass cases, pretending to look inside them, as if she might spend the cash she had just received on someone else’s discarded trinkets.
    When she passed Racine, he gave her another smile, to which she responded with a smile of her own that said, At least a nice-looking man acknowledged my presen ce today .
    “Thank you for your business,” Racine said, bowing slightly. “Co me again.”
    The woman nodded vaguely and left, which was Holly’s cue to leave as well. She glanced at the men in the back, then turned to Racine.
    “Looks like you have everything under control,” Ho lly said.
    “Business will pick up in a few days. It takes a while for the word to get out. Actually, I was thinking about putting out som e flyers.”
    “My boys could help you with the flyers,” Holly said, brightening at the thought of being helpful in a con crete way.
    “Sure. Have them come by.”
    “I will. T ake care.”
    She hurried out the door and walked right into the path of the Sister Sisters—the town’s elderly sibling nuns—who were strolling down the street in the long black habits they wore long after the Catholic church stopped requiring nuns to be identifiable from a block away. They were carrying a basket bet ween them.
    “Is that Holly?” one of them said. Their names were Sister Eileen and Sister Eleanor, but no one ever knew which was which. The sister closest to the door of the gold shop looked up at the sign.
    “Are you investigating?” she said, raising her eyebrows.
    “Investigat ing what?”
    “These gold places. They take your treasures and give you a fraction of what they’re worth,” the nun said. “It’s all over the I nterwebs.”
    “You two have a computer?” Holly asked the sister who spoke.
    “Vivian gave us very good instructions about how to use one at the library,” she said. “We check our e-mail ev ery week.”
    “What are you up to today?” Holly asked them, intent on changing the subject. Talking them out of their misconceptions about the gold business would have taken too much time.
    “We’re on our way to . . . where are we going , Sister?”
    The other sister put a hand in the pocket of her habit and pulled out a