DANDELIONS: The Dealer

He had been successful once, and still had the look of it, or aura. Opening the door I saw him in Reba’s favorite chair, legs crossed and leaning back on the worn flower-covered cushions. He gave me a cold, indifferent eye.

John Schatz looked familiar. The way celebrities do, flawlessly handsome. He did not stand or offer to shake hands. Or bump elbows.

Reba introduced us. “Are you in business?” he asked, before I had a chance to speak.

“More or less.”

“More is better than less.”

“That depends.” I knew how to handle salesmen.

John Schatz wore a white casual dress shirt with the cuffs turned once, showing a TagHeuser watch, or good imitation. He was trim, athletic, gray-haired and alert with a close-trimmed beard. The khakis were tan, unpleated. Think Banana Republic. You noticed the shoes, Ferragamo. The box would read San Tropez sneakers, Cognac, size 12.

Reba and John Schatz were just finishing their business. He walked with her and chose a few pots from shelves, standing close and commenting in low, professional tones. Reba taped each piece in bubble wrap and placed it in a plastic tub.

“I have another appointment, darling,” he said to Reba. “So I have to run. Not to be unsocial.” He fished a tiny wallet from his pocket and handed me his business card. “Do you have a card?”

“No.” I looked at the card.

“I also do antiques. Upholstered furniture, mostly. High end. Check out the website, if you don’t mind. Kiss kiss,” he said to Reba as he put on a black mask.

“Do you want your vases?” Reba asked, a little frantic.

“They wouldn’t last in my Porsch. Not the way I drive.The courier will call.” He went out the door slinging a waxed messenger bag over his shoulder. Reba locked the door.

“I don’t know if you’re making money,” I said. “But your clientele is getting richer.” I pulled a can of mineral water from the fridge. It opened with a hiss. “I should get business cards, like Mr. Schatz. Can’t tell you why I don’t. Maybe I’ve given up. I certainly hope I have his energy when I’m his age. And his clothes.”

Reba sat in her chair and pulled a knitted shawl over her shoulders. “He’s in love with me.”

You’re joking, I said.

“Can’t you tell when someone is in love with you?”

I considered this, frowning.

“He comes over here and thinks of ways to stay,” Reba said. “He lifts curtains, opens books. Watches me while I get cookies or cut apples. He thinks I can’t see. He brings bottles of wine.”

“I wondered how those got there.”

“John Schatz. He talks about Paris. The Basque country. Portugal. New York. I’m glad you came over. That was the only reason he left.”

“Does he know about Walt?” Now I was wary. Walt is a best friend, along with Reba. I had introduced them. Walt, for one, is head-over-heels for her, and who wouldn’t be? Small and dark, her hair flecked with silver, she is an anarchist of the soul, a lazy, unperfumed nature girl, a rebel, an artist to the core whose dark eyes and strong round naked arms exude the exotic, the forbidden charm of an odalisque, the tents of Arabia, the spice of Persia. I am more fool than poet.

“I’m not telling Walt. It’s embarrassing, having an old man after you. Besides, there’s nothing going on.”

Like a vastly superior chess player, Reba covers the squares before you even get going. I took Walt’s side. I didn’t want this succulent woman wafting her scent around John Schatz.

“Get rid of him.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“It’s not?”

“I can’t cut off every dealer who flirts with me. I would never sell another vase.” She considered this. “That sounds conceited, doesn’t it?”

“Not really.” I knocked back the last of my mineral water. “It sounds practical.”

“You have to be. It’s hard being a woman in business.”

I have no doubt, Reba.

As it happened I saw John Schatz again, coincidentally, as in a dream, or as though scripted in a movie. We were walking outside the Ashcroft Center, where a few vendors, wearing masks, had dragged their stock onto the sidewalk. It was a cold December Saturday, sky the color of pewter. Occasionally a single snowflake wafted down. Reba and I passed swaths of fabric, kitchen stools, wine racks, repurposed whiskey barrels.

An old man with an immense beard sold old fruit and vegetable crates of all sizes. He sat with a hammer tapping slats flat. You wanted a crate. Although why, you couldn’t say.

“Now that,” Reba said. “Looks like fun.”

“More fun than pottery?”

“Nothing’s more fun than pottery.” We spotted John Schatz ahead of us speaking to a clock dealer. He was accompanied by a pair of much younger women. They carried heavy sample binders, legal pads on top as they wrote.

“They must be students,” I said.

“They’ll learn, alright.” Reba put her arm through mine.

“Ah, more artists!” John Schatz said. He wore a fur coat and a high, Russian-style fur hat. He introduced his assistants. “This is Sonya and Brie. They’re studying interior decoration at Art and Design. I tried to talk them out of it, of course.” He beamed, all sparkle and confidence on a gray day.

Reba looked down the line of vendors. “I don’t see any ceramics,” She said.

“Lake Place has a table inside. A few plates. Mostly glassware. I wouldn’t trust the wind in Minneapolis, either.”

“Mine aren’t so valuable,” Reba said, modestly.

“They are to me.”

I almost jumped when Reba pressed her head against my shoulder. “Let’s go, Honey,” she said. “I want to see Claire Oliver before she leaves.”

Smiling, John Schatz sent us off.

When we were out of sight she released my arm. “What are you doing?” I said. “Trying to lose a customer?”

“John Schatz is never going to help me,” Reba said. “I know all about him.”

“You do?”

Reba had spoken to a few designers. Evidently they had the same problem with Schatz as she did. She learned a few things. John Schatz had started Lock and Key. That Lock and Key, with stores in Edina and Chicago. They had investors lined up and were about to go head to head with Pottery Barn. That was ten years ago.

Then the whole thing fell apart. First a divorce from his partner, who was also his wife. She caught him getting a little too cozy with a younger decorator, and took a scorched earth policy. After the settlement and banks, nothing was left. Lock and Key went to the investors. John Schatz lived in a rented room in Tangletown. He didn’t even own a car. People saw him on buses, in elevators. Always very well dressed. And always talking the next big deal.

“Men,” Reba said.

“So that’s it?” I walked her to her car.

“He can’t help me. And I sure as heck can’t help him. Neither of us is very lucky.”

I’m not so sure. Reba has her art. She has Walt, and her youth, if you can call forty youthful. And I do.

But John Schatz has something else. He has the dream of the young. The mountain stands imposing and blue on the horizon. It is morning, and it is yet to be climbed.

Richard Donnelly

Richard Donnelly

Richard Donnelly lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Classic flyover land. Which makes us feel just a little… superior. Mr. Donnelly’s first book is ‘The Melancholy MBA.’ published by Brick Road Poetry Press.