Any gift from John Schatz should be viewed with suspicion. Especially one that needed two people to carry.
“I have something for you,” Schatz said, smiling in the lobby of the Essex Art Cooperative. Reba came down at his insistence. “Here, help me.” He half-carried, half-dragged a wooden crate, four feet high by four feet.
“What is it?”
“It’s a surprise. Grab an end.”
“I’m not carrying that,” Reba said. “Not in my condition.” Reba was very pregnant. Or to put it another way, as pregnant as one can get and still be pregnant.
“You’re right. I’ll get Li-Li.”
“You will not. I’ll have Wes help you.” Schatz was old enough to be Li-Li’s grandfather. Or nearly old enough. Reba considered him overly fond of her assistant. She called a neighbor down and he and John Schatz, using the freight elevator, moved the box into Reba’s studio.
“What do you do, Wes?” Schatz asked in the elevator.
“I make violas.”
“Violas? How about violins? Or cellos?”
“Violas.”
“Ah,” Schatz said. “I’m in the furniture business. You wouldn’t be interested in a nineteenth century George the Third writing bureau, would you?”
“No.”
“Wholesale priced?”
The viola-maker left behind the crate, and Schatz, at Reba’s. John used a small hammer and pried the box open, from the side. “This, Reba, is for you.” He pulled out, carefully, a walnut rocking chair, and removed foam wrapping.
“A rocking chair?”
“What do you think?”
“John, I don’t need a rocking chair.”
“Of course you do. It’s an antique. Amish hickory. Every mother needs one, when you’re, when the baby is…” Schatz, a man of the world, could be almost squeamish.
“Breast feeding?”
“Something like that.”
It was a beautiful piece. Reba ran a hand over the worn back, carved with cornflowers. “I don’t know if I can take this.”
“You must. I insist. And if you want to bring it home, I’ll call Walt, and we’ll move it for you. You two are about the only family I have.”
“What about your kids?”
“Besides them.”
She walked him down to the lobby. “John, why are you so nice to me?”
Schatz was embarrassed. Temporarily. He regained his commercial attitude. “It’s an investment in the future. Once your children are grown, they’ll be good customers.”
“You’ll be a hundred by then, John.”
“Well, then I’ll need that rocking chair back. Provided I’m not selling any more.”
Reba kissed his cheek, and watched him leave, almost skipping down concrete steps. It was unlikely, she thought, the rocker would ever be returned.
Richard Donnelly lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Classic flyover land. Which makes us feel just a little… superior. He publishes a weekly column of essays on the writing life at richarddonnelly.substack.com