The Suite Spot (Beck Sisters #2)(45)
“No,” Mason says before I can finish the question. “I appreciate that you’re trying to cut costs, but we don’t need to do this when we can afford to buy brand-new for our guests. Let’s focus on why we’re here.”
But the deeper we get into the resort’s castoffs, the more I realize none of it works. Some of the artwork is too Western, while other pieces feel like they’re appropriating indigenous culture. There are a lot of paintings of fish, and the bears are far too serious.
“Do your parents have any old photos of the winery when it was intact?” I ask, an idea forming. “Or maybe some pictures of the Brown ancestors who lived on the island?”
Mason picks up a wood carving of a black bear as if he’s considering it. “Probably. Why?”
“I’m thinking some framed black-and-white photos might be kind of cool in the taproom,” I say. “None of this feels right.”
He puts down the bear. “I can ask my mom.”
We manage to find a couple of Craftsman-style table lamps with blue stained-glass shades that will look great in the lounge area of the taproom, but the rest of the sale hall is a bust. Mason pays for the lamps and we stow them in the truck before returning to the auction room.
As soon as we’re through the doors, Mason stops in his tracks.
“I want that,” he says, pointing to the biggest of the antler chandeliers. It’s about six feet across at its widest point with glass bulbs mounted among the branches of the antlers. It’s more rustic than I would choose, but the ceiling of the brewhouse is extremely high and the chandelier would make a statement. “I’m winning it.”
Many of the seats are already occupied, but we find two chairs together near the back. We sit through auctions for several animal skins that had been hung on the walls of the resort’s main lobby, a series of woodland paintings, and a set of pendant globe lamps ringed with metal pine trees. Then the big chandelier comes up for bidding.
“All of the chandeliers were handmade by local craftsman Al Parkinson, using authentic elk horns sourced from Wyoming and Montana,” the auctioneer says. “This largest chandelier features thirty-six bulbs and measures seventy-one inches in diameter by sixty inches high. Valued at ten thousand dollars, we’ll start the bidding at five hundred dollars. Who’ll bid five hundred?”
Several paddles—including Mason’s—go up as the auctioneer launches into rapid-fire mode. Five hundred doesn’t seem unreasonable, but less than a minute later the bidding has cleared a thousand dollars and Mason keeps raising his paddle. The field of buyers begins to thin at two grand. There are even fewer when the bidding reaches a ridiculous three thousand dollars. But Mason doesn’t stop. He’s one of the last two people vying for the chandelier when the high bid hits four thousand dollars. And less than five minutes from the opening bid, the auctioneer bangs his gavel and declares Mason the winner.
After years working at Aquamarine, I shouldn’t be fazed by someone dropping an obscene amount of money on something so impractical, but Mason Brown being that someone is a shock to my system.
“Are you seriously going to spend that much money on a light fixture made from discarded animal parts?” I ask, incredulous, as we go to the cashier’s table.
“Listen, I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a privileged asshole, but the amount of money Matt and I made when we sold Fish Brothers was—”
He stops abruptly. Sighs. Runs a hand through his hair.
“It was enough to build a hotel and still have more than I’ll ever need,” Mason says. “Mostly I do good things with the money. I donate to children’s heart foundations and dog rescues and Planned Parenthood, but occasionally I buy a giant fucking chandelier for fifty-five hundred bucks because I want it.”
I don’t know what to say. I know my feelings are coming from my own history of financial insecurity, which is not Mason’s problem.
“Is it going to fit in the truck?” I ask.
He pulls on his lower lip, then releases it. Very quietly, he says, “Fuck.”
“You pay,” I say, digging through my purse for the tape measure I started carrying after my first visit to Very Vintage Vivian. “I’ll measure.”
Out in the parking lot, I quickly take the dimensions of the truck bed, then go back inside to compare them to the size of the chandelier.
“It will barely fit and only sideways,” I tell Mason. “And we’ll need something to cushion the antlers that will bear most of the weight. Like … polar fleece blankets. We could buy a bunch to protect the chandelier on the way home, then wash them up and keep them on hand for our hotel guests to use outdoors on chilly nights.”
“You—” He shakes his head the tiniest bit, then leans in and kisses my forehead. “You’re brilliant.”
Swaddled in red polar fleece, the chandelier looks like an enormous badly wrapped Christmas present as we head west on Route 2. Mason’s eyes go to the rearview mirror so frequently that I make him pull over to switch with me. While I drive, he spends the rest of the trip obsessing over every bump in the road until we finally reach the ferry dock.
* * *
“What’s the story with Yōkai?” I ask, trying to distract him from the chandelier as we settle in for the ferry crossing.