THE DOLL COLLECTOR
By JoLayne
EnyaJo@aol.com
RATING: Squeaky clean G
CHARACTERS: No one you've heard of, but this is a Queen of Swords fic, really. I promise.
SUMMARY: A doll collector finds a treasure.
NOTE: Thanks so much to Maril for betaing this long ago when it was intended to be the prologue of a very long piece,
but since, I've lost the muse, but still like this. Hope you all do also.
~~~~~
Karen Barth-Langley had always loved dolls. At the tender age of three, her aunt had given her a Barbie doll, much to the verbal indignation of Karen's feminist mother. There wasn't any way young Karen could understand her mother's hatred of the pretty object with long blond hair; what was so insidious about it? Her mother had qualms about any doll, thinking that they were only propaganda by men to make woman, from an impressionably young age, know their place in the world. But Karen couldn't help it. She loved dolls. Whenever she got the chance, she would play at a friends' house, who all had dolls of sizes, shapes and garments to clothe them with and Karen was in paradise.
Karen grew up, moved out of her parents' home, made her own money and her own decisions being a high powered attorney in a prestigious firm in Chicago at the turn of the 21st century. She was a petite woman, always in a hurry. Her naturally curly red hair was the bane of her existence and took to keeping it tied back to tame it. Her little hobby of buying a doll once in a while to recapture a missed out youth had over time grew into an obsession. The first thing she looked at in each new doll that she acquired was their hair. That was the initial thing that enraptured Karen about Barbie dolls, their long, silky, blond hair. Every kind of American Girl doll, too many Barbies to count, porcelain, china and cloth dolls, had taken over a room in her house, and was close to spreading into the rest of it. Her husband didn't complain, in fact, he aided her in acquiring more. John Langley was a history professor at DePaul, not yet forty but his black hair was graying. He was athletic but he had started to develop a paunch. Ebay became a major factor in both of their lives, dolls for her, Civil War memorabilia for him.
For their tenth anniversary, they went to New York City and ended up at Christie's. Up for auction that day were dolls. Karen and John took in the plush surroundings, the attire of the fellow bidders, and the caliber of dolls up for bid. Because of the richness surrounding them, they were certainly thinking that they would go home empty handed.
But, one doll did catch Karen's eye. It was so unusual. Unique. Nothing like Karen had ever seen before. Upon a stand, there was a wooden doll dressed in a silk dress, strap shoes and shawl. In her left hand held a miniature lace fan. Her long, dark brown hair pinned into the fashion of a Spanish señorita from centuries before. Her face that reflected the light it was so smooth, even though it was wood. Her hands were delicate, her feet were perfectly crafted. Lipstick and rouge had been expertly rubbed onto the doll's cheeks and full lips. The only flaw that Karen could see was a missing thumb on her right hand and the wig of long, dark brown hair wrapped into a fashion had started to loosen around the left temple. Much to Karen's confusion, but delight, there was another costume that would come with the doll that was displayed in a shadowbox lined with red velvet. The costume was a complete dichotomy from the formal dress. It was a black corset, black blouse that seemed to be made of silk, black pants, black boots, a red sash to wrap around her waist. The most perplexing item of all, there was a small, black lace mask. John chuckled and asked, "A female Lone Ranger?"
The only doll that Karen lifted her paddle for was that doll that had came up for bids late in the day. A lot of previous buyers had left and some of the participants were getting tired after seeing so many dolls for so many hours. John had mentioned that they were all starting to look alike to him, but Karen insisted on waiting for the doll she wanted. He only cautioned her to not mortgage their house for it. He still wanted to frequent some old book stores before they left the city for home. The bidding for the doll had started with five interested bidders, but as the price rose above $1,000, three dropped out. Before long, the cost was up to $6,000; between Karen and a grey haired gentleman in a dark grey suit. The raising bids were slow between the two, but constant as the auctioneer called out the current bid.
At $6,500, John started to look at Karen as if she were insane. He leaned in to whisper, "I was kidding about mortgaging the house. That amount is not the cut off point of reason. I didn't know it would go this far. How high are you going to bid?"
"High enough to own it," was Karen's solemn reply. She stared down her opposing bidder, scrutinized his clothes, his bearing, slumped down in his seat. She didn't know if that meant he was nervous, bored, or actually comfortable.
When she raised her paddle again, John put it in her lap with his hand. "Think, Karen. You're bidding real money. $7,000 for a doll?"
"I can afford it."
"For a doll!" John nervously looked at the others in the room after raising his voice. He whispered to her again, "Think of how many dolls you can buy with that money. Everything you could buy with that amount of money."
Karen only focused on the opposing bidder, who still hadn't raised his paddle to signal a $7,500 bid. The man was looking at the doll on the stage, at the auctioneer who was waiting for a return bid, at the back of the empty chair in front of him. He finally looked at Karen, who communicated a pleading look to him. They locked eyes. Karen noted the lined, darkly tanned skin around his brown eyes, his thick white eyebrows, the gentle smile that formed on his lips after making his decision. He shook his head to the auctioneer and laid his paddle on the seat next to him.
Bam! The mallet crashed down on the podium. "Sold for $7,500 to number 154. Congratulations," the auctioneer announced. The light crowd applauded. John chuckled. He said, "Sure, they don't have to pay for it."
~~~~~
Karen had wanted to thank the man for giving up the bidding that to her could have gone on longer. She had the amount of $10,000 as a nice even figure to stop at as the bidding fever took over. After going to sign the papers, turning over her credit card, getting it approved and receive the doll and the uniform's shadowbox, the man was gone.
Karen and John walked out of Christie's with the packaged treasure securely under Karen's arm and she was pleased to see the man leaning against a railing lighting a cigarette. "Sir!" She yelled at him as she walked to him.
He heard her and stood straight, a cordial smile crinkling his wrinkled face. As she neared, he bowed his head to her and held out his hand. "I'm so thankful that you dropped out of the bidding. I so want this doll," Karen said as she shook his hand.
"I can read people and I know you will take good care of her," he said to her in heavily accented English.
"It may have been the rush of the bidding, but I wondered why you would bid so high on her. Are you a doll collector?"
"No." He warmly looked at the white box under her arm. "That is a special doll to me."
"How so?"
"Senor Miguel Delago, one of my ancestors, fashioned that doll. When the Delago family fell on hard times during the 30s, everything was sold and we lost her. When I saw that she was available again, I came here to buy her back."
Suddenly, Karen felt awful. "I'm sorry," she said, of the spur of the moment was going to tell him that he could reimburse her for the price and he could of course have the doll.
Before she could say it, he said, "I am an old man. I do not have children, grandchildren, anyone to give her to after I am gone, except for donating her to a museum. Take very good care of her and I will be happy."
"Miguel Delago, you said?"
"Yes. He was a wonderful sculptor as you could see by his work. He was my great, great, great.... maybe even another great thrown in there, grandfather." The man chuckled. "He sculpted marble, clay, stone, and wood. Statues, pillars, whatever would pay, but his love was doll making. Family lore revealed that he was very much in love with the woman who was the model for that doll."
Karen looked John, who had just joined them after letting the cab go, and then asked the man, "She was a real person?"
"Si. She was a Spanish Dona who was one of the pioneers of Alto California back at the turn of the 19th century. Her name was Señorita Maria Teresa Alvarado. Of course that was her name when he fell in love with her. She died with the name Mrs. Helm."
Karen was confused. "Not Delago? What happened?"
"No one knows exactly." The man shrugged his shoulders, "It could have been as simple as she did not return my ancestor's love. Well, I must be going. My bus back home leaves in an hour."
"Thank you, Mr... what was your name?"
"Lorenzo Delago, Señora," he said with a smile. Then he turned and walked among the crowd on people on the sidewalk.
Karen held her treasure and clamped her hand on John's elbow as they walked down the sidewalk. "How late do you suppose that book store is open?"
John chuckled and said with just a hint of sarcasm, "I think we spent too much money on luxury today."
"I'm sorry, but the doll is wonderful. To find out that the model for her was a real person is amazing. We're going to have to do some research on her. Her name was Señorita Maria Teresa Alvarado..."
"No, she ended up being Mrs. Helm. That would narrow down the search," he said, laughing. "I'm sure there are only a few of those in the world."
Karen squeezed the box and commented, "To have such a great name, to be such a wondrous lady, and end up being known as Mrs. Helm. My mother would have loved her."
Knowing Karen's feminist mother as they did, John said, "Well, she might have died a very happy woman, with three kids, and a Mr. Helm. It may not have been in vogue to change your name to Alvarado-Helm after marriage back then."
"I wonder if she was really real," Karen mused aloud, "why she stopped wearing the black outfit. I've never heard of her, have you heard of such a woman?"
"Nope."
"I'm hungry." Karen maneuvered her husband around the corner to her favorite New York restaurant, the pizzeria by the name of Vinnie's. "Although I'm kind of tapped out, you'll have to buy."
John playfully grimaced, then said, "We're going to Gettysburg this summer and I am buying that Calvary sword that I found in that shop in the square two years ago."
"It was $600!"
"And your point is?"
Karen opened the door to Vinnie's for him and said, "Buy me a pizza and we'll discuss it."
~~Jo