So, she lifts the heavy bag to her waist and makes her way through the basement to the shelves next to the washer and dryer, then grabs two dry towels from the top shelf and does her best to roll up the canvas bag.
She picks up her bag again and walks through the flooded basement as fast as her tired legs can carry her, grunting under the weight of the box and silver coins.
Once safely inside the room, Péngyǒu locks the door and opens the canvas bag, in which the button box appears undamaged, but how could she know?
She pulls the lever on the left and, after a moment of holding her breath, when she is completely convinced that the box is broken, the little shelf opens without a sound, revealing a chocolate monkey the size of a jellybean.
She puts the chocolate in her mouth quickly, and the delicious taste is divine, even if she closes her eyes while the chocolate melts on her tongue.
The bag is torn in several places and will have to be replaced, but Péngyǒu is not worried about it, even though she was looking around and chooses the back of the closet, where there are shoe boxes in crooked piles, previously the owners of that old house no longer bothered to organize the closet she had left there, she saw that it would be of no use other than being thrown in the trash.
After taking a pair of old boots out of a huge cardboard box and then throwing them on the other side of the closet, Péngyǒu carefully places the button box inside and adds the pile of silver coins.
Then, once the lid is in place, she pushes it (it's too heavy to carry now; the cardboard would tear, all of it, even if it were to go into the shadows at the back of the closet, into which she then places other shoe boxes). above and in front, that place needed renovation in the south sector of that old, abandoned basement.
So that morning, she called towards her group of workers, they were employees who were providing work for final engineering grades.
So, they came, when they began to renovate and perform countless concerts in the basement, when she supervised and assisted them.
She would bend down to measure, as well as stand back to observe the work, then, after finishing, she was convinced that she had done a competent job, picked up the sodden canvas bag and went to the kitchen, to throw it in the trash, Then, she got fruit, juice, and milk, as well as some cereals, including bread and sweets, for her hearty breakfast.
She stays at home for the rest of the day, watching television and absentmindedly leafing through the data book of a large geographic location that was far from one of the projects she was involved in, every half hour or so.
Being that it was more than twelve times in total, she gets up from the sofa, walks down the hall and peers into the room, to make sure that the box is still safely in one piece, furthermore, she thinks about her immense possibility that someone will come breaking into the house and stealing.
Then it's time for the dance, and she discovers that she has to force herself to put on the pink dress, put on her makeup and leave the house.
Is this my life now?
Same as she thinks upon entering Osamu Tezuka Valley's gym.
Is that box my life?
This week, she went to sell more of her silver coins, which she only comes back to in Péngyǒu's mind when she sees the poster stuck in the window of Classic Gothic Diner.
After that, it's the only thing you can think about. There was that trip to the coin store, true, but it was more exploratory in nature. Now, however, things have changed, as Péngyǒu wants to study at an Ivy League university after he graduates from
The only certainty is the 1891 Morgan silver dollars stacked in a shoebox at the back of the closet—more than a thousand of them as of last count.
Péngyǒu knows from having leafed through old issues of the coin specialist magazine Coinages at the pharmacy that the price of Morgans is not the same; in fact, it is rising, where according to the magazine, inflation and global uncertainty are dictating the market for gold and silver coins.
Her first idea was to sell enough coins (maybe in Portland, more likely in Boston) so she thought about how to explain the origin of the money only when it was absolutely necessary.
The coin and stamp fair gives Péngyǒu another idea. A better idea.
At that time, she was recommended by her boyfriend in a conversation, to look for other places to negotiate, to sell, so that they weren't all in the same place.
So, she was sure that she would take the more than two thousand silver dollars, that this amount would be enough to see how she would do with her first negotiations outside of Malcom's circles of friends, nor with the fact that she would by car, it was a taxi that dropped her off.
Where on that street, where she went to the VFW at the beginning of the weekend to see how much she could get for it, where if she can sell the coins for good money, she'll know what to do.
This is the first time that the thought came to Pengyou, that she noticed when she observed, when she enters the VFW at ten-fifteen in the morning on a Saturday, how big the place was, and that it didn't look that large from the outside, and that The merchants' tables are arranged in a long, closed rectangle, with the vendors, most of them men, inside the rectangle.
Those customers, who are already more than thirty in number, walk around the tables with wary eyes and nervous fingers, in which there seems to be no discernible pattern in the organization, coin dealers here, stamp dealers there, and more than a few deals in both., in which two even have rare sports and tobacco cards spread out on the tables.
That moment when she is perplexed to see an autographed Mickey Mantle card priced at $2,900, but in a way, she is also relieved, which is what makes the silver dollars look like small beans in comparison.
She stands at the entrance and takes everything in, as this is a new, exotic, and intimidating world, and she is impressed. It must be obvious to anyone who sees her because a nearby vendor shouts.
- Are you dear? – He questioned.
- Can I help with anything?
He's a chubby man in his mid-thirties, wearing glasses and an Orioles cap.
That man has food in his beard and his eyes shine.
Péngyǒu approaches your table.
- I'm just taking a look, thanks.
- And to buy or sell?
The man's gaze drops to Péngyǒu's exposed legs and stays there longer than he should. When he looks up again, he is smiling, but Péngyǒu no longer likes the sparkle in his eyes.