Read American Housewife for Free Online Page B

you’re a hairless dog in a mohair sweater trapped in a car.”
    I say, “That’s so specific.”
    Mitzy says, “My sister’s smart like that.”
    I say, “I’m sure she’s okay.”
    But I’m not.
    Producers still haven’t told Mitzy how Bitzy’s surgery went.
    If it were my husband who might be lying somewhere comatose from anesthesia complications, I’d have quit this show a month ago and risked a lawsuit to find out. But I’m a grown-ass lady with savings, mutual funds, and property in my name. All Mitzy has is a room and her looks.
    For our final challenge, which takes place at the Pennsylvania estate auction of Mrs. Giles Everett Preston III, F’in Tiny saunters into the dead woman’s crowded ballroom wearing a smoking jacket and an ascot. He (or the costume department) is under the impression that old money dresses like Professor Plum. He holds his pipe to his face like a monocle.
    Over the din of hundreds of antique dealers, interior designers, mom bloggers, and looky-loos, F’in Tiny says, “For this challenge you will have FOUR hours and FOUR HUNDRED dollars to bid during this small AMERICAN ESTATE AUCTION . The WINNER ’s find will have the BIGGEST difference between what you pay for it and market value. Currently, THE WRITER has the lead. But an estate auction like this is full of surprises. Any one of you could pull ahead and win. Even you, Mitzy. Mitzy! Hello?”
    Mitzy is huddled in a back-row auction chair. She cups her stomach as if her belly button might pop out like a turkey timer. The girl is sick with worry about her sister.
    We contestants are sick with worry about Mitzy. We sit in front and to the sides of her protectively. If there is such a thing as twin sensory perception, it is radiating off Mitzy like a third-degree burn.
    “ ARE. YOU. READY? Dumpster divers?”
    We are not ready.
    “ I SAID —”
    From the front of the ballroom, which is packed to the stained-glass Tiffany windows (each available at starting bids of $150,000), the auctioneer taps his gavel. He directs his gaze at F’in Tiny.
Dumpster Diving with the Stars
is a guest in Mrs. Giles Everett Preston III’s palatial country home. The auctioneer is the gentleman with his name in the catalog, which means that he is the host, not F’in Tiny. With his tap, the auctioneer is giving F’in Tiny and his band of interlopers one and only one do-over to get what will surely be our bridled fervor on tape.
    F’in Tiny clears his throat and slips his pipe in his pocket. He ignores a boom microphone that a producer has ordered to be dangled above his blond highlights. He asks, “Are you ready, Dumpster divers?”
    We nod like a secretary’s desk edge of bobbleheads. Out of respect to Mrs. Giles Everett Preston III and for Mitzy’s sake, we are not going to whoop it up.
    The auction begins.
    Verbena is the first Dumpster diver to raise her paddle. She thrusts it up like the Day-Glo flag she waves to signal worm pits in the woods on
Nightcrawlers.
She wants Mrs. Giles Everett Preston III’s mismatched sugar bowl, and I think she may go so far as to stand on her chair and jockey across the heads of other bidders to get it.
    The auctioneer says, “Do I have a hundred? One-twenty-five? One-fifty? Two?”
    He most certainly does. And how. The sugar bowl is snatched from Verbena’s grasp and sells for three thousand, two hundred and twenty-five bucks.
    Turns out, the sugar bowl has a story behind it. As the auctioneer drove up the price, he revealed that the reason it is mismatched is because it is the only piece from its set that Mrs. Giles Everett Preston III did not hurl at her husband when she found him under the dining room table “clotting the cream” of the then Earl of Sandwich.
    As the auction continues, we discover that everything has a story. Lithgow is outbid for a Cole Porter Playbill because Cole Porter composed one of the musical’s numbers on Mrs. Giles Everett Preston III’s grand piano, and while he