Prior to Christmas I’d sold several pieces of sterling and landed a home for a Norwegian polychromed console table I’d had for nearly two years, but sales of the big-ticket furniture items had plummeted, and I didn’t know why. Whenever my shop had hit a slow period in the past, I’d wheel and deal and do whatever it took to push through the lean times, and I always managed to survive while many other shops closed their doors. But something about this felt different. By the end of January, I was deeply concerned; even the repair and restoration business had dropped by over 25 percent. When February came to a close, I was scared, so scared that I woke each morning with a tightening in my throat. Every Monday when Inez gave me a copy of the financial sheet, my stomach sank. She never said a word, but it was impossible to ignore the worry in her eyes. Though I had no control over who walked through my door or what they might be looking for, I had no one to blame but myself.
