finished filling the second drawer with my handwoven masterpieces. So beads it was.
Remi sat next to me. She had already finished weaving some purple and pink gimp into a tight box-stitch key chain and was currently working on the ever-elusive spiral stitch to make, of all things, a pulley system. A gimp show-off if you asked me. Still, it was impressive, and I found myself paying less and less attention to the bead necklace I was making.
By eleven thirty we had Remi’s pulley system anchored with a bag of marbles applying enough tension to the system to hoist a Ping-Pong paddle into the air. Meanwhile, my bead project was in a sad state that more closely resembled a three-day-old candy necklace ravaged by seagulls than a strand of colorful pearls. Mrs. Hoey, the altruistic liar that she was, suggested I take it home to finish up my beautiful start there. Clearly, she did not want this piece of junk cluttering up her craft table scaring away other would-be boy and girl artisans.
“I’ll help you finish it this afternoon,” Remi whispered. “Your mom will love it.”
I just raised the left side of my mouth in a half smile and kind of nodded.
“She doesn’t even need to know I helped,” Remi added.
The other side of my mouth turned up, completing the smile. We gathered up supplies and headed out the door.
Remi lived four doors down from us. I didn’t know it at the time, but her parents were getting divorced. So three afternoons a week, Remi came home with us. Which is how she and I ended up in my playroom working on bead necklaces.
There we were, sitting on the floor, me handing Remi beads, her shaking them down the string to join their counterparts. And somewhere along that assembly line of two, I noticed that the beads were just about nostril size.
My mother heard the scream in her office.
“Lean back and let me see,” she ordered after running down two flights of stairs. “It’s really up there. I don’t think I can get it.”
I was nothing if not diligent.
Dad, who happened to be home early that day, was no help either.
Remi just sat quietly and watched. She didn’t say anything until the four of us were halfway to the hospital.
“Which bead did you stick up there?” she asked.
“The green one.”
“Oh,” she sighed. “That was my favorite one.”
My father lost it. He couldn’t stop laughing. I didn’t get it. Remi didn’t get it. Mom smiled at him, though.
The doctor got it out. Remi joined us for pizza. And the necklace remained unfinished.
A few weeks later, I was helping my father rake cut grass in the yard. He leaned over to hold open a garbage bag, and his shirt collar fell open. Circled around his neck was a blue string. And dangling from the string was my green bead.
Mom gave it to me after he died. I keep it in a jewelry box in my underwear drawer. I just went to look for it the other day, after reading this section. It wasn’t there. Not in the box, not in the drawer, not on my bookshelves, or in any of my files. I tore up the entire place. No necklace. It must have gotten misplaced in one of my numerous moves. I dumped every drawer, swiped all the books off my shelves, overturned every plastic storage bin.
Gone.
On the way here, though—I’m taking a two hour lunch, and I needed to get away from the weightless phrases of advertising and sink into my mother’s words—I walked by a bead store. This part of Hell’s Kitchen masquerades as the Garment District by day. I bought a green bead and a blue string. And I made a replica.
It’s now hanging off of a single nail in the center of the otherwise barren beige wall in the bottom floor of the carriage house. So when I lean back from the table, to take a break from Mom’s report, I see it there. Hanging.
It’s not the original. Never been in any kid’s orifice, that I know of.
Not exact. Not the same. Close enough, though, I guess. A doppelgänger of sentiment. It’s not the object anyway. It’s the memory.
Remi sat next to me. She had already finished weaving some purple and pink gimp into a tight box-stitch key chain and was currently working on the ever-elusive spiral stitch to make, of all things, a pulley system. A gimp show-off if you asked me. Still, it was impressive, and I found myself paying less and less attention to the bead necklace I was making.
By eleven thirty we had Remi’s pulley system anchored with a bag of marbles applying enough tension to the system to hoist a Ping-Pong paddle into the air. Meanwhile, my bead project was in a sad state that more closely resembled a three-day-old candy necklace ravaged by seagulls than a strand of colorful pearls. Mrs. Hoey, the altruistic liar that she was, suggested I take it home to finish up my beautiful start there. Clearly, she did not want this piece of junk cluttering up her craft table scaring away other would-be boy and girl artisans.
“I’ll help you finish it this afternoon,” Remi whispered. “Your mom will love it.”
I just raised the left side of my mouth in a half smile and kind of nodded.
“She doesn’t even need to know I helped,” Remi added.
The other side of my mouth turned up, completing the smile. We gathered up supplies and headed out the door.
Remi lived four doors down from us. I didn’t know it at the time, but her parents were getting divorced. So three afternoons a week, Remi came home with us. Which is how she and I ended up in my playroom working on bead necklaces.
There we were, sitting on the floor, me handing Remi beads, her shaking them down the string to join their counterparts. And somewhere along that assembly line of two, I noticed that the beads were just about nostril size.
My mother heard the scream in her office.
“Lean back and let me see,” she ordered after running down two flights of stairs. “It’s really up there. I don’t think I can get it.”
I was nothing if not diligent.
Dad, who happened to be home early that day, was no help either.
Remi just sat quietly and watched. She didn’t say anything until the four of us were halfway to the hospital.
“Which bead did you stick up there?” she asked.
“The green one.”
“Oh,” she sighed. “That was my favorite one.”
My father lost it. He couldn’t stop laughing. I didn’t get it. Remi didn’t get it. Mom smiled at him, though.
The doctor got it out. Remi joined us for pizza. And the necklace remained unfinished.
A few weeks later, I was helping my father rake cut grass in the yard. He leaned over to hold open a garbage bag, and his shirt collar fell open. Circled around his neck was a blue string. And dangling from the string was my green bead.
Mom gave it to me after he died. I keep it in a jewelry box in my underwear drawer. I just went to look for it the other day, after reading this section. It wasn’t there. Not in the box, not in the drawer, not on my bookshelves, or in any of my files. I tore up the entire place. No necklace. It must have gotten misplaced in one of my numerous moves. I dumped every drawer, swiped all the books off my shelves, overturned every plastic storage bin.
Gone.
On the way here, though—I’m taking a two hour lunch, and I needed to get away from the weightless phrases of advertising and sink into my mother’s words—I walked by a bead store. This part of Hell’s Kitchen masquerades as the Garment District by day. I bought a green bead and a blue string. And I made a replica.
It’s now hanging off of a single nail in the center of the otherwise barren beige wall in the bottom floor of the carriage house. So when I lean back from the table, to take a break from Mom’s report, I see it there. Hanging.
It’s not the original. Never been in any kid’s orifice, that I know of.
Not exact. Not the same. Close enough, though, I guess. A doppelgänger of sentiment. It’s not the object anyway. It’s the memory.
Similar Books
