“Pearls” by Tracie Adams

Pearls

I.
My bare legs are covered with lines from rough boards on the edge of the dock. My bare feet are boat propellers making little circles through the water. Deep breaths of fresh-caught catfish are mixed with coconut sunscreen. When the sun heats up my freckled shoulders, my bones feel shivery. I stand up and hold my towel like a sail over my head. I’m the ballerina from my jewelry box, spinning until I’m dizzy. I watch the wind push a sailboat across the water, and I jump up and down. Like a princess, I wave at them — elbow, wrist, elbow, wrist. The boat sails past until it’s a white speck on the other side of the river. I pick up the oyster shell I found under the pier. With my eyes closed, I flip it over from the bumpy side to the smooth side so fast I can’t tell them apart.

II.
My hand is on the doorknob of the bedroom at the end of the hall. The doorknob is old and fancy, so it doesn’t have a lock. This is my room. Well, it’s only mine every other weekend. My real room at home is pretty with pink walls and a canopy bed and a doorknob that locks. But this isn’t home. It’s just a house. All I bring with me to my father’s house is my clothes and the oyster shell. On the inside, it’s beautiful, all swirly and shiny. When I found it, it was cracked open, empty, and I wonder what happened to the other half. I show it to Molly, the creepy doll propped against the stiff pillows, her long white dress spread across the lumpy mattress. She just stares at me with one blue eye, cracked and peeling. She watches everything, like when my father comes to visit me at night, and I lie real still pretending I’m still asleep while he tugs at my pajama bottoms. I’m a shell, my rough and smooth parts in his hands. At home, I have a step daddy, not a father, and he buys me pretty dolls that I love. Molly’s wavy hair is all tangled because I hold her neck so tight I might break it. The real reason I hate Molly is because of her smile. Her two tiny white teeth poke through her lips like buck teeth. My father tells me that Molly is really old and cost a lot of money and when I’m older, I can have her. He says she’s made of porcelain, and her earrings are real pearls like the kind that come from my oyster shell. I don’t want to hurt his feelings, or Molly’s feelings either, so I don’t tell him that he can keep her because I don’t like her.

III.
My fourth-grade teacher smells like spicy cinnamon and pepper. Mrs. Dabney raises her voice, but only to the boys. I tell them they should listen to the teacher. One of them sticks out his tongue and another one snaps my bra strap on my back but I slap his hand and he laughs. I like my teacher’s spicy smell because it makes my nose twitchy and my eyes watery, like laughing and crying at the same time. When she reads my story about the oyster shell to the class, she stands next to my desk, and now she smells like towels on the clothesline at grandma’s. Like sunshine. She reads my words about how one tiny grain of sand tumbles around inside the shell until one day it becomes a pearl. The same two boys make stupid faces, and they aren’t listening, but I don’t care. I like to watch Mrs. Dabney’s dimples get bigger and bigger when she smiles and says, “Good job.”

IV.
My grandma’s laugh is my favorite. She tells me she’s my father’s mom, but I don’t really know what she means. He’s too old to have a mommy. Plus, he’s not funny like Grandma, so I don’t think it’s true. In my room at Grandmas’s house, I have stuffed toys like Ssssammy the Ssssnake. Grandma likes snakes. She says they’re beautiful, but most people just can’t see it. Her laugh starts way down deep in her belly which looks like a marshmallow squished in the middle by her elastic stretchy pants. I like the way her laugh rumbles. Then it moves up and up. I think she would be a good mommy because she thinks I’m really funny. When the rumble gets to her chest it makes a hissing sound like a snake or a big swollen balloon with too much air, ready to pop. And the best part is when it finally reaches her head. Her eyes get all squinty and she leans her neck back like a Pez candy dispenser till it touches the kitchen chair. I can see forever and ever inside the pink of her open mouth. Her teeth are tiny pearls.

Tracie Adams

Tracie Adams is the author of Our Lives in Pieces. She writes flash fiction and memoir from her farm in rural Virginia. A retired educator and playwright, she now spends her time traveling, photographing birds, and being chased by five short people who call her Glamma. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and appears in over fifty literary journals and anthologies, including BULL, Does It Have Pockets, Cleaver Magazine, Trash Cat Lit, Raw Lit, Sky Island, and more. Visit www.tracieadamswrites.com and follow her on X @1funnyfarmAdams.

Headshot: Rachel Adams Photography

Photo Credit: Staff