Saturday, February 26, 2011

Silver and Gold and Amethyst: Who Wants a Pretty Necklace?

Some years ago, right after I moved to this address, my mother sent me a gift: an amethyst pendant on a gold chain almost as fine as a single strand of hair. I have never worn it. I've barely even touched it. Until yesterday, it stayed hidden away in my room, because that's what I do with things that bother me: I hide them. I hide them so well I often have trouble finding them again, or forget they are there altogether and get a nasty little jolt at some point while rearranging the furniture or packing to move. Out of sight, out of mind.

Yesterday, however, I went looking for this necklace on purpose. I knew its general location and rooted around amongst my packed-away dolls and paper-wrapped knickknacks till I found it, still safely tucked in the box from the store. I was looking for something nice to wear to a mock professional interview I have on Tuesday morning. I'd already put together the outfit, complete with shoes, stockings, and earrings, and was debating on whether or not to wear a necklace as well when I remembered the amethyst pendant. I unearthed it and snapped open the box, attached a magnetic clasp to the tiny chain and slipped the thing on. It was elegant. Beautiful. It nestled into the hollow of my throat like it had always belonged there. And I couldn't stand it.

Maybe you're asking yourself why a necklace bothers me so much. The answer lies not in the necklace itself, but in the giver: and then, not even in the giver as much as in the motive.

Know about blood money? I'm sure you do. A buy-off, a bribe, an expensive apology that isn't real. I've gotten plenty of it. Not in the form of liquid cash, mind you: in the form of pricey gifts for birthdays and Christmases meant to entice me to keep my damned mouth shut. At the age of fourteen, an entire brand-new set of encyclopedias I'd asked for. After that, a television. A stereo system. And then the jewelry: a pair of earrings and an I.D. bracelet made of 14-karat gold; another I.D. bracelet in silver; an opal necklace on a gold chain with matching earrings,freshwater pearl studs -- even a small ruby. I had more expensive jewelry by the time I left home than your typical girl from small-town Southern Indiana acquires in a lifetime. And I hardly wore any of it. I hated it. I left it sitting in my dresser virtually untouched.

First off, I wasn't your fine jewelry kind of girl: I was more into tie-dyed bomber jackets, saggy blue jeans, and cheap costume earrings that dangled halfway to my chin. I liked animal prints and jarring neon blues and greens. The only time I ever wore an updo befitting pearls was to my Junior prom. I was a smaller version of my mother's sister Teena, all spark and venom and Janis Joplin. I wore my leopard-patterned pants like a badge of honor. Secondly, I couldn't wear the jewelry because I couldn't put it on: I'm not the greatest in terms of fine motor control or manual dexterity, and magnetic clasps were out of the question because, according to my mother's rules, anything that made my life easier was out of the question. If I went up to her with a bracelet laid out across my wrist and asked her to clasp it, she was likely to spit at me. Thirdly, I knew the fine jewelry for what it was: payment in blood. I had endured split lips and bloody noses and a thousand other nasties only to be bought off with something I couldn't even wear. I was pissed about that. I was even more pissed about the fact that walking into a family gathering with fine gold hoops in my ears gave everyone a reason to say that I was spoiled and had the best, most self-sacrificing mother they'd ever seen: a poor woman with an alcoholic husband and no job who went without new things for herself so she could by nice things for me. That's exactly what Michelle wanted people to say.

I won't deny that I most likely *looked* spoiled, in my stone-washed jeans and shiny new boots with gloss on my lips and all that shiny brown hair hanging down my back. Though I didn't realize it at the time, I probably spent most days looking like I'd stepped out of the pages of "Seventeen" -- at least around grade 10 or so, when I dropped my pubescent bulk and shed the awkward adolescent look for the body of a woman. (Before that, I was a total dork.) But having an hourglass figure to show off means absolutely nothing if your life is spent stepping carefully from one survival strategy to another. Looks and nice clothes and fine jewelry mean nothing in that situation, except to the people on the outside who need it to matter so they can justify ignoring what's underneath it.

The day I left home, my hands shook as I packed some clothes into the bag the sheriff's department had given me and slipped some precious things into a cardboard box: the award I'd won from camp in its wooden frame, my teddy bear, the diary from under my mattress, a CD or two. I didn't even glance at the jewelry. I didn't want it. Had I been thinking, I'd have taken it all and sold it -- I could've used the money. But there was room in my head for nothing other than fear that day.

Even now, when I think of things I wish I had had the room to take, I don't think about the jewelry. I want my collection of Wal-Mart Christmas ornaments, the Kaboodles boxes of useless junk from summer camp, the stuffed monkey I had as a child, all the short stories I kept stuffed in an oversized gift bag on the floor of my closet. These are the things I long for, though I'm certain that at least the camp memorabilia and the stories found their way to the burn barrel at some point. I would gladly trade the amethyst pendant hidden away in my bedroom for the stuffed toy purchased from a truck stop.

I've thought of pawning the damn necklace -- the last and latest installment of buy-off gifts, before I put a stop to them -- but I haven't done it yet. I don't really want money for it. (Perhaps the idea of "dirty money" is stupid, but I would cringe at even taking five bucks for the thing.) In all honesty, I'd rather just drop it in its little plush box off the Constitution Bridge and watch it come to rest on the bottom of the Susquehanna with all the discarded bicycles, but that would make me feel guilty in a different way. And so it remains hidden, because I don't know what to do with it and its existence bothers me. Holding the box in my hand is a rankling image in itself: a picture of my mother bent over the counter at the jeweler's, that smirking little dimple in the corner of her mouth. The scene in my head makes me itch to slap her ...

Anybody want a necklace?