"The Bracelet" by Laura Maffei
Photo Credit: Sabina, obtained and licensed through Unsplash
Loretta’s mother’s gold charm bracelet hung on a stranger’s wrist. The stranger stood two places ahead of Loretta in line at the checkout counter in the Macy’s bra section. The bracelet jangled as the stranger reached into her purse, just as it had jangled when Loretta’s mother had worn it. Loretta herself had never worn it, had kept it in a little heap in her velveteen-lined jewelry box, where she saw it every time she lifted the lid, until the day her house was robbed and it was stolen along with her other few pieces of good jewelry, the silverware, and the new stereo. The cheap costume jewelry, of which Loretta had a lot, had been left. The thieves had even selected her two real gold necklace chains from among the fake ones. It was as if they’d known they wouldn’t be caught, as if they’d had all the time in the world to spend in Loretta’s bedroom.
At the time of the robbery, her husband Mike could not refrain from pointing out that if she had listened to him and sold the bracelet when the price of gold went up, she would at least have a nice amount of money for it. The bracelet was heavy and solid throughout, with real gemstones embedded into each charm. She’d been left with no bracelet and no money to show for it either.
The stranger at the checkout counter lifted her wallet out of her purse, and the bracelet appeared again. The cashier held two beige bras by their tags and punched numbers into the register.
Her mother would not have wanted her to sell it, Loretta had told Mike. Every charm had meaning: the teapot from the great-aunt who always came over for tea; the cradle to commemorate the birth of the first child, Loretta’s eldest sister; the grandfather clock because her mother always admired them but there was no room for one in the apartment. Most importantly, the scissors with the blue gem at the joint. Loretta had heard the story many times, how it was the first charm her mother received from her father, when they were newlyweds and she had given him a bad haircut. Loretta could still hear and see every inflection and gesture as her mother told it.
Loretta’s mother had always been happy to make fun of herself, had always been happy in general. She had grown up during the Depression, but she did not hoard salt like other women her age, or retain an air of somber caution. She collected talk and hairstyles instead. She experimented with curlers on herself and her three daughters as she created the elaborate helmets of hair that were in fashion.
She and her daughters had chattered together nonstop, not only during hairstyling, but while they cooked, cleaned, watched TV, shopped for groceries, visited relatives. Loretta’s habit of blurting out the first thing that came to her mind on any given occasion, a habit that was well-known among her friends today, developed from blurting things out as fast as she could to get her words in among her two older sisters and her mother.
The woman reacted only with a quizzical look and returned her attention to the cashier. “That’s my mother’s bracelet!” Loretta said again with emphasis.
The habit did not fail her now as the woman at the checkout counter pulled out her cash. “That—that’s my mother’s bracelet!” Loretta blurted, pointing like a child. The woman reacted only with a quizzical look and returned her attention to the cashier. “That’s my mother’s bracelet!” Loretta said again with emphasis. This time the woman turned to look at her. “It was stolen from my house last year!” Loretta told her excitedly. The other women in line craned their heads to look.
The woman wearing the bracelet, young and trim, her blond hair in a neat flip, gave Loretta a prim smile. “You must be mistaken. My husband gave this to me for my birthday.”
“No! I—”
“Really, you must be mistaken.”
And Loretta fell silent, for as easily as she could blurt things out, just as easily could she be shut down.
“Animals!” her father had said of the thieves on the night of the robbery, when Loretta called and told him what happened, and what was taken. “They’re animals.”
Loretta’s mother had died young, falling ill with a speed that matched the energy she had put into her daily living, when Loretta was barely an adult. Loretta had become a roaming hairdresser right after high school. She carried her combs and scissors and curlers in a big bag to neighbors’ apartments, where she placed old towels around the shoulders of her customers and newspapers under the straight-backed chairs that she pulled away from their dining tables. On the day after the funeral, her father handed her the bracelet. Loretta clung to it, pressed it into her palm, but didn’t want to see it on anyone but her mother. Not on the wrist of a flighty girl like herself.
On that same night, Loretta told her boyfriend Mike that she wanted to get married. Now that everything had changed—for that’s what her mother’s death felt like—Loretta felt that she, too, needed to change, to grow up. Mike was startled, and then he was annoyed, even angry: “You’re supposed to let me ask you that!” But because her mother had just died, he swallowed any further objections and told her he would have a ring and a real proposal in the next few days. He did. Then he bought a house on Staten Island and moved his accounting business there sooner than he had planned. He was able to do this with his parents’ help, but he did not like having to ask. Loretta stopped doing hair and became a housewife, and they functioned well as a couple—agreeing on most household decisions, joking around and listening to music together—but Loretta always sensed a lingering resentment in Mike for the way they got engaged. When other couples talked about how the husband had proposed, Mike went silent and Loretta followed suit. They never spoke of it again. As for the bracelet, it had gone directly into Loretta’s jewelry box and stayed there.
As the woman reached the front doors, Loretta broke into a trot and reached them herself moments later, swung them open, and was blinded by the afternoon sun blazing in her face.
Now at the Macy’s checkout counter, Loretta abandoned her new bra and took off after the blond woman, who had finished her purchase, headed for the escalator and walked down the moving metal steps. Loretta walked down them too, grabbing onto the moving rubber handrail with each clunky step. Down on the first floor, through the women’s clothing where the manikins jutted their narrow hips, past the glass jewelry counters, through the heady perfumes, Loretta followed her, the woman’s quick pace making the distance between them difficult to close. The woman did not look back over her shoulder, but Loretta was sure she was rushing away. As the woman reached the front doors, Loretta broke into a trot and reached them herself moments later, swung them open, and was blinded by the afternoon sun blazing in her face.
*
Karen was nearly hit by a car as she fled the store with the sun in her eyes and crossed into the parking lot without looking. “Hey lady, are you nuts?” a man called out from the driver’s side. She took no notice. It wasn’t Bobby’s fault, she repeated to herself, it wasn’t. He had bought her the bracelet in a pawn shop—she knew because she had found the receipt in his pants pocket, which of course she would never tell him, she had torn it up and thrown it away immediately—but it was a legitimate purchase. How the bracelet got to the shop was not her business. And maybe that woman was mistaken, maybe lots of these were made in the ‘40s or ‘50s or whenever it was. Karen didn’t even like the bracelet. It was clunky and heavy and old-fashioned-looking. In fact, she would like very much to go back into Macy’s, go all the way back up to the bra section, and hand the bracelet to that woman.
But Bobby would notice. He would notice now, he would notice a year from now. Bobby had taken to asking her at random moments about gifts he had given her, large and small, recent gifts and gifts from two, three, four years ago. A fancy hair comb. Perfume. Silk scarves. Sets of things for the kitchen. She was beginning to lose track of them. Bobby bought her something, with what little money they had, after every time he “didn’t treat her right,” as he had once mumbled it, and these times were happening more, not less often in the years since he had come back.
Karen’s parents had not wanted her to marry Bobby when he was drafted into combat on the other side of the world. They thought she should wait until he returned, to make sure everything was all right. But Karen refused to wait. And when Bobby returned, he had seemed okay, at first. And then not so okay, and Karen had said nothing to her parents, so they would not think they’d been right.
And she would not let them in on what was happening now. She would not tell her women friends, either, what her marriage was like. And so she spoke to no one, and though she tried, gently and nicely, to tell Bobby not to keep buying her gifts, she could not say too much or he would fall back into the same angry state the gifts were meant to apologize for. This gift, the charm bracelet, was for a hole he had kicked in the kitchen wall.
*
“Wait!”
Karen spun around to see the woman from the Macy’s counter looming toward her in the parking lot, just a few feet away, squinting in the sun.
“Wait,” Loretta panted. “I swear to you, that is my mother’s bracelet. I can describe every piece of it.”
Karen stiffened. Her face was like an armored mask. “Look, miss, I don’t know who you are or what your problem is, but you need to get away from me.”
“The chain has a triple coil. The teapot has a pink stone on the lid. The hands on the grandfather clock are at twelve and three. The scissors—”
Loretta had never in her life put her hand up to another human being but now she ran forward and lunged at the wrist, grabbed it, and felt the charms against her palm for a moment until Karen wrenched herself away and screamed. Karen’s scream was not a small one.
A parked car they were standing in front of honked suddenly, for they were blocking it from pulling out. They both jumped. Karen turned and walked rapidly away. Loretta saw the bracelet on Karen’s right wrist, down at her side, where she clutched the handles of her shopping bag. Loretta had never in her life put her hand up to another human being but now she ran forward and lunged at the wrist, grabbed it, and felt the charms against her palm for a moment until Karen wrenched herself away and screamed.
Karen’s scream was not a small one. It was piercing, long, extended, not a sound of fear as much as of grief and anger. It was a desperate, shrieking wail like nothing Loretta had ever witnessed. Loretta froze, and the arm that had grabbed Karen froze too, for a moment, thrust out in the air. Karen’s body was bent forward. All of her drawn-up refinement was gone, and her face was contorted into a grimace, her mouth wide as she continued to shriek. Loretta stared.
The car that had been pulling out from its parking spot stopped halfway, and the driver got out. “Hey! Hey, is there a problem here?” he said, addressing Karen as he moved toward them. “Miss? Do you need help? Should I call the police?”
Loretta backed away, then she turned and walked, then she began to run. She ran through the narrow spaces between cars, rushing across the parking lot row by row. Behind her, Karen’s screaming stopped. Loretta ran through more rows before she dared to turn around, but beyond the sea of metal hoods and roofs and trunks baking in the heat, she could see nothing. She walked out of the far end of the lot and to the bus stop. She did not know what else to do. She had taken the bus here, and she would take it back now, if no one came for her while she was waiting. She listened for sirens and did not hear any.
Across from the mall, on the other side of the wide avenue, birds wheeled above the garbage dump that grew behind a wall of dirt. On summer days like this, the smell wafted over on the slightest breeze. Loretta wiped the sweat from her face with her hand, touched her hair with her fingertips. The bus was approaching. She would go home, and she would not say anything.
Laura Maffei is the author of the poetry collection drops from her umbrella and was the founding editor of American Tanka. Her most recent stories and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in The Maine Review, La Piccioletta Barca, The Halcyone, Sangam Literary Magazine, and Evening Street Review. Born in Brooklyn and raised on Staten Island, she studied creative writing at Binghamton University and received her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin.