Stone Key—Writing

Tucked between a custard parlor and a star-spangled chachka store, the boy had seen nothing like it before. No, it was not a jewelry shop, of that the boy was certain, for he did not pay attention to gold, did not care for silver, diamonds were a bore, and bronze — well, bronze reminded the boy of the Romans, and he had spent far too many hours crafting shields and waging wars that went “poof” when it got too warm. Even from the outside, The Stone Key called to him. There was a pull to it, a force. Fronted with ivory pillars and beach wood borders, the boy grabbed the old man’s arm and pushed open the door.

It was cool inside. The store was large. Though if you had asked a window-shopper, or a 36th street beach goer, they might have told you that there was nothing to see here — that it was nothing more than a few glass enclosures, a line of wood bowls filled with quartz, malachite, some fool’s gold, tiger’s eye or a splash of peridot; you know, the cheap stuff. The tourist bowls. But of course, that window-shopper, presumably a resident of Bahia Mar, would be feigning fact for farce, and the truth is, that is most people in Bahia Mar: carrying on as if they know everything for sure. That only a few feet from the front door would be a cash register, and that in front of that cash register would be a glass counter full of expensive stones which frankly, you should ignore, because they are largely imports, they are unpolished and poorly cared-for, and the prices are expectantly exorbitant; you’d be better off getting Springer’s fudge, in short. But to the boy, The Stone Key was much more a museum than it was a store, and they were wrong; they were all wrong, the window-shoppers. Fossilized coral, teeth from reef sharks, king-sized patchouli bundles, amethyst stones of all colors, shells wide as computer monitors, pearls shaped like the old man’s forearm; each of them, a treasure to the boy. He did care for their cost, nor of their source.

“Ho-ly,” the boy said, stepping through the door. He wore a mustard-yellow sailor’s jacket. The old man left his at home.

“Look at the size of that thing,” the old man said. The store smelled of salt and dust. “Talk about a big one.” He was pointing to a bull-sized piece of agate stone. “Can you imagine how hard it must have been to hoist it from the water?”

“It was not so bad.” A voice said, somewhere behind the stone. The voice was calm, a girlish fawny tone. “I’m sorry?” The old man began, and just then, a sand-blonde girl rose from behind the stone.

“I came across it the week before last,” she said softly. “Low tide, on the Street of 11th. It has been good to us at home.”

The boy looked up at the old man. It has been good to us, he thought to himself. The old man understood.

“Have you shelled there before?” she asked. Her skin was the color of just-baked bread, unblemished, with a curious colony of sunspots splotched across the bridge of her nose.

“How could this be so,” the boy blurted. “I have never seen a stone large as this one so close. The Street of 11th is not so far from home.”

“You have not seen such a stone before now,” the old man said. The sand-blonde girl let a wry, amused smile go.

“The Street of 11th has been good to us,” said the girl, resting her palm on top of the stone as if it were a creature of her own. “Good fortune — that is Don,” she said, gesturing to the arched white door at the rear of the store. “He fractures the stones; we need only deliver them. Every piece in The Stone Key is authentically our own.”

“Contrived,” a deeper voice cut. It was not the man named Don’s; this one was young. “But the performance,” the young man said, “that was truly yours.”

The blonde girl froze.

It was the first time the old man or the boy had noticed any-thing or any-one else in the store. Behind the girl, two adequately-bronzed figures leaned over a square glass enclosure. One of them idly played with the register drawer. The pair wore the same ill-fitting, tan shirt carelessly thrown on, and the old man decided that they looked as though they had never worn such things before.

“I —” the girl started. Her face still-flush, her trident-white smile gone. “How can I help you?”

“The boy is enchanted by agate stones,” the old man said. “Do you carry them in your store?” The old man leaned forward. “I do understand they’re decently rare, but they are the boy’s favorite of all stones — well, the latest of his favorites, I suppose.”

They laughed. The girl’s more like a sniffle. She turned to the boy and smiled.

“Come then,” she said. “I have something to show you.”

They trailed her past a large pillar of coral, gorgonian sea fan, and around a display of bone-carved masks. They stopped at a long wooden table, in the middle of which was an ugly, ball-sized globe. It seemed to be made of a material that most might call “the sidewalk,” yet curiously, it was displayed on a marble-green pedestal.

“I hope you will excuse me,” the girl said, lifting the sidewalk globe, “Not everything I’ve said is true — not all of the pieces here are own.” She leaned toward the boy and held the stone in front of him for a moment. “Look.”

The boy extended one finger slow, barely brushing it over the stone, and soon as the porous sidewalk made contact with the boy’s olive skin tone, he shot his finger back to his shoulder, and yelled. “It is like river stones!”

The girl’s smile was radiant. Utterly true, genuine, and beautiful. The old man understood.

“Modesty is the beauty of this stone,” the girl started, turning the ball-sized globe. “It might have been a sidewalk — one you’ve walked hundreds of miles. Or it might have been beach stones, from the river flown. But it is only after the pressure is applied, when one cracks the safety of the agate’s home, it is then you will find this world’s most beautiful gemstone.” And as if she were a god herself, the girl twisted the sidewalk globe into two perfect halves, then held them in her palms.

“It is like a watermelon,” the boy shouted. “It is a big juicy sunset stone!”

The girl could not contain herself. She howled. The old man too. Because it was: like a big, juicy, cleanly-cut sunset fruit. The inside of the agate stone shined a majestic scarlet hue, its edges banded milky translucent, white rings with the slightest hint of periwinkle; it was the kind of penultimate beauty that the Romans might have used for their majesty’s intaglios.

The boy looked up at the old man and tugged. “What do you think, old man? Can we hold it?”

“Of course,” the girl said. And resting in his palms, a cautious, sweaty wobble, the young boy had won the world with this agate stone. Beyond the click of the cash register drawer, just the thought alone of holding the stone put the boy in cold water. He half-lost his breath imagining it in his room, where it would go, how he would take it on their morning walks, rinse it in the ocean to make sure its shine was up, set it on the dresser so that the sun would set on us, he thought, and bring us good fortune and health by way of salt. And then he looked up at the girl, and said nothing at all.

“Thank you.” The boy said. Two words. That was all it took. The girl blinked, once. A distanced gull cried out. The store, vast only moments before, now felt small. She worked to summon a smile, but something in her chest pulled her up. Her smile, etched beyond her cheekbones, slowly began to fall. She stared deep in the boy’s pupils, as if she were looking down her own long, empty hall. She could not put name to emotion — “pins and needles,” her brother would have said. “Gooseflesh,” her grandmother. Her father might have called it “life,” or something else. But no. Somehow she knew none of those words could possibly come close to the weight of this all.

“You discovered this on the Street of 11th?” The old man asked.

The girl fumbled. She stared at the boy still. Her eyes had glazed-over gold. “I cannot say where it is from. Somewhere distant, beyond the marshes. Beyond Bahia Mar.” She looked down at her toes. It was only then that the boy noticed she wore no shoes. “The shells, however. They are from our tides. Ours shores. Ours. From the Street of 11th all the way to one hundred and twenty one.”

The old man smiled, this pleased him to know. He placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder and said, “Well, the boy’s appetite for shells is insatiable at home. He is restless until he has collected them all.”

Of course he is, the same deep voice echoed. The boy let go of a shell in his cargo pocket and pulled his hand out slow.

The girl turned her gaze back to the old man. Her smile had dulled. “I apologize.”

“It is no bother,” said the old man, but he had not seen the boy, he did not need to. Inching behind his swim trunks, the boy had shrunk. His shoulders limp, lobster-red cheek bones.

“Are you familiar with the Mohs hardness scale?” she asked the boy.

“We are not.” The old man said, his smile soft. “But I believe it is time for us to go.” He looked down at the boy, then returned his gaze to the girl.

“Of course,” she said. Her lips read like “disappointment” drawn. “You should go.”

“Thank you.” The old man said. The boy followed him back through the front door.

Above the register, the girl listened to the wood fan blow. The two young men spoke, traded images to each other, yet the girl saw nothing at all; blurs and washed-out words. Outside the window, she watched the old man set a hand on the boy. His smile. The old man brushing his hair unsettled. There was a pang in her heart half past three o’clock. The Stone Key had never felt less like home.