“Daisy, you’re going to add my name to the cottage’s deed, aren’t you?” Larz asks me.
“But my name isn’t on your condo or your house, is it?” I stare out of my cottage window toward the sea for the last time.
The waves, knocking over abandoned sandcastles now that the tourist season was about to end.
Larz grins. “After we marry, I’ll add your name,” he says, but it’s a lie. Larz never tells the truth. “I’ve been busy. What about your check from that stupid art gallery? We could use that for the wishing pearl. I’d wish for your paintings to go national. You deserve more.”
I step around a patchwork couch, but it’s no longer mine. “No, I was planning to spend half the check on art supplies. Branford wants another series, and he’ll pay me double.”
I glance over at my near-empty supply bucket.
Larz points to a painting of a blue rose. “Your art is good, but this pearl is guaranteed to make us three million, and they won’t let me into the market due to a misunderstanding. Please! They’re closing next Monday.” His lips pucker. “But remember, it’s my pearl, not yours.”
“I don’t want to go,” I say. “They’re fake, and they buy them at auction.”
He kisses me with cold, unfeeling lips. “No, they’re real.”
I tire of his lies.
“My painting can bring us money now. It’s already commissioned,” I tell him. “But if you want money that badly, you can sell your condo.” My eyes are angry slits.
“I’m not selling my condo! Daisy, the pearl is a gift for our future,” Larz says loudly.
“You’d have more money if you didn’t eat out all the time. But go take yourself and a friend to Robin’s Café, and I’ll buy my supplies when I’m out buying the pearl.” I hand him cash. And I have a lot more than he realizes, but while he is out dining, I’ll have changed the locks.
A sold sign will be placed up front.
It made three times what I expected it to, and they want all the art and furnishings. I could fix another fixer-upper and sell that too.
“You know, I love you, and I wish I could be so skilled. None of my art sells,” Larz says, and he leaves to go out to eat with his girlfriend.
I climb into my old car and drive to the outdoor market. The air has a chill, and it’ll soon close until next summer.
The rich will leave for their winter homes down south. First, I buy art supplies and a futon for my new shack. After I pack my car, I head back.
At the guarded upscale market, everyone wears a mask of $1,000 cosmetics, and I don’t fit in.
I walk past the $14,000 dollar handbags and the costume jewelry and find the pearl seller.
The stink makes me gag, but shiny things come from pain and rot. I walk closer to the stall.
“I’ll buy the cheapest one,” I tell myself. “And I’ll trick him like he has done to me. Maybe I’ll send the pearl by certified mail.” I plan to leave the high-priced resort town and only come back for art shows.
I examine the discard buckets of clean pearls.
Some are real, some are fake, and some are covered with leftover magic. Wait, I sense real magic, and I usually only sense magic when painting.
The seller calls out. “We sell magic wishing pearls. $75 to $10,000 each, unless it’s in the discard bucket. Shuck your own for only $25 for three.” The $4000 pearl Larz wants is behind a glass case, but it’s actually a cultured pearl, worth less than $200 for the quality. Some of the ‘so-called’ $10,000 pearls are even formed from plastic.
I know the seller doesn’t believe in the magic of the sea.
I see the shucking scam. Pearls are placed inside the shell of a long-dead oyster to be re-used again.
The seller’s assistant tosses more cultivated oysters onto the counter.
Customers dig through briny flesh to find a treasure. She opens another and another.
Treasures can be nightmares to the oyster, but wayward magic for the buyers.
Each pearl will be cleaned and then sold.
After she washes the pearls, the stink is gone.
I look at the discard bucket, and it says, $35 per pearl. A third is from what didn’t sell, or ugly pearls people shuck and discard, but the rest is fancy plastic or glass.
I found a real Baroque pearl. This gold one is grotesque and cheap. It looks as if it’s a woman’s face, screaming. I feel authentic magic. It’s good magic too, from angels, and a gift from God.
“That one is cursed,” the lady says. “No one wants it. You can have it for $15.”
The elderly woman doesn’t know what she lost.
I purchase the pearl and whisper. “This is what Larz wants. He’ll refuse her and demand the $4,000 one, and I won’t buy that,” I say to myself.
My soon-to-be ex secretly plans to give it to his girlfriend. Larz doesn’t realize that I know about the affair. He expects me to play the fool.
The pearl speaks to me. “It’s not him that is chosen for love and success, and your destiny is not yet fulfilled. He selected the false bride who would bring him misery. No magic can undo his choices.”
I walk back to my car. “Why me?” I ask the angel. “Can I free you?”
“But I am free, and I decide who I give my magic to. You’re the artist, and I’ll be your muse and your friend,” she says. The pearl forms into a middle-aged woman. She appears more like a mother than an angel—spirit of art.
“But he’s expecting a magic pearl.” I smile. “I was planning to buy him a cheap fake, but that doesn’t seem right.”
“Go back and buy another wish pearl. It’s $100, but one that grants wishes based on the owners’ kindness. It’ll be the best money you spent all year. My friend will teach him to be a better person.”
I head back and buy Larz, a pearl. It’s a cursed one like him, but I am free of the arrangement, and I’ll create art that heals.
Thank you for reading!
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