The "Prettier" Ones

“That looks like fun… I wish I could play with them,” I said to myself, hugging my knees with my right arm while playing with a pin needle I had randomly found with my left. My head was resting sideways on my bare knees, facing the kids from a comfortable distance. They were playing elastics. I often felt like my friends, I think they were my friends, could play elastics better than I could. I could confidently do ankles, even knees, but buttocks, forget about it. The way my friend Joanna could rotate her knees outwards so she’d land on the right and left side of the elastic was true acrobatics in my eyes. I could never do that. In that moment I felt like I couldn’t do anything cool or better than her or any of our girlfriends. Joanna wasn’t in my kindergarten group; she was smaller than me but fierce.

Like a warning, the wind started blowing dust into my eyes and hair. I started coughing, then turned my gaze from watching them play down to my feet, and between them a big shadow appeared. A strange shadow, followed by the most vivid shades of green and red, was floating in front of my eyes in a delicate dance as she stopped in front of me. I could see her bare brown feet peeking out from under her huge dress. She was uncomfortably close for someone who seemed to appear out of nowhere. Not sure I was scared, yet.

“Why aren’t you over there playing with the rest of them kids?” she asked, giving me a wicked grin like she already knew the answer and was pleased to find me sitting alone. Her voice was low and raspy but upbeat at the same time. I looked at her, and a shiny tooth revealed itself, all on its lonesome, something I didn’t have in common with her yet since I was just four years old. I was intrigued. Grownups never talked to me outside like that. I swung my mouth to one side, poking the needle harder into my thumb.

“I didn’t want to.” I tried to sound as confident as I could and look her in the eye for as long as I could. It was really hard to keep grownups interested, so I wanted to sound cool.

“I see, you like being alone, don’t you?” Alone?… not really, I thought to myself, but it kinda sounded like she wanted me to say yes.

“Yes, I don’t mind.” She raised her overly plucked brows and had the same look I had when my mother would let me have chocolate. It was working, I was making a new friend!

“Yeah, alone is better.” Her grin came back along with the glint of her single shiny tooth. I didn’t know teeth could grow in a gold color… This lady must be something cool.

“Oh, what pretty golden earrings you have!” she said. I automatically took my right hand to my earlobe and started playing with my earring the same way I had been playing with the needle a minute ago. She bent down to my level, her knees making a crackling sound as they hit the concrete. Her face was suddenly too close to mine. So close I could see the gold glint of my earring reflecting back in her dark brown eye. This lady sure loved gold. Maybe I should start liking yellow more. I smiled, my hand still on my earlobe, massaging the earring.

“My mommy and daddy gave them to me when I was a small baby,” I said, sounding very proud, especially of having something she surely appreciated.

“Yes,” she said, sounding less interested now, slowly getting up on her feet. “They are pretty. But I can give you prettier ones.” Her mischievous smile was back, her eyes darting from mine to my earrings. I stood up quickly in shock, frowning in confusion and excitement at the same time.

“Prettier ones?…” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, very convincingly.

My mother’s disapproving face suddenly came to mind, banishing any thoughts this woman might have planted of “pretty” jewelry. Without a second thought, I said,

“I need to ask my mom first.” I pouted my lips and looked down, feeling ashamed that I had tainted our fun with grownup stuff. She looked like a grownup, but she was talking to me, so she was special for sure. She was not like other adults, always angry, yelling at you for whatever reason. She was spending time with me and ignoring all my friends. I’m so glad I didn’t wanna play elastics.

“Yes, let’s go ask your mom,” she said, interrupting my train of thought. I was over the moon. I jumped to my feet and told her to follow me into the building we were living in at the time. As we started climbing the stairs, the image of my mother’s disapproving gaze changed into one where she’d be proud of me for the deal I had just struck. We were living in a communist building in the 90s in Romania. It wasn’t pretty or glamorous, but can you tell gray is ugly compared to pink if you’ve never seen a vibrant color before? It was home, as unsafe as it was and felt. My parents and I lived on the 2nd floor, the door in the middle. When the woman and I reached the 1st floor, she put her hand on my shoulder to stop me and said,

“Wait, there’s something wrong with your ears…” I felt panic all of a sudden. What could be wrong? I asked myself.

“Hold still,” she said. It felt like a light breeze passed me, quick. How nice of her to let me know something was wrong and to want to fix it. Grownups usually yell and tell you it’s your fault. After what felt like a few seconds, I continued rushing up the stairs, and when I reached our apartment, I opened the door too wide, screaming at the top of my lungs, excited:

“Mom, mom! There’s this nice lady and she wants to give me prettier earrings!”

The door slammed into the wall as I burst in. This is my moment, I did good, I was thinking. My mother was sitting in the kitchen, working at her sewing machine. She looked at me, holding a pin needle between her lips the way she often did while sewing. Her mouth suddenly opened, her eyes widened with alarm, and I heard her scream in panic:

“Where are your earrings?!” After what seemed like an eternity of me gathering the words to respond, the silence was broken by the pin needle hitting the kitchen tiles, its metallic sound echoing between my mother and me. The hair prickled on my neck, my small hands gripping both my ears, only to notice the earrings were not there anymore. Everything around me went silent. I felt like I had gone under water. Still at the entryway, I slid down, my head dropped to my knees, my right hand hugging my bare legs, head pressed to the side of my knees. My left hand stung. I raised it to eye level: blood. That reminded me, where did I put my pin needle? I ran my eyes over the kitchen tiles and saw the one my mother dropped. This one was pink; the one I lost was gray. My mom has the prettiest things, I thought, while sinking into a reality where all of a sudden that woman didn’t feel real anymore. Did that really happen? I was hearing screams above my tiny figure, my mother looking at me in panic. What did I do now?… I sighed. Maybe I should have played elastics.

If I didn’t understand before why everyone had told me not to talk to strangers, now I did, but I was still confused. So, to clear up this “confusion,” my dad took me to the police station a few days later. Apparently they needed me to tell them if the woman with the golden tooth was there. I suppose it makes sense; I was the only one who saw her and spoke to her. This did not feel like a happy occasion though, and everyone knows, if the police want to see you, you’re in trouble. When we arrived at the police station, a police officer greeted us, and when we entered the room I saw 4 women lined up against a wall. They all had pretty dresses, golden jewelry and… it’s her! I thought to myself. The woman who wanted to give me prettier earrings! Maybe she wanted to give us all pretty earrings, but I don’t think my dad and the police officer would have liked to wear them… But why was she frowning at me? She was scaring me. I knew it was her, but not really…

“Diana, sweet,” said the police officer. He gestured for me to come to him. I looked at my dad and he nodded. The officer put his heavy, big hand on my shoulder and said, “Have you seen any of these ladies before? Perhaps they were trying to give you something?”

“Earrings?” I asked, looking at the police officer.

He smiled and looked at me. “Yes, anything like that?”

I pointed my finger at the last woman in the row, the woman who said she’d give me prettier earrings, and said, “Yes, that’s the one. She said she’d give me prettier earrings but she didn’t.” I said it kinda like I had only just realized that she didn’t.

The police officer nodded, and before I could go back to my dad, she leaped towards me, as breezy as she’d done before, only this time she opened her mouth wide, her eyeballs looked like they were about to pop out of her head, her nails looked like claws, and she screamed:

“YOU’RE LYING!”

But before she could reach me, my dad stepped between us and pushed her back.

“Don’t yell at the girl,” my dad said, in a stern voice picking me up in his arms. I hid my face in his neck.

A few days passed and every now and then I would find myself pinching my naked earlobes. The light pain made it feel real. I still didn't fully understand why I was called a liar and how people could still look like themselves but be someone else. I might think about it another time, for now I'll stick to playing elastics, and who knows, maybe one day I'll beat Joanna and be able to do not only buttocks but neck too. I went outside, waved to my friends, and they seemed happy to see me.

Maybe elastics is not as scary as "prettier" earrings.