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Excerpt from FROM THE RIDICULOUS TO THE SUPREMES by Gail M Feldman
White Gold
Something fell from above and I looked up. The day was overcast so I barely squinted and quite clearly could see the form, if not the face, of the little girl who peered down after the thing she'd dropped or thrown. It chinked softly into the scrubby grass at my feet but I kept looking up. She was leaning on the white railing of the third-floor tier of apartments, walk-ups, the kind of place that was never quiet, day or night. It wasn't quiet now, either. Eight different kinds of music blasted from open doors on all five floors. Children and adults alike screamed in the parking lot, in the pitiful playground and in their homes. Traffic roared up and down the surrounding streets. Only this child, staring down at me, was quiet.
I stooped to pick up the thing that shone against the sandy dirt and the pale tufts of weed. It was a cheap metal chain, the kind on which one hangs a plastic charm or a gumball machine prize, but this one secured a figure I was certain was pure white gold, the figure of a cat with an emerald eye. I held it up to the empty place where the girl had been. Had been.
Naturally my eyes went to the stairway but no child appeared at the bottom, even after a good five minutes. She must have gone into one of the apartments, I thought. How odd. Surely the child valued her cat pendant in some way even if she wasn't old enough to appreciate its monetary worth. Surely it had been given to her by someone who cared about her. No, she must not lose it! I started up the stairs myself.
I was then fifty years old and not in the best shape. As far as the landing I puffed and cursed my limbs. From the landing to the second tier, though, I felt lighter, more agile, and I stopped not to catch my breath as I'd planned but to flex each leg in disbelief. Not only did nothing hurt but my legs looked less chubby too! I spun to view myself in the nearest window. The face that stared back at me could not have been more than 30 years old.
I galloped up the next flight of stairs, bypassing the landing and then, achieving the third tier, suddenly wishing I hadn't. Everything had gotten a bit bigger. Without looking I knew I was 10 years old.
Frightened, I turned and descended to the previous landing. I held my arms out in front of me. I kicked up my legs. I was still 10 years old. I continued to the second tier but I grew neither older nor bigger. Sighing, I leaned out over the railing, watching passersby and wondering exactly what my next move could possibly be.
Then I saw her. She looked so weary -- as weary as I had felt an infinity of mere minutes ago. Without a glance at the cheap chain, the gleaming gold or the sparkling emerald eye, I dropped the charm over the railing and watched her look down, then up. When our eyes met, I felt a kind of shock, as if she'd seen right through me. I backed up so fast I bumped into someone's doorknob -- but instead of hitting me in the small of the back it poked me in the neck. I turned and ran down the tier. There was an open door at the end, whole bunches of children's voices shouting from within, and the smell of spaghetti wafting out. Maybe they wouldn't notice one more....
The other day I found a little plastic charm in the gutter. I picked it up and wiped it off. I tested it any number of ways but I'm still 10 years old... going on 11. Grownups sometimes ask me how come I'm always walking with my head bent down, my gaze to the pavement. What do grownups know? Somewhere in this neighborhood there has to be a pretty chain, made of pure white gold. I hope I'm the first one to find it.
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