The Pearl

Emily García | Issue 2.11

Cover Art: L. Erickson

The bump had stopped hurting by the time Natalia got to the waiting room. Wasn’t that the classic scenario? Tooth stopped hurting by the time one got to the dentist? Long, scraggly hair looked great the day of the haircut? She hoped it was still there, fought the urge to go check the bump in the bathroom. For days it had been bothering her, though she had to admit she’d only noticed it during masturbation—not due to pain. A strange protrusion interrupting the usual silky flow of sliding fingers on warm, wet flesh. She’d been unable to continue and went to look at it with the front camera of her phone. It was on the inside of her left labia majora, hard and solid, like a large cystic pimple, but it didn’t render clearly in photo.

“Hot compress,” came her father’s voice in her head, the magic solution to any and all bodily growths or infections. She didn’t feel like holding a hot towel to her pussy, so she took a bath.

That had been three days ago, and the bump had not changed size or shape or come to a head in any capacity, so she’d made an appointment for the gynecologist, a desperate measure, since it was a $65 copay with her shitty insurance.

“Nothing to be alarmed about,” the doctor said, rolling away on her little stool, throwing gloves in the trash, washing her hands, standing up. “Vulvas are just weird sometimes. It’ll go away on its own.”

Sixty-five dollars wasted, Natalia thought as she dressed alone in the examination room. Groceries, a night out, half a new pair of shoes, gas and electric. And nothing was wrong with her. Her vagina was just weird. She already knew that.

—

She had the night off from the restaurant where she worked most nights a week. It was a fine place, but there was never anything special about a restaurant other than the phase of life one was in. Natalia would say she was in a transitional phase, to put it mildly, so the place wasn’t glitzy or exciting, more covered with a film of ennui. She’d worked at so many restaurants, some notably more terrible than others, the rest pretty much all the same, their mere existence such a labor that it seemed to the owners of the restaurant that they were the only place in the world doing what they were doing.

She’d moved to Baltimore with Luke so he could go to med school at Hopkins, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. After four years of dating, they’d barely made it past his first semester.

“I love you,” he’d said, “but I don’t expect you to support me through this. I can’t give enough to the relationship right now.”

“I wish you’d told me that before I moved across the country with you.”

He’d let her keep the apartment, gave her his half of two months’ rent, and moved in with some people in his cohort.

Though she was devastated, She was not ready to admit defeat and go home to California. But Baltimore was a strange, strange city she didn’t quite understand. She’d thought she and Luke would explore it together, get married, move around. She’d be a doctor’s wife, shirking feminism to stay home and make art all day. She wasn’t even an artist. She just liked the idea of making art and going to yoga and shopping. Why did women ever fight so hard to work?

Luke would have happily inspected and diagnosed her labia bump. He was brilliant and very confident in his talents and Natalia thought there couldn’t be anything better for an anxious hypochondriac than an in-house doctor. Natalia’s parents were disappointed he wasn’t Jewish, but doctor would suffice, and Luke wanted to be a surgeon.

Now, what about Natalia, what did she want to be? At the moment, as she gazed out the window of her Uber, she wanted to be a nonexistent blob. She had the apartment for another seven months, and she wasn’t ready to throw in the towel on Baltimore just yet. Her parents had downsized and moved into a one-bedroom condo, so they didn’t even have the space for her.

—

At home, she checked Hinge.

Michael W., for their first date, suggested they meet at an oyster bar in his neighborhood, two neighborhoods over from hers. Baltimore was so small relative to L.A.: she’d already been to the restaurant three times. It was one of two she liked, a list that did not include the place she worked, where the portions were massive and overly salted.

She and Luke had gone to this particular oyster bar for a celebratory dinner their first night in Baltimore and eaten two dozen oysters. The place offered a selection of both East Coast, West Coast, and “Mid-Atlantic” oysters, a new variety they were unfamiliar with. Natalia loved the little sweet ones from Washington state, the briny fresh ones from Prince Edward Island, but they’d tried some from Virginia. Giant shells, fattier flesh. A metaphor for her new surroundings: less subtle, more American. She kept waiting for the city to reveal its unique mystery to her, but she wasn’t sure it could or would. At night it was dark, quiet, chilly, the empty streets ominous in front of the brick row homes. The apartment they’d rented was beautiful, the third floor of an old building, with big windows all along the living room, gleaming hardwood floors. It was affordable by California standards, and Natalia appreciated Leo, their old Polish landlord, who occasionally came by with his big tool belt weighted and jingling with keys. Their neighborhood was lovely and tree-lined, but there were no cafes, no restaurants, no shops, hardly a liquor store.

She messaged Michael back and they agreed on a time. She flicked through his photos again, thinking now he wasn’t actually that cute but was, at least, according to his profile, Jewish.

She always felt dirty after being prodded by the gynecologist, so she took a shower. One foot propped on the soap holder, she inspected her labia bump. If she fucked this Michael guy, would he notice it? Would that be bad for it? She didn’t think he would notice, especially if they had a few drinks. The date was for 7:30, too late for happy hour, but hopefully he would offer to pay.

Michael did not notice the bump, and they started dating.

“I think you might be my soul mate,” he told her one morning over coffee.

It had snowed last night, and they’d gone for a walk through the cascading flakes. He’d spun her around and kissed her under a street lamp, looking deep into her eyes. In the weeks to follow, he was too busy to see her, and she felt him pulling away. Natalia went to work, served people, came home.

One night, Natalia was pulling an espresso for her last table when Kat, the restaurant’s surly veteran bartender, asked if Natalia wanted to get a drink after their shift.

“My boyfriend is pissing me off,” Kat said. “I don’t feel like going straight home.”

Natalia had planned to go home and have a late-night phone conversation with Michael about spending more time together, but she saw Kat’s invite as an unrefusable bid for friendship.

They clocked out and walked to a dive bar down the street. They were the only women, and the only people under fifty, in the place.

“So,” Natalia said once they’d gotten their beers. “What’d he do?”

“Nothing too crazy,” Kat said. “He’s my guy, ya know? He was just really pissing me off before work. We have the same fight every time.”

“I know how that is.” Natalia recalled the way Luke was condescending to her, broke into lecture, used the word “obviously” about things that were so not obvious.

“Are you with anyone?” Kat asked.

“Yeah, but it’s new. I probably shouldn’t be, to be honest. This relationship is stressing me out. Also, I just got out of a four-year relationship a few months ago.”

“Shit. You okay?”

Natalia thought of the bump on her labia. It had gone unchanged, and she was thinking of going back to the doctor, seeing a different OB/GYN this time.

“I’m not really sure,” Natalia said. “I’ve been seeing this new dude for a little while, and at first I thought we were in love and I was totally over Luke, but having sex with a new person and finding out all their issues is uncomfortable.”

“I shouldn’t say this,” Natalia started, then realized she didn’t take Michael seriously enough to hold his secrets close, “but I hate the way his dick smells. He has, like, dick B.O.”

“Oh, no, girl, no. That is not partner material.”

Natalia nodded and squeezed her eyes. She felt like she was going to cry.

“Why would you stay here if you guys broke up?” Kat asked. “I’ve never been to California, but I imagine it’s better than Baltimore.”

“Are you from here?”

Kat nodded. “From the area. I grew up in the country and moved to the city after college.”

She swiped a piece of hair behind her ear. She had a great haircut, long and shaggy, with piece-y bangs.

“What do you do outside the restaurant?” Natalia asked.

“I do art, mostly sculpture. The underground art scene is actually pretty cool here. I’m having a show in a couple weeks if you wanna come. You can bring the rebound guy if you want.”

—

“I really did love you,” Michael said.

“But you don’t anymore,” Natalia said. She was sitting in the chair in the corner of her bedroom, her arms wrapped around her knees.

“We’ve pigeon-holed ourselves, and now the relationship’s too much. I can’t keep fighting with you like this.”

Natalia heard herself defending the relationship, begging for another chance. Inside, she was cold and numb.

Michael collected his things and left, relief dancing off his body. She got into bed and cried. On her phone, she searched Luke’s contact and hovered over it. She wasn’t sure where her pain was coming from, so she thought she might as well introduce Luke and Michael to each other.

Hi Luke, she texted.

What’s up, Nat? came almost immediately. The shortening of her name was an immediate balm. Michael had called her by her full name, so slowly, pronouncing every syllable in a way she’d first thought romantic.

Just saying hi, she wrote.

How you doin?

I’m alright. I miss you.

His typing dots rose and disappeared. Natalia brought her phone into the bathroom and turned on the tub. She added eucalyptus bath salts to the stream of hot water. She checked her bank account, she had $149 in her checking to last until her next paycheck. She reopened the messages to Luke. She could clearly imagine him holding his phone, looking down at it, pondering what to say. It always took him so long to write a text; she’d watched him text other people so many times, writing and re-writing.

Can you help me with one more month’s rent? she wrote.

Almost instantly, her Venmo cha-chinged.

She sensed that it was the end of the conversation, so she got into the bath.

—

The next day, Natalia stayed in bed until one in the afternoon. In a fetal position, one eye open, she swiped until she ran out of people to swipe on. She expanded the filter, looking at men over fifty miles away. She toggled women ON, got scared, and toggled women OFF.

Hunger forced her out of bed. She’d been relying on staff meals at the restaurant for most of her daily sustenance and there was barely any food in the house. A small bowl of cereal was all she could muster. She brought her cereal to the couch and wrapped herself in a blanket. It was a sunny day, and the magnolia and cherry trees were beginning to blossom on her block. She felt guilty for not at all enjoying the weather, and she had to be at work soon.

A little throb came from her vagina. In her double breakup depression, she’d neglected to inspect the most exciting thing happening to her. The bump had definitely changed. It had a small white head, and it was pulsing—it desired exodus.

The extraction—two pointer fingers pressing on the outer labia, exposing hard white, then pink goo—was quick and painless. It was so satisfyingly flawless that she wished she could replicate it again and again. And it had rendered something foreign that fell between her legs onto the couch. Natalia panicked and hopped up, searching the folds of the couch until she’d found it. Round, creamy, opalescent. She held it up to the afternoon light coming in from the window. There were organic, textured waves on the surface of the thing.

She’d produced a pearl.

Natalia brought the pearl into the bathroom and plugged the sink. She filled the sink with warm water and a pump of soap, then dipped in a soft washcloth. Softly, so softly, she washed the pearl the way her grandmother had taught her to clean the antique strands she’d passed down to Natalia on her eighteenth birthday.

She patted the pearl dry and took it into the bedroom. She found a tiny cotton drawstring bag that had come with a pair of earrings, tucked the pearl into the bag, and hid it in the back of her underwear drawer.

—

“You’re in a good mood,” said Jesús, Natalia’s manager, when she came into the restaurant. She was smiling, and she’d put on a red lip.

“Get lucky last night?” he said.

Natalia giggled and went to clock in. Kat was off for her boyfriend’s birthday, a bummer because Natalia wanted to share with her, a fellow artist, what she’d created, how momentous a creative breakthrough it’d been.

For the first time in months, Natalia enjoyed work. She joked with her tables, she showed personality. She upsold a large steak and an expensive Bordeaux, and Jesús told her he’d buy her a drink at the end of her shift. It was busy, and her back sweat, and her feet hurt, but she felt physical and alive. She went to the bathroom to check the source of the pearl: the wound had completely healed, as if it had never happened.

During a lull in her section, Natalia went behind the bar to hydrate. The bar was packed. Natalia, dodging bartenders and food runners, went to one of the soda guns.

“You new here?”

A pair of mid-forties white men were sitting at the bar. Slicked hair, ties, well-moisturized faces.

“Sort-of,” she said. “I started a few months ago.”

“Doctor Eric Parsley,” one said. “This is my colleague, Doctor Montag. We come here a lot.”

“You guys having a good night?”

“Fantastic,” he said. “You’re working so hard, we’d love to buy you a drink when you’re off.”

The power of the pearl, she thought. Everyone wants to buy me drinks.

“Okay, I’m not sure what time I’ll be off, though.”

“We’ll wait,” Doctor Parsley said.

Natalia went back to her section, feeling weirdly deflated. She thought of Luke, future doctor, picking up young women in their twenties at bars, and for a moment she missed him so much she felt sick with it. She hoped the doctors wouldn’t wait for her; though she was flattered, she didn’t feel up to the pressure of entertaining them. She wanted to save her energy so she could produce more beautiful things.

—

Natalia was in the back, polishing flatware, when Jesús brought her a glass of white wine.

“Those doctors are asking for you,” he said. They were near close, only a few tables left talking.

“I thought they left,” she said.

She walked behind the bar and greeted the men.

“We’d still like to buy you a drink,” Doctor Parsley said. His friend scrolled on his phone.

“Thank you, but my manager already brought me a glass of wine.”

“You can have two drinks.”

Dr. Parsley’s gaze was intense, smoldering—real confidence: Natalia had briefly felt it just following her production of the pearl. But the hours on her feet had whittled away her exterior, even her lipstick had faded.

“I’m really okay, thank you,” she said. “Can I get you anything else?”

“No,” he said. “Just the check. And I’d like to speak to your manager.”

“Is something wrong?”

“You’ve been incredibly rude, and I want to talk to him about it.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t understand how I’ve been rude. Because I declined the drink?”

“You don’t turn down a gift from a regular patron.”

Natalia felt her heart stutter. These kinds of confrontations at work tortured her for weeks afterwards, filled her with anxiety and shame. I should have just accepted the drink, she thought.

She reached for a glass to get herself some water.

“Your manager, I said,” repeated Dr. Parsley. Natalia picked up the soda gun to fill her glass.

“Are you listening to me?”

She put her thumb on the gun and shot Dr. Parsley with Dr. Pepper.

—

Natalia had never been fired before.

When she got home, she took out the bag containing the pearl from the back of her underwear drawer. She sat cross-legged on her bed, the pearl resting in her palms. She closed her eyes and meditated.

Outside, someone’s brakes screeched. Somebody shouted fuck you. It had gotten warmer, and she’d started to leave the windows open. She went to the window and looked out at the street.

Baltimore, I’ve barely gotten to know you, she thought. I like you, but I don’t love you.

Before they moved, everyone had a lot of opinions about Baltimore, mostly about it being dangerous. Natalia, philosophically opposed to fear-based generalizations, thought she might have come to love it if it hadn’t been for Luke leaving her. She could stay and fight for it: do the thing, make friends, find another job. Did she want to? What did leaving say about her?

She didn’t want to go back to L.A., either. She’d packed up her belongings and said goodbye. Some of her things were still in boxes.

Pearl in hand, Natalia paced the living room. She squeezed the pearl between her thumb and pointer finger and visualized things she wanted. She wanted more nature. She wanted to hike. She wanted to date, but in a loose, less serious way, maybe date people with accents. She couldn’t imagine becoming emotionally embroiled with someone with a foreign accent. She wanted the beach, she did miss that about Los Angeles.

Natalia remembered that, back home, she’d made a brief acquaintance with a young woman, Sierra, with whom she worked at a small wine bar in Echo Park. Sierra had just come back from a year in New Zealand, where she’d worked in hospitality and traveled around. She was rife with stories about mountains, lovers, and freedom.

“Anyone under 30 can apply to live and work there for a year,” she’d told Natalia. “Go before it’s too late.”

—

Leo the landlord was willing to let Natalia break the lease if she helped him find a new tenant.

“I’m sorry about your relationship,” he told her over the phone. “If I may, you’re a beautiful girl. He’s an idiot. He’ll realize that one day.”

—

Natalia went to Kat’s sculpture show. It was in a dark basement bar in a pretty cobblestone neighborhood she’d never been to before. Everyone was dressed the way hipsters in L.A. had dressed three years ago, but there was a sense of a cool, young community, and Natalia felt a longing to join. Some people were doing performance pieces, and most of the art looked like someone had dumped out the contents of their trash cans and glued everything together. Kat’s pieces, big fiber weavings in the shape of animal faces, had great potential, Natalia thought.

Kat introduced Natalia to a couple of friends who were moving to the city.

“How long have you been in Baltimore?” they asked.

“Like seven months,” Natalia said. “But I’m leaving soon.”

“Where you going?”

“New Zealand.”

“What are you going to do there?”

“Not sure yet,” she said. “Do you guys need a place?”

Natalia connected them to Leo and sold them everything in her apartment. The full kitchen set she and Luke had collected together. The couch and coffee table and bed frame they’d bought when they first arrived in Baltimore. Credit card points bought most of a one-way ticket to Auckland.

She finally called her mother, who’d been calling every other day for weeks.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come home for a little while?” Natalia’s mother said. “There’s not much space, but you can stay on the air mattress in the living room.”

“No thanks, Mom.”

“Are you okay?”

“I just need to do something different for a while.”

“Have you talked to Luke?”

“Why would I have talked to Luke?”

“Because he was part of our family for years!”

“Please don’t say it like that.”

“He was like a son to me.”

“Mom,” Natalia said. “I need to borrow some money. Not a ton. I promise to pay you back as soon as I can.”

“Let me talk to your father.”

—

As she waited outside for her Uber, Natalia couldn’t help but notice how beautiful the city of Baltimore had become, almost overnight. The tree in front of her building had exploded with dangling neon cherries. She pulled off a bunch and ate them, sucked on them until all the meat was gone and just the smooth pits remained. She looked up at the apartment where she’d lived for less than a year and felt melancholic about leaving.

She was grateful the driver didn’t try to talk to her. She gripped her pearl the whole way to the airport. She admired the lush trees lining the highway, a family of deer grazing in the shade.

It would soon be winter in the southern hemisphere. She would have to learn Celsius.

At the airport, Natalia drank two beers. She slumped at her gate. When her boarding group was called, she almost couldn’t stand; she was gripped with fear. She clutched the pearl in her sweaty palm, tried not to drop it while the gate attendant asked for her boarding pass and passport.

Finally, her backpack in the overhead compartment, her body smushed in the budget middle seat far, far back in economy, the pearl tucked safely in its little cotton baggie in the zip-up pocket of her jacket, Natalia took out her phone, ready to turn it on airplane mode.

Luke’s name sizzled on her home screen. Two texts, one after another.

Hey Nat, wanna catch up soon? Grab a coffee?

I’d love to hear how you’re doing.

Emotion rocketed through her. She tried to shield her face, her eyes slick with tears, from her neighbors, who were luckily involved with their own devices. Her sober self would probably think it wise not to respond, but her buzz was still going strong, and she was angry at him for having reached out to her after all he’d done, excising her from his life, only to want her still in his orbit.

I’m on my way to New Zealand, she wrote. She pictured Luke, watching her typing dots rise and disappear. She added the oyster emoji, then erased it. Good luck becoming a doctor, she added. Send.

She turned off her phone and shoved it into the seatback pocket, got comfortably situated under her thin fleece blanket, and started a movie.

 —

Emily García is a writer from Oakland, California. You can find her work in Hobart, The South Dakota Review, and 34TH PARALLEL.