April is the pearlest month day LAST: The epiphany, the legacy, the end

So back to Unworn Pearl Sister.

Wearing the pearls, thanks to Mr. Helpful.

Losing her mind accordingly.

What did she do? What did she do?!?!?

Damn right she went to Save Mor. So ready. Just stoked. Stoked like you get with an epiphany. Told her husband (who was SO EXCITED to be hearing more about the pearls) that she’d figured it out, thank you so much for helping because now she had the ANSWER, and the answer was to trade for something better. Break up with the pearls for good and for real by walking into Save Mor and declaring, with bold and mature ladyconfidence, “hello, I have some pearls I would like to trade, not sell but TRADE, for the first thing that catches my eye. My wise and seasoned eye.”

Right? What fun. What peace. What an ending to the Pearlest Month!

But then.

You’re not even going to believe this because I didn’t: Save Mor wouldn’t take them, for trade or cash, because guess what. GUESS WHAT. “There’s just no market for pearls.”

Well no kidding, there’s no market for pearls. See also: April is the pearlest month days one through twenty-nine.

[Editor’s note: This is kind of nitpicky but the sign does say “ANY.” Whatever. It’s fine.]

So now what. Because the month is over, the epiphany has been had and the solution is clearly to get rid of unworn pearls and anything else that makes you lose your mind in any way. But the village pearl-buyer said no. So, now what?!?!

Fortunately for everyone, I have a son who is of courtship age and who happened to be at home when I returned from total defeat at Save-Mor.

Lucky lucky lucky lucky kid.

So I’m like, hey, how bout you take these on as a breakup charm?

Like, in case you’re ever in a situation where you like someone a lot but you just know this isn’t IT and you gotta end it. With grace and with dignity.

Perhaps, on such a night, on a hillside under a waxing (or waning) moon, you shall gift these pearls and speak the magic words “do you wanna listen to Aja or The Royal Scam” whilst you light a Marlboro Red.

And next thing you know, couple waxing/waning moons later, it’s over. You are free.

And so is she. She is free to keep the pearls and pass them down thusly with lessons about boys and cars and gifts. And what it means to get it right despite what you thought “right” should look like, back on the hillside. And how to summon the glorious feeling of glamour and summer and potential and a really tight and luscious horn section, upon any occasion, untethered to pearls. Pearls aside. Pearls very much aside.

The! End! Thank you so much, friends and guest writers and Pearlest Month Street Team. Thank you for helping me not-hate April. XOXO.

Back where we started. No pearls. But all’s cool.

Next up in small stories about transgression and fashion: I’ll be live-tweeting from Raw Fusion 15 on behalf of Mankato Magazine. Follow me over on @ARosenquistFee to get the goods.

April is the pearlest month day twenty-seven: Sister with the unworn pearls

Apr27

At the same time, the very same time as Velvet Choker Sister was dealing with her husband and the nagging and the scissors, Unworn Pearl Sister was dealing with almost exactly the same thing. Can you believe it. How they ended up with such same husbands is unknown. Possibly because they were in the small kind of village that’s always the case with with folktales and myths, and they married same-sized brothers who had arrived one day (from a neighboring village) wearing matching pants and carrying a white rose for one sister and a red rose for the other. Something like that. Or, possibly, the matching husbands were an accidental result of the sisters working through some kind of issue that comes from being raised with labels, like “the choker one” and “the pearl one.” Point being, while Velvet Choker Sister was doing her best to sidestep tragedy, Unworn Pearl Sister’s husband was also at the same time constantly going, “why don’t you wear your pearls?”

She tried to explain. She explained as best she could.

But guess what. Guess what Mr. Helpful decided to do.

And you know what happened next. You know. It was worse than literal head-loss, and I mean SO much worse.

Tomorrow: Worse.

April is the pearlest month day twenty-six: Sister with the black velvet choker

Apr26

FACT. Revealed: This is a sisterhood story. The sisterhood of 1) the lady with the black velvet choker, and 2) the lady with the unworn pearls.

The velvet choker sister, you already know of her. You know that story. Right? She wore it all the time. Her suitor-and-then-husband was like, why do you wear that thing ALL the time? Can you ever take it off, ever??? She was like, no, I can’t. You’ll be sorry if I do. SO I WON’T. For years, they had this same conversation.

It drove him crazy. Not in a fun way.

So obviously one night he tried, like he reached between her neck and the choker while she was sleeping, just really subtle, and he realized it was a CONTINUOUS BAND. No clasp. A full and seamless circle. Husband took a scissors and he did this.

BAM. Velvet down. Choker to the floor.

And you know what happened next. You know. You remember, right, from stories at sleepovers? From your big sister telling you this horrible thing right before she made you summon Bloody Mary in the bathroom mirror? You know that her head fell off. It fell OFF.

Husband freaks. Who wouldn’t. Like she didn’t tell him, though.

She told him. She tried to tell him.

Pause. We pause here so you can process this. For a more complete version of the story of the lady with the velvet choker, like if your older sister didn’t do as good a job as she should have of initiating you, you can read it here, on the delightful horror blog Dreadful Dreary.

Tomorrow: The other sister. Unworn Pearl Lady. The unworn pearl sister speaks OUT.