* Author : L. S. Johnson

* Narrator : Dagny Paul

* Host : Setsu Uzume

* Audio Producer : Peter Behravesh

*

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Previously Published by New Haven Review Issue 20.

Rated PG-13 for hard choices and the treasures they produce.

Properties of Obligate Pearls

By L. S. Johnson

You have to know what to look for. Younger, definitely — stones from the elderly are heavy and black, decades of layers dulling the luster. No one wants the weight of a grandmother’s worries around their neck.

Take the young woman sitting across from me. I saw her in the supermarket, late on Friday night. She should have been out partying, or on a date; instead, she was pushing a cart that was equal parts cat food, stew meat, and adult diapers. Everything about her spoke of exhaustion and embarrassment.

Even under her jacket, I could glimpse the fullness of her torso, that hint of bloating directly beneath her sternum.

She was stooped and tired and looked older than she was; she was also lovely. That’s part of it, too — you can get a decent stone from a lot of people, but sometimes they have this hint of beauty about them, like a smothered light. Those stones have a little extra luster, a greater range of hues, and that can make all the difference.

I followed her home that night. I came back the next morning, before dawn, and watched her go to work, then to the hospital, then hurry home again. The neighbors said she was both caring for a father and helping her brother with some kind of treatments. That, and the father was nutty about his cats; their little apartment was full of the beasts.

It was no wonder, then, that when I asked her to lunch she accepted with a robotic sure. She probably couldn’t remember her last full night of sleep, much less have any instincts about going to lunch with a strange woman dressed in a suit.

“It’s a particular kind of condition,” I explain patiently, while she wolfs down her poached fish. “You have all the symptoms: bloodshot sclera, poor sleep, bloating and tenderness, yellowing fingernails, hair loss . . .”

“And you’ll pay me 50,000 to take it out?” she asks between mouthfuls.

“If it’s indeed the right kind of tumor, yes. We’re desperate for specimens to study.” I smile then, sympathetically. “I know it’s not a great deal of money, and there’s always a slight risk with surgery . . .”

“No, no, I’m definitely interested.” She gulps down her wine and leans in close, clearly buzzed. “It would make such a difference to us, you have no idea.”

Oh, I have an idea. I have more than an idea.

But I say nothing as it comes pouring out. How her mother died suddenly and her father subsequently deteriorated. How her brother had been helping until he got sick, and the treatments are working but they’re experimental, they’re not covered . . . Oh, she doesn’t mind doing so much, truly she doesn’t, only the cats — her father refuses to give them up but half of them don’t get along with the other half, they’re always making noise, sometimes she just wants to strangle them all . . . Meanwhile, she was passed over for a raise for poor performance, and she doesn’t know where the money’s all going, she budgets down to the last cent and somehow she always comes up short . . .

Listening, I’ve learned, is a lot like meditation. You have to observe the litany without reacting to it. I used to react: I used to hold their hands and offer suggestions; I used to weep for them, with them.