Beautiful Things, Part One

The shop “Beautiful Things" had been a fixture on Sycamore for as long as anyone could remember and was one of those old fashioned anchors that fix time in a fast changing neighborhood. The street on which the store stood actually was not called Sycamore but merely had a number; these nondescript numerals however did no justice to the long rows of large trees with peeling barks that lined the sidewalk, so I decided to change the name. “Sycamore” was only one block long, a winding and steep incline connecting two broader commercial avenues and had a kind of mid-century appeal that made this part of the city feel more like a village than an urban grid of humorless red brick buildings. The street housed just four small “ma & pa” businesses alongside the two-family houses and pre-war apartments: a bakery, a tiny beauty salon, a shoe repair and the gift shop; together these comprised a small town fantasy in the midst of a large, noisy and increasingly annoying residential area that slowly had been taken over by the usual gang of chain stores and an influx of tacky merchandise. The chain stores sold things like plastic serving trays with strange Santa motifs, fuzzy red stockings of unidentifiable fabric for hanging on your non-existent fireplace, suspiciously out of date shiny bags of Ghiradelli chocolate and big, ugly rubber skeletons that during the earlier October holiday seemed to kick off the whole seasonal madness.

Beautiful Things was wedged in between the shoe repair and pastry shop about halfway up the hill, its hall mark a display window that though quite small was nothing less than mesmerizing. It was impossible to resist gazing into this semi-precious cave of wonders while out doing the chores or running from one mind numbing, mundane errand to the next without stopping. On rich, black velvet jewelry pads carefully placed for optimum viewing sat marcasite pins that blazed like diamonds, glittering ovals of amber and polished stones of blue topaz sharing the reflected glow of the overhead track lights with pewter letter openers and miniature Tiffany-style lamps; semi-precious objects totally unnecessary for survival but succeeding in prompting all sorts of forgotten longings and desires for small luxuries. The window itself faced southwest, and when the afternoon sun bounced off the glass the whole sparkling collage became addictively hypnotic. 

The interior of the store was no larger than fifteen by twenty feet or so, with a kind of closet-office in the back hidden behind a flowery curtain. Once inside one immediately was bedazzled by the jewelry boxes- some of them musical with slowly turning ballerinas- as well as a colorful selection of silk scarves and ties, one-of-a-kind tea pots, ceramic vases, hand-painted dishes and of course piles of rings, bracelets and chokers, all neatly stacked inside the three-tiered glass case behind which the proprietors ruled their little kingdom of chotchkas. There were also a few obligatory gag gifts such as miniature slot machines and sleek, tiny clocks with sun dials that went all the way up to the year of infinity, but everything was tastefully arranged and carefully selected at the “shows” which Mel and Ruby always seemed to be attending. I know just what you’re looking for, Ruby would assure you after the better part of an hour spent considering a of shiny array of objects, none of which exactly did the trick; You want something smaller, daintier, perhaps with an amethyst in the center, right? They’ll probably have them at the show we’re going to next week- come back then. And she acted very much like she meant it. She would find this for you. Her mission was not to stoke the embers of your flagging, mindless consumerism, that vague yen that left you succumbing to ads trying to convince you that what you really required were seven different kinds of bathroom cleaners or a thirty-eight different face creams, but actually to locate that one special object that would totally change your life, or at least this was what she wanted you to believe. Ruby wasn’t really being helpful at such moments, even though she appeared to be holding out the carrot of finding “exactly the right thing,” this mainly having to do with her insane anxiety. She was so incredibly anxiety-ridden she could barely conceal her maniacal sense of impending doom for fear that perhaps one of the display “trees” of dangly earrings might just topple over with the customer’s next sneeze; this nervousness of manner comprising a kind of existential tick tended to upset the whole tight little sense of controlled cordiality she tried so hard to maintain in the store. . . .