Rhode Island Quarter
by Barry
genre:
Literature & Fiction
description:
I wrote this during the summer of 2001, when we still lived in Seattle.
chapters
chapter 1:
chapter 1
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updated 04/05/08
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4294 characters
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It all started innocently enough – from my pocket I pulled her out. She had been resting quietly among several nickels and dimes. To be honest she surprised me for she shone like the morning surf and how could I not have noticed that when receiving change for my morning Diet Coke? But there she was, in my hand at lunch time – “Ooh! A Rhode Island quarter” my co-worker Gina enthused. “Can I have it?”
“Not a chance,” I replied. “I saw her first.” Nonetheless I handed her over to the cashier to cover my lunch.
Always hovering on the fringes, she never really left my mind. How could I have let her go so easily without distinguishing myself first? I continually cursed myself. With each cash transaction I anxiously awaited her return, but early on I was rebuked – a few copper Lincolns, some forward facing Jeffersons. Even when I did receive quarters I was always left holding the lusterless pre-state kind, or even worse-Connecticut. She played hard to get with the best of them and I could tell I wasn’t her only victim.
Fortune smiled on me a few days later, however, and as often happens, in the strangest of places. At the office cafeteria she caught my eye once more, there in the change drawer. Skillfully she evaded transfer even as she devalued the currency about her with her gleam. Two people in front of me – then one – then it was my turn. The seemingly unsuspecting cashier was all that separated me from her. “That’ll be two-seventy-seven” he told me as if he didn’t know. Oh, but he knew-he knew all right. Beneath his bored exterior I could detect the hint of a trace of a smirk. He mocked me, but it was a jealous mock for I knew that Rhode Island had captured his fancy too, though it was apparent he stood no chance.
I looked down at my drink and half turkey sandwich. Two seventy-seven I thought to myself over and over. Following an eternal moment I stunned even myself as I stabbed out in sheer desperation into the snack bin to the cash register’s left and grabbed a cellophane-wrapped chocolate chip and raisin rice crispy bar. I slapped it on the counter. “That makes it three fifty-eight,” the cashier quipped as he furrowed his brow. The gamble paid off – Rhode Island was back in play.
After days of dread and longing she opened to me with surprising ease. What presented itself as standoffish behavior in the cafeteria quickly melted into a delicious playfulness that only I could decipher. I never took her silver coating for granted, but I soon began to appreciate her inner-beauty-the copper and nickel, and though she’d never admit it – the zinc. She became my “Rhode,” and “Rhodie”- but never “Rhoda”- and on our evening strolls outside the Public Market we’d look out over Puget Sound and dream about our future.
Sometimes I would tease her when passing panhandlers, “Spare a quarter sir?” they’d ask and I’d all but lift her from my pocket.
“Sorry, nothing on me” I’d answer. When we’d return I would always reassure her that I would never toss her away like so many before her-well never again. She was unlike any other.
Late spring turned early summer and we had never been happier. Well, at least that’s what we told one another. Deep down, though, I had been having my doubts. Her constant demands for me to toss out (or at least stop carrying) a souvenir subway token from Boston grated on my nerves. And though I believed her when she told me that she didn’t mind our quiet evenings at home, secretly I knew she missed her friends and longed to visit the world of banks, video arcades and Laundromats. We grew apart. I held onto my token and she her vanity – she was the Rhode Island Quarter after all. She never forgave me for leaving her in my pants pocket overnight.
The end came with the sudden ease of the beginning. There were no tears or fingers pointed – just the unspoken acknowledgement of a desire to move on. In one last gesture of goodwill she helped me call a cab from the corner of East Pike and Harvard. I knew she was hurt but would make it on her own, and wasn’t I hurt as well? I see her every now and again, but my mind is rarely in the moment, I’m thinking about Vermont.
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“Not a chance,” I replied. “I saw her first.” Nonetheless I handed her over to the cashier to cover my lunch.
Always hovering on the fringes, she never really left my mind. How could I have let her go so easily without distinguishing myself first? I continually cursed myself. With each cash transaction I anxiously awaited her return, but early on I was rebuked – a few copper Lincolns, some forward facing Jeffersons. Even when I did receive quarters I was always left holding the lusterless pre-state kind, or even worse-Connecticut. She played hard to get with the best of them and I could tell I wasn’t her only victim.
Fortune smiled on me a few days later, however, and as often happens, in the strangest of places. At the office cafeteria she caught my eye once more, there in the change drawer. Skillfully she evaded transfer even as she devalued the currency about her with her gleam. Two people in front of me – then one – then it was my turn. The seemingly unsuspecting cashier was all that separated me from her. “That’ll be two-seventy-seven” he told me as if he didn’t know. Oh, but he knew-he knew all right. Beneath his bored exterior I could detect the hint of a trace of a smirk. He mocked me, but it was a jealous mock for I knew that Rhode Island had captured his fancy too, though it was apparent he stood no chance.
I looked down at my drink and half turkey sandwich. Two seventy-seven I thought to myself over and over. Following an eternal moment I stunned even myself as I stabbed out in sheer desperation into the snack bin to the cash register’s left and grabbed a cellophane-wrapped chocolate chip and raisin rice crispy bar. I slapped it on the counter. “That makes it three fifty-eight,” the cashier quipped as he furrowed his brow. The gamble paid off – Rhode Island was back in play.
After days of dread and longing she opened to me with surprising ease. What presented itself as standoffish behavior in the cafeteria quickly melted into a delicious playfulness that only I could decipher. I never took her silver coating for granted, but I soon began to appreciate her inner-beauty-the copper and nickel, and though she’d never admit it – the zinc. She became my “Rhode,” and “Rhodie”- but never “Rhoda”- and on our evening strolls outside the Public Market we’d look out over Puget Sound and dream about our future.
Sometimes I would tease her when passing panhandlers, “Spare a quarter sir?” they’d ask and I’d all but lift her from my pocket.
“Sorry, nothing on me” I’d answer. When we’d return I would always reassure her that I would never toss her away like so many before her-well never again. She was unlike any other.
Late spring turned early summer and we had never been happier. Well, at least that’s what we told one another. Deep down, though, I had been having my doubts. Her constant demands for me to toss out (or at least stop carrying) a souvenir subway token from Boston grated on my nerves. And though I believed her when she told me that she didn’t mind our quiet evenings at home, secretly I knew she missed her friends and longed to visit the world of banks, video arcades and Laundromats. We grew apart. I held onto my token and she her vanity – she was the Rhode Island Quarter after all. She never forgave me for leaving her in my pants pocket overnight.
The end came with the sudden ease of the beginning. There were no tears or fingers pointed – just the unspoken acknowledgement of a desire to move on. In one last gesture of goodwill she helped me call a cab from the corner of East Pike and Harvard. I knew she was hurt but would make it on her own, and wasn’t I hurt as well? I see her every now and again, but my mind is rarely in the moment, I’m thinking about Vermont.
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