CHAPTER 18

Walls of windows. That’s what the community center was basically made of, and though splattered and dirty, they offered a view of the surrounding jungle, visible by moonlight. The glass door had been locked, but she found the key under a pinkish rock, and let herself into the big echoey space.

On one wall, a row of tall cupboards, and behind that wall was what she presumed were small studios and bedrooms; she couldn’t check because the key didn’t open the big wooden door that separated this segment from the large room. But the cupboards opened, and she was delighted to find a treasure trove of art supplies. Blocks of wrapped clay, paints, canvasses, brushes, aprons, gloves, drop cloths, buckets, rags—so much potential! The last cupboard was filled with all sorts of random equipment, including, hallelujah, a Dremel tool and small pliers and dental picks and scissors and clippers, all of which would help with jewelry.

She stood in the dark room and inhaled. What was that smell? Perhaps it was oils used to coat the wood? Perhaps it was the wood itself? Or just layers of years of art in the making—paints and dyes and solvents, all infused with the smell of salt and sea. She stretched and did some yoga on a mat she found, then meditated, and then sat quietly in the predawn light—she’d decided to sneak into this area before any reasonable person would be up—and tried to focus not on the skill set of making jewelry, but rather on the impulse of it. What’s my vision? she thought. What am I trying to stand for?

Perhaps there was some aesthetic energy in pairing the violence of smashing beer bottles with the gentleness of the sea. Or she could create pieces that inspired care for Mama Earth. Perhaps she could…She wasn’t sure, and when she closed her eyes to imagine her ideal piece of jewelry, her mind was a blank. And now the sun was coming up, the first rays lighting the windows, and so she slipped out, replaced the key, and went for a walk on the beach. After an hour in the early light, she had found only a few shells, which she suddenly felt guilty picking up—didn’t the ocean need them?—and so she put them back but scanned the sand for sea glass. Near the rock outcropping, where all the mussels had attached themselves, she found one small piece, green and still jagged, very un-special and yet still a delight.

On the way back to the house, she scanned the beach and road for signs of life. No one. So she slipped into the community center again, spooked by its silence, which echoed even her light footsteps. She got on her hands and knees and rummaged through all the cupboards again. Surely there would be something she could use? Something that would inspire her?

There was only one low cabinet left unexplored, different from the others, smaller and handcrafted with thick wood. She crouched down and ran her finger over the lock. She pulled hard, but there was no budging the solid door. It was the most well-made cabinetry in the room, with fitted, hand-cut dovetail joints and an inlaid top of contrasting-colored wood, and she wondered if it was made from the now nearly extinct kauri trees. Regardless, it was gorgeous, and as she ran her hand over the top of it, she saw the word NAN expertly etched into the wood. Ah, the owner’s personal cabinet.

She stood, hands on hips, and gazed around the room. Scratched her chest and fingered the greenstone necklace. And looked down to see her fingers rubbing the thick key.

Naw.

But maybe?

She took off the necklace, and before she even got the key to the lock she knew it would fit. The lock and key looked like each other: thick, old, brass. A pair.

She held her breath, turned the key, heard the click, peered inside. The top shelf was stacked with faded, dusty papers. School notebooks and crayon drawings and crooked, awkward, delightful kid lettering. Was there anything sweeter than seeing the evidence of a child’s early learning? She got on her hands and knees and ran her hand over the bottom shelf. Empty, empty. Just a fine coat of dust, which became streaked with the motion of her fingers. But in the back corner, her hand hit something hard. She ducked even lower, her cheek now nearly on the floor. There were two canning jars, and she pulled them out, unscrewed one lid, and peered in.

Sea glass?

Yes.

Two jars of it.

No.

But yes. And why not? Who, living by the sea in the ’70s, would not collect sea glass? It had once been so ubiquitous. She squealed and spread the pieces out on the floor. Sitting crisscross over them, she breathed out a string of cusswords of joy. Their beauty was not in the mass of them but in each individual piece. The white ones were not just white—one looked like a frosted windowpane, another had a thin streak of lavender coursing through it, another looked like shell, another was ice blue with ripples. There were pearl colors and sand colors and eggshell colors.

The browns, equally diverse. Some the color of root beer, others like tea, others like earth. And the greens—the greens! Jade and pea green and apple green and pale green and lime green. There were a few with a crosshatch marking on them, and others that looked like the lids of old bottles. Some seemed to be flecked with mica, and others were solid. Dark greens, she knew, were for alcohol, since alcohol breaks down in light. The light greens, on the other hand, were likely soda bottles.

There were only a few blues—deep like a Noxzema bottle, and light, like the color of the bottle of gin she preferred. There were even fewer orange and red pieces—she’d read in the art book that orange will only be found one out of every ten thousand pieces collected. One piece was red with gold flecks, and she guessed this was likely a piece of a motorcycle or car lens light, back from when they’d used glass instead of plastic. Finally, there were even some weathered marbles—remnants of children’s beach games.

The most special thing about Nan’s collection, though, was that most of it was not “half-done,” the term for when it was not yet frosty, or still jagged. Nan’s pieces were true sea glass, which meant they were completely frosted, smooth, perfect.

She picked out twenty of her favorite pieces. She felt guilt—of all her poaching, perhaps this was the most inappropriate, because, unlike honey or a brush, they weren’t replaceable. That said, the jars had been hidden, dusty and forgotten. She also figured that she could simply undo any silver wrapping she was about to try, and could put the pieces back in the jars. Nothing she was doing was altering the sea glass permanently. She could, if needed, leave no trace. Except for one thing—which was to leave the key in the lock, so that some future person, Nan hopefully, could access the contents within.

She went back to the shack and read furiously and with intense interest. Sea glass, she discovered, took about fifty or sixty years to “make”—to be tossed in the ocean until smooth and frosted, which made these pieces about as old as she was, and also made her think about the people who’d tossed a bottle or had their house swiped into the sea long ago, when she was a child. She learned it was the acidity of the water that caused the frosting—which meant that sea glass looked different if it was in Lake Erie or the Tasman Sea. Another thing she hadn’t realized was just how rare it was now. In the ’70s, people would pick up sea glass up by the bucketful. Now, though, with so much being made of plastic, there was far less of it.

She looked up from her book and pictured Nan as a child, walking the beaches and collecting sea glass. How could this little girl have known that someday, a strange woman from America would be sifting through it, dreaming of her?

—

Aroha, it turned out, was one-fourth Māori, and informed Ammalie that the nearest art supply store of any quality was back in Auckland, where she went every other Tuesday for food, to visit her mother, and to attend a Māori gathering.

Ammalie was invited along for the ride, and she accepted. The winding drive on the extremely narrow road was too fast and panic-inducing, but safe in terms of conversation. Just as she had hoped, they simply chitchatted about America and New Zealand and joked about the road signage and quirkiness of New Zealand humor. Ammalie kept quiet and stammered a lot—which was not too hard, given her nervousness. She revealed only that she was undergoing a kind of identity crisis, which was true.

Once in Auckland, while Aroha attended to her own activities, Ammalie went into a shop filled with boxes of glorious beads and wires of every metal and size, wandering the store and poking around. For nearly an hour, she simply looked. She wanted to be patient and let ideas form. Finally, she started committing to decisions. She put an enormous charge on her credit card—something she hadn’t done this entire trip, save the flights to get here. But this purchase mattered very much to her immediate future, and she felt a zinging joy in taking a risk on herself. She bought glass beads, Czech crystal beads, semiprecious stones, pliers that curved, pliers that flattened, clasps, wire cutters, tweezers, ribbon clamps, pinch clasps, with most of her money spent on quality sterling silver wrap. She chose several gauges, and a lot of it, so that she could make mistakes. She had to allow herself to make mistakes; she needed the freedom of that.

As she checked out, she thought, What a gamble! She’d have to abandon all this if she had to run—and it cost so much money. But wasn’t all of life a gamble? Some gambles were just bigger than others—and she was in the mood to Go Big. Be Interesting. Be Bold. She was a jeweler-in-residence, after all. Artists needed supplies.

On the ride home, she kept the discussion focused on finding out about Nan and the residency, which she pretended to know very little about. She also found out that Aroha was single, childless, and had a small dog named GingerBeer. Besides her shop, and taking care of her mother, she spent her time volunteering at the Māori cultural center and guiding hikes at the regional park. She also loved adventuring—glowworm caves and the islands on the other side of Auckland were favorite destinations. She declared herself a content woman, which meant that her life had enough content, a line she’d heard was from Shakespeare: To be content, one must have content.

Ammalie felt a tug of shame or sorrow or jealousy, she wasn’t sure which. She and Aroha were the same age, approximately, but worlds apart, because Aroha had exactly what Ammalie wanted. To feel secure that one was living a full life, one with a seriousness of purpose and with some fun to boot.

Before Aroha dropped her off at the base of the driveway, it being too steep and rocky for her car, she said, “You know about the dick, yes? Don’t go out on the dick.”

Ammalie bit her lip to keep from snorting. “Ahhh—the dick?” She scanned her brain but arrived at nothing.

“Aye.”

“The dick?”

“The thing outside the house.”

“Oh! The deck!” She burst out laughing. “You New Zealanders. You flatten vowels, and you miss your r’s.”

“So, like lova, I should be saying love-er?”

“Lover, yes.”

“Aye. Lover.” Aroha enunciated the final r with emphasis, rolling it on her tongue, and gave Ammalie a wink.

Ammalie flushed, and to recover, blurted, “My dead husband used to collect mussels here. Can I do that? If I’m hungry? I don’t see anyone ever collecting them.”

Aroha smiled and let the look go. “No, not anymore. There’s the rāhui.”

“Rāhui?”

“In Māori culture, a rāhui is a form of tapu, and it means restricting the use of an area or resource. Wise use. You see? Self-control. For the sake of the world. But if you’re hungry, I can make you dinner at my place.”

“Oh, no. No, thanks. I’m off to design and create!” Ammalie shut the door quickly and waved and picked up her bags. No, she could not make a friend, or more-than-a-friend, if that’s what Aroha was intending.

—

She wanted to be bold, but not stupid. For example, she didn’t want the few locals seeing her on the beach all the time, so she woke when it was still dark and went for her first walk before sunrise, so that when the morning walkers were out, she was already back at the picnic table, working on jewelry. Never having been much of a morning person, she’d seen more sunrises on this trip than she’d seen the entire rest of her life, and she knew that Venus appeared in the west in the evening and in the east in the morning. She tracked the Southern Cross, and she learned about dark constellations, much more common in the southern sky, and which were patterns and shapes defined by the absence of stars.

She even made an effort to swish away her footprints on the one path that took her to the beach, using an old paddle she’d discovered thrown upon the rocks by the sea. But she was also brazenly not invisible: During the morning walks, she began to make beach art on the side of beach farthest from her but closest to the other houses. Some days, she used the great glistening ropes of bull kelp that washed up, and other days she used the paddle, dragging it to make huge swirls and swoops inspired by the Pasifika and Māori designs she’d seen. Other days she wrote messages like Cheers for a Lovely Day, Lovelies, or sometimes, with a small stick, she’d write her favorite bit of poetry from Stephen Crane, which she’d had to memorize in middle school:

A man said to the universe:

“Sir, I exist!”

“However,” replied the universe,