Visits: 16
At 18, I didn’t want to be the captain of my own fate. Fourteen years later, I do, and am.
My first job after college was as a seasonal sales associate at Macy’s in my hometown of Joplin, Mo. I had already worked there on two separate occasions before moving away for school. Now I was back, invariably ducking behind jewelry displays to avoid being spotted by old classmates.
Being home and working at Macy’s wasn’t exactly my plan. Four years earlier, at 18, I had graduated high school a semester early, accepted a full-ride scholarship to a private college and broken up with my boyfriend to make a fresh start.
But my newfound liberty didn’t last long: Over that heady, lonely summer, I found myself back with my ex — and pregnant. Our pastor advised us to marry. That hadn’t been my plan either, but it was a plan, and I agreed to this new future, suddenly relieved to no longer be the captain of my own fate.
I enrolled at a local state school and took my first post at Macy’s, in the home department, where I spent my free time choosing items for our wedding registry: a bedding set, bath towels, nesting mixing bowls.
Six weeks later, a sonogram revealed that I had miscarried. Family and friends seemed quietly relieved that I could return to my life, but I didn’t think that I could ever go back. Too tired to reverse it all, and unwilling to accept that the pregnancy and its loss served no larger meaning, I forged ahead with the wedding.
My second stint at Macy’s began when I was five months married and two weeks separated. No longer interested in the domestic sphere, I moved to jewelry, where I could admire cases of superfluous, pretty things.
It was November. In January, after transferring to a larger school, I would finally leave my hometown — 18 months later than planned, but better late than never. It was that frightening “never” that had given me the courage to ask for a divorce, shocking my husband, who thought we were on our way to homeownership and eventual age-appropriate parenthood.
Macy’s kept extended hours from Black Friday through Christmas, which perhaps made sense in bigger cities. But Joplin was a sleepy town, and the revenues from the few insomniac shoppers must have barely covered the cost of keeping the lights on. Still, I reveled in the quiet and volunteered for late shifts, untangling necklaces and wiping fingerprints from mirrors, feeling like a mannequin come to life.
I also passed those nights texting an old crush made new. We had been spending more time together since I left my husband, and though nothing notable had happened, the possibility of being partnered again buoyed me. I didn’t know how to be alone, and I’m not sure that I would have found the strength to end my marriage without the idea of fleeing to someone else.
I went so far as to imagine what our wedding would look like — a classier affair, to be sure, than my first frugal effort. My petition for divorce was still pending for the requisite 30 days — lest I come to my senses and call off the calling off — and here I was, already dreaming of doing it all over again.
Fortunately, my crush had no similar intentions. After many tear-filled nights, I decided that rebounding was passé and resolved to stay single. I threw myself into my new life away from home, and though I dated intermittently over the next three years, I grew used to being no one’s partner. After a while, I even preferred it that way.
And then there I was again, at 22, whiling away another holiday season behind the jewelry counter at Macy’s, working the late shift because I preferred the eerily empty store to being surrounded by clamorous shoppers.
As a temp, I was relegated to costume jewelry, and I often found myself drifting to the fine jewelry cases to ogle diamonds that gleamed so much brighter than my cubic zirconia wares. One night, as Frank Sinatra’s holiday album drifted through the empty store, I encountered the pearls.
Artfully draped over a headless bust, they were a dusky pink, strung in a necklace that fell in three concentric loops set off by matching stud earrings. Every night I would circle the case, giving my best impression of carelessness, slowing when I got to the pearls and pretending to look at a ring or a bracelet nearby. I was a woman obsessed.
Once, I casually asked my co-worker the price, under the guise of shopping for my mother, too ashamed to admit I wanted something so extravagant for myself, only to learn it was an astronomical sum. After several weeks of watching me lured by their siren call, the associate sighed and asked if I had considered my employee discount.
I nodded, pretending that would make them something I could afford.
Though I had been single for three years at this point, I still envisioned wearing the pearls at my second wedding. This time, the role of groom was uncast, the date obscured in some hazy, faraway future.
All I imagined were those pink strands around my neck, the drops on my ears, mature yet girlish, signaling that I was no longer a child bride trying to look grown but an adult wise enough to embark on her second marriage. And I wanted to say that I had bought the pearls myself, when I had been single, without even the lifeline of a crush.
Eventually, I took the leap, charging the pearls to my Macy’s card. My co-worker put them in a velvet-lined box that she slid into an elegant leather pouch. I put the pearls in a bin in my closet, planning to leave them undisturbed for several years — maybe a decade — until I would reveal them to my future betrothed.
I was mostly successful at this plan, disturbing the bin only once, in January, as I packed up my bedroom to move into my first solo apartment, afforded by my new job as a mortgage clerk.
But several months later, on a quiet night on my own, I was struck by an urge to see the pearls, and I couldn’t find them in the bin. My search widened and grew frantic: I tore open every drawer, upended every catchall, turned out every pocket, before ultimately convincing myself that they would turn up the next time I moved.
I have moved five times in the decade since, and they have never reappeared.
For years I grieved those pearls — the wasteful expense, the irresponsible loss. I imagined someone at Goodwill stumbling across the leather pouch while sorting through my bags of unwanted clothes, reveling in the little treasure. I hope they found a good home, maybe even on the neck of a happy bride.
Of course, I made other missteps after 22. Through most of my single years, I had sex with men I didn’t want to have sex with because it felt easier than saying no — and I often did so while drunk, to dull the physical pain I had experienced since the miscarriage — until I discovered pelvic floor therapy, which radically changed my sex life and romantic relationships.
I worked at a series of jobs I didn’t care about, berating myself for losing track of my so-called “path,” before finding, in writing and journalism, work about which I felt passionate. And I spent enough time in therapy to forgive my 18-year-old self for fumbling her way into pregnancy and marriage, for being tired and willing to give up the reins of her life for a little while. I try not to grip those reins too hard now but let them rest in my hands.
Today, I live in a Montana mountain town that doesn’t have a Macy’s. I’m 32 and plan to get married again next year, though I’m not technically engaged; my partner and I have been talking about our intentions, envisioning what we want our life to look like. When we first started dating, we were disillusioned with marriage, so we have been surprised to learn, four years in, that we have warmed to the idea.
After weathering family crises and a pandemic, we would like to celebrate the joy we have found together with a small, festive ceremony. We’re pretty sure we won’t have children, and we’re considering revisiting our marriage contract every five years and consciously deciding whether to renew it. Maybe that’s antithetical to the whole concept, but we like the idea of making the institution our own.
A friend who sells vintage clothing even gave me a wedding dress: Old and ornate, it fits me like a glove. I can’t help but wonder who wore it first — someone who made her own mistakes, changed her mind, tried again. Maybe I’m the latest in a long line of brides, each carrying our own baggage and hopes down the aisle like little existential bouquets.
As it turns out, the dress is high-necked, so I won’t be needing a necklace.
Eliza Smith, who lives in Missoula, Mont., is special projects editor at Lit Hub and the co-editor of the essay anthology, “Sex and the Single Woman.”
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