The Strawberry Earrings: Part Two

Continue reading Marie's story after her adventure in Magentaland...

Read Part One To Marie’s Story!

Marie looked at herself in the mirror, wearing her usual attire. A chunky gray sweater hung loosely over her shoulders, paired with a striped skirt of alternating dark and light gray lines. Pebble-colored pantyhose ran down her legs, disappearing into gray sneakers.

Her usual silver hoops lay on the dresser, waiting to be the final touch to the outfit. To the left of them sat the strawberries, a pair of earrings she had been given. They gleamed with a red too vibrant for Graytown, equally hoping to be chosen.

She bit her lip and stared down at both. Her hand moved side to side between them, uncertain.

Quickly, as if worried she might change her mind, she placed one of each in her ears — the hoop in the left lobe, the strawberry in the right. Like dipping a toe into a river that called for her whole body.

Slowly, she turned away from the mirror and took tentative steps toward the door. Her hand met the knob. The cold of the metal sent a sharp pulse up her arm, making all her senses spark. She turned on her heel, returned the hoop to the dresser, and placed the second strawberry in her ear.

With a smirk tugging at her lips and her stomach doing somersaults, she walked downstairs to greet her mother.

Her mother was bent over, tossing boxes and cans around as she dug through a cupboard. All Marie could see was her back.

“Hi, Mom!”

“Hi, honey. Are you off to school?” her voice called from inside the cabinet.

“I am!”

“Have a wonderful day!”

She didn’t turn around. She didn’t look Marie in the face. She didn’t bear witness to the bold fruit dangling from her daughter’s ears.

The gymnasts in Marie’s stomach tripped and tumbled, leaving behind only uncomfortable bubbles.

Still, she reminded herself that she would have a chance to show off her earrings over dinner. She stepped outside and left for school.

The first person to see her was Ms. Dove, the guidance counselor. Other students received half-hearted greetings and weary nods, but Marie’s was different, vastly different.

The older woman dropped her clipboard, clutched her chest, and gasped. Her eyes widened behind thick-framed glasses.

“Marie, your earrings!”

Marie froze. For a split second, she thought she saw wonder in Ms. Dove’s eyes. Or maybe it was concern.

She gently pressed her hands behind her ears, unsure whether she was shielding the earrings or presenting them.

“They’re really something,” Ms. Dove added, a large gulp visibly traveled down her throat.

No one else spoke to Marie that day. Even her closest friend, Sam, who always talked about escaping Graytown, about seeing the world, kept his distance. It was like she was a walking pathogen.

Her ears were bare during dinner that night. She held the strawberries close in her lap, checking on them between bites of food, making sure they, too, hadn’t abandoned her.

The next day was the same. Some ignored her. Others stared.

Sam spoke on the fourth day. He didn’t meet her eyes.

“New earrings?” he asked, as if the words themselves were dangerous.

Marie nodded, her chest tightening. It wasn’t a question. It was a boundary.

Rumors floated in whispers. Lies that the earrings were cursed, or that Marie was trying to get attention surrounded her.

Then came the graffiti.

She walked to her locker to perform her usual morning routine. A crowd had gathered around it, whispering, pointing, covering their mouths.

“She’s here!” someone shouted.

The students split into two, forming a path for her. At the end of it, scrawled in thick, jagged strokes:

FREAK!
WE HATE YOUR EARRINGS!
YOU HURT OUR EYES!

Below the words was a crude, childlike drawing of a strawberry.

Her nose prickled, warning of the tears she was trying to blink away. She craned her neck and walked through the crowd, trying to hold her head high.

She made it through the day. Alone in her bed that night, a single tear traced down her cheek and soaked into the pillow.

The following weeks got worse.

Every time the janitor scrubbed the paint off her locker, new graffiti appeared by morning.

Students she'd never even spoken to knocked her books from her arms in the hallway.

Even teachers joined the crusade. Ms. Blaine skipped over her three times in a single class.

Marie was being othered.

When someone sneered, or something happened, she’d reach up and gently rub the back of one of the earrings like her version of a rosary.

The final person to negatively react was her mother.

“Must you wear those things every day?” she asked at breakfast, not looking up from her coffee.

Still, Marie caressed them.

Then, after three long months, something unimaginable happened.

While walking to class, she saw it, just out of the corner of her eye. Something daring. Something new. The same painful and wonderful feeling as Magentaland stirred in her chest.

Her books slipped from her hands, not from being knocked, but because she had forgotten to hold them.

Down the perpendicular hallway came Maxwell, a boy she had never spoken to but seen in town, in class, at the edge of her awareness.

He wore charcoal slacks, a cloud-colored T-shirt, and something else.

His shoes gleamed of emerald, green. Bright. Unmistakable. Undeniably not from Graytown.

Marie’s jaw dropped as low as the books at her feet.

When he reached her, he smiled. Gently, he touched one of her earrings.

“I went to Greencity because of you,” he said, his voice quiet but certain. “Thank you.”

She blinked, stunned. Her spine straightened. Shoulders pulled back. Something that had become unfamiliar to her pulled at her lips. It was a smile.

He offered her his arm. She took it, looping herself into him.

Heads turned as they passed. Some shocked, some were curious, and some beginning to wonder.

Together, magenta and emerald strode through the gray, a spark of change in a world that refused to see.

Why I Wrote This

My husband and I have been digital nomads for the past year, working remotely while exploring new places.

Still, when we told someone about our lifestyle recently, he called us “professional bums.” That moment stuck with me — not because it hurt, but because of how wrong it was. So, I’ll clarify to avoid any assumptions that might leave me wanting to push my middle finger in the air towards folks: we both spent years building our own companies to get to this point (I run a therapy private practice and he operates a tutoring company).

We’ve been lucky enough to travel to more than fifteen cities in that time. While most of our destinations were in the US, a large chunk of that time was spent in the Yucatan in Mexico. I started this story before going there, but I feel it so deeply in my core after my time abroad. Mexico has the forbidden fruit and vibrant colors of this story. We’re often taught not to go outside of the very thick lines that we’re presented in life. This lesson is reinforced with messages centered around getting married, having kids, getting a job that you stick with for decades, buy a house in a city that you never leave, etc.

I don’t want that. I’ve never wanted that. I don’t think we have to want that to be fulfilled. Fulfillment is whatever you find for yourself that works for you, truly works for you and doesn’t leave you constantly wondering what life could be like.

If being married with kids in your four bedroom house is what makes you pop at the seams with joy, go off! If it doesn’t, I think it’s important to be like Marie— unafraid to access color outside of whatever lines you were born into.

-Bri