Pine Cones

Rose found the pine cones. Twenty of them in a box. Twenty small pine cones which she meant to glue upside down on a straw wreath. She had gathered them one winter on a long walk in a neighborhood of mansions and shabby falling-apart houses. The mansions were a bit run-down, but beautiful. She’d love to renovate them. She thought about taking pictures, but the neighborhood seemed dangerous. Nobody was out on the street, but it had an atmosphere. She was sensitive to atmosphere. There were, however, pine trees everywhere. She stooped and picked up the pine cones. The pine cones were so small they fit in her pockets. Cars and trucks shot by slowly and she had a feeling they were pausing to look at her. Was she dressed too fancily in her secondhand Chanel coat, bought on e-bay? She shivered. She buttoned the top button of her coat. When a man in black came out on his porch and stood there holding a book, she scuttled down the street till she found a convenience store, asked directions, and then headed back to her office.

Find any good houses? her boss Kent had asked. He was always looking for a new old house. He wanted to move into the city.

Yes, but I’m not sure where I was. She looked at the map. Maybe I was here. Somewhere near a convenience store on Third Street.

He sighed. He couldn’t move there. All right for walks, though.

She took her pine cones home and put them in a shoebox. She liked shoeboxes. She collected them. She kept her sewing kit in one, a seashell collection in another. She kept her pine cones in a Timberland shoebox for two years.

First she covered the wreath with raffia. Then she attached the pine cones with a glue gun. The pine coney looked so beautiful upside down. Like lilliputian planets with sworls and petals. And she liked to use the glue gun. It got rid of her hostilities. Gluing pine cones on a wreath was somehow so much more satisfying than dealing with contractors.

The contractors were late. They should have finished the exterior. It was November and had already snowed twice. Instead they were working on a million other jobs. Occasionally they showed up and installed a new window. What was she paying them for? She had to be firm but indulgent. She couldn’t speak her mind. She couldn’t talk to them the way Kent did. If she did, they would resist. She had to act like a thin little woman. Thin little women didn’t yell. Not that she was that thin anymore. She weighed 142 pounds. Twenty years ago she had weighed 122. She had been nearly anorexic.

I want to be anorexic like you, her friend had said.

But people still treated her like a thin little woman.

Ben had never known her when she was skinny.

Kent yelled at the contractors. He was ferocious. He was a former state representative who had retired from politics and gone back to architecture. People did what he told them to. He was genial in his office but was a beast when he dealt with outsiders. He didn’t usually yell at anyone, but he yelled when the contractors were late.

What the hell? This is an important contract.

Rose was thrilled. Oh my God, he’s never lost it like that. If only I could.

Rose was often grim. She could keep her face utterly still, not move a muscle. Unlike Megan, whose face twitched. Megan had a naturally twitchy face.

That’s why I had to go into a helping profession, Megan often said.

But Rose couldn’t get men to obey her. Her still face wasn't enough. She wondered how Pelosi was going to do it. How did Hillary do it?

Rose was making the wreath for her neighbors. She thought she should join in the decorative fervor, hang something on her door.

Pine cones. She had never seen a prettier wreath. And to think she found them lying on the ground.

They sold them at craft stores.