Paper Doll
She cried.
The tears fell like flecks in a snow globe, slow and pristine. Few things break my heart like a woman crying. How awful is the outward manifestation of empty, broken dreams, with a companion broken heart to mend.
It stung. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t upset or melancholy. It still folded my heart in half. The crease would disappear in time, but for the moment, it hurt.
They unfolded and refolded against one another with each gentle press and tug of her hands: four simple paper dolls, joined by mitten hands. I wiped away some stray tears with my thumbs. She looked up, oak-brown eyes glistening like moist diamonds.
“I’ve never forgotten these,” she started.
“How could you forget when I just gave them to you?”
She traced the outline of each figurine with rapt attention. Her auburn hair fluttered as she quickly shook her head.
“No, no.” She forced a weak smile. “Something happened to me when I was a little girl. I never told anyone about it because it seems so trite. But I knew, even at nine years old, that it had an impact.” Carefully, she folded the string of dolls together until they were a four-layered singularity.
We’d been sitting on the beach-front porch of a small restaurant just yards from the Pacific Ocean. The dinner rush hadn’t begun yet, so we could hear the tide wash up on the shore. She had always adored watching the sun set against the ocean, and always remarked about the saltiness of the air. For the moment, though, she was quiet, looking down at the simple gift in her hands.
Given her cursory confession, I was lost, uncertain. With just one small kiss she brought me back into the moment. Sliding my arm around her, I pulled her to me.
The sun was fully a third of the way below the waterline when she kicked her feet out from under the bench and crossed them. Her long dress drifted with the pacific breeze.
“What had an impact?” I asked. She look up at me, slowly, as if trying to see if I was just toying with her, and once satisfied I was genuine, she glanced out at the ocean, then back down at the paper dolls in her fingertips.
“My dad had just transferred to teach at a new school in Bakersfield,” she began. “I didn’t know anyone at school. Nine years old, new girl in town, I was never what you’d call a social butterfly.”
“You were every bit as pretty as the Monarchs, though,” I said.
She stared directly into my eyes and asked, “How would you know? We didn’t meet until twelve years later.” She always had a disturbingly uncanny knack for remembering dates and such. Secretly, it annoyed me. I was envious of her abilities.
“You’ve always been beautiful. I always tell you that. Please, go on,” I urged.
Satisfied with the answer, she continued. “I remember the day perfectly.”
Big surprise, I thought.
“I’d been in school for three weeks and hadn’t made any real friends. I was something of a social pariah,” she remarked wistfully. “Not pretty enough, not agile enough, not this, not that. I was so lonely for such a little girl.”
She’d been staring out to sea, almost trancelike. I could see a couple of tears fall again in the warm light of the setting sun. Again came the sting of helplessness.
She thumbed the thick edge of the paper doll and sighed.
“The day was overcast, but I felt so blue. I still remember the shouts of the other children as they played and laughed: other groups of girls teasing each other about liking boys, boys playing kickball and swinging on the monkey bars. And I sat by the bike racks, like I did every day, waiting for the bell to ring so it would end and I could get back to class. But this one day, it happened.” Her voice was mesmerizing. It dropped to an emphatic whisper when she said it happened. Emotion bled into the timbre of her speech.
I didn’t dare utter a word, but my eyes begged her to keep going.
“A boy walked around the corner, by the equipment room. I recognized him from my class. Didn’t know his name. He was new too, I think. Didn’t say much in class and kept to himself outside of class. He was wearing a blue and white striped shirt and blue jeans. I just sat there and watched him. It suddenly dawned on me that he was walking toward me. Why me? What does he want?” She paused again to gaze at the doll. It was not much more than a bloated stick figure on bleached paper, but to her, something far more engaging.
She unfolded the doll in the middle, holding it up in the failing light. Two small figures seemingly came to life with her touch.
“He stopped directly in front of me. Didn’t say a word for what seemed like minutes. Just looked at me and smiled. All I thought to say was Hi. His eyes smiled back at me.” She closed her eyes for a second, grinning sheepishly. “I know, how could I tell at nine years old, but I swear they smiled at me.”
“Anyway, he’d had his hands behind his back since he’d walked around the corner. All of a sudden he swung his hands out in front of him and said, ‘I made this for you.’”
She stretched the dolls apart so all four seemed to dance against the last quarter of the sun that hovered above the horizon. “I never saw him after that day. He had no idea how good he made me feel.”
I could hear her sigh above the encroaching tide. I leaned over and kissed her softly on the temple.
“He handed you a set of paper dolls, almost exactly like those.” She nodded. “You say you never knew his name or saw him again?” I asked.
“We finished class that afternoon, and I never saw him in class again. I never got the chance to thank him.”
“But you have, sweetheart. You just don’t know it.”
I could tell she was trying to figure out how or when, and gave her a reassuring squeeze.
“You were wearing a denim-blue dress with a red and white checkerboard stripe at the bottom.” Her hands dropped to her lap, the dolls lying slack upon her dress. “I’d known your name since the second day—Kelsey Fulsom. I was only ten, but just as alone as you. Instead of going outside and playing with the other kids, I’d stay inside. Sometimes I’d play my dad’s records. One song I always liked was called ‘Paper Doll.’” I sang a couple of lines:
I’d rather have a paper doll that I can call my own
A doll that other fellas cannot steal
Her eyes lit up. “I’ve heard that song before! My grandfather used to play it on his clarinet.” Looking down, I gently reached over and held her wrist.
“I knew my family was moving the next day, so I made the dolls with the foolish hope you’d keep them. I had a schoolboy crush on you. And you didn’t imagine the smile in my eyes, it was there. I also knew I’d find you again—someday. And when the time was right I’d give you another set of paper dolls.”
She started to cry again, for the third time. But these tears didn’t sting as the others had.
“See, I’d always wanted my own paper doll. Whether it was the song or some other influence, I don’t know,” I said, my own eyes becoming watery. “But I knew, from that moment on that you have been my paper doll.”
“But how did you find me?”
“Serendipity. Nothing more. But I found you. That’s what’s important.”
My wife settled against me just as the last shred of sun dipped into the ocean. I got that same feeling I had the day we crossed paths again. All was right—perfect in its warmth and simple grace.
“I always thought I’d wind up alone,” she said while rubbing my fingertips.
I paused to watch night put its hand on day’s shoulder, crisp and clear, and the stars began to play. I turned to look at her, bathed in twilight.
Leaning forward, I whispered in her ear, “Love is the reason you’ll never be alone.”