Bethany Jones 2004
They were going to the coin shop
because everyone says that the way to build a relationship is to build common
interests. And when they were through at the shop, they would go pick up a
tennis racket so he could play tennis with her tomorrow afternoon. Because compromise was another key to successful relationships.
She wasn’t sure this was a compromise; tennis was actually fun. But they’d been
dating for three months and yesterday they talked for the first time about
their future together. She liked the idea of him in her future and since coin
collecting was important to him, she said she’d like to more about coins.
Hilary
had never been in a coin shop before. There was only one in their
“Hi.
How’re you two?” he asked.
“Hey,
Gene,” Mike said. “This is my girlfriend, Hilary.” He put his arm across
Hilary’s shoulders and guided her towards the counter.
“Nice to meet you, Hilary.” The man smiled and stepped up to
the counter to shake Hilary’s hand. “Your boyfriend’s one of my best
customers.”
Hilary
smiled and told the man she was pleased to meet him. “Gene’s the owner,” Mike
told her.
Hilary nodded and looked
around. The shop was dark because the barred windows in the front and the light
from the backroom were the only sources of light. But then the owner switched
on the lights to illuminate the coins under the glass counter. With the lights
on, the place looked like a jewelry store, only with coins. The counter took up
the wall to the left of the front door; the catalogs, current price lists, and
coin holders were on the wall to the right of the door.
The
owner watched Hilary look around. He nodded at Mike, “Go ahead, show her
around.”
Mike gave Hilary the
grand tour: for reference, the latest edition of the Guide Book of U.S. Coins. Acid-free archival holders for paper money. The current commemorative coin selection. Then he got down
to business—he wanted to assess the value of a particular ten-cent piece. Gene
answered a few of his questions and then referred him to one of the guidebooks.
“Feel free to explore, Hil,” Mike said as he began to
flip through the book.
Since the options for
exploration were limited, Hilary stepped over to check out the coins displayed
under the counter. While she was
standing there, a tall older woman walked into the store. She paused after the
door closed behind her to remove the sunglasses that clipped to the front of
her bifocals. She wore elastic waist blue jeans, a denim top, and gleaming
white walking shoes. Her dyed brown hair was permed
into a bubble around her heavily-lined face. She smiled at Hilary and said
hello before she rang the bell on the counter.
The owner poked his head
out of the back room and his face lit up when he recognized the woman. “Mrs.
Patterson,” he said while making his way out front.
Hilary pretended to look
at some coins under the counter. She glanced at the older woman as she began to
talk with the owner.
“How’ve you been?” he
asked.
She answered, “Pretty
good, I guess.” She paused and then laughed a little. “Compared to this time
last year, things are really good.”
“Well, I know how that is
. . . Any family coming to town for the holidays?”
“Carol and her kids are
going to be here. So that’ll be fun.” She plunked her large purse down on the
counter and began to fish around in it.
“What do you have for me
today?” He took a seat on the stool behind the counter.
“Teeth,” the woman said
with a laugh while she pulled a sandwich bag out of her purse. She untied the twisties holding it closed and extracted four gold teeth.
The teeth were pretty big and looked like molars. They must have been crowns.
The man put his glasses on to look at them.
“How much for this one?”
she asked. She pushed one of the teeth
towards him.
He weighed it. “It’s fourteen karat,” he said. “So about forty dollars.”
“And this one?”
“Looks like they’re all
about the same,” he said. He
picked up the others and
weighed them. “It would be between
one-fifty and one-sixty for all four of them.”
She nodded in response.
“Can I get a check today?” she asked.
She was twisting the now-empty plastic bag in her right hand.
“Sure
can. It’ll be just a few minutes if you don’t mind waiting.”
“That’s
fine. I’m in no hurry.”
The
man went to the backroom to get out some paperwork. He left the four gold teeth on the counter.
Hilary looked up from the coins she was pretending to look at and turned around
to see if Mike noticed the sale at the counter.
He was hunched over a book, his eyes following his finger as he moved it
down each page.
Hilary turned back around
and took a step closer to the older woman. The woman turned to her and smiled.
She said, “You probably never thought old teeth could be valuable, did you?”
“No, I hadn’t thought of
it quite like that before.”
“Neither had I until I
was in here last time and noticed an older man selling them.” She leaned one elbow on the counter and
looked down. “I was selling a few coins
my husband and I bought years ago.”
“Are you and your husband
coin collectors?”
“We were . . . more him
than me. He passed away a year ago last week.” She looked down at the teeth on
the counter. “This is a hard time of year for me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Hilary
mumbled. She stared at the gold teeth.
The woman looked at
Hilary for a second. “Well, you know what they say. Time heals everything. Not
really true, but things do get
easier.” She paused, and Hilary looked up at her. “I was sixteen when we got
married. So this is my first time on my own.” The corners of her eyes crinkled
up as she smiled. “I can’t complain, though. He was a wonderful husband to me
and we had fifty-two good years together. I never even pumped my own gas while
he was alive.” She laughed and her eyes disappeared into her wrinkles.
Hilary laughed a little. “Wow, that’s
unusual,” she said and stared down at the woman’s white shoes. Then Gene came
out from the back room, and the two of them worked out the details and drew up
the check and receipt.
“Anything else for
today?” he asked after he handed her the check.
“This is it,” the woman
said. She slung her purse over her right shoulder.
“Glad you brought these
in. Do you more good as cash than as teeth. Come back
anytime, Mrs. Patterson . . . and happy holidays.”
“Merry Christmas to you,
Gene.”
Mrs. Patterson took her money order, smiled at the owner, smiled at Hilary, and
walked out the door. Hilary blushed; she hadn’t realized till then that she had
watched the whole transaction with blatant curiosity.
The
owner watched the woman leave the store. When the bell at the door stopped
jangling, he turned his attention to Hilary. “Did you want to look at anything
in particular?” he asked. He looked up
from the paperwork he was finishing.
“Umm, no. Just browsing.” Hilary
pointed to the other side of the store. “My boyfriend’s still looking at that
guide.”
The
man didn’t say anything for a few seconds. He was busy sliding the gold teeth
into a small brown envelope. The he looked up and said, “You know, he’s got an
impressive collection.”
“Yeah. He does.”
“Are you into
collecting?”
Hilary was sure he was
only trying to be polite; she obviously didn’t know what to do with herself in
a coin shop. “No,” she said. “We’re just trying to find out more about each
other’s hobbies.”
“Well, if you have any
questions, I’d be happy to answer them.”
Hilary
took him up on the offer. “Do people come in here often to sell teeth?”
“Every
once in a while,” he said. “It does seem
a little odd. I mean, this used to chew
up food.” He let a tooth fall out of the
envelope into his hand. He held it out
for her to look at.
She
shuddered. “Whose do you think they
were? Do you think they were her
husband’s?”
“Whoever’s
they were, they don’t need ‘em anymore.” He stared down at the teeth in his
hand. “You know,” he said, “All the mortuaries extract these from the corpses
and return them to the family. The mortician handed me five when my wife died.”
He chuckled. “I didn’t know she had that much gold in her mouth.”
“So the owner of that
tooth probably is her dead husband?”
Hilary asked.
“Probably.” He put the tooth back in the envelope and picked
up a pencil. “Anyway, now she’s got a little extra cash for the holidays.” He
labeled the envelope with the weight and karat. “Nice trade-off. I don’t think
Grandpa would mind a bit if his old teeth bought presents for the grandkids.”
“Works out well, I
guess,” Hilary said. “So, does she come in here very often?” Hilary glanced at
the door.
The owner didn’t answer
right away but then he said, “Jack, her husband, used to come in a lot. That
was before he got sick. Then he just stopped coming and I saw his obit in the
paper. A few weeks after that she came in with some coins to
sell me.”
“Does she need the money
or something?” Hilary leaned both arms on the counter.
“Naw, not really. I’m pretty sure Jack left her taken care of.” The owner pulled up a stool and sat down behind the counter. “She told me none of her kids are into coins, so she thought she might as well get the money out of the collection instead of saving it in some drawer.” He paused and then went on. “The first time she sold something she told me it wasn’t that she wanted to get rid of Jack’s stuff—it was just that she was over the collection phase of life, she said. She told me that she still loved Jack himself and didn’t wanna get all worked up over stuff connected with him. She told me,‘I wanna remember Jack, not his stuff.’ That’s what she said.”
The man finished his story and looked intently at Hilary—she felt like she should say something in response but she hesitated; just then the phone rang, and the man went to the back room to answer it, so Hilary wandered over to Mike.
“Hey, Hil,
look at this,” he said. He was pointing at something in a catalog, but his
finger was in the way, so she couldn’t see what it was.
“Cool. How
much?”
“Only
thirty-nine-ninety-five.
What do you think?”
“Sounds like a good
deal.”
“It’s a piece of economic
history. Let me show you what the Standard
World Catalog says about it.”
For the next half-hour
Mike debated his need for a commemorative Euro coin set. He ended up deciding
against buying anything. Hilary told him she fully endorsed his decision.
Mike opened the car door for her when
they left the store. Hilary was caught off-guard so she bumped into him. They
laughed. When he got in the other side, he asked how she liked the coin shop.
“It wasn’t what I expected. It really made me think,” she told him.
“That’s what I like about
collecting,” he said. “It’s such a unique hobby. Makes you think about history,
politics, economics.” He buckled his seat belt.
Hilary asked him if he
noticed the older woman selling four gold teeth.
“Is
that what she was selling? I didn’t hear.”
“Yeah, four gold teeth. And she said her husband died a year
ago. The owner told me morticians extract gold teeth and give ‘em back to the
family. They must have been her dead husband’s.”
“Kinda weird.” Mike put the car in
reverse and backed it out of the parking space. “Yeah, I heard her saying
something about her husband.”
“She
said they were married for fifty-two years. And she was only sixteen when they
got married. This is her first time on her own, she said. Her husband never
even let her pump her own gas. She said he was into coin collecting. And now
she’s coming in there with his old teeth.”
“Gold
is gold, I guess.” Mike turned the radio on and flipped through the stations.
“Where do you think we should go to buy a tennis racket?”
She
looked at him. There was a long pause. “Sports Central,” she said.
Neither
of them said anything for a few minutes.
“So
tell me more about what the coin shop made you think.” He turned to look at
her. But she didn’t say anything.
A different song came on
the radio, and she turned up the volume. “I forget exactly what I was
thinking.” She turned her head to look out the window. “Never mind, I guess.”
For a couple of days after that, Hilary
found herself telling a lot of friends about Mike and their “future together”
talk, and how they went to the coin shop and she saw the old woman selling old
teeth. “But I couldn’t explain it to Mike,” she’d tell her friends. “I wanted
to say to him, ‘Maybe it means something, Mike. Maybe it means something that
you can be married for fifty-two years and then be okay selling your husband’s
teeth. Maybe it means something that you can be on your own for the first time
when you’re old.’ But I didn’t say any of that,” she’d tell them. “We just went
to Sports Central and Mike bought a racket because that’s part of the plan
too—Mike’s gonna see if he likes tennis. But I keep thinking about the woman who
never even pumped her own gas.”
When she got to this part
of the story, Hilary would trail off. And she didn’t say it but she wondered if
the gold teeth were the kind of thing that people who talk about compromise and
shared interests could explain. At least, she decided, she shouldn’t forget
about it because maybe later she would understand what it meant.