Goldie Luckey, this week's featured author from Round Hill, Nova Scotia

I have always expressed myself through writing and have been working on a family history for more than ten years. After retiring and moving to Elliot Lake in 2009 I was fortunate to become a member of the Elliot Lake Writers’ Workshop. My more experienced writer friends encouraged me to write, which resulted in five of my stories being published in the workshops’ anthology ‘Penpourri’. Now living in rural Nova Scotia, I am in the process of writing a series of short stories for a book on The Adventures of Goldie Maxine. This book will chronicle my childhood experiences growing up in Newfoundland.

 

The Turquoise and Gold Medallion

By Goldie Luckey

 

Looking in the jewelry store window fifteen year old Maddie admired a gold medallion encrusted with turquoise stones.  It had a long thick linked chain and would really look fabulous with her new black flapper dress, cloche hat and T bar shoes.  It cost ten dollars, more than she earned in a week at her job as a live in ‘child nurse’.  At least, this was what her employer referred to her as.  In reality she had quit school after grade four and found a job.    Although she only made eight dollars a week, she did live in and as her employer owned a clothing factory, fashionable clothes part of the bargain.  Too bad he didn’t make jewelry too!

   Ok, she thought if I don’t have my weekly Oh Henry bar, or if I cut out treats entirely, it shouldn’t take me too long to save ten dollars.  If I was meant to have the necklace, it will still be there. 

Maddie opened her bank and counted her savings, ten dollars and seventy cents, enough to buy the necklace!  Right after work, dressed in her employers’ newest hunter green, fur trimmed wrap coat she hurried to the street car.  Her greatest fear was realized, the necklace wasn’t in the window! 

At the sound of the tinkling door bell, the elderly jeweler looked up from his work and removed his jeweler’s glass. 

“Good evening sir” Maddie beseeched “the turquoise medallion you had in the window, has it been sold?”

“Oh my, did I forget to put that back in the display” he said scratching his head.  “A young woman looked at it this afternoon but thought it was too expensive, oh here it is.” “I’ll pay the price” said Maddie, eyes dancing happily. ‘Eight dollars, that’s the price, right?” Clutching her treasure Maddie rushed out of the store and strode to the street car stop.

Maddie blinked back her tears as she arrived at the train station keeping her family at a distance.   Her Mother was making her go back home to St. John’s, why couldn’t she stay in Montreal?   ‘Too young to be there on her own” her Mother had told her employer when she’d begged her to let Maddie stay.  The sunlight bounced off her medallion and made the gold glisten as she entered the train with leaden feet.  Each time the train whistle blew she felt like she was chugging closer to her doom.

Maddie was over the moon, she was getting married today.  They didn’t want a big wedding, just a few friends to share their big day.  She’d bought a cream colored suit with a fashionable long pencil skirt, an outfit that really set off her curly blue black hair and green eyes.  She sat dreaming about her handsome husband to be, his bright blue eyes, blonde hair and his smile, one that made her heart melt.  Her medallion looked lovely with her suit; she’d shortened the chain so that it sat just right.  Today she would be leaving her mothers’ house to start a new life in her own home.

Maddie looked around at the house that they’d bought for a ‘bargain’.  It’s starting to look livable she thought. I cringed when we first looked at it and had very serious doubts that we were the miracle workers my husband thought we were.  Turning her medallion around like a magic talisman she continued her ‘transformation’.

“Maxine, don’t tug on my necklace love, you’ll break it!”  Maddie smiled as she untangled her two year old daughters’ chubby fingers from the chain of her favorite turquoise medallion.  She had just picked it up from the jewelers, a victim of Maxine’s last accident.  The new lock on her jewelry box kept her treasures protected from her other little treasures.

Maddie took a final look in the mirror wishing that her hair could be fashionably straight; no amount of teasing made it less wavy for very long.  Attending Maxine’s graduation was a real milestone and she wanted to make a good impression.  She had been assured that her burgundy twin sweaters and pencil skirt, both gifts from her sister in Montreal were the height of fashion. Her turquoise medallion was a perfect addition.  With a final swipe of her brush she rushed downstairs to join her impatient family.

Maddie looked around at the multitude of boxes; she was leaving her home of more than forty years today.  After her husband died she had tried to keep the house up but she was only one person and at seventy eight it was a lot of work.  The seniors’ apartment just outside the city was very functional and the other tenants seemed like nice people.  It would be an adjustment, but in reality a welcome relief.  She had taken special care to look nice today.  She was told that her comfortable navy pants suit was very flattering and her turquoise medallion really brought out the hazel in her eyes.  Off we go Maddie, she thought on to a new adventure.

 Maxine took the beautiful turquoise and gold medallion out of her jewelry box.  More than sixty had passed since her fifteen year old mother had scrimped to possess it.  Now after admiring it for as long as she could remember, her mother had given it to her.   “Come here you beautiful object” Maxine said to her treasure “you are going to make me the envy of my friends and probably everybody else at the gala.”