Free The Other Side of Blue by Valerie O. Patterson

across my body, over my left shoulder. It dangles there, the button closure open, tempting pickpockets. It holds some small coins, a bandana, a map from the cruise ship that someone dropped and I scavenged.
    A bell over the door tinkles as we enter Colores, barely noticeable above the clatter of the air conditioning. Kammi stands just inside the doorway, taking in the wooden bowls of beads covering every empty space. I felt the same way the first time I came here. It is too much—the colors, the textures, the promise.
    At the first table, Kammi runs her fingers through blue glass beads.
    â€œLike your sea glass,” she says. She picks out an assortment of blue beads and bundles them into a small white envelope. Then she heads for the silver beads at a table across the room. She can see possibilities.
    I turn away and hang out near the front counter, waiting for the owner to appear. Kammi’s seen the sea glass in my room. Does she know I gather it every morning, early? The
sea is my field. It decides whether to give up its treasures, whether to cast onto the beach shards of glass, worn smooth, for me to glean. I only keep the best blues.
    â€œDo you have crimps, pliers?” Kammi asks. She’s moved on to the shelves of tools and wire.
    â€œYes,” I say from across the room. I pretend to look at beading magazines by the checkout. I don’t want her to see my sale. Mother doesn’t know about the sea glass. I didn’t even pack pliers. But I left an old, cheap set of tools that Martia knows about in the storage area under the deck. Some silver wire, too, in a velvet pouch. It’s probably all tarnished now, since it’s been a year.
    â€œBeading thread?”
    I nod. A spool should be there. I look over leaflets for beading classes being held here on the days the cruise ships dock in port. For tourists again. The door opens, and three cruise-ship tourists—I can tell from their shoulder totes labeled with the ship’s name—waddle in, out of the heat.
    Kammi wanders down another aisle of wooden dishes teasing her with beads—glass, coral, wood, even plastic, like the beads they throw to tourists in New Orleans during Mardi Gras.
    The owner, Antje, appears from the back room, her thighs swishing together under a wide-banded skirt. She’s come out because of the tourists, who laugh and joke with each other about who makes the best necklaces back home in New Jersey. When Antje sees me, she motions with her
hand, pats the barest space of counter, as though I haven’t been gone a year.
    From the pocket in my skirt, I take out a plastic bag of small bits of sea glass, spilling them onto the wooden counter. Antje squints and runs her hands over each piece, as if she can tell by touch whether they’re fake, whether they’re from this island. Or if they’re tumbled by machine rather than by the ocean. The artist who buys them from her wants only local glass—she says it evokes the mystery of the island. It costs more, too, the shop owner knows. In exchange for the glass, Antje counts out small bills and square coins for me. She slips them into a white paper envelope as if they’re beads I’m purchasing. In case the taxman comes snooping, she says.
    I look over my shoulder. Kammi is distracted by the boxes of Venetian glass beads, these and the tourists exclaiming all around her about the spiraling blown glass. She doesn’t even notice my transaction.
    My secret is safe.

Chapter Eleven
    K AMMI AND I leave Antje cajoling the tourists, trying to sell them Chinese beads at European prices. Outside, I breathe in the heat and blink at the brightness.
    â€œLet’s go this way,” I say, pointing away from the shopping district.
    â€œOkay,” Kammi agrees, following me. Not questioning.
    I’ve been thinking about the commissioner’s letter, how the report is final and sealed away forever. To me, though, it’s like a scab,