THERE are eight boxes neatly arranged in the Sixth Avenue
window of Kaiser’s Shop for Men, artfully placed next to a striped silk tie
(maroon and navy), a cashmere scarf (camel-colored), and a pair of pigskin
gloves splayed out to show, reassuringly, all ten fingers. In each box is a set
of cufflinks, moored to their satiny base by little white pieces of elastic,
like miniature ski bindings.
My father’s birthday is in three days. Do I dare give him yet
another set? I agonize over the reproduction Greek coins, gold-plated and
daringly irregular in shape. A man’s head is immortalized on both sides of each
link. These are my favorite. But for a traveling salesman? I let my eyes slide
once again over the plain silver disks with the etched concentric circles, the
horse’s heads in “antiqued” pewter, the Aztec serpents in what must be
sterling…beyond my budget. I wait for my eye to be permanently caught, for “it”
to happen. Then it does. The mother-of-pearl ovals, skiing on royal blue velvet slopes. My heartbeat accelerates as I
imagine my father’s eyes widening, his bushy eyebrows going up as he opens the
white leatherette box.
The shop window is fogged and greasy in several spots by the
time I step away and push the door open. An hour must have passed, easy, since
I first began my scrupulous fact-finding mission. But I am sure now. There is
no other choice but the mother-of-pearl, shining like the teeth of Gérard
Philipe, my latest crush. When my father wears them, he and I will both have
reason to smile.
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