This week’s story by Molly Tanzer threads a delicate line between reality and fantasy, finding that precise liminal space where the two meet. ~ Julian and Fran, March 17, 2024
This month’s stories are by authors Mary Robinette Kowal, PH Lee, Molly Tanzer, and Zohar Jacobs. The first story of the month is free to read, but it’s our paying subscribers who allow us to keep publishing great stories week after week.
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Eight Wedding Rings from Unhappy Marriages
by Molly Tanzer
My friend Eleni is a ceramicist. A potter, I guess, though to my mind that term doesn’t quite encompass the whimsical nature of her creations—pufferfish with pink-tipped spines; owls with wise faces and cleverly textured wings; a vase covered in crawling centipedes. But perhaps I’m engaging in artificial high/low art delineations here. All I mean to say is, her work is more ornamental than functional.
Eleni would probably call herself a potter.
Eleni is the co-founder of Poudre River Clay. Located in downtown Fort Collins, it has a storefront with items for sale, and in the back is a studio space where they teach classes and host speakers. This past autumn they held a pirate-themed fundraiser called Tipples & Treasures. The twenty-five-dollar ticket price got you in the door to browse a donated collection of one-of-a-kind antiques and two chits for “tropical” cocktails. All proceeds went to the organization.
Eleni wanted me to come. I tried to get out of it. I told her writers had to be home to write. She reminded me that even science fiction writers needed real-life inspiration. And she was right, I hadn’t been going out much—not that an antique jewelry fair hosted by a ceramics studio really counted as “going out,” but it was as close as I’d come on a Friday night in a while. So I said yes.
I was surprised how far they took the pirate theme. There were inflatable palm trees, and the event staff were all in costume, bandanas and puffy shirts. I even spied an eye patch.
“Attendees were invited to dress up too,” said Eleni, looking me up and down. I was wearing jeans and a black sweater a friend had once called my Hello, I am a writer turtleneck. Eleni, on the other hand, looked like an extra in a local production of Peter Pan.
“Once I get a cocktail, I’m sure I’ll seem more . . . yo ho ho,” I said.
“I’ll settle for you looking like you actually want to be here,” said Eleni.
“I want to be here,” I said. “Really.”
“Then let’s get you a daiquiri.”
The daiquiri actually wasn’t bad. It had a little paper parrot in it, which I liked. I sipped on it slowly so I wouldn’t get a brain freeze after Eleni turned me loose to browse.
I didn’t know what I was looking for, or if I was looking for anything at all, but the variety of unusual antiques successfully distracted me from feeling like I should be mucking about with my latest nonstarter of a short story. There were some lovely brooches, vintage pen sets, old coins. I browsed so long, I finished my drink. As I contemplated whether my next cocktail should be a mojito or a mai tai, I saw them: a pile of rings bearing the legend Eight Wedding Rings from Unhappy Marriages.
The rings were nothing special. It was the caption that fascinated me, handwritten in faded fountain pen on a mildewed piece of card stock. I asked the seller about the story behind them. She shrugged. They’d been donated like that, the card already in the box.
They weren’t terribly expensive, individually or as a set. More important, they had the tantalizing suggestion of being “a good story.”
I needed a good story. I hadn’t been able to finish anything in months.
But was their aura of intrigue worth the cost? Short stories aren’t real moneymakers, and while an unhappy marriage theme could carry a realist piece, my stories are all about spaceships and wizards and inscrutable eldritch gods. I wasn’t confident I could write anything at all about these rings, much less earn more than their asking price. But the sale would help out Poudre River Clay, and that was the purpose of this event.
I handed over my credit card.
As I was signing the vendor’s iPad with my finger, I felt someone come up behind me.
“‘Eight wedding rings from unhappy marriages,’” said a male voice. “Not everyone would jump at the chance to buy those.”
I turned around and found myself face-to-face with a man who was also not dressed as a pirate. He wore well-fitting jeans and a blazer with what looked like a vintage band T-shirt underneath, and he was far handsomer than anyone I’d expected to see that night. In fact, I was surprised to see any man at the event who wasn’t a husband dragooned by his wife into putting on a bandana and volunteering.
“What do you plan to do with them?” he asked.
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