Improbably somehow, around second grade, I acquired a fistful of paper bills, play-pretend money. I don’t know why or where. Mother and Daddy would never have purchased anything so inconsequential or commercial. I didn’t filch it from the Monopoly game. Maybe the Shivers cousins? Maybe some store giveaway? The bills were bigger than real ones, printed on plain paper. Even though I played “restaurant” and upscale “clothing store” in our Ash Street basement, I was utterly indifferent to the value of fake money in my fantasy life.
But there that illegal tender lay when Nancy Lloyd brought over her brown and yellow teddy bear. He’d been well-loved by then, a bit grubby, skin parting over joints. His rust-brown and yellow fur already growing bare on paws and cheeks. But Teddy Bear had a winsome look, his plastic eyes glancing demurely down his little upturned muzzle. And when I twisted his tail, he still played four notes of tinny music. Though he wore no tag or logo, he seemed to have started life in the toy department of a fancy mercantile–sporting a distinguished pedigree from a name brand 1940s company.
Lord, I wanted him. And somehow, I talked Nancy into believing that my sheaf of play money was a more-than-fair trade for musical Teddy Bear. I can’t remember twisting Nancy’s arm or hearing her protest. She didn’t muse about his origins or express any real loss. We made the deal quickly. No parent intervened.
I knew better. I knew without a doubt that I’d gotten a sweet and shady deal. That I shouldn’t have even raised the possibility. I was a goody-two-shoes product of Sunday school lessons on stealing, parental talks about fairness, and library books on children’s morals and manners. I’ve felt guilty for seventy years. I’ve apologized more than once in my Christmas note to Nancy, who seems to have little memory of the transaction. I still feel guilty and infinitely delighted by my little bear companion.
He sits now with his paw around the black doll’s shoulder, giving her a bit of stability in their older years and mine—allegories, companions. ©
