Annabelle Lee had a room of her own, wallpaper from the movies, and an iPhone.  She had a closet full of clothes, many with price stickers still on them; she had one favorite sweatshirt, hidden in the corner so that Mariana, the cleaning lady, would not put it in the wash. Annabelle Lee swore that the sweatshirt would never be washed because she wore it the day the seventh-grade boy with the thick silver chain asked her for a cigarette by the fountain; she did not have one, but the moment lasted anyway.  On top of it all, Annabelle Lee had a porcelain doll; she had other dolls, too, but the porcelain doll was her favorite, though she never gave it a name, but just called it “my doll.” Annabelle Lee would say:  “My doll is fine today, and she is polite, and she is planning a tea party.”

           Mariana just smiled in motion – a vacuum moved back and forth, a frying pan moved back and forth, paper towels soaked in pine cleaner moved back and forth over the bathroom mirror. 

            The porcelain doll was a present from Annabelle Lee’s father; he had presented it to her after a business trip to Texas; he said he went to a gigantic store that only sold dolls, but when he got to the store, it was closed because all the stores in Texas are closed on Sundays.  Then he saw a worker open up a side door, and Annabelle Lee’s father went in and asked if he could just buy one doll, it will only take a minute, why even this one right here – and he pointed to one that was upside down in its large box next to the door; the box had an orange sticker on it that said “75% Off”.  When Annabelle Lee’s father got the tall doll to his car, he looked more closely at it, and realized that it was a discount doll because its toes were a funny shape. 

           “Those toes look like lima beans, but I thought you’d love her anyway,” said her father when he gave Annabelle Lee the doll; and of course she did.

            Annabelle Lee treated the doll gently, and often placed it on top of pillows or in its own chair – the doll was given pride of place. 

            Annabelle Lee’s parents argued a lot; at first, with noise followed by apologies:  those fights never bothered Annabelle Lee, and she thought of them like you think about rain.  But then, over time, the arguments grew cold, a moment of grace with the palm of a hand left undone, a note unwritten, a tender mercy frozen in flight.  It got chilly enough that Mariana started to wear a sweater even in the kitchen when she fried up ground beef for tacos, which were Annabelle Lee’s favorite dish.  One fall day, Annabelle Lee also put on wool gloves partly for style and partly because of the chill. 

           “Hmm,” thought Annabelle Lee, “my doll should have gloves, too.” 

            Mariana smiled and moved a cloth back and forth on the dining room table, where no one ever ate so that the wood would not get scraped, and said:  “Use a bit of cloth and a needle and make gloves for the doll.”

            And Mariana taught Annabelle Lee how to use a needle and thread, for Annabelle Lee was a fast learner, and her parents told her that she would one day excel in college.  It was time to find a bit of cloth for the doll, and Annabelle Lee decided to make an entire outfit out of her special sweatshirt; and so Mariana moved scissors back and forth and soon enough there was gray cloth for a dress, and plenty left over for gloves and boots.  Annabelle Lee undressed her doll.  “My, your toes look more like lima beans than ever before,” said Annabelle Lee – then she noticed cracks, in the swarm-shape of a leafless tree in winter, growing along the doll’s back.  That night, Annabelle Lee’s parents never said a word to each other, and ate supper apart; the next day, the cracks in the doll’s back had doubled in size.  Annabelle Lee asked Mariana if this happened to all porcelain dolls, or if maybe the doll was sick; Mariana moved her hand back and forth over the doll’s light-colored hair, and said, gently, that she did not know much about porcelain dolls, but she knew a lot about the weather, and the doll’s problem was that it was freezing.

            “But she’s covered in a dress made out of a sweatshirt!” cried Annabelle Lee in disbelief.  “She should be warm as toast.” 

            “Well,” said Mariana, “maybe she’s just got cold blood.”

            Soon the doll was covered with blankets; Annabelle Lee sliced one of her own yellow socks with the scissors and squished it onto the doll’s head:  “It’s better that you are warm than fashionable.  First things first.”  But whenever Annabelle Lee checked, the cracks on the doll had grown.  Annabelle Lee was convinced that her doll was so chilly that she could see its breath.  By the time that Annabelle Lee’s father got his own apartment, even the doll’s face was cracked, though it must be said that the doll’s demeanor was always classy – even stalwart – and Annabelle Lee said to the doll that it could still go to college, even with cracks all over and even with toes like lima beans.  Yet, despite the gray dress and boots, the yellow sock hat that flopped over, and piles of blankets, the cracks grew on the doll until one day Annabelle Lee cried and said to Mariana:  “I’m afraid to pick her up!  She might break into pieces!” 

           “Let’s have a look,” said Mariana, who placed the doll on its back on the dining room table.  Annabelle Lee moved her hand to stroke the doll gently on the face, but just then, the doll’s face crumbled into pieces, and the pieces crumbled into powder, and the rest of the doll crumbled, too.

            Later, when Annabelle Lee was crying in her room, Mariana walked over to the dining room table with a feather duster, but even the powder had already disappeared, so Mariana picked up the dress and the gray boots and threw them in the trash bin.  Later, Mariana saw the sock hat still on table, and picked it up, too – and just then, five porcelain toes, which had been hidden under the sock hat, rolled across the table.  “Oh no!” cried Mariana, “Annabelle Lee’s mother will kill me if I scratch this wood!”  And Mariana scooped up the porcelain toes and put them in her pocket.  Mariana spent the afternoon comforting Annabelle Lee and forgot all about the porcelain toes.  That night, after Mariana had put her own boy to bed, she went to the kitchen to empty the change from her pocket into the giant coin jar in the cupboard; Mariana was saving money for a pair of jeans with a desirable wash.

            “Tinkle! Tinkle!” said the coins as they fell into the coin jar; “Tinkle! Tinkle!” said the porcelain toes as they fell among the pennies and dimes.

            The big toe said, “Aren’t there any quarters in here?” 

            A penny chirped, “They keep to themselves – they’re an uppity bunch.”

            The porcelain toes could hear the deep voices of the quarters and dreaded their unsmiling looks. 

           A dime said, “I saw a silver dollar in a prior life.” 

            A nickel said:  “I feel fat.”

            And so on for years, for the jar was never to be full, though the pile of coins grew inch by inch.  Then, one day, while Mariana was out working, a crackhead broke into her apartment through the fire escape.  He stole the jar of coins, then brought the jar, in a big paper bag, into the A&P and dumped the coins into a coin machine.  “Clunk! Clunk!” said the coins as the machine counted them.  A dime from Canada did not fit and was rejected and dumped into a dispenser.  The porcelain toes were rejected and dumped into the dispenser.  The crackhead never looked at the dispenser, and the dime from Canada sat with the porcelain toes for hours and hours. 

            “Why is there a queen on you?” asked the second toe.  “Are you from England?”

            “It’s a long story,” replied the dime from Canada. 

            The porcelain toes and the dime could hear the store manager barking “Keep it fast, keep it clean!” to the workers.  The store manager looked at the change machine and reached into the dispenser.  “What are these,” he wondered, “lima beans?”  And he tossed the porcelain toes into the bin of lima beans in the vegetable section of the store, down past Aisle 12.  The store manager put the dime from Canada in his pocket and later gave it to his son for his coin collection.

            “At least we are still together,” said the largest porcelain lima bean, which had once been a big toe. 

            A lima bean nearby scoffed and said, “You people are shaped like us, but you’re too shiny.”

            The former big toe said, “We are porcelain.  We’re from Texas.  We helped a princess balance herself for years.  Then she froze to death and broke into pieces.”

            The lima bean said, “Why did she freeze?”

            “It’s a long story,” said the former big toe.

            “Well, be prepared to be here for a long, long time,” said the lima bean.  “You can hear the festivities over at the romaine lettuce bin, and the asparagus preen themselves all day because they’ve been told that they’ll soon be wrapped in bacon and placed in a fine home.  We are a practical bean, and we know that we are not the prettiest, and especially not the tastiest, but we cultivate patience, and it seems to work for us.”

            Then a deep voice said in a kindhearted way:  “Keep the faith, people.”  It was an eggplant; he had made it into a shopping basket without even the necessity of a squeeze, and he wasn’t even organic.

            Within two days, the asparagus bin had been replaced four times by the stock boy; the organic tomatoes on the vine, three times; and the romaine lettuce and the asparagus twice apiece.  Most of the lima beans napped; the former second toe dreamt of an ice sculpture shaped like a giant tiara for a princess.  Nearby, the potatoes snored.  Just then, a mist of water was sprayed all over the lima beans:  “Hiss! Hiss!” said the mist.  And the lima beans stretched and rolled over and enjoyed the shower, but the former toes shivered.

            “We don’t do well with cold,” said the former big toe. 

            The former little toe was covered in frost and almost blue, but whispered, “I’ll make it, don’t worry.” 

            The former third and fourth toes huddled together for warmth. 

            “How long will we be here, for years and years?” the former second toe wondered aloud.  Just then a big metal scoop rushed in, and the five former toes were bagged along with sleepy lima beans.  “At least it’s a little warmer,” said the former second toe.           

That night, that very night, the former toes and many of the lima beans were mixed into a salad and tumbled upside down and all around.  All were cheered by the slices of shaved carrot, which giggled in a high pitch, and the miniature tomatoes, who sang fun songs in Spanglish.  The porcelain toes ended up on the plate of a little boy.  “Everyone at school says they hate lima beans, but I like them,” the boy said, and his fork picked up two porcelain toes.

           “Ouch! My tooth!” cried the boy.

            “What’s wrong, son?” asked the voice of a woman. 

            “Some of these lima beans are like rocks,” the boy said as he pushed the hard ones into a little pile on his plate.

            The boy’s mother said:  “If you do your homework right this minute, I will clean up by myself.”

            The boy ran.  The mother was about to dump the former toes into the trash, and then she stopped:  “I know you!” she cried.  And Mariana moved her hand back and forth gently over the porcelain toes, and once they had warmed up, Mariana went into the bedroom and reached into the back of the drawer of her bed-stand and pulled out a little leather case for glasses.  In the little leather case were Mariana’s old wedding ring, a picture of her parents, and the yellow sock hat. 

            “Home at last!” cried the little toe.

                                                                        *  *  *

– Jerry Cunningham

Author’s Note: The “Porcelain Doll and Her Toes” owes its origin to Hans Christian Andersen’s story, “The Bottleneck.”