Stella’s Thing

1. Stella had two tattoos: a bee on each clavicle, bee-sized. It hurt when she got them. Her boyfriend at the time kept bees on the roof of his building in Queens.

2. At the time.

3. The bee tattoos kind of always hurt, a little bit. It’s totally fair to say they stung. We’re not trying to be funny about it.

4. Then her boyfriend wasn’t her boyfriend but she still had two bee tattoos. That’s how tattoos work. What do I do about these bees, she said to her friend Zae. Cover them up! Zae said. Zae had a lot of tattoos. Do you know how many ex-lovers are under here? Stella said no. A shit ton, man. A shit ton. Her friend laughed. But they hurt so much in the first place, Stella said. Yeah, man, Zae said. That’s what tattoos are, she said, smiling.

5. Tank top season was coming and the bees were still stinging but Stella didn’t want to have to look in the mirror and think of her ex-boyfriend every day, so she walked to the closest tattoo parlor and picked out a couple of butterflies. She knew it was a little bit of a cliché, didn’t think she really needed transforming, but the butterflies were pretty, and blue, and just big enough, and fuck that guy and his bees.

6. Weirdly, the tattoos stopped stinging after that.

7. Moths, Zae said. Interesting choice. What? Stella said. They’re butterfries. Butterflies. Stella was a little bit stoned. No, those are moths. Huh, she said, looking down at them. Well, I still like them.

8. Stella got a lot of compliments on her new tats that summer. She felt sexy and free of the bee man.

9. Then it was fall. Cardigan season. Stella had been collecting vintage cardigans since she was in high school. So almost six years. But she knew how to find really good ones for cheap. And no, she won’t tell you where. Well, she might. But probably not.

10. Mostly she was into men’s cardigans from the ’50s and ’60s, women’s if she was feeling a certain way. But mostly men’s.

11. The smaller ones were hard to find. Plus Stella was pretty small herself. Even the small ones were oversized. But there’s oversized and then there’s oversized.

12. Occasionally, Stella would take a chance on putting one through the wash to shrink it up, but only if it was over-oversized. The first time this worked out perf. After, mixed results. Why do you keep doing that when you know it always comes out like a sweater for a misshapen baby, Zae said. Stella said Because of the purple one. Zae said Oh yeah. That one is super good.

13. The cardigans were known to be Stella’s thing.

14. She was actually thinking of opening a shop.

15. Do you think anyone would come to a shop that just sold one thing, though? she asked her friend. There’s a shop in Paris that only sells umbrellas, Zae said. Stella imagined this in her head, pictured Paris with nothing but shops that sold one thing. We should move to Paris, she said. We can’t afford Paris, Zae said. We can barely afford it here.

16. Stella and Zae worked together at Buffalo Exchange.

17. What are we even doing with our lives? Stella asked.

18. I dunno, man, Zae said. I can’t think about that right now.

19. Stella was thinking about it a little right then. She was twenty-four. Meaning: nearly thirty.

20. Stella was hanging some clothes in a dressing room for a customer when she caught sight of the holes in her sweater, one of her favorites, with blue and yellow stripes. It was the perfect length. Aw, man, she said. They were kind of big, as holes go. She took it off and tossed it in the back room, borrowed another one off the rack. She wasn’t stoked about it. Stella looked at every last cardigan that came into that store before they went onto the rack. It was rare that she put one on the rack that she had wanted to buy for herself.

21. This was maybe part of why she could barely afford it here.

22. By the end of the workday, there were holes in her borrowed sweater. You’re going to have to pay for that, the manager said. Stella put her old sweater back on before they left. Whoa, Zae said. They’re like, right over your ink. The holes.

23. It was about a half dozen sweaters in before Stella added it up. A person doesn’t go right to moth-tattoo-is-eating-holes-in-my-sweaters.

24. By this time, though, Stella had begun wearing only her polyester sweaters, which were fewer in number by far. They were cute, but they were clammy. Nobody likes a clammy sweater.

25. What the hell should I do? Stella asked her friend. You could get them covered up, Zae said.

26. Stella thought it through and pictured the old lady who swallowed a fly, ending with giant horse tattoos across her entire chest.

27. In a darker mood, Stella considered other options. Cotton? Just shirts? I get cold so easily. Nah, man, Zae said. You should just make it your thing. Sweaters with holes? Stella asked. Why not? Zae said. It’s nobody else’s thing.

28. Stella spent some time after this thinking about what her thing really even was, whether she ever had a thing that was really hers. Other people wore cardigans. Were cardigans with holes enough of a thing to be her real thing? Her forever thing?

29. Not so much. Forever itself was the opposite of her thing.

30. Stella typed sweaters with holes into Google image search. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for. She saw, of course, images of sweaters with holes, but she also saw some other images. That’s what Google is. She didn’t have to scroll down far to learn about darning.

31. Darning was definitely a thing.

32. Maybe one of the most beautiful things Stella had ever seen.

33. Stella watched some tutorials on YouTube and taught herself to darn.

34. You should maybe use polyester yarn, just sayin’, Zae told her. Genius, Stella said.

35. Zae ordered Stella a vintage darning egg from etsy. It had layers of paint partly worn off it from use. Stella cried. It’s so smooth, she said.

36. I really do want to open a shop, Stella said. You should, Zae said. How do you open a shop? Stella asked. Beats the hell out of me, Zae said. Maybe ask somebody who has a shop.

37. Stella walked into a shop that sent her to another shop that sent her to another shop that sent her to a gallery in Rockaway Park.

38. It took a long time to get there from where she lived.

39. The gallery in Rockaway Park was kind of just a street-level apartment. The lady there told her she could use one room for 450 bucks a month, month-to-month, one month security. But the room faced the sidewalk and it had a window and she could see one of her sweaters hanging there, in her mind.

40. Stella so didn’t have nine hundred dollars.

41. Zae said, I’ll give you what I have. She pulled her wallet out of her back pocket. It had a picture of a dog sniffing another dog’s butt on it and seventeen dollars inside.

42. Stella cried again. You’re such a good friend.

43. Stop crying, Zae said.

44. Stella bought some yarn with some of the money and smushed the rest into a vintage medicine bottle she kept on her dresser. There was maybe another seventeen dollars in there. Stella didn’t believe in banks. She knew she wasn’t going to collect the rest of the nine hundred dollars anytime soon, but at least she couldn’t get it out without breaking the bottle.

45. Stella really didn’t want to break the bottle.

46. Stella darned the holes in her sweaters. She chose colors that one might say didn’t go with the colors of the sweaters.

47. Things that went with other things were not Stella’s thing.

48. Stella had always known what wasn’t her thing much more than what was. This seemed like maybe it was the most her thing so far.

49. Zae came over to Stella’s after work to look at her inventory. It was impressive. This is like, so much more than a thing. This is like, a brand, Zae said. I don’t think I’m ready for a brand, Stella said. Zae shoved a five-dollar bill into Stella’s bottle. I think you’re my thing, Stella said. Do not cry, Zae said. Jesus. Hey, no offense, Stell, but this place is a dump.

50. Stella didn’t take it personally. It was a two-bedroom and she had four roommates and one of them had loud sex and two of them had cats but no one had a vacuum cleaner or even replaced the can of Febreze Stella had bought after it ran out. That was four whole bucks.

51. Where am I gonna go, though? Stella made nine dollars and seventy cents an hour. Maybe you could live in that room in Rockaway. That is the most genius thing ever, Stella said. Stella called that lady back right away.

52. Stella moved to Rockaway. She hung her best sweater in the window. No one came in for a while. There wasn’t a ton of foot traffic. She sold one to a rando off the street for a hundred bucks once and he let her Instagram it. She hashtagged that right up, and got 146 hearts. That was exciting. Then it was quiet again for a while.

53. Zae came to visit and bought one of Stella’s sweaters and they walked on the beach.

54. Let me tell you what, Stella said to Zae. The beach? Is for sure my thing. Right on, Zae said.

55. Anyway, this wasn’t that long ago. So we don’t really know how it’s going to turn out. Probably, this won’t be the rest of her life. Does it have to be?