A Gleam in Her Eye

Maria Figueroa wiped her dirt-streaked brow with a cloth and then rubbed her equally grimy hands down her jeans. Despite her middle-age girth, she leaped gracefully down from the scaffolding on the side of the building. She had been cleaning its marble walls and sculptured pediments laced with 14-carat gold for eight hours now. Soon the bells would ring for Mass.

She shrugged her shoulders to loosen the cramps, then turned her head upward, eyes playing across the facade. 

Slowly the smile spread across her shiny face. The jewel of her small Arizona town it was, she thought to herself. St. George Church. And she got to polish its crown.

"Jewel" has been my favorite word for many years. I remember when I used it for the first time in a news article about a luxury housing development planned for a downtown that sorely needed it.

"God, that is a pretentious word," I thought to myself, and almost deleted it.

But the next day after the story published, the mayor called to compliment my description. A friend called to ask about the condos for sale. The developer later bought an ad in my small-town paper and offered me seats at a local ballpark. Decline.

Jewel is one of those words that promises and winks. And sometimes it overpromises. I like that complexity.