Impossible Things (5 page)

She wished so badly in that moment that she could channel her addiction into something else. She wanted to be able to run to a restaurant and shove food into her mouth
, or to a bar and drink until the hole inside her was filled. But she couldn’t.

Sadness and longing when they go unresolved, force themselves out
.

O
ne way or another.

That
street,
that
shop,
that
window in front of her, was the worst place in the world for her, and she needed to run but she couldn’t. She could only stare at the ring and the way that it sparkled from the lights above, and ache with longing.

It was her grandmother’s fault. Her dad was right about that.

Her grandmother was the one that started Lucy’s love affair with all things shiny. When Lucy was little Isabella would come and visit them from France, where she lived at the time, and she was the most glamorous thing that Lucy had ever seen.

Late at night when her parents were sleeping Lucy would sneak into the guest room and watch as Isabella performed her nightly beauty rituals. As she took off her make-up and let down her long, dark hair to brush it, Lucy would sit in the middle of her bed, wrapped in Isabella’s fur coat, while her grandmother told her stories about the parties she went to, the men she met, and about the jewels that she had bought and received. 

The jewels!

Oh how Lucy loved them.

Her grandmother would sit her red leather jewelry box, the one that traveled everywhere with her, on the bed next to Lucy and unlock it. The last time Lucy had seen that box she had been seven but she still remembered the feeling in her chest when she beheld the beauty that was inside it.

Even in the poor lighting of the guest room the jewels had sparkled and shined like nothing that Lucy had seen in her short life.

She sank her small hands deep into the diamonds, sapphires, rubies and emeralds and pull them out piece by piece as her grandmother told its story. According to Isabella, jewels, like women, each have their own history and their own lives. The jewels that Isabella owned and that Lucy held in her small hands had existed long before either of them and would survive long after they were gone. 

Lying on the bed, wrapped in Isabella’s mink and draped with her jewels Lucy dreamed of a day when she would be beautiful like her grandmother, when she would travel the world experiencing adventures and meeting exciting men, and of course when she would have her very own case of jewels.
             

That was the life that she had longed for since she was small, not the handsome husband and house with a white picket fence and two kids, like the other girls
that she knew dreamed of. Lucy wanted Paris, and Rome, champagne, and fast cars and like she had told Rodrigo weeks before, exciting men with foreign accents and names like Raul and Jean-Luc. She wanted adventure, excitement, and diamonds.

She was twenty-se
ven and that day had never come, and now it never would.

She was a normal girl who lived a normal life, in a normal world.

She hadn’t dated exciting foreign men at all; she’d dated Sam, the first boy she met at college, and the only man that she had ever slept with. The only jewelry he had ever given her was the engagement ring on her finger.

Looking down at her ring she couldn’t help but feel sad as she compared it to the ring in the window. She loved her ring because she loved Sam, but its tiny diamond seemed to be mocking her. 

On her finger was her reality.

In front of her was the dream that she would never have. 

She should have walked away. Should have turned and asked for directions to the underground. But she didn’t. Instead she pressed her face up against the window and stared in at the ring, a ring that had suddenly begun to represent for her the life that she would never have, the places that she would never see and the men that she would never love.

There, in the middle of one of London’s most famous streets, she was doing what her dad had been pressing her to do her entire life. She was facing reality and growing up.

Sam was the only man that had ever loved her, the only man who had tried to pierce the icy shell that she had constructed between herself and the world. She was a lucky girl. He was handsome and kind and though it wasn’t the exciting, passionate love that she had once dreamed of, it was everything that she should want. It was real.

The last piece of who she had been fell from her heart and she felt vulnerable and terribly alone as she stood there. An icy wind blasted her and it seemed as if it would pick her up and carry her away. She wished it would.

She gave one last glance at the ring and put her hand up to the window to say goodbye to it. The window was warm from the light inside and she opened her palm and pressed it to the glass as if to capture the image of the ring for eternity.

“Let it go,” she whispered to herself. “Let it go.”

She turned away from the window and as she did her eyes met those of a man crossing the street. His face was intense, and his eyes were so concerned that she felt it even from a distance. They frowned at each other as he came closer and she forgot about the ring, forgot about Sam, forgot about everything.

Time seemed to slow as he cut through the crowd on the sidewalk and she found herself unable to look away. She felt as trapped by his eyes as she had by the ring.

She pulled her coat tighter and pulled the collar up around her mouth as if to hide her face, but their gaze never broke as he drew nearer.

He was no more than a foot away when he held out his hand out and opened his mouth to say something. Her heart was thumping wildly in her chest and her mouth felt so dry that she couldn’t swallow. She didn’t give him time to speak, instead she did the only thing that she could think to do, she turned and ran.

There was only one place to go and she barely noticed the doorman as he opened the door to the jewelry store and held it for her. 

She wasn’t sure what made her try to run. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe a part of her somehow knew that he was a threat to her.

The store was so quiet that her entrance attracted the attention of everyone inside. Embarrassed, she stood still and looked around her, ignoring the stares of the sales staff. The walls of the store were dark wood inlaid with marble, and lined with glass cases that held jewels that made the ring in the window seem cheap by comparison.

Everywhere she looked she saw the flash of precious jewels and like a deer caught in headlights she stared at them.

She felt as if she was losing her mind.

She realized that a salesman was approaching and she turned to flee but the door opened and the man from the street came in. She started to back away from him but was stopped by the sound of
a salesman clearing his throat behind her.

The man from the street raised a perfect black eyebrow and smiled as if to ask her, ‘What are you going to do now?’ 

She didn’t know what she was going to do, but she could feel the jewels around her calling her name and he seemed to know it too because suddenly his eyes filled with concern and tenderness.

Before she could do or say anything he spoke to the man behind her. “We’d like to see the ring in the window.” 

She stopped breathing, not at his words, since she barely registered them; but at the sound of his voice. It was so deep that it seemed to rumble out of his chest. Since movie to England she had heard quite a few different accents but his was completely different. It was English mixed with something else and it was full of wealth, breeding, and more confidence than a hundred men should posses. His voice made the blood pound in her veins and made her want to crawl inside him. 

She raised her head and met his eyes again and the voices of the jewels faded.

He was the most beautiful man that she had ever seen, more beautiful than Rodrigo and she hadn’t thought that possible. He was even more beautiful than the ring that she had been lusting after.

His hair was black, his face a light caramel color, that she knew had to come from ancestry and not the sun, and his cheeks were dusted with black stubble. But it was his eyes that captured her. Up close she saw that they were a dark green that sparkled and shined more than any emerald that she had ever seen.

She was trying to process everything, trying to sort out the unimportant details like what he was wearing- a black leather jacket, cream sweater and black jeans, from the important ones-the shop clerk was taking the ring from the window and setting it on a tray, when the stranger stepped closer and put his hand on her elbow.

She was unable to turn away from his eyes as he gently guided her down a short hallway and into a private room.

He held out a chair for her and because she didn’t know what else to do, she sank gratefully into it. He took a seat next to her and the smell of him caused a flush of desire to wash over her. He smelled of crisp, cold air with a faint undertone of aftershave. But underneath it all was
him;
an indescribable something that made her want to raise her head and sniff the air around him like a dog in heat.

She managed to restrain herself, just barely, as the salesman took a seat across the table from them. She turned to him as he held the diamond ring up. She had forgotten all about him and the ring. She stared at it, it seemed much smaller in the salesman’s fleshy hands, though it sill shined with all the glory that it had displayed in the window. 

“The ring is American, designed in nineteen twenty-six for a steel magnate’s wife. It’s a total of seven carats. The center stone is a cushion cut, five-carat, yellow diamond, and the double halo surrounding it totals two carats. It was purchased at a recent estate sale and it is absolutely one of a kind. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and the man from the street reached out and took it from the salesman. He looked down at the ring and then up at Lucy who quickly looked away. Out of the corner of her eye she saw as he tossed the ring onto the tray and his carelessness with such a beautiful thing made her stomach lurch. 

“We need a few minutes,” he said, more of a command than a request, and the salesman got up quickly and went to the door. “Of course sir, just press the button as soon as you’re ready and I shall return.”

             
She
heard the formality that the salesman directed the stranger’s way but it didn’t register at the time because each breath brought with it the smell of him and it clouded her mind, leaving her unable to think. She felt as if she was in a dream. Nothing made sense, and nothing was the same as it had been only a few minutes before.  

When he didn’t say anything she was forced to look up and when she did their eyes met. He smiled and reached out to softly rub
his finger down her cheek causing her to shiver. He pulled back and she watched as he picked up the ring again. He reached out, took her shaking right hand, and slid the ring onto her finger.

She tried to pull her hand away but he wouldn’t let her. Once the ring was on she looked down, and it was so beautiful that she didn’t immediately take it off. She lifted her hand closer to her face, and moved it back and forth so that the center stone caught the light and danced as if it had captured a tiny sun inside it.

The stranger moved and she looked up at him as he stood and came to stand behind her. Before she could move she felt his hands on her shoulders and they caused her to shiver again. His touch was gentle as he turned her to face a large mirror that dominated the wall to the right of them. As she watched their reflection he pushed her coat off her shoulders and pulled her hand up. Against the black v-neck dress that she was wearing the ring sparkled even more.

She looked up from the ring to his face in the mirror and as she watched he ran his hand softly down her hair.

She trembled when his hands closed around her shoulders again. Leaning down so that his mouth brushed against her ear he whispered, “It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

She stared in silence at their reflection as he continued to run his hands softly over her shoulders. She felt as if she was drugged, unable to talk, and unable to move, and when she didn’t say anything he slid his hand down and brushed
his fingers against her breast.

She should have stopped him. She should have gotten up, slapped him and left, but she was too shocked to move, and when she didn’t he grew bolder, and leaned down to kiss her neck. The sight of his lips against her neck, and the feel of his hand on her breast, finally released her from the spell that he had woven over her. She jerked away from him and stood.

She made a move to go around him, but he moved in the same direction, blocking her. When she looked up, their eyes met and he smiled at her. She moved left and he moved that way as well, but it never occurred to her to be scared because while his movements to block her might seem threatening, his smile wasn’t.

She stopped and stared at him and he took a step towards her.

She waited, breath held, expecting him to kiss her but instead he put one hand on her waist and one on her hip and turned her back towards the wall. Fascinated, she looked at herself in the mirror. Her face and chest were red, but from embarrassment or the desire that she felt, she wasn’t sure. He pushed her coat off and she watched as it pooled on the floor at their feet.