MOONLIGHT ON DIAMONDS (10 page)

“I need a very fast
car.”

René smiled; he knew
she was up to something and he loved it. “What for?”

“I’m going to pick up
a little good luck charm,” she replied mysteriously.

“How little?”

Maggie furrowed her
brow as she calculated in her head. “About 215 carats.”

“
Mon Dieu!”
exclaimed René, sitting up.

Maggie calmly turned
back to her reflection and met a pair of jade green eyes lined in theatrical
black liner. “
Exactement.”

The following
afternoon, John and Veronica made their way into the Smithsonian’s Hall of
Geology, Gems and Minerals with a cool distance between them. She was playing
ice princess and he was letting her. Veronica was dressed for the occasion in a
chiffon dress that fluttered around her slim figure, making her look as demure
and ladylike as any Sweetbriar undergrad. She had on the same rocks as
yesterday, except today she sported a pair of matching earrings and a big,
shimmering, pink diamond ring surrounded by bright white brilliants set in
platinum. John thought the flashy ring looked like something out of the most
elegant bubblegum machine in the world. She had pale pink lips and nails, and
her dark hair was pulled back from her face, revealing the perfect structure of
her cheekbones and those incredible eyes.

John wore his best
suit, which he had picked up at an old vintage store in upstate New York during
one of his reparation outings with his mother. He looked snappy and he knew it.
He had seen it by the flicker in Veronica’s eyes when she met him in the hotel
lobby, just before she slipped on her Jackie O’s and made a big show of
ignoring him.

Maybe Veronica was
playing it cool. The ash-blond ladies in their buttoned-up Washington DC lunch
suits and demure pearls, however, looked him over like a big shiny lollipop
they couldn’t wait to get their collagen-infused lips around. He flashed the
ladies a bright smile as they entered the dark gallery.

The room was almost
black with big light-up display windows giving John the odd feeling of being in
an aquarium. Inside the cases, piles of famous, glittering jewels flickered in
the spotlights like the geological superstars they were. Marie Antoinette’s icy
teardrop diamond earrings sat next to the flaming orange cushion-cut Pumpkin
Diamond, so named because the House of Winston had acquired it one day before
Halloween. The mystical Star of Bombay, a 182-carat sapphire bequeathed to the
museum by Mary Pickford, glowed like a view from outer space—a ghostly six-pointed
star glimmering across the milky way of its blue cloudy world. Under the
spotlights next to the Star nestled Queen Nefertiti’s elaborate rose-gold
necklace with over five hundred finely crafted turquoise beads. These were just
the tip of the iceberg. The obscene piles of rubies, emeralds, and amethysts,
exquisitely cut and crafted into some of the most beautiful jewelry ever made,
was almost too much to take in at once.

The ladies chatted
amongst themselves as they entered the room. Some of the younger, more
press-worthy socialites compared notes on which designers were lending them
gowns for the ball and what their stylist envisioned for them. Only Veronica,
who wore her own gowns and wouldn’t dream of allowing someone else to dress
her, stepped away from the crowd to check out the gems. Hidden in the corners
of the room, security guards stood in dark suits, purposely fading into the
scenery. More museum security watched the room through hidden cameras on
black-and-white grainy TV screens in a control room at the back of the museum.

A woman in an ivory
pants suit with gray-streaked hair spoke up and thanked the ladies for coming.
She was Kay Hopkins, the museum’s social director. A polite ruffle of applause
ran through the room and she smiled graciously.

“Well now,” she said,
peering through the dimly lit room, “I think we’re all here, except for Cynthia
Spencer. Has anyone seen Cynthia?”

The DC matrons
twisted their necks around and scanned the room, but there was no sign of the
president’s daughter.

“Hmm, well, we’ll
just start without her and I’m sure she’ll be here any minute.” Kay exhibited
the smooth manner of an accomplished hostess. “Georgette, my assistant, is
going to pass out numbers to you all. They will be your marching order, so to
speak, for the jewelry show. If you’re number one, you’ll be the first one to
come out and walk down the red carpet. Two will be second and so on. Are there
any questions?”

The ladies nodded
their ash-blond heads.

“Good!” said Kay with
her gracious smile. “Now, you all are going to walk along this red carpet. Of
course, for the ball, we’ll be downstairs in the rotunda, but for now you can
just practice.” She displayed the path into the room marked by a red carpet
which had been laid for the occasion. “When you come to the end of the carpet,”
she stomped her feet deliberately as she reached the edge, “you will stand and
smile as pretty as you can and the press will take your picture with all your
lovely jewels. Then you will turn around and walk back the way you came. Do
y’all get that?”

The ladies’ heads
bobbed in unison.

“Great. Now, most of
y’all will be wearing your own beautiful gems, but there are a few of you who
will be modeling some of our very own Smithsonian treasures…” She paused
midsentence as a team of secret servicemen slid into the room, along with a
sullen teenager with limp blond hair and dark purple circles under her eyes.
The girl wore a blue Izod shirt, pink bell-bottom corduroys, and faded white
sneakers. Her sunburned skin was starting to peel at the tip of her nose while
two braided cornrows adorned with colored beads hung against her cheek, looking
out of place on the “WASPy” president’s daughter.

John watched the
awkward teen enter the room.
Someone just
returned from a nice sunny spring break in the tropics.

Everyone turned to
stare at Cynthia, and an expression crossed her face like she wanted to sink
into the core of the earth and never be heard from again.

Kay plastered on a
smile that looked fake, even for her. “Cynthia, I’m so glad you made it.”

“Sorry I’m late.” The
teenager dropped her dishwater gray eyes to the floor and combed back one of
the braided cornrows with her chubby fingers.

“That’s all right;
you’re just in time,” said Kay brightly.

As the social
director babbled on about who would be wearing what, Cynthia spotted Veronica
at the edge of the crowd and shuffled over to her. “Hi, Veronica,” she said
quietly under Kay’s speech.

Veronica turned and
looked down at the girl who was a good six inches shorter than her. “Hello, Cynthia.”

The disapproval and
dislike in Veronica’s voice took John by surprise, and though he hated to admit
it, it made him feel a little bit better. She might not be crazy about him, but
he’d yet to get that particular tone of disgust directed his way.

“How are you enjoying
Yale?” she asked the sulking girl.

Cynthia gave an
awkward shrug. “It’s okay.”

“Hmm,” Veronica
turned away.

“I guess you talked
to my mom.” The teenager sounded discouraged.

“Yes, I have,”
replied Veronica shortly.

A blush crept into
Cynthia’s wan cheeks and tears welled up in her dull gray eyes. When Veronica
saw this, she tightened her jaw and did her best to ignore the girl.
Eventually, she cracked and laid the hand with that bubblegum pink diamond on
the teenager’s shoulder. She whispered in a kind but exasperated voice, “Don’t
worry…”

Veronica caught John
staring at her. Closing her mouth, she patted the girl’s shoulder a few times
and turned her back to him to listen to Kay blab on about how
wonderful
it was of the ladies to come
down, how
ecstatic
the Smithsonian
was to have them, and what a
spectacular
event this was going to be.

When Kay finished her
spiel, Veronica broke away from the pack and drifted into the Harry Winston
Gallery. The room was a circular shape lined with displays of dimly lit
crystals, rock formations, and meteorites. In the center stood what looked like
a small Greek temple with a domed ceiling and marble floors. A single display
case stood inside the structure; it was lit up like Time’s Square on New Year’s
Eve.

Veronica stepped past
the bronze bust of old Harry standing guard over the temple’s treasure. She
stopped in front of the display case and gazed in fascination at the
magnificent dark blue diamond glittering on a platinum chain of forty-six white-hot
rocks. She appeared to be hypnotized by the explosion of violet light that was
the Hope Diamond.

John couldn’t help
noticing as he approached Veronica that the jewel perfectly matched the color
of her eyes.

“Still sure you don’t
want it?” he asked, almost in a whisper because he understood that for her this
place was church.

“This diamond wasn’t
meant to be worn,” she said, unable to lift her eyes from the play of light
dancing in its depths like a cold blue fire.

“What do you think it
was meant for?”

“Worship.” She
breathed out the word like a prayer.

“I don’t know about
that.”

“Don’t you?” she
asked, and turned to him, smiling playfully. “Do you want me to tell you the
rest of the gem’s history, now that it’s here in front of you and you can really
see what I’m talking about?”

He looked at her
quizzically and wondered if maybe it wasn’t coyness or perversity that had
stopped her from reciting the full story of the diamond yesterday in the car.
Was it possible she had purposely been waiting until now? Did she really care
that much about giving him the experience?

He decided she
didn’t. She would have grabbed a bum off the street, or Cynthia Spencer for
that matter, and given them the same treatment, just for the pleasure of
sharing her enthusiasm with another human being. She’d make the story real for
them, so it could be real for her again.

“Well, you remember
about Tavernier and the wild dogs?” she began.

He nodded.

“Anyway, before he
was killed, Tavernier took the Blue Stone, as it was known at the French court,
and sold it to King Louis XIV.” Her face glowed with the delight of a child
reciting a favorite bedtime fairytale. “Well, King Louis wore the diamond one
time and immediately contracted smallpox and dropped dead. His heir was smarter
than his father. He knew where the jewel had come from and that it was cursed.
So he never wore it; but guess who did?” She stood there waiting for him to
guess.

“Uh, I don’t know.”

“His son and
daughter-in-law, none other than Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and we know
what happened to them!”

John drew a finger
across his throat and whistled.

“Correct.” She nodded
like an approving grade school teacher. Only she was much more beautiful than
any teacher he’d ever had. “The diamond disappeared from the scene after the
French revolution, but in 1830…”

“You know your
dates.” John was impressed.

“Yes, I do,” she
agreed. “Anyway, in 1830, it reappeared in London and was bought by a British
banker named Mr. Henry Thomas…can you guess his last name?”

“Hope?” he ventured.

“Yes, and not much is
known about him,
but
in 1890…”

“You mean no
terrible, cursed thing happened to him?” John teased her.

“Not that we know
of,” she said, making it clear from her tone he was ruining the story. “In
1890, the diamond was inherited by the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Francis Hope. He
was married to an American actress, and as soon as Lord Hope got his hands on
the diamond, she ran off with another man.”

“Well, what did he
expect, marrying an actress?” asked John. “You don’t need a cursed diamond to
tell you an actress is going to…”

“Don’t interrupt me,
John,” she said, interrupting him. It was the first time she had called him by
name and he liked the way it sounded coming from her. The word struck a chord
somewhere inside his chest, maybe a chord that had no business sounding when an
employer was speaking to you, but it throbbed and hummed just the same.

“As I was saying,
before I was so rudely interrupted,” she continued, her eyes dancing, “Lady
Hope, the actress, ran off to Boston where she ended up dying penniless. Of
course, she had worn the diamond. Lord Hope, who had possessed a massive
fortune, went inexplicably bankrupt. Next an Eastern European prince, what’s
his name?” She wracked her brain and rubbed her hands together trying to spark
her memory, but it was no use. “I can’t remember. This prince was in love with
a dancer from the
Folies
Bergère, but he
mistakenly
believed
she was in love with another man and shot her. Next, a Greek gem dealer got
ahold of it and he drove his car, with his wife and children in it, off a
cliff! After that, a Turkish Sultan named Abdul-something took hold of it and
was almost immediately overthrown by his own army officers.”

“Okay, I believe
you,” said John smiling.