The Tavernier Stones (4 page)

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Authors: Stephen Parrish

BOOK: The Tavernier Stones
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“Actually, we’re not engaged yet,” Sarah clarified. “We have to wait for our families to schedule a dinner party for the announcement. But we’re ready to pick out the ring. Aren’t we, Delbert?”
David smiled. “Indeed we are.”
“Well.” Bowling clasped his hands. “Did you have anything in particular in mind?”
The two bowed their heads slightly. David nudged Sarah. “Go ahead,” he whispered.
“A diamond solitaire,” Sarah declared.
Bowling nodded without expression, but David could hear his thoughts:
Sounds like a good plan.
“Of very good quality.”
Bowling nodded again, this time pursing his lips to show approval.
No shock there. That’s what they all want.
“VVS, or better, if you have it.”
A smile wound up on the assistant manager’s face.
I think I’m going to be glad I got out of bed this morning.
“In, say, the 3-carat range.”
Bowling stiffened visibly but quickly regained his composure. “Step this way,” he said. “I have some pieces I think will interest you. And I’m sure I can come up with the right price for an old classmate—if you catch my drift.”
David grinned at Sarah: “I
told
you I had a feeling about this store.”
They moved over to the diamond solitaire case, where Bowling showed them an array of round brilliants between 2.5 and 3.5 carats. David knew it was unlikely Bowling would show him a stone weighing exactly 3 carats, or even very close to it, because the size was so great. The heavier the finished product, the less sympathy cutters had for integers and quarter increments; their mission became to maximize weight retention.
Bowling routinely inspected every stone under a loupe before handing it to David, clearly in adherence to store policy. And he inspected each one again before returning it to its velvet-lined display box. This was to make sure, by checking the internal characteristics of the stone, that the one making the trip out of the case was the same one making the trip back in.
After examining and reexamining five or six stones, David settled on one that weighed 3.17 carats and had a color Bowling described as “E, nearly the top of the scale. The clarity,” he explained, “is VVS1—but you don’t have to trouble yourselves about such technicalities. It’s a beautiful piece.”
Bowling demonstrated use of the jeweler’s loupe to David, who first tried to view the diamond from too far away, then from too close, finally settling into focus about an inch from the magnifying glass. David studied the cut of the stone and made quick estimates of its significant proportions. “VVS” meant the stone’s inclusions were very, very small, visible only under magnification. David couldn’t see any through the loupe, but a microscope was needed to make the call. He detected a dab of pink nail polish near the culet and memorized its size and shape.
A tag was fastened to the shank, but it wasn’t going to be a problem; it was standard industry issue. And as though to make David’s job even easier, the price and inventory number on the tag were hand written.
As he louped the stone, he noticed that Bowling was also louping Sarah, trying but mostly failing to keep his eyes off her legs. She was openly flirting with him and probably overdoing it. The circumstances were good, as good as they got; he hoped she wasn’t going to screw things up.
He handed the ring back to Bowling and said, “I assume you can do something about that price.”
Bowling first louped the stone, and David saw that he was mostly just checking the dab of fingernail polish. Then he jotted a number down on a sales slip and pushed it humbly across the top of the case.
Still too pricey. Probably to compensate for all the other sales the man had failed to close. David wanted Bowling to anticipate a windfall, but failing to bargain would look suspicious.
“That’s a nice gesture,” David said. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind making a real effort.”
Sarah reached across the case and grabbed Bowling’s hand, the one still holding the ring, and pulled it closer to her. “Oh, Delbert,” she said. “This is the one. I’m absolutely sure of it.”
“Sweet
heart
,” David drawled in a low voice. “Let’s not be hasty in making our de
cision
.”
“But we’ve been shopping for so long, and we’ve looked at so many. This ring was meant for us, I can
feel
it. Don’t you feel it too?”
Bowling obviously felt it: as Sarah’s eyes gazed lovingly at the ring, her fingers subtly caressed his hand and wrist. She tried to clear a dust particle from the crown of the diamond by forming her lips into a tight circle and blowing on it. But the steady stream of warm, moist air went into the palm of Bowling’s hand instead.
David rolled his eyes. “Mr. Bowling, sir, we will go home and think it over.” He cast a critical look at Sarah, who seemed hypnotized by the sparkling stone. “And it looks like we’ll be back.”
“I’ll hold her for you. I mean,
it
—I’ll hold
it
for you.” Blushing, he extracted himself from Sarah’s grasp.
“I’d … appreciate that. And I’d also appreciate you chiseling down the price some more.”
David wasn’t concerned the ring would be gone when he returned. Stones of such size moved so slowly, they could spend years in a jewelry case. But salespeople liked to give the customer a sense of urgency by putting pieces on temporary hold, fully aware the urgency was theirs, not the customer’s.
“It was a little loose when I tried it on,” Sarah complained. “Does that mean I have to pick out a different one?”
“We’ll make it fit,” Bowling assured her. “It’s a simple process that takes just a few minutes.”
“And you promise me it’s a good diamond …”
“It’s a beautiful diamond. But maybe you’re asking the wrong man. I’ve never met a diamond I didn’t like.”
David shook the assistant manager’s hand and looked him straight in the eye. “Neither have I.”
 
After the couple left the store, Bowling jubilantly announced to the manager, who had been hovering within earshot, that he had bagged the big one. The manager offered reserved compliments and reminded him to turn over the sale if it appeared he would lose it. Bowling agreed good-naturedly but swore to himself he wouldn’t split the credit. Not for this one.
There was a joke going around the small company about Bowling. It seemed that few of his customers who said they’d be back ever came back. According to the joke, the “be-back bus” waited around the corner with its engine running. As soon as his customers left the store, the bus ran them over and killed them.
No, he thought, these two would be back, and he’d be damned if he was going to split the sale. The discount price was just enough to push him past all other salespeople at Nineveh & Shimoda to the top of the May performance chart. Past even Felicity, who with her lustrous red hair and low-cut blouses had been capitalizing on the need young men had lately for gold chains and earrings.
He inserted the ring into a small brown envelope, labeled it with the name the young man had given him—Delbert Farrington III—and locked it in the safe.
 
Meanwhile, in a phone booth on Chestnut, David placed an order for a chunk of raw cubic zirconia, enough to cut a 4-carat stone. The color had to be precisely E, and the stone had to face up VVS or better when cut.
Sarah, who was pacing outside the booth, occasionally rubbing her bare thighs, knocked on the glass to hurry him up.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah …” He waved her off.
He also ordered a Tiffany four-prong setting with an 18-karat gold shank and an iridium-plated, white gold head. The hallmark was easy: Weatherfront Findings, Inc., a large manufacturer, employed a simple lightning bolt. It was a standard mount, a routine job. Afterwards the two walked down Chestnut to their car.
“God, I’m hungry,” David said.
“When are you ever
not
hungry?”
“A hard day’s work always gives me an appetite.”
“David, you spent the morning watching reruns of
Gilligan’s Island
.”
“It’s the quality of work you do, not the quantity. By the way, how many different shades of pink fingernail polish do you have at home?”
“I have everything, you know that. And I might as well tell you now, I’m retiring after this one.”
“You said that last time.”
“I
mean
it this time.”
“The hell you do.”
“You know how embarrassing this skirt is? Everybody’s looking.”
“Then wear a longer coat. Now be quiet while I do some conceptualizing.”
“I’d like to see
you
in a miniskirt on a cold day.” She laughed. “Christ, what a picture that would make.”
“Shut up, would you? Would you just shut up?”
FOUR
 
“LET’S GET SOMETHING STRAIGHT before we start this morning.” Harry Tokuhisa, North Star Map’s chief cartographer, had stopped next to John Graf’s cubicle and was waving a tabloid in the air.
“And what would that be?” John asked.
“Elvis,” he said gravely, “is
dead
.”
Tokuhisa had a youthful face that belied his years of experience. When John had first met him, he had wondered what the boy could possibly know about maps. Then he had seen the man’s work.
Annette peeked out from her cubicle across the hall. “I beg to differ, Toke,” she said. “I have it on good authority that Elvis is, in fact, alive. I don’t care to reveal my source, but let’s just say
enquiring minds want to know
.”
Tokuhisa turned to John. “I have a new quote for your wall, by some guy named Bentley. Are you ready? Listen to this: ‘Geography is about maps, but biography is about chaps.’ Pretty good, huh?”
John winced. “Is there anything new in that paper about Cellarius?”
“In
this
paper? You’ve got to be kidding.” He continued down the hall and resumed his social rounds. John heard him speak to the cartographers in the next pair of cubicles: “Let’s get something straight before we start …”
For John, it was also time to make his own rounds. He was the project coordinator of a series of maps, in various stages of production, for a Bible history textbook. He went from cubicle to cubicle, looking over the shoulders of cartographers absorbed in the point, line, and area symbols glowing on their computer monitors. This would have bothered them were he like most other coordinators; mapmakers tended to be private and defensive about their work. But there was an unobtrusive way about John’s inspections that made these mapmakers feel they were sharing their work with a colleague rather than submitting it to a supervisor for judgment.
He asked an occasional question, offered some thoughtful opinions, and mostly just tried to assure the cartographers that someone cared about what they were doing and was confident of their talent.
The Bible maps were well designed: the colors were transparent, the terrain art was spectacular, and the overall look was clean and legible. John studied each proof and waited for gut responses to his one unconditional criterion: would he be willing to frame and hang this map on the wall of his living room?

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