Aftermath of Dreaming(97)

She puts the pearl back on the felt, hands me the tweezers, and lets me look at it for myself. It is a stunning specimen with a peacock-green luster and a pearly glow underneath; large, round, and heavy, it must be fifteen or sixteen millimeters. Without even asking the price, I know it is out of my league, and I have a feeling that May knows that as well, but is showing it to me anyway because she knows the joy that can bring. And wants me to know what is possible if my business keeps growing.

The pearls I am able to buy are a few removed from that first grand one, but still they are beautiful. “Department stores buy regular pearls; dye them. These color real,” May says as I put together a group of the ones I will buy in naturally occurring colors of gray, green, pink, and deep brown.

I am in love with them. Each pearl, because of the price range I need to stay in, has a tiny dimple or pit in it, which I wasn’t planning on when I sketched the jewelry I will make with them, but as I sit at the table while May totals up my order and writes out an invoice, I start envisioning how to hide that in the designs.



The remains of breakfast lie on the table before us. Or mine does. Reggie is two months into his diet and going strong. I can see a difference in him, but he says all that matters is how great he feels, though I have a feeling he is counting pounds. As we get up to leave, the bagel shop starts filling up. A yoga class has let out from the studio up the street and a serene swarm of stretch fabric clamors into line.

We turn left on the sidewalk, walking down Larchmont toward Reggie’s car in the warm morning sun, but he stops us in front of Han’s optical shop. “I need some new sunglasses. Wanna help me select?”

Hundreds of frames are on display in the mirrored and dark wood cases of the store. Eyeglasses are folded up like butterfly wings, ready to elongate and light upon a face. Reggie and I quickly set into a rhythm: I find a pair, hand them to him; he tries them on, puts them away. Again and again and again.

A woman dressed casually yet elegantly in Saturday attire enters the store and heads straight to the register. Reggie is peering at himself in a mirror wearing an aggressively hip pair of sunglasses.

“Maybe,” I say, trying to imagine them in life every day, then I hand him a very classic frame. “But try these.” The glasses emphasize the best parts of Reggie’s face. “I think those are great on you.”

“Really?” Reggie is doing an odd squinting thing I’ve never seen him do before.

“Yeah, I like them.”

He moves closer to the mirror. “You don’t think they…I don’t know.” He takes them off and replaces the hip frames on his face.

“Okay, but these are great frames.” I pick them up, admiring the precision of balance and the craftsmanship. “And they were amazing on you.”

“They were.”

Reggie and I both turn around to see who said this and if it was to us. The woman in the store has stepped closer, appraising Reggie via the mirrors on every wall.

“They’re retro, but subtle,” she continues. “And on him, you barely notice.”

Reggie looks at me for a moment, then takes off the hip pair, so I hand the other frames back to him. The woman moves next to me, and we watch as his face is complemented when he puts the glasses on.

“Yeah, I really like them.”

Reggie says nothing and turns around to look in the mirror, then starts turning his head side to side and up and down.

“Those are great pins.”

It takes me a second to realize what she is talking about. In the rush to meet Reggie for breakfast, I had pulled on the top I was wearing last night with two of my pins still affixed near the neckline.

“Oh, thanks.” I glance down to see which ones they are. “Actually, I made them.”

“Really? Do you have a line?”

“Yeah, Broussard’s Bijoux,” I say as I open my bag and pull out a card for her. “I’m in one store, Rox on Beverly, and I sell privately.”

“We should talk.” She reaches into her Hermès bag and proffers a business card. “I’m in New York all next week, but call my assistant to set up an appointment—I’d be interested to see your line.”

And with that she turns and heads out the door. As she passes in front of the shop’s window, her effortlessly sleek appearance stands out amid the yoga-pants and jeans crowd. I look down at the card in my hand, astonished at what I see.

“Reggie, you’ll never believe who that woman was.” I join him at the register where a salesclerk, who has a hint of a German accent, as if he inherited it not from his motherland but from the store, is asking for his credit card.

“Who?” Reggie puts a worn card down.

“Linda Beckman, head jewelry buyer for Greeley’s department store. She wants to see my stuff—I could die.”

“That’s great, honey. Good thing I needed new sunglasses, huh?”

“Yeah, right? So which ones are you…” I stop when I see the hip pair on the counter; the other frames are nowhere in sight. “Well, those looked good, too.”



I am sitting on my couch at ten to three in the morning—having been kept awake for the last hour from a scream dream—staring into the tree outside my living room window and thinking about everything I need to do. I called Roxanne to see if she wanted more pieces, but she said check back in January, which is okay because I don’t want to show her the new line until after Linda Beckman sees it and has first dibs. My appointment with her at Greeley’s is next week and the samples for the new line of jewelry have come out even better than I imagined they would when I took the sketches to Dipen. The pearls shimmer and glow against the braided gold, and the tourmaline, citrine, and peridot that surround them complement and contrast with their natural luminescence. Even Dipen was impressed.