Lady in the Lake(8)

“I don’t understand how a ring that cost a thousand dollars in 1946 could be worth half that amount today.” Even as she spoke, she was aware how quickly she had moved from an exaggeration to a lie, how “almost twenty,” which was essentially correct, had become twenty.

“If you really want to know, I could bore you with a lecture on the used diamond market and profit margins. I could tell you about clarity and cut, how the fashions change. I’m happy to explain all those things, but the bottom line is, I can’t do better than five hundred dollars.”

“We had it insured for two thousand dollars,” she said. Did they? It sounded right. Or maybe it was that she had hoped to get as much as two thousand dollars.

Milton had been giving her an allowance since she left, but it wasn’t quite enough and it was fitful, with no fixed date or amount. Because she had assumed that Seth would come with her, she had expected a more generous stipend. Milton would never deny his only son. But with Seth’s remaining in the house in Pikesville, she had no such leverage. She needed money. Milton was trying to starve her out, force her to come back to him by being stingy.

“He’s not kidding about the boring part,” said a young woman with reddish hair, polishing the top of the case. Maddie was surprised that an employee would dare to speak so impudently to her boss, but Jack Weinstein only laughed.

“That’s enough out of you, Judith. Tell you what, Mrs. Schwartz—leave your number with us and if a customer comes in looking for a ring like this, maybe we can work something out. It’s not the style—”

“It’s a classic solitaire.”

“Exactly. The young girls getting married today, they have interesting ideas. Some don’t want stones at all.” Now he looked genuinely sad.

“I don’t have a phone yet. I’m waiting for it to be installed. C & P says there’s a terrible backlog.”

He put away his loupe and handed the ring back to Maddie. She was loath to put it on. That would feel as defeating as moving back to Pikesville. The young woman, Judith, understood immediately what was bothering Maddie. She pulled out an envelope and said: “For safekeeping. I’d give you a box, but I can’t endure the lecture that my brother would give me on how much everything costs.”

“Your brother? That explains a lot.”

“You have no idea.”

The young woman was more handsome than pretty. But her expressions were droll and her clothes went together in a way that came only with hours in one’s room trying things on, creating combinations, pressing and mending, shining and brushing. Maddie knew because Maddie had always been the same kind of woman. This young woman’s style was almost too matchy, which aged her a little. But her kindness was overwhelming, as kindness sometimes is, and it took enormous self-control for Maddie to not burst into tears.

She made it to the driver’s seat of her car, only barely, before her sobs started.

She had expected that money. She had imagined a new bed, something sleek and modern. A phone on the wall in the kitchen, maybe an extension in the bedroom, too. It was so terribly inconvenient not to have a phone.

However, she was crying not for the things she might have had, but for the embarrassment of being found out, of being caught yearning. It had been a very long time since Maddie had let anyone see her dare to want something. She knew how dangerous it was to let one’s desire be glimpsed, even for a moment.

A tap on the window; the droll girl’s face—Judith, her brother had called her—filled the frame. Maddie fumbled for her dark glasses, rolled down the window.

“So bright today,” Judith said, politely offering an excuse.

“I know. I don’t really believe it’s going to snow later this week. If we can believe what the weathermen say.”

“A big if. Look, we don’t really know each other, but I know who you are. Of course.”

Of course? Why of course? For a confused second, Maddie thought she was the woman she almost became, a seventeen-year-old girl embroiled in a scandal. But, no, she had avoided that fate. The problem was all the other fates she had avoided as well, the lies she had told herself, which she had come to believe. When Judith said she knew who Maddie was, it was probably because of gossip at the club, that terrible nouveau clique run by Bambi Brewer, with her airs and her Salems and her acolytes. The Morgensterns were old money relative to that crowd.

“Is there something you need from me?”

As if anyone wanted advice from a middle-aged woman trying to sell her engagement ring. The world was so different now. This young woman crouching by Maddie’s car couldn’t possibly have had the same problems Maddie had known twenty years ago. Today, young women could have sex worry-free by taking a daily pill. Of course, most probably still pretended to be virgins when they found the men they wanted to marry, but that was as much for their mothers as for the husbands.

“I thought you might be interested in attending a meeting at the Stonewall Democratic Club. There’s an open governor’s race this year. It’s a good way to meet people. My brother—not Jack, Donald, Jack’s a bit of a jerk, but Donald is a sweetheart—he’s very active in politics.”

“Is this a fix-up?”

This question seemed to amuse Judith. “No, no, Donald’s not—in the market, best I can tell. He’s a bachelor, and content to be one. When I say ‘meet people,’ I mean just that—people. Some are men. Some are single. For me, it’s a way to get out of my parents’ house without so many questions. And if I started going with a nice lady from Northwest Baltimore, they might not worry so much about what time I come home.”