The Family Jewels
Scott Whittier
Please let it be the girl in the red shirt.
That’s what I thought to myself the first morning.
I could hear water splashing into the sink. I could see sunlight and shadows glint and sparkle through the half-closed bathroom door. I wasn’t sure how much I’d drunk, how much I’d slept, how much I’d done or with whom.
The sheets only smelled half like me.
The faucet squeaked and went silent. I saw a sleeve as she gripped the door’s edge. Red.
Ruby walked into my room.
I can’t go to breakfast without make-up.
She was too beautiful.
She was that kind of girl who didn’t know it was the plain ones who needed her dedication. The kind of girl you remembered in red no matter how drunk you were or how long the night dragged on in blackness. She was stunning. But I was charming. And we had omelets. I paid with cash.
*
Two years ago.
That’s when I learned how much things are really worth. How they can be taken away and taken back. I learned to take what I wanted. Because you can’t buy love or happiness or trust--all that good stuff we already know about. But that was when I learned I could steal it.
I didn’t tell Ruby about the divorce right away. I didn’t tell her how they were throwing away thirty years and robbing me of every youthful memory. I didn’t tell her how I gritted my teeth when her friends teased me about being too pretty, gelling my hair, shining my shoes, cufflinks on French cuffs. I never told her that dad broke our family and cheapened our name by becoming a liberated homosexual in his fifties.
I certainly never told her about the first time I signed dad’s name to a check.
Mom laughed nervously. She understood resentment. It was practically a joint account anyway. After the fifth signature, she stopped laughing.
When I used his credit card to buy dinner, Ruby noticed. I laughed it off.
And it felt good, like revenge, like freedom, like taking back something that had been stolen from me. But in the end it was just money. It wasn’t personal. There was a part of that feeling that wasn’t satisfying. Its value was too easily replaced. And it couldn’t repay the emotional debt I was owed.
I needed sentimental value. It’s not about making them pay. It’s about making them feel it. I knew my theory was right the day mom got the restraining order.
I had to smile to myself as I twirled the diamond earrings between my fingers inside the pocket of my pants. Like change. Like payment handed back to me.
So I stopped visiting. The divorce really upset me. I didn’t want to be pushed and pulled between them. Everyone understood.
*
I just started spending the weekends with Ruby’s family.
I even had my own room there. Ruby slept upstairs in the preserved suite of a teenage princess. I wanted that family. So I took part. I took it.
They had everything. House, money, all-American kids who actually visited on weekends, lapdogs, canopy beds, even insurance. Her mother didn’t blink when the pearls disappeared.
This place is a mess. There have been carpenters and plumbers and pool men in and out of here all summer long.
It’s the only thing Pearl said before she picked up the phone and called her insurance. Pearl loved me like a son. Like a family heirloom that would gain value in future years.
I was the handsome rich kid--fancy boy. I hated it until it was taken away. And then I wore the old me like a disguise. I smiled and laughed and paid for dinner. No one suspected I wasn’t genuine. Overlooked obvious flaws.
*
Everyone and their sister keeps their jewelry in their underwear drawer.
That was true. I knew it.
Ruby was pretty upset when the bracelets vanished from their hiding place under all her silky unmentionables. Thin threads of jewels, like straps. So easy to slide off. Strapless.
You were the only person who knew where they were.
That was true. She knew it.
But it wasn’t hard to imagine someone looking in the top drawer, peeling back her panties. It wasn’t hard to imagine the friends of friends and late-night parties that revolve around a house of pretty roommates.
It wasn’t hard to imagine what people would think. The things that would have to be said about someone’s boyfriend’s gambling problem, someone else’s lapse in fidelity, the kind of men, the possibility of strangers. Self-incriminating accusations.
How much was it really worth? Relationships? Friendships? Us?
Priceless.
*
No lease. Cash is fine. Half the utilities. I’ll deal with the landlord.
The usual deal. But not the usual reasons.
She wasn’t the type to cut ties and her losses when the debt got too deep. I should have known. Short hair with brassy tips. A little overweight. A little too much make-up. A nurse who chain smoked and used the c-word. She did what it took to do what she wanted.
Low-class bitch. A rich girl would have known better. She would have taken aerobics and gotten a pedicure.
Brassy just talked on the phone to her wispy little boyfriend, blew smoke at the receiver, stroked her cat. Pussy. At least that’s a more polite word.
But she had a Rolex.
*
Brassy found gay porn on his computer, you know.
They all sat around the table that night with their drinks and added giggles to the bar noise. As if someone would admit something like that. As if girls tell secrets about their boyfriends that only make themselves look worse. No one here ever would.
I looked over at Ruby and smiled.
And Brassy is a slut.
No one likes sluts, not even other sluts. Ruby’s cheap little roommates tittered and gasped and never mentioned the men who spent the night when their boyfriends were away. We never mentioned them either. We just passed in the halls on those mornings and pretended to be half asleep. There are so many things people don’t mention.
Secrets are good. They make you feel safe. Something to protect that protects you in return. A little bit of knowledge, a few words, a tiny fact that gets locked away like a trinket. No one can take it away. It almost disappears, ceases to exist. But you never lose it because you know where it is, right where you put it in your tiny stash of hidden treasures.
*
Time flies. Watches disappear. Shit happens.
There have been so many people over here.
There hadn’t.
Friends of friends. I didn’t know half of them. What about that guy you had over?
Brassy didn’t flinch at the hint of blackmail. That guy was months ago. No one ever came over, and she knew it. But it hardly mattered. I was moving. I just couldn’t live with her and the cat and the smoke and the phone. Bitch. Everyone understood completely.
Can you believe she’s suing me for back rent and utilities? Of course I paid. Cash as always. No I didn’t get a receipt. We were roommates. I trusted her. Bitch.
I almost used the c-word. But that would have been classless.
*
Ugly. Old. Probably not even antique. But they belonged to her grandmother and she was supposed to love them even if she never wore the rings.
I didn’t hear her roommate’s stories until the tarnished little gold circles were long gone. But it increased their value in my internal account. I knew. I could tell. I could feel it when I saw their own little box inside the box, tucked under all the prettier pieces. I could feel their warm weight and rich history resting in the palm of my hand.
Goldie threw a fit. She was always a spoiled little brat. She was short and slim and pretty in that way brunettes manage cute when they should really go blonde. This one would be a piece of cake.
She accused me right away, at the top of her lungs, irrational.
You know he did it. Your bracelets. The stuff at your mother’s house. It’s so obvious.
Coincidences. She probably just lost them, left them at her parents’ house, dropped them in her closet. There were a million explanations.
Why blame me?
But I wanted her to. It was so easy to be the rational one as she stood there screaming.
Call her bluff. Cooperate. Deny.
Please, call the police. I want to clear my name.
Fingerprint me. Give me a lie detector.
As if Goldie could facilitate such a complicated process.
Is it really as easy as seen on TV? Slices, dices, cubic zirconia...
*
There were a few things I didn’t count when I appraised my worth.
I didn’t expect Ruby to be so levelheaded. She was supposed to be overcome with emotion or scandal or denial.
It doesn’t matter if you did it. But for some reason I can’t bring myself to defend you. Why don’t I want to stick up for my own boyfriend? I can’t date someone I can’t trust.
But I could have fixed it. She wasn’t serious. She’d cool down and come back. After two years, I had earned some sentimental value of my own. Within days, she was calling.
But then that airhead Goldie actually called the police.
They couldn’t do anything about it. But they could tell her about the checks and the court dates and the restraining order.
Still. I could have fixed it. I was upset. The divorce. My poor mother. I wasn’t myself. And I didn’t want to worry Ruby. She could be so emotional. She could understood.
But then there was Brassy.
I could have fixed everything else. I should have known better. She wasn’t just rational. She was tenacious. Like a bulldog. Short, fat, squat, ugly. Dog. Bitch. C-word.
How many pawn shops are in this city? How many Rolexes are there in those pawn shops? How many stacks of papers are filed away with rows of social security numbers from sellers of jewelry and stereos and guitars?
An inefficient formality that never led anywhere÷a convoluted treasure map.
But she deciphered it, followed the trail, retraced my steps.
She found it all--the shop, the Rolex, the paper, my incriminating number.
Turns out gaudy, overpriced watches have serial numbers that can be as unique and incriminating as my own nine digits. Turns out there is paperwork that comes with a six-thousand-dollar timepiece. Turns out the paperwork was halfway across the country with her fairy ex-boyfriend.
*
He put it in the mail Monday. Or so I hear.
And that was the last I heard.
An old roommate passed me on the street and pretended not to see me.
I don’t care. That’s not what I care about.
They will never find the rest of it. Not even if I remembered and admitted. But I don’t care about that either. It doesn’t matter anymore. They ruined it. It’s all worthless now. They uncovered my treasure. They exposed my truth and revealed my true value. They took my prized possessions. They stole my secrets.
