The Last Phone Booth in Manhattan(15)
I leaned in close, hoping to God he would lower his voice and pleaded, “No, that can’t be right. Look again.”
“Honey, I can look till the cows come home and that stone will still be fake with a capital F.” The saleswoman leaned over the counter. “If you ask me, you just dodged a bullet there. A man who’d propose with a fugazi has a whole closet full of skeletons, am I right?”
Closet? More like a whole Upper East Side classic six!
She pulled out a small calculator from her back pocket and quickly punched at a few of the keys as she spoke. “If you want to be rid of the ring, though, I can offer you 6K in cash right now.”
Did she say sixty?! That’s it?!
“I’m sorry, sixty thousand?! That’s all the ring’s worth?” I asked, recalling Adam’s comment about how the ring had cost more than the down payment for our apartment.
The saleswoman laughed. “Sixty?! Oh lord no, honey, I said six-k not six-ty. And that’s only because it’s the holidays and I’m feeling a bit generous. If you took it to those crooks down the street, they wouldn’t give you more than five. So, what do you say?”
I hugged my left hand close to my heart and was dizzy with a mixture of hurt and hopelessness. I did some quick math in my head. Moving? First and last month’s rent on a new apartment? My one credit card? Food? I hadn’t even left the store and the money was already spent.
I couldn’t believe I’d allowed myself to be blinded by a fugazi—a very shiny, dazzling, expensive fake—and I wasn’t just talking about the diamond now.
“In light of this new, um, information, I guess I’m not quite sure what I want to do with it just yet.”
“Suit yourself,” the saleswoman said, “but when you dump the bum, come back. We’ll take the baguettes and turn them into a killer pair of earrings.”
I slapped my hand over my mouth and scanned the street outside the jewelry store, looking for the nearest trash can. Fighting my way through the window-shopping crowds up and down Fifth Avenue, I made it to the bin just in time. After throwing up the water and scotch from earlier, I dry-heaved a few more times until my stomach was empty.
I had nothing. Nothing left inside me. Nothing at all. No apartment. No money. No security. No Adam. In thirty days, I’d be homeless.
Staying with my parents in Connecticut wasn’t an option, not really. Their small antiques shop hadn’t turned a profit in the last several years, and being so close to retirement age, they were getting ready to sell and buy that RV they’d always dreamed of and head down to Destin, Florida, a bucket-list item Mom had been blabbing on about for the entirety of my life. I couldn’t burden them with this.
No, this was my problem to solve. I got myself into it, and I needed to figure out a way to get myself the hell out. The question was how? I slid down the side of the trash can and put my head between my legs, hoping to slow my heartbeat back to a normal rhythm. A woman pushing a stroller stopped in her tracks to check on me.
“Are you okay? Do you need some help?” she asked.
I looked up. “I’m fine. Just a little nauseous.”
“Here,” she said, handing me some wet wipes from inside her diaper bag. “You have a little something on your . . .” She motioned to her own chin.
I graciously took them and dabbed at my mouth, balling the towelettes in my hand when I was finished. “Thank you,” I managed. “That was very kind of you to stop to check on me. I think I’ll be okay now.” I looked from her to her round-faced toddler bundled to the hilt, only his bright-blue eyes and rosy cheeks visible from under his hat and scarf. He cooed at me and waved excitedly, and amazingly, it brought a smile to my face.
The woman glanced up and down the street, her expression more serious. “If you’re sure you’re all right, you might want to relocate when you’re feeling up to it. These streets are going to be wild soon. I mean, even crazier than they are now.”
I pushed up from the ground using the garbage can to steady myself and patted my wet lashes with the balled-up wipes. “Why, what’s happening?”
She looked at me like I was from a different planet. “New Year’s Eve? Times Square? It’s just a few blocks from here.”
New Year’s Eve? Tonight? How had I not realized? It was just Christmas, wasn’t it? Had it really been a whole week since my world fell apart?
“Right. Yes. Of course. New Year’s Eve,” I confirmed.
The woman narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure you’re really okay?”
“I am or at least, I will be, I hope.”
She looked at me skeptically, but said, “Okay, well good luck then.” Her voice changed to a singsong tone and she said, “Wyatt, tell the lady ‘Happy New Year.’”
Wyatt babbled something that sounded like, “Habab Nef Yah,” and waved enthusiastically as she pushed the stroller back into the steady stream of people.
Nowhere to go and no one to celebrate with, against my better judgment, I meandered in the direction of Times Square and the New Year’s Eve ball, weaving aimlessly between the blue barricades that lined the city streets and the masses of celebrants. Around me thousands of strangers were ready to pop champagne and ring in the new year with wishes for a fresh start and renewed hope.