“If I’m being honest, the only thing I feel right now is numb.”
Chapter Seven
I left Mrs. Webber’s office in a daze and walked aimlessly, passing block after block, neighborhood after neighborhood, and before I knew it, found myself shuffling through the crowds in Midtown. I looked down at my hand, the four-carat Asscher-cut diamond glistening in the bright sunlight, and realized I wasn’t too far from the Diamond District.
I turned up Forty-Seventh Street and walked toward Sixth Avenue, ducking into the first shop I passed. A saleswoman buzzed me into the store and held up her hand, letting me know she was just about finished helping another customer. I nodded and leaned over the glass case displaying sparkling wedding bands inside.
“The third one from the left would look spectacular next to your engagement ring,” the saleswoman said as she approached. “Do you want to try it on?” Before I could even answer, she’d already unlocked the case and set the tray down on the counter in front of me. “Go ahead,” she urged.
I slid the wedding band on my finger and held up my hand to admire the pair of rings under the light, side by side. What was I doing? Wake up, Avery. You aren’t getting married, not anymore.
“Perfection, no?” she said.
I swallowed past the lump that had risen up in my throat and handed the wedding band back to her. “It’s very beautiful.”
“And I can give you a great deal on it if you’re willing to take the floor sample. We’ll polish it up like new. You’d never know the difference, but it’ll save you thousands,” she said in a hushed tone.
“I’m not shopping for a wedding band today.”
“Sorry, I just assumed. Well, we have some beautiful pendants and some lovely holiday sets marked down. If you can pay all cash, I can take twenty percent off.”
“Actually, I was wondering if someone could appraise something for me?”
“My father does the official insurance appraisals, and I’m afraid he’s not in today.”
“I don’t need an official appraisal. I just wanted to get a general sense of my engagement ring’s value.”
The saleswoman narrowed her gaze. “Sure, I can give you a ballpark idea.”
I twisted the ring off my finger, quickly peeled off the Band-Aid, and placed it down in the black velvet box on the display counter. The saleswoman pinched it between her fingers and held the band out in front of her. She lifted the loupe dangling from a gold chain around her neck to her eye and brought the diamond closer for inspection, twisting it in all different directions under the ceiling lights.
“Hmm.” She sighed.
“What is it?”
The saleswoman motioned to another salesperson working the floor. “Michael, can you come take a look at this?” Michael set down a stack of invoices he’d been organizing and joined us. “This customer’s asking for a ballpark appraisal of her engagement ring,” she said, passing him the loupe.
He lifted up the ring and held it close to the magnifying lens. “Fugazi!” he cried, setting both items down on the counter.
I looked over at them both. “Sorry fu . . . what?”
“Fugazi. Fake. Your stone’s a fake,” Michael said matter-of-factly.
My stomach bottomed out. “My ring’s a fake?”
The saleswoman stepped forward. “The band’s genuine platinum, and the two baguettes are real, about a half carat each and of nice quality, but the center stone’s a CZ, a cubic zirconia.”
“A fugazi!” Michael shouted, his volume garnering a curious glance from a young couple on the other side of the store.
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.