Rock Island Line David Rhodes (ereader iphone .txt) 📖

(which looked to be full of greasy potato chips) and his abrupt, harsh voice, like a street hawker’s.

“See here, now. Just what is it that you’re wanting? All the things in here are extremely expensive—more than I would think you might at this stage of life be considering.”

“This here,” said July, pointing his finger against the glass, leaving a smudge. “Let me see this one.”

Barney came quickly over. “Don’t touch the glass,” he said, “and take this bag off here.”

July took his sack and stepped back a few inches, but remained pointing. “That one there.”

Barney hesitated with “Go on, get out of here” just on the tip of his tongue. He was aware that he was being just a bit of a grouch. This didn’t bother him, but he felt a vague interest in what July’d picked out. So much could be told about people from their taste in jewelry. Often some completely intelligent -appearing couples would reveal their underlying stupidity by choosing huge, gaudy designs, brooches lacking all subtlety, and rings with setting flaws, stones little more pure than industrialgrade. One’s taste in diamonds, Snells believed, was a mirror reflection of the soul. He opened the case.

“This one?”

“No. Over to the right.”

“This one?”

“No, further . . . now down a little . . . too far.”

“This one?”

“Yes, that’s it. Let me look at that one.”

Barney lifted it out. He felt an admiration for the boy beginning in him. From the whole case, he’d picked out the only piece of real value—a small necklace with three diamonds in the pendant, brown, yellow and white tinged with blue, very small, but set with breathtaking sensitivity. Thin wires of gold held the stones together. Barney had had it for a long time. He had $300 on it and no one had even asked him to take it out before.

“This is a really nice one,” he said. “Look here how these tiny wires seem to lead your eye from one stone to another, emphasizing just a little the white one—don’t touch it! And notice, only a twenty-one-inch chain would be right for it—it needs a wide angle coming down to it. Any higher would be out of the question, and any longer would be base. The person who wore it would have to be thin, of course, and pale hair wouldn’t be good either.”

“She’s dark,” said July.

“Black hair?”

“ Yes.”

“Oh. Then this wouldn’t be quite right. It would be good, mind you, but you’d be dissatisfied, I’m afraid, in the long run.”

What had happened was that Barney had become interested in talking about jewelry, and the fact that he didn’t expect July to have enough money to buy even one of his poorest pieces made no difference. He put the necklace back carefully and began a slow browse from case to case, in search of the perfect thing—it was a necklace that July said he wanted, not a ring (though that would be his second choice) or a bracelet or pin. He talked as hewent and asked July questions, each time surprised at his natural knowledge—his inchoate sensitivity to beauty. This boy is worth a thousand, he thought—truly remarkable to have such feelings so young.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“Hawaii.”

They talked and disagreed, but finally reached a mutual decision with a single-diamond pendant, 108 facets, on a white-gold chain. Barney felt it was the best (of a certain type) that he had in his store, and believed it fully worth the $1600 he had paid for it and even the $2000 he asked for it. But he’d been talking for a long time and his congeniality was beginning to waver. He wanted to get back to the ring he was taking apart, and visual memories of a small fissure in one of the stones became recurrent and pleaded with him to come back and find a solution for hiding it. Also he particularly disliked the situation of people finding just what they want—just what they think will change their lives (and in most cases, he believed, would)—standing, looking and knowing it can never belong to them. Much better that they should never come in at all. So, just at the moment he was ready to ask July to leave, the paper sack was upended above the counter, opened, shaken, and a tremendous pile of dollar bills fell out. The boy counted out $73 and separated it from the pile.

“There’s two thousand dollars,” he said. “Put the necklace in a box, please.”

Snells put it in a box, a little shocked at the ugly sight of the bills on the counter, soiled and wadded up. Checks were the only real way to do business. “There’ll be tax,” he said, handing July the small wooden container, and disdainfully began to count the bills.

July didn’t have enough to pay the tax, but Barney accepted the $73 and a pledge for the remainder when he could get it. It never occurred to him to think that he had no right selling such an expensive piece of jewelry to a fifteen-year-old boy—that he could be morally reprehended for it. Not at all; he simply was glad for him to be able to have it, and thought that if at his agehe himself had had a diamond of such quality, his whole life would have been much better. All things should work out as well, he thought.

July, young as he was, didn’t have the adult experience of being immediately dissatisfied with his purchase. In fact, from the moment he was out on the sidewalk with Butch he forgot about the transaction and thought only of the diamond in his pocket . . . as though it were alive. Possessing it was exciting. What it promised to do for him was even more exciting.

They took a couple of cheeseburgers, milk and fries home with them, and spent the rest of the evening taking the precious necklace out and putting it back again, reading several pages, and taking it out again and looking