CHAPTER EIGHT
SYLVIA
Sylvia had barely seen Walter, between his closed-door meetings with his accountant and his frequent visits to the bank, and she was fine with that—she needed some distance from him—but she refused to sit idly by and wait for him to make some other disastrous choices on her behalf.
She got out of her car in the city of Orange, where no one would know her, and marched into Gems & Wares Pawn Shop, jewelry box tucked under her arm. Her red belted skirt suit would show them that she had expensive taste and that she meant business.
“I’d like to take out a loan,” she said to a bearded man behind the counter, barely able to look him in the eye. “Temporarily, of course.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He was a skinny, greasy man, and when he opened Sylvia’s jewelry box and picked up a few rings, slipping one onto the tip of his finger and holding it up to the light, Sylvia got a sickly taste in her mouth. He picked up another, analyzing it under a jeweler’s loupe. “How much are you looking to borrow?”
Sixty thousand dollars, she wanted to say, but she knew, of course, that this jewelry wouldn’t come close to that. “How much can I get for the whole lot?” she asked, running her thumb over her engagement ring still on her ring finger. She’d be keeping that, for now.
“That’s a lot of pieces here. I’d have to take them out back and evaluate them one by one,” the man said.
“No.” She placed her hands on the box. “Nothing leaves my sight. You can evaluate right here. I’ll wait. However long it takes.”
“All right.” He called another colleague up to the front of the shop to assist him.
She sat in an upright wooden chair, sinking in humiliation yet trying to remain stoic, as two men sorted through her personal collection—each piece of jewelry tied to a very specific moment in her life with Walter—the triple strand of pearls he gave her for their five-year anniversary, the diamond bracelet he had given her this year on her thirty-fifth birthday, the ruby solitaire after Judith’s birth, and the heart-shaped pendant for when they learned of her second pregnancy, the baby who didn’t make it.
Finally, after what felt like hours, the man closed the jewelry box. “All right, ma’am, we have come to a number.”
Sylvia stood and approached the counter.
“One thousand six hundred dollars for the lot.”
Sylvia put her hand to her chest.
“I know it’s a lot—we don’t usually take such a large number of pieces from one customer,” he said. “But these are nice, the best we’ve seen, so we’re happy to help you out.”
She had walked into the shop with no idea what to expect. She’d never bought a piece of jewelry and didn’t know what any of this would be worth, but she thought it would be significantly more than one thousand six hundred. This was barely going to make a dent in the amount of debt Walter owed.
“That seems very low,” she said.
“It’s a fair-priced loan. I’ve even had my colleague evaluate the items, and we are in agreement.”
Sylvia shuddered involuntarily. “How does it work?”
“We hold on to your jewelry, you take the loan. You’ve got 120 days to pay back the loan, plus interest, and I’ll return your items to yougood as new. If you don’t pay it back, we are entitled to put the jewelry up for sale.”
“Of course I’ll pay back the money,” Sylvia snapped. “This collection is worth far more than what you’re offering me.”
The man put his hands up and took a step back. “I’m just telling you how it works, ma’am. You asked.”
“Yes,” she said, trying to regain her composure. This was her choice to come here, after all, and yet the ground suddenly felt wobbly beneath her. She hadn’t told Walter what she was doing, but it was the only thing she could think that might help. “I’ll take the money,” she said, unable to look as he took the jewelry box from the counter between them and placed it underneath, out of view. He went to the back room for a minute and returned with a detailed receipt and a stack of cash.
“That’s it?” she said. It was smaller than she expected, insignificant looking. She expected to walk out of there with three or four bricks of bills and come home the hero.
“I’m going to count it out for you, ma’am,” he said with a hint of annoyance, and then he counted out all one thousand and six hundred dollars.
On the drive home she had a terrible stomachache, water gathering in her mouth as if she might vomit. She might never see that jewelry again. But these were just jewels, she reminded herself, replaceable jewels. What was worse, so much worse, was the thought of losing their home and uprooting her daughter. The humiliation of it all was too much to bear. Would she have to change schools and make all new friends? Would they really have to leave the island, as Walter suggested?
And then there was Milly. Sylvia had taken a check from her the day before, knowing full well that the club might not exist a month from now. She’d noticed the trepidation in Milly’s voice as she asked the price of membership, and the shake of her hand as she wrote out the check, and yet Sylvia had let her join as if everything were just fine. She gripped the steering wheel, determined to make it up to her and to Judith. She had to make things right.
