Ross remembered, after he’d refused to ever go back to school again, how Victor had dragged him to El Dorado Jewelry day after day.
*
“Do you knowwho Archimedes is?” his grandfather had asked. “Ross?”
“What?” Ross answered moodily.
“Not going to school doesn’t mean you’re still not going to do something, even if you have to listen to me and learn a trade.”
Ross remained stubbornly sullen, sitting on a workshop stool as he used one of the tools to pick at the corner of a table.
His grandfather frowned at him before shifting tact. “What do you want?”
“For lunch? How about a sandwich?”
Victor threw a rag at him, hitting him in the chest.
“Stop,” Ross grumbled, retrieving it from the floor. “You’re going to pull a muscle, old man.”
“What do you want?” his grandfather asked again.
“I don’t know. Maybe I don’t want anything.”
His grandfather scoffed.
“I know that I don’t want to be here.” Ross laid his head into the crook of one arm. Maybe if he was sleeping, Victor would give up trying to have this meaningless conversation with him.
“Why? What’s wrong with here?”
Ross groaned. The old man was incredibly annoying. “What’s the point? Why would I want to make jewelry? It’s completely useless. It’s for people who like to show off how rich they are. I hate people like that.”
“Wrong.”
Ross gave his grandfather a dirty look. “No, I’m not.”
“Jewelry has meaning.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay.”
His grandfather glanced at him over the magnifier glasses. “We take natural elements from the Earth, and transform them into a single piece that has meaning for us. Then someone buys the jewelry and attaches their own special meaning to it. Maybe love or a celebration of something. Jewelry has a way of reminding us. Your grandmother could remember where every single piece of her jewelry came from.”
The only significant jewelry Ross remembered from his grandmother was the vintage crane brooch. It was a red enamel bird perched on a branch, its wings dotted with clear rhinestones. She had worn it while dating Victor, and his grandfather continued keeping it on his nightstand. Luna had always been fascinated with it and eventually claimed it for herself.
Even then, Ross hadn’t been convinced. “I’m not making jewelry.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t. I can’t do anything. I’m a lost cause.”
The metal feet of Victor’s stool scraped across the concrete flooring until it was in front of Ross. Victor grabbed his hand.
“Hey. What are you do—”
“You have my hands.” His grandfather held him in tight grip. “You’re a Lanza. If you don’t want to do it, okay. But it’s not because you can’t. I have not given up. I will never give up on you.”
Ross was so taken aback by the fierce light, the pure determination in his grandfather’s eyes, he wasn’t sure how to react. “Okay,” was his response.
His grandfather gave his hand a pat before returning his stool to the workbench. “Good. Now I’ll ask you again. Do you know who Archimedes is?”
